“For the public benefit”? Railways in the British Cape Colony

Abstract

Built largely to support the early mining industry, the Cape Colony's railway substantially reduced the cost of transport to the interior and account for 22 to 25 percent of the increase in the Colony's labor productivity from 1873 to 1905. Little of the gains went to the state-owned company: the Cape government seems instead to have mainly considered the railway as a means to local development. In this regard, traffic data for 1905 suggest that the railway contributed to the expansion of the mining areas and to the growth of the Western Cape district on the basis of domestic demand.

Occupational Mobility during South Africa's Industrial Take‐Off

“…Using agricultural prices, Boshoff and Fourie (), show that South Africa's integration into the global market had already begun in the 1870s, with local wheat prices beginning to follow international trends. Herranz‐Loncán and Fourie () add to this by showing that the railway was responsible for at least half of the increase in labour productivity between 1873 and 1905.…”

“…But not everyone benefited from this. As Herranz‐Loncán and Fourie () show, railways allowed Cape wheat farmers access to the boom towns of the interior. Basotho farmers, though, lost their preferential access.…”

Public Sector Growth in the British Cape Colony: Evidence From New Data on Expenditure and Foreign Debt, 1830‐1910

“…Although this was initially true in the Cape, too, the density of the Cape railway network allowed for far more internal traffic than what was the case elsewhere in Africa (Pirie, 1982). Herranz‐Loncan and Fourie (2018) find that Cape railways explain at least a quarter of the economic growth during the last few decades of the nineteenth century. Railways not only boosted growth; new evidence shows that these colonial infrastructures caused path‐dependent outcomes that continue today (Jedwab et al ., 2017; Michalopoulos and Papaioannou, 2018).…”

“…We use new data on public expenditure and national debt to understand these questions. In doing so, we contribute, first, to a growing literature on quantifying the nineteenth century “South Africa” (De Zwart, 2011; Fourie and Van Zanden, 2013; Greyling and Verhoef, 2015; Magee et al ., 2016; Herranz‐Loncan and Fourie, 2018; Von Fintel and Fourie, 2019). Much of this work is dedicated to understanding the nature and sources of economic growth and its effect on living standards, complementing the extensive work by political, economic and social historians (De Kiewiet, 1957; Davenport and Saunders, 2000; Giliomee, 2014; Pretorius, 2014).…”

Long-Run Spatial Inequality in South Africa: Early Settlement Patterns and Separate Development

“…Historically these areas were densely settled by black Africans, and European colonisers did not sufficiently invest in infrastructure to connect these areas to the industrial core. For instance, the massive expansion of Cape Colony railways between about 1900 and 1906 continued to bypass what would later become the homelands (Herranz-Loncán & Fourie, 2018). Under-investment in homelands infrastructure continued into the apartheid era.…”