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3 Gold Miners and Imperialist War

In document Workers and the Vote 98 (Page 50-71)

Barnato, Beit, Joel, Rhodes, Robinson, Rudd and Wernher used the fortunes they had made out of diamonds to buy gold-bearing rock and to finance mining operations on the Witwatersrand.

They duplicated the pattern of labour organization that had served them so well at Kimberley. Fifty-three companies em ployed 3,400 whites and ten times as many Africans in x892 on outcrop claims along the Reef.' The whites supervised and did the skilled work. African peasant workers, who were housed and fed in compounds, usually worked for three or four months at a stretch before returning to their villages. The migratory labour system tended to be inefficient and wasteful. The large turnover of workers involved high recruiting and supervisory costs. Every new batch of peasants had to learn mining techniques and under go the painful process of adapting themselves to a strange en vironment. Standards of housing and diet were subordinated to the aim of extracting the greatest output at the lowest cost. Bad living and working conditions made for high morbidity and mortality rates, and discouraged men from coming to the mines.

But the owners found compensating advantages in labour intensive methods of production; and turned down proposals to settle Africans with their families in villages along the Rand.2

The white miner, a director of labour rather than a labourer, owed his supervisory role to the constant flow of greenhorns down the shaft. Since his job was a function of their inexperience, he was dispensable to the extent that they learned the skills of their trade. His dependence on the ignorance of the men under his supervision and his estrangement from them made him feel insecure. He feared competition, resented the African's ability to learn by doing, and with Kimberley's example in mind suspected the mine owners' intentions.

52

It was a fear of being swamped

by

fellow countrymen, how ever, that stimulated men from Cornwall, Lancashire and Scot land to found the Witwatersrand Mine

Emp19 '

and

Mechanics' Union on 2o August I592. zome 2,000 men d

women, meeung in Johannesburg's Market Square, prote

~l

'against the attempt of the Chamber of Mines to flood these

fields with labour by means of cheap emigration'.I J. Seddon, the

union's first secretary, warned that the Chamber meant to cut wages

by

bringing out miners with wives clinging round their necks. He listed other grievances: unsafe and insanitary working conditions, excessive hours, low wages. But he would not advo cate a quarrel with capital. 'If any wages had to be reduced,' he appealed, 'let the wages of black labour be cut down.'

The miners rejected class solidarity with Africans but col laborated with capitalists in establishing, also on 20 August 1892, V

the Transvaal National Union to campaign for equal franchise A

rights for all white men in the Transvaal. The union became an instrument of subversion, a tool of Rhodes, Jameson and the mine owners who conspired to bring about the abortive putsch of 1896. Trade unionists had withdrawn long before then from the movement, but their initial participation revealed a conflict of loyalties and interests. Thomas, the mine union's president, wanted the men to cooperate with the owners whose interests, he said, they shared in such matters as the franchise and the customs tariff.

4

Seddon, on the other hand, urged the men to have nothing to do with the National Union as long as the owners persisted in their 'dastardly attempt to deluge the country with miners'. It was arrogance on the part of the Chamber of Mines, he urged, to ask workmen to join the National Union while trying to 'crush them down with a worse tyranny than ever the Transvaal Government proposed to put upon the country'. They should be labour unionists first and national unionists afterwards.

5

British workmen, most of whom were temporary residents, did not feel strongly about the franchise and suspected the aims of the employers.

E.

B. Rose, a member of the miners' executive and at one time president of the union, contended that 'the working man was politically the equal of the richest mine owner' as long as neither had the vote. Indeed, he claimed,

53

Class and Colour in South Africa r850-1950

workers were better off without a vote unless it was accompanied

by

the secret ballot. For, as they had learned at Kimberley before the Cape introduced the ballot in 1894, employers exploited the worker's vote under the open system. The National Union's

leaders rejected a proposal to include a demand for secret voting in the franchise campaign, whereupon the labour delegates withdrew from the union. They decided to put their claims directly to the government and did so, added Rose, 'invariably

with the happiest results '.6

Mine owners on the Rand, though arrogant, commanded less power than in the Cape where Rhodes, as prime minister, was able to promote legislation

in which he, as managing director of

De Beers and uncrowned king of Rhodesia, had a personal pecuniary interest. Such a corrupting concentration of power could not occur in the Transvaal while Kruger and his burghers controlled the state. An alliance between white worker and Afrikaner farmer was conceivable in spite of language and cultural differences. Both groups were at loggerheads with the capitalists, who exploited the one and plotted against the other.

