THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 1907. THE TRANSVAAL LEGISLATURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13861, 26 March 1907, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 1907. THE TRANSVAAL LEGISLATURE.

It is a somewhat significant circumstance that the first legislative step taken by the Parliament of the Transvaal Colony, elected under the new Constitution, should have been one for the reinstatement of the Asiatic Labour Ordinance which the Imperial Government had disallowed. Only one construction can possibly

bo placed upon the action of the Legislature. It is plain that in the opinion of the residents of the Transvaal,' as expressed through the parliamentary representatives whom the}' recently elected, tho employment of Chinese labour in the mines of the Band cannot, for the present at anyrate, with due regard to the interests of the mining industry itself, be discontinued. And upon this question - the decision of the people in the Transvaal must be respected as that which is the result, of the judgment formed on the spot upon the evidence that is directly accessible to the local public anil the local politicians. The conclusion which has evidently forced itself upon the m.ind of the colonial community is that in existing circumstances the Chinese labour now employed in the mines cannot be spared. We should think it extremely doubtful whether there is any justification for the assertion attributed last- week to Sir Gilbert Parker that as small a minority as •1 P'2i' cent, of til® white population of South Africa is opposed to the continued employment of the imported coolies. The more reasonable view of the matter is that tlie retention. of the Chinese is—as the Archbishop of Canterbury said of their importation-—" a regrettable necessity," imposed upon tho colony through tho pressure of economic conditions from which no immediate relief is to be expected. The Government will, it was stated in tho Speech in which the GovernorGeneral opened Parliament, do its utmost to . increase the supply of Kaffirs for service in the mines. But until a sufficient amount of native labour is available it is evident that the presence of the Chinese must be tolerated. It will ha-vo been observed that it is not proposed that there shall be any fresh importation of coolies. But the process of the repatriation of those now on the Band will be suspended until such time as it has become apparent that they can be replaced by Kaffirs, and until native labour can be substituted for Chinese in such quantities as to render the latter dispensable the indentures under which the aliens'are engaged will bo temporarily renewed. The principle upon which the legislation to give cffect to theso proposals is based involves a recognition of the claim that there are certain operations in the mining industry of the Band for which white labour either is unsuitable or els© cannot be profitably employed. Tho point is one concerning which there iias been controversy in the past, and the contentions of the mine-owners upon the subject have not invariably been supported by the statements of thoss who have had practical experience in the management of the mines. The Parliament has, however, accepted tho view, in the meantime, that a considerable proportion •of cheap labour is essential to the successful working of the mines, and that, if Kaffir labour cannot be secured in the quantity which is required, there is no alternative to the employment of Chinese. It will probably have been the more inclined to adopt this conclusion because the prosperity of the Transvaal is, as things go, almost entirely wrapped up in the advancement of the mining industry. Agriculture has not been placed on any assured footing since, the war, and there are no manufacturing industries of any consequence. The country is consequently to a greater or less extent dependent upon the mining industry, and if there is a public disposition to place a more than usual amount of reliance upon the declarations of the mine-owners with' regard to the needs of the industry there can be nothing surprising in the fact.

There remains the question of tho attitude which the Imperial Government. will adopt in view of the reenactment of tlie Ordinance. It is almost inconceivable, however, that the Colonial Office will, raise any difficulties in the matter. Certainly the action of the Balfour Administration in sanctioning the introduction of Chinese labour furnished the Liberals with a very serviceable cry at the elections last year. But there would be no necessary inconsistency between the possession by Lord Elgin of views Mich as were expressed from nearly every Liberal platform in the United Kingdom fifteen months ago and his concurrence in the enactment that has now been deliberately passed by tho Transvaal Legislature. For it was a cardinal point in the objections that were raised by the opponents of the Unionist Government to the part it took in facilitating the importation of coolie labour for the mines that the experiment was being thrust upon a people who had had no opportunity of making known in a constitutional way their own views upon the subject. And the provisions of the Transvaal Constitution that was issued last December may be so construed as to bear the implication that they reserved to the colonial Parliament the right of forming tho final conclusion. The Constitution provided that no further licenses were to be issued under the Ordinance of 1904 .and that no contracts made under that Ordinance were to bo renewed. These contracts do not expire, in some cases, until November, 1909. But long before that time—upon the termination of ouc year from the first meeting of the Legislature of the colony—the Ordinance itself is to lapse. So far the Constitution affects the legislation of the past. It provides further that the Legislature of the colony may by law accelerate the determination of the system of labour that was introduced under the Ordinance cr that, subject to the Constitution itself, it may regulate the system. But this last provision should be read in conjuncion with another article of the Constitution, in which it is laid down that the Governor shall reserve any law providing for the introduction under contract, indenture, or license of labourers into the colony from places outside South Africa lest the law should contain conditions of a servile character. From this it may legitimately bo inferred that tho Imperial Government contemplates that the colonial Parliament shall be entitled to exercise a wide discretion

in respect to the enactment of labour legislation. The main safeguard in the Constitution ig coiistructea to prevent legislation which might have the cffect of reducing the labourers affoct'cd by it to conditions of slavery, such as were alleged by Liberal politicians, upon altogether unsubstantial grounds, to have been established in the Chinese compounds on the Rand. But it may bo assumed that the Imperial Government- will recognisa that in this whole matter a wise policy .will be a policy of trusting the colony to work out its own salvation in the way which to it seems best.