fie of five pounds in respect of any calendar year in which
he has not rendered any service:under a contract of service,
or worked as an artisan, for not less than three months.
Chiefs, headmen, ministers of religion and teachers, are
excepted, also physical and mental defectives, and those
who have three sons working. The Native has to prove
that he is not liable. Non-payment of the tax if due is
deemed to be an offence, and renders the defaulting
Native liable to imprisonment without cancellation of his
liability to pay.
It should further be noted that under the Colour Bar
Act almost any field of labour can be shut out from the
Native labourer. It is therefore evident that the inten-
tion of the Bill is to curtail the field of employment for
Natives and to compel them to enter and remain in the
service of European employers. This is made still more
clear by the fact that Ministers have declared their inten-
tion to bring the Colour Bar Act into operation and to
specify certain kinds of work which Natives shall be
forbidden to perform.
The Bill as it stands affects numbers of Native students
at Training Institutions, and such classes as Native lawyers
and doctors are not exempt from its provisions; but
although published it has not been gazetted, and possibly
it will not be heard of again.
Pass Laws.
The legal position with respect to the Pass Laws of the
Union is that their application can be modified or with-
drawn by the Department of Native Afiairs without
reference to Parliament (cf. Native Administration Act,
No. 38 of 1927, Sections 28 (1), 36). Furthermore, the
Department favours simplification to the extent that
public opinion will allow. Representations in this
direction to the Government are therefore of little use,
and public opinion has to be educated.
There is little room for doubt that the Pass Laws are
capable of being used as a means of indirect compulsion
to labour. Attention is called to the findings of the Cape
Town European-Bantu Conference of 1920 (see Report,
i “7
