Secondly,
if the administrative apparatus was deficient, so, and to a still
greater degree, were the state of knowledge and the physical apparatus
of economic life. The one great communications asset was the line of
railway running to the Congo border from the south. There were no
roads; there were no towns; there was no local food supply except game.
There were climatic problems—prospecting during the rainy season was
almost impossible. There were health problems— malaria and the tsetse
fly. There was the danger from snakes and from wild animals. The
prospector's life was, therefore, a hard one. To determine the extent
of the ore bodies was, of course, the whole object of the concession
companies, but the problems of deep mining (including the danger of
the mines being flooded) and the metallurgical problems (there were
sulphide ore bodies, and oxide ore bodies as well as mixtures of these
ores, as at N'Changa) meant that it was difficult to foresee (even if
the grade of ore were known) when production could begin and
what aggregate expenditure would amount to. All these difficulties
affected the financial problem profoundly, and the financial problem in
its turn profoundly affected the problem of the organization of
the industry. In the event, production began at the very moment when
the depression of the thirties broke upon the world, and with that
depression arose the problem of international restriction of output.
But individual producing units were gravely disadvantaged as against
groups of producing units. Restriction of output implied rising costs
per ton: a unified group could close down one or more mines altogether
and concentrate production on a smaller number of units, thus
maintaining costs at a lower level in spite of aggregate production
being restricted. It was this world situation which made the emergence
retrenchments,
with a consequent curtailment of the additions. . . . The whole group
of problems connected with labour was thus ignored, or treated only in
conjunction with other matters . . . the accumulated information of the
past ten years is missing, or is immured in a mass of documents. The
employers have also suffered. The mining industry is of dominating
importance to the country, and it might well expect careful and
sympathetic attention from the government; owing however to the
shortage of staff which resulted from the factors detailed above, there
has never been the necessary strength of experienced officers to deal
with developments. In consequence, the mine management has been
compelled to undertake duties and responsibilities which should
scarcely come within its sphere, and credit is due both to the mining
authorities and to the unofficial population that so little trouble has
arisen. Such an origin has naturally tended to render the mining
community somewhat independent in attitude, and the tardy establishment
of the various functions of government met with a moderate welcome. In
consequence, there is a certain lack of mutual comprehension in the
relations between the industry and the administration which is
regrettable in view of the importance of co-operation between these
two. Actual relations between government officers and mining officials
are most friendly; but there is a perceptible air of suspicion in the
transaction of business, which is unfortunate.'
