of
the Mine Workers' Union, I would give the assurance that our companies
will not be parties to any unilateral action in this matter.
This
is a problem which is soluble only by co-operation and as an outcome of
free negotiation. We recognize that the industry and die territory are
entirely dependent on white leadership. We ask them to continue with us
to take their share in the responsibility of that leadership.
In
May of 1954, as already mentioned, Ernest Oppenlieimer reviewed the
entire Rhodesian position at considerable length, in his statement to
the shareholders of the Anglo American Corporation for the year 1953.
It must surely rank as one of the most masterly expositions of the
problems confronting the Federation ever to be written, and whatever
may be the future of the Rhodesias it must stand as a document of
permanent value:
...
In considering any great and progressive project such as this
Federation of three immense territories in Central Africa, there are,
it seems, always bound to be those who are timid and fearful and those
who are suspicious. It is regrettable that certain elements both in
Africa and in England should have tried to stifle this momentous
development by stirring up opposition to the proposal among the
Africans of the Protectorates of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
Considerable unrest was caused, and still exists, among the Native
populations of these territories. This unrest was the background to the
African strike, on a claim for higher wages, which took place on the
copper-mines between 20 October and 10 November last year. After a
total stoppage of production for three weeks, the Africans were
persuaded to return to work and to refer the dispute to arbitration, a
course which the companies had advocated since the beginning of the
dispute. The arbitrator's award was, however, in my opinion, an
unfortunate one, resulting, as it has, in immediate wage increases
varying from about 80 per cent in the lower paid groups to 15 per cent
in the higher paid groups of our African employees. Let me hasten to
say that the considerable increase in working costs arising from these
unjustifiably big wage increases is not, in my opinion, their most
serious feature. The wage rates, and other conditions of African
employment on the copper-mines before the arbitration, were certainly
the best in Northern Rhodesia, and, indeed, in adjacent African
territories. During the negotiations before the strike, the mining
companies offered wage increases that were carefully calculated to meet
the needs of all workers, particularly those in the lowest grades. Even
these proffered increases would have pushed up the mining wage rates
still further above the general levels in the territory, but not to
such a level as to upset the entire economic balance of the country.
This,
as our representatives at the arbitration proceedings had forecast, is
exactly what has been done by the award, which the companies, despite