Afrikaners recognized colour-castes and not classes. The con stitution

of i856

guaranteed inequality between white and black in church or state; but Jack, if white, was as good as his master.

Mine owners rejected equality of classes and races. The

Star

sneered at the 'embryonic John Burnses and Tom Manns' who, ambitious for themselves, valued notoriety and power more than the success of the workers' cause." Employers showed their teeth. Andrew Hope, the miners' new president, was told to quit the union or his

job

at the Simmer and Jack mine. He chose to be victimized. The union decided to offer 'passive resistance' to the company's 'tyrannical conduct'

by

employing Hope, at his former salary, to organize the union along the Rand.

8

The republic was destitute of industrial laws and hardly able

to protect workmen against exploitation and victimization. The government disliked intervening more than was necessary in the internal affairs of mining companies, President Kruger explained to Rose and J. T. Bain, the union's president and secretary, when they asked him in 1893 to open state-owned mines for the relief of white unemployment. He would not risk the public's money

Gold Miners and Imperialist War

in dubious enterprises or stir up more noise

in

Johannesburg, from where enough noise was coming already,

by

competing with the owners.

9

The union was more successful when it

agitated against the owners' gold theft bill. Like the Cape's Illicit Diamond Buying Act, on which it was modelled, the bill would authorize espionage and the surveillance of employees by company agents. Miners lobbied the Volksraad and demon strated through Johannesburg streets in February 1893 behind a

brass band and banners, with the slogan

I G B T HE S HAD O W OF THE IDB - REMEMBER KIMBERLEY AND IDB. The Volksraad threw the bill out; and the miners celebrated their victory with another procession, headed by Africans carrying a coffin in scribed 'In memory of G. T. Bill.'1 I

The union claimed to have easy access to the government and a unique record of successes in obtaining legislative reforms, notably when the Volksraad adopted twenty of its twenty-three suggested amendments to the draft of the republic's first mining law of 1893."1 It introduced long-overdue safety measures and the first explicit industrial colour bar. This stipulated that no African, Asian or Coloured might prepare charges, load drill holes or set fire to fuses.1 2 The Volksraad adopted the clause by fifteen votes to eight. The minority pointed out that some 'Kaffirs' were well qualified to work with dynamite. It was unreasonable to pay a white man C5 a month for work that a black could do as well for £2. Anyone with a certificate of competency should be allowed to blast. But the state mining engineer contended that the only purpose of the clause was to prevent accidents. He, for one, had no confidence in a 'Kaffir'.

Members who supported him said they would not give Africans 'so much right by law'; and read into the clause a general ban on their employment in the mines. 1 3

The presence of competent Coloured and African blasters, some from the diamond fields, gave the lie to the contention that a dark skin denoted an inherent inability to acquire the skills and judgement of a skilled miner. Unqualified white men, on the other hand, were as great a danger in mining as unqualified Africans. The authorities soon found that a deficiency of pigment did not guarantee ability. The new mining code of x896 omitted

Class and Colour in South Africa r850-1950

the racial test and substituted a blasting certificate. It became the hallmark of a professional miner. In terms of the regulation a trained, reliable African or Coloured could assist the certifi cated blaster and under his direct supervision prepare charges, load drill holes and light fuses. 4 It was evidently assumed that only white men would hold a certificate. This was not a statutory rule. put the code did introduce two new colour bars.

: Or4

regulation gave whit en the sole right to work as banksen and onsetters; an er reserved the job of engine driver to certificated whites. Is e miners, union had asked the government to prohibit the employment of unqualified men on engines that hauled cages and skips along the shafts. Not only untrained whites, explained Rose, 'but Coolies and even Kaflirs also' were thus employed, 'with the inevitable result that acci dents to men employed in the mines through overwinding the cages or otherwise became more frequent.'16 But mine owners and managers objected to the colour bar. They argued for a test based on competence and not colour. Many 'Cape Boys', they said, were as competent as white men and should not be barred, especially in small mines and prospecting shafts.' 7 The govern ment made a concession to the owners in x897 by dropping the racial qualification for banksmen and onsetters, but retained it for engine drivers.1 This was the only statutory colour bar left on the mines at the outbreak of war. White men did most of the skilled work, but there were areas in which Coloured and Africans could rise above the labourer's level.

