their
misgivings, put into force immediately. Demands for very large wage
increases, generally in line with the new mining rates, have been, and
are being made by African labour in many fields. These demands are
naturally very difficult to resist; and African wage rates, not only in
Northern Rhodesia but in adjacent territories, are, as a result of
this arbitration award, being forced up to a new level. This new level
is one which the present low efficiency of the average African worker
does not yet justify, and which his elementary needs do not yet
require. It is a level which the copper-mines, at present, can afford,
but let me say with all deliberation, it is a level which the rest of
the country, in its present undeveloped state, cannot afford. Unless
African labour efficiencies generally can be rapidly increased, it is a
wage level that will act as a deterrent to the full utilization of the
country's resources, which is so urgently necessary in the interests of
all its inhabitants.
Lest
it be thought that I am unsympathetic to the advancement of the native
African, I should like to examine the problem a little further and to
attempt to set it against the perspective of history. At the beginning
of this century the Native of Central Africa had enjoyed none of the
benefits of western civilization, and he knew nothing of the advantages
that came from the culture, knowledge and science that existed among
the European peoples elsewhere. His untutored mind had had no
opportunity for development, and he lived in a condition of perpetual
anarchy, fear, semi-starvation and endemic disease, subject to slavery
and slave raiding by Arab traders from the East African coast.
Thirty
years ago, before the copper-mining industry began, these conditions
had been improved to the extent that the white man had put a stop to
slave raiding and local slavery and had imposed a just and stable
government and removed, to a very large extent, the element of constant
fear and insecurity. Living and health conditions were, however, still
entirely primitive and barbaric. The country is a poor one except for
its minerals, which were then almost untouched, and it could barely
support its small indigenous population at a meagre subsistence level.
In
the short space of one generation, the mining industry and other
economic activities which that industry has made possible have brought
large numbers of these Africans to conditions where they live in
well-built brick houses, and enjoy dietary, sanitary and medical
services that are as good as modern science can provide. On the mines
amenities now being provided for African employees include electric
light in their houses and individual waterborne sanitation—facilities
which even today arc not available to about half the population of
Europe !
Never in the world's history has more rapid progress been made by any section of its peoples.
This
extraordinary progress has been made possible solely by the leadership
and control of the European, with his discipline and his knowledge. It
Flickr
Stumbleupon
Scribd
