SOUTH AFRICA.

Evening Star, Issue 12093, 14 January 1904, Page 6

SOUTH AFRICA.

THE BAND LABOR PROBLEM. MR SEDDON’S PROTEST. Press _Association —By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, January 12. ‘The Times’ eulogises Mr Seddop’s service to the Empire, but hopes his proposed protest against Chinese labor on the Band will not receive much support. The Transvaal, though provisionally a Crown colony, is treated as self-governing, and knows its own mind best.

The ‘Pall Mall Gazette’ says that Mr Seddon and the other Premiers are entitled to their own opinion, but that opinion cannot hare compulsory effect on the Transvaal, winch must settle its own affairs. Pretoria news authoritatively foreshadows an early electoral redistribution, with a view to the introduction of representative government. AN EXPERT OPINION. WELLINGTON, January 14. Among the arrivals in Wellington last week from the Cape was Mr W. R. Cowey, a retired Anglo-African merchant. On being interviewed, Mr Cowey was questioned regarding the agitation in the Transvaal for and against the importation of 10,000 Chinese to work the Band mines. He replied that the reason why Chinese were wanted was for the development of the mines, which were not rich enough to pay for working unless cheap labor was employed. Then, again, white men considered it undignified to work alongside black labor unless in the position of overseer. A strong argument of the advocates of Chinese importation was that the more cheap labor there was brought into the country the more supervising work there would be for ■ the whites. This argument appealed to white mechanics, who were not so much opposed to the importation of the Chinese as outsiders might suppose. The general feeling hi South Africa was in favor of the employment of white labor wherever possible, especially as, when Mr Cowey was over there, hundreds of unemnloyed white men were to be seen about the streets of Johannesburg, Durban, and Cape Town. He had noticed that Mr Seddon was urging the Cape and Natal Governments to join in the protest against the importation of the Chinese into the Transvaal. Perhaps Mr Seddon was not aware that though the two colonial Governments might be in sympathy with him in this movement they would hesitate to come out on the side of a protest. The Cape and Natal were too closely hound to Johannesburg by business interests to thoroughly support Mr Seddon. The principal trade of Cape Town and Durban was done with the great Transvaal centre. Mr Cowey said he did not want Seddon to run away with the mistaken notion that he would have the Cape and Nate! with him.