the appalling conditions in the reserves and denounced the system of mi-
grant labor as "morally, socially, and economically wrong" and looked
forward to "its ultimate disappearance."86 Others, influenced by contem-
porary thought in Britain, proposed that welfare servicesshould be created
for all South Africans, on a segregated basis. Particularly significant was
the report, issued in February 1948, of a commission chaired byJustice H.
A. Fagan. It concluded that the trend toward urbanization was irreversible
and recommended that the pass laws be eased and that the migrant stream
be directed into the most useful channels by a national system of labor
bureaus.V
Government and private industry actually made a few concessions to
their reformist critics. They eased the job color bar, extended the industrial
training facilities for Africans, raised black factory wages by a larger pro-
portion than white wages, made Africans eligible for small old age and
disability pensions, and increased the grant for African education and
freed it from its dependence on African taxes. In 1942, they even relaxed
the pass laws.88
But those reforms were mere palliatives. In 1946, the government was
still paying more than twenty times as much per capita for white education