DOWN RAND MINES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 79, Issue 7147, 19 December 1949, Page 6

DOWN RAND MINES

OBSERVATIONS ON TOUR OF SOUTH AFRICA TE AROHA MAN WRITES HOME The following is a letter received from Mr W. C. Kennedy, a member of the Te Aroha Borough Council, who is at present holidaying in SouthAfrica. Mr Kennedy left for South Africa in' July of this year and since his' arrival in that country has covered much territory and seen a great deal of general interest. In his latest letter he has much of interest to say on his second visit to the Rand gold fields at Johannesburg, as well as some interesting comments on the racial and political situation in the Union. Mr Kennedy’s letter, which is dated October 8 and addressed from Johannesburg reads as follows: “I came to Johannesburg for the second time with the purpose of going down some of the Rand gold mines which extend for 50 miles to the east and west of Johannesburg. Ore £2 10s s Ton “The mines employ 300,000 coloured people and perhaps 20,000 Europeans. Some of the mines are two miles deep, and when I went down one the other day I was lowered irk a cage at the rate of 2600 feet per minute (nearly 30 m.p.h.). Cages carrying the quartz travel at the rate of 3000 feet pel minute, about six tons of quartz being carried to the surface on each trip.

e ’’The mine which I visited, the Jaggersfontein mine, produces 100,000 tons of ore monthly and averages only four pennyweights of gold per ton of ore. At the present time this gold is worth £l2 an ounce to the South Africans, or approximately £2 10s per ton of ore extracted. The average width of the seam in this particular mine is only 18 inches, which explains why only about 25 per cent of the ore brought to the surface is gold bearing.

“The balance of the ore is carted away and dumped in heaps which cover up to 50 acres of ground each and many of which are up to 500 feet in height—about haif the height of Te Aroha’s Bald Spur. An endless line of trucks carries this waste rock up an incline 500 feet high and dumps it on to the heap. A small portion of one of these heaps would provide sufficient spoil to fill to a depth of ten feet that area of swamp to the east of the concrete road at Te Aroha. “Conditions down the mine appear to be good, due to the fact that plenty of fresh air is pumped into the workings, and there is no smoke visible. Europeans working in the mines are paid an average of 23s per day of eight hours and work a six-day week. They of course are only supervisors. Coloured boys,’ as they are called, are paid 2s 6d per day of eight hours plus food. I was told by the manager that the cost to the company was 8s per day for each boy. “All the coloured workers are kept in a large compound and they are certainly well fed. A dietician is employed by the company and he is responsible for drawing up the menu for each meal. I watched a number of men line up for meals. Each procured a large tin dish, which would hold sufficient to feed a family of seven and marched in a queue past the porridge vat. As he passed a boy with an ordinary spade delivered on to his plate the contents of the spade. Further along he received on top of his porridge a quart of stew. No bushman that I ever worked with had anything on these boys. “Their living quarters were very clean and very comfortable. They brew their own -beer containing 3 per cent, of alcohol, and allowed one pint on week days and 2J pints on Sunday. “Many people say that the coloured races are a problem, but I tell them that if it were not for the natives many of the mines in this country would cease to operate. When these mining magnates ana tied down to cold facts they have to admit that if they had to rely on European labour the mining could not he carried on. “Practically the whole of the manual labour in South Africa is done by the coloured people. In hotels waiters are generally Indians, porters are coloured, and almost every home finds -employment for a coloured boy or girl or both. In the streets one often meets coloured women taking European children for an -outing, while car owners invariably engage coloured drivers. I have spoken to many 'of (rhfese employees ahd all appear to be very happy. “At the moment South Africa is very short of money for developmental work, and difficulty is being experienced in securing loans from either the British or American Governments for this purpose. The preterit Government Lis pttempting to establish a republic and feeling here, as in Britain, is very bitter. It is for this reason only that Dr Malan is having (difficulty in (raising mefney overseas.

“There is much crime among the 10,000,000 coloured people of South Africa and many of the people are little removed from their primitive state. Cases of murder, theft, and the like, fill the columns of the daily papers, and it is not an uncommon occurrence here for a man to be tapped on the head and have everything but his beard removed. This does not mean that people go round in fear of being molested, but it certainly does mean that there are places that should be avoided unless one is particularly thick in the skull, and has sufficient in the bank to purchase a complete new outfit, which, by the way, costs about 15 per cent more here than in New Zealand.

“The European people here must be among the most hospitable in the world. I have received invitations from many of them to spend all my spare time in their homes, and I am leaving Johannesburg to-morrow for senikal, 200 miles away, to spend a few days on a 2000-acre mixed farm. “Recently I visited a dairy farm on which 100 Friesian cows were milked. In spite of the drought they were in good condition. I almost thought 1 was back in Waikino. Regarding travel in this country: The trains, due to the narrow guage lines used, are not very fast but are very comfortable. Highways are splendid, having no intersections for miles. I travelled 65 miles an hour over one perfectly straight stretch ot 50 miles. I do not know how I will get on negotiating the Karangahake Gorge when I return home-”