The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY, JULY 28, 1913. TROUBLE ON THE RAND.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 178, 28 July 1913, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

MONDAY, JULY 28, 1913. TROUBLE ON THE RAND.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrnng tliat needs resistance, For the future in the distances And the good that tee can do.

The latest reports from Johannesburg arc by no means calculated to allay the apprehension that a great industrial upheaval in imminent on the Rand. The South African Government has granted several important concessions to the men. hu: refuses to allow the unrestricted right of public meeting, or to repeal the law authorising the use of military force to suppress disturbances. The quest ion of permitting meetings is one- that, can be decided only by the authorities on the spot, in view of the conditions now prevailing there. But even if the use of the "military to put down the recent riots was injudicious, it is certain that no government could under present circumstances venture to surrender its right to use force in the last resort in defence of law and order. However, the white workers on the. Rand are not in a reasonable frame of mind I just now. They have many grievances that in their opinion urgently demand redress: and for some time past their antagonism toward their employers has been growing mere and more strongly marked. They ;trc becoming, as I a mining director said recently, "more I discontented, more Socialistic, and more i difficult to satisfy." This means, from the men's standpoint, that they are now more determined than ever before to insist on what they regard as their right*; and unless the conditions under which mining is conducted on the Rand can be | very materially improved, it is to be ! feared that the relations -between the employers and the workers, already so severely strained, will get worse instead of better.

The chief cause of complaint alleged by the men is the insecurity of their employment. They maintain Last the managers of the various mines constantly dismiss men for refusing to do work

under conditions that involve breaches of the mining regulations as to working

in unsafe places and without enforcing proper precautions in regard to ventilation, it is asserted by the representatives of the workers that capable and responsible whites arc frequently cast adrift for thus declining to risk their own lives and the lives of the black '"boys"' working under them, to satisfy the greed of the management. But an

even purer way to dismissal than refusing to obey orders is any attempt to take up an independent attitude, and more particularly any effort in the way of organising the workers or endeavouring to secure their rights by co-operation or concerted action. The men declare that "victimisation" of all kinds is the rule rather than the exception on the Band. But this is not the only reason tor the .striken which are causing so much agitation and alarm just now in the Transvaal. The wages problem has always been a burning question on the Rand, lor the industry is at best a difficult and d-angerous one. It is stated that 94 per cent of the machine miners in the Transvaal die of miner's phthisis, duo to the dust, and dynamite fumes that they constantly inhale. According to Mr. W. C. Scully in his recent work, "The Ridge of White Waters," describ- j ing the Rand and its mines, seven to eight years is the outside limit of a white man's endurance in the mines; and the average miner's "expectation of life"—which in other large mining cerrtre3 is about 53 years—is only 33 years in the TransvaaL Every man who sticks to underground work on the Rand is doomed to an early death, and knows it, and he naturally expects to be paid something substantial for the terrible risk he runs. But the chief purpose of the mining companies is to pay dividends. They, therefore, regard the white man who demands high wages as their natural enemy, and they do their best to keep his claims within what they think reasonable limits by playing off the large supply of black labour against him wherever they can possibly and profitably do so. All this throws some light on the meaning of the traditional capitalist cry on the Raad that the shortage cf.

labour is killing the industry. "There are more than 200,000 natives on the Rand who are paid about £3 per month each. They stand the life 'better than the whites, because they insist upon taking six months' holiday after six months' work underground. But there are not enough of them to satisfy the demands of the mine-owners, who are constantly talking about the necessity for ooenpytng iM the independent native territory in South Africa, so as to "stimulate" the blacks —in other words, force them to work in the mines. As to the way in which the work in the Rand m tries is conducted, we need only add that over 2,500 men are killed every year by accidents alone; and, as dead natives cost the mine-owners only £10 each, which is given to their relatives, it i 3 hardly worth the management's while to be particularly careful about their safety. As to the wages of the white workers, they are engaged on piecework and contract work, on which they may make £20 to £30 and upwards per month, sometimes £50, and even £100 a month for a time. But the knowledge that they are literally running a race with Death naturally affects their view ol What constitutes a fair wage—to say nothing of the enormous cost of living on the Rand. However, the capitalist is there to make money, not to make philanthropic experiments, and his natural desire to get his work done cheaply has been greatly intensified of late by the knowledge ■that the gold supply of the Rand is fail-

According to the generally received theory of deposition, the gold on the Rand is not likely to "live" down to any great depth; and the recent experiences of most of the mines appear to justify this view of the situation. The Milage Main Reef originally gave a profit of 19/4 per ton near the surface; but the Village Deep pays only 8/1 profit per ton. Most of the other mines show the same sort of records. Before the war several well-known mines—the Angelo, Ferreira, Bonanza, and others— averaged from £2 to £3 12/ per ton profit. The returns for 1911 show that of the i) 7 mines then paying, only two averaged from 20/ to 30/ per ton profit, 17 averaged from 10/ to 20/ per ton, 19 from 5/ to 10/ per ton, and the balance from 4/8 down to 4d per ton profit. "As a matter of fact," says Mr. Scull}', "the falling of the grade has been for some years past serious, universal, and continuous."' This is why the mining companies are so anxious to keep down expenses, that they wIQ not take reasonable precautions to protect the workers' lives, and this is why they are constantly trying to force wages down and looking round for an unlimited supply of cheap labour, whether black or yellow, to obviate the need for employing whites and

paying them a living wage. Sooner or later South Africa will have to decide whether it is worth the country's while

to maintain an industry which cannot support itself tinder fair industrial conditions and pay reasonable wages to white workers. But long before that point is reached, the friction between the workers and the mining companies is sure to culminate, and the present difficulties on the Rand are only a warning of a more terrible industrial crisis that will certainly arise sooner or later, if the capitalists cannot be induced in time to think less of their dividends and

more of the rights and interests of the men who yearly immolate themselves to win gold for the mining magnates ol Park Lane l and Johannesburg.