Colour prejudice, Anglo-Afrikaner rivalries and a shortage of skilled men formed the matrix of the labour movement. As at Kimberley, racial and national cleavages distorted class align ments. Immigrant miners, mechanics, fitters, joiners and prin ters formed trade unions along traditional class lines. The

Witwatersrand Mine Employees' and Mechanics' Union agitated for an eight-hour day, safety measures, and compensation for injuries; celebrated May Day; and defended trade unionism against the accusation that it was prone to violence and anarchy.' 9 But the most class-conscious leaders, like the Scottish fitter

J.

T. Bain, also appealed to racial sentiment for protection agams rican miners and to republican sentiment for protec 56

...-17p

Gold Miners and Imperialist War don against mine owners. The immigrants were torn between class interests and national loyalties. Bain, whom some his torians believe to have been South Africa's greatest trade union leader,2" became a citizen of the republic and fought against the British army. Few men of his class followed the same course. The great majority withdrew or joined the British troops. None identified himself with his African co-worker.

Africans, observed the Star,21 had no value in the communitj' except as the equivalent of so much horsepower. They wer: * both indispensable and expendable. Accidents or disease killed, maimed or incapacitated thousands every year. Employers re

cruited fresh supplies of sturdy young men from villages withi4

'

a radius of 5oo miles. They came by foot and rail, often ridin) for ten days in open cattle trucks, to be sent underground the day after their arrival and without training or time to recuperate.

The resulting death rate was high. It averaged sixty-nine per thousand from diseases on Rand mines in 1902-3, when the first health statistics were compiled, and ranged from ix8 to 164 in groups of men from tropical regions. Pneumonia, scurvy, menin gitis, enteric, and dysentery caused the death of 3,762 Africans, or eighty-two per cent of all who died from disease on mines and works of the Witwatersrand in 19o3. The death rate fell to thirty-three per thousand in 19o6, after Milner's administration had enforced minimum standards of diet, housing, sanitation and hospital care. 2

The high incidence of deaths and injuries - for which no compensation was paid - bad food, poor accommodation and unpleasant work gave the mines a bad name. 'We do not like our men to go to Johannesburg, because they go there to die,' chiefs from Basutoland told Sir Godfrey Lagden, the Trans vaal's first secretary of native affairs under British rule.2 3 The African's only defence was to abscond or change his job for a better. Mine owners sang the praises of free enterprise, attacked Kruger's monopolistic concessions over dynamite, liquor and railways, but did not scruple to monopolize recruiting or to restrict the worker's freedom of movement and contract. Mana gers petitioned in i888 for a pass system, monthly labour con tracts, penalties for deserters, and the registration of all Africans

Class and Colour in South Africa r85o-195o

in the republic. The Chamber of Mines, formed in 1889, complained in its first annual report that competition for labour

ers was taking 'the regrettable form of overt attempts to bribe and seduce the employees of neighbouring companies to desert their employers'. A manager had 'standing alone, scarcely any other remedy than to raise his rates of pay'.

Rhodes, Lionel Phillips, George Farrar and other members of the Chamber took drastic action. They conspired in 1895 to bring about the downfall of the republic; agitated for a labour tax, pass laws, and a ban on liquor for Africans; and undertook to reduce wages from 2s. 3d. a shift to is. 6d. for skilled and is. for 'ordinary' workers.2 4 Kruger's men disarmed Jameson's filibusters with hardly a struggle; and the Industrial Commission of 1896, keeping an eye on British allegations of 'Boer slavery', refused to recommend any measure 'equivalent to forced labour'. 25 But the Volksraad gave the owners their pass law, which they then said was ineffective to an extent that made it one of the grievances to be redressed by war. To monopolize recruiting and stop crimping, the owners formed the Native Labour Supply Association in 1896 and instructed compound managers to impose uniform conditions of service. Africans were to work not less than nine hours underground and ten on the surface, with a diet of not more than two and a half pounds of mealie-meal a day and two pounds of meat a week.2 6

The attack on wages followed in 1897. The African miner's average wage had reached a peak of 63s. 6d. for thirty com pleted shifts in 1895. It was reduced to 48s. 7d. on a scale ranging from IS. 2d. to 2s. 6d. a shift. Anticipating disturbances and desertions, the Chamber asked the government to draft extra police to the mines and to instruct native commissioners 'to send forward as many natives as possible to these fields '.2 White mining employees at Randfontein were notified at about the same time that their wages would be cut by ten shillings to 2os. a week. They struck work, and were evicted by police at

Kruger's command from their company-owned houses. But the men won and went back to work at the old rates. W. H. Andrews,

then employed as a fitter on Porges Randfontein, took part in the strike and claimed that it made two notable gains. It pre 58

vented a reduction of wages all along the Reef and 'exploded the fallacy that Oom Paul and his government were the friends of the workers'.2 Whether fallacious or well founded, the belief persisted among white workers for many years after the fall of the republic.

