Tomlinson Report (South Africa)

[4] The Tomlinson Report found that the reserves were incapable of containing South Africa's black population without significant state investment.

[7] The newly-elected government began to engage in dialogue over the state of the native reserves and how increased black urbanization affected the apartheid vision.

The South African Bureau for Racial Affairs (SABRA), a conservative think tank at Stellenbosch University founded in September 1948, emphasized the need for "vertical" segregation, a system which would enforce total segregation for blacks from the broader political sphere but allow for political advancement within the native reserves.

"[8] Verwoerd stated in 1950 his belief in the importance of separate political development for the reserves, stating there was "no policy of oppression here, but one of creating a situation which has never existed for the Bantu; namely, that, taking into consideration their languages, traditions, history and different national communities, they may pass through a development of their own.”[9] Verwoerd did not fully align with SABRA in his views; he belonged to a faction in the National Party that sought to enforce racial segregation to pursue grand apartheid and believed in the principles of vertical segregation, but did not want to negatively impact business interests that depended on black labor by enforcing a complete separation between the black population and the white population.

The Tomlinson Report was presented to the government in October 1954 and ran, in its unabridged form, to 3,755 pages published in 17 volumes.

[15] One section stated that “welfare should be measured by the standards of the people whose welfare is envisaged," and that Africans “should not be ignored nor treated as inferior, merely because they [scale of values] are different.”[9] The commission concluded that if the reserves were to support the growing black population the government would need to invest at least £104 million over the following decade to ensure fully diversified economies in the reserves.

The deplorable conditions which prevail in the Bantu Areas today also testify to their present incapacity to bring about any significant development, and even to prevent deterioration.

[4][16] Third, the commission recommended that the government push for industrialization in the reserves to incorporate those who, as a result of land reform, would become dispossessed.

[2][1][7] Verwoerd's objection focused in part on certain items that were allocated funding in the budget, expressing his wish to limit spending at £36.6 million.

[9] He rejected the idea of allowing, as the report suggested, white industrialists to enter the reserves; therefore, he stated that funding allocated for the development corporation, which was "presumably based upon the principle ... of the admission of large European privately owned industries into the Bantu areas," could be excluded from the budget.

Sadie, a professor at Stellenbosch University, wrote an article in January 1957 for the South African Institute of Race Relations that criticized Verwoerd's decision to not allow for private industry in the reserves.

[3] In 1956, more than 400 delegates to the Interdenominational African Ministers' Federation (IAMF) conference in Bloemfontein voted to reject the Tomlinson Report.

Parliament passed several pieces of legislation that defined the segregated nature and structure of the reserves in the following years.

This act created "bantustans," or separate homelands for blacks, that were established based on linguistic and cultural differences.