Rhodes had engineered the armed invasion and abortive rising of December i895 in his dual capacity of prime minister and company promoter. His fellow conspirators included members of his chartered company, leading mine owners, the Bechuana land administration, and the British high commissioner at the Cape. Chamberlain, the responsible British minister, knew of Jameson's preparations but made no attempt to arrest the raid. 2 9 After it had failed, the imperial government took the initiative against the republic with the full backing and active support of a majority of mine owners. Britain drafted Io,ooo troops to South Africa in August 1899 and moved troops to the Cape and Natal borders. Kruger presented an ultimatum on 9 October, demand ing the withdrawal of the troops. Britain rejected the ultimatum, and the republican commandos invaded Natal and the Cape to begin a war that was to last for thirty-one months.

Britain annexed the Orange Free State on 24 May 1900, occupied Johannesburg on the 31st, and annexed the South African Republic on i September. Republican forces continued to fight a guerrilla war with great courage and skill against an army nine times their size. The war ended in the defeat of the republics and a peace treaty signed at Vereeniging on 31 May 19o2. Britain spent £250 million on the war, put 448,ooo troops in the field, lost 5,774 men killed in action and I6,I68 who died of wounds and disease. Her armies burnt homes, deva stated farms, and confined civilians in concentration camps.

Nearly 4,ooo republicans were killed in battle, 2o,ooo died in the camps, 31,000 were taken prisoner, and 2oooo surrendered at the end of the war."0

Africans and Coloured also died, unrecorded and unsung, in their masters' war. They served as scouts, spies, stretcher bearers, transport drivers, labourers and camp followers, but not as soldiers. Both British and Afrikaners respected the tradition that allowed men of colour to fight with colonists against tribal impis

Class and Colour in South Africa T85o-r95o

but never against whites. Peasants lost crops, livestock and huts, as troops, burning and pillaging, swept over the farms. Com mandos, living on the land, seized the cattle of tribesmen with out compensation. The tribesmen retaliated when the com mandos withdrew by seizing the farmers' stock. There were inter-tribal clashes and occasional attacks on isolated bands of dispirited burghers.3' Schreiner, the Cape premier, gloomily predicted an African rising if colonial forces fought outside the border. But Africans hoped that Britain would restore their land and made no concerted attempt to free themselves from white domination.

It was a white man's war also in terms of its objectives. Britain expressed great concern for the sufferings of Africans, Coloured and Indians in the Transvaal; and professed to be fighting for their freedom and to extend the rights and liberties of the common people. The promise of their liberation seemed to many Englishmen the war's single redeeming feature. But Afri cans, Coloured and Indians obtained no relief either at the peace settlement or in the post-war reconstruction. Acting under martial law, the British military authorities reduced the African miner's average wage in i9oo from 45S. to 30s. per thirty com pleted shifts and the standard wage to is. or Is. 2d. a shift.3 2 Africans lost in bargaining capacity under British rule, which turned the republics into colonies, restored authority to the

defeated enemy, cultivated their loyalty, and consolidated an alliance with them on the basis of white supremacy.

The republicans fought to retain their independence. They were an oppressing as well as an oppressed nation, writes the Marxist historian Endre Sik; but as 'freedom fighters' their struggle, he claims, 'belongs to one of the most glorious chapters of the history of liberation wars'. 3 A similar opinion was current at the time in the international labour movement, not least in Britain, where the Independent Labour party's vigorous anti

war campaign made it for several years 'the most unpopular Party and its adherents and leaders the most bitterly abused persons in the country '. Africans, Indians and Coloured probably agreed with Britain's Fabians that the war, if wholly unjust, was wholly necessary in the interests of civilization and

In document Workers and the Vote 98 (Page 50-71)