THE NORTHWARD EXPANSION 483
While
these proposals were at variance, it was significant that it was
generally agreed by all parties that certain classes of Africans should
be given the opportunity to advance. This was obviously the basic
reason for the principal recommendation of the Forster Board of Inquiry
that discussions between the parties should be resumed.
It
is for this same reason that our companies are still prepared to
approach the matter with an open mind and with a full appreciation of
the difficulties confronting the organizations representing our
European employees when dealing with this subject.
Our
approach is influenced by certain principles which need not, in our
view, constitute any obstacle to agreement and which do make provision
for the understandable fears of our European employees.
These principles can be restated as follows:
1.
It is just and essential that reasonable opportunities should be
made available to suitable Africans to progress in the industry. It is
also vital to the continued prosperity, security and welfare of the
European population of the Federation that ways and means for allowing
a measure of African advancement should be devised.
2.
An enduring solution of the problem can only be achieved with the
co-operation and assistance of the European employees of the companies.
We feel that our European employees must be with us in any changes due
to African progression that may be introduced into the industrial
structure of the copper-mining industry. Such changes should not be
introduced arbitrarily or at the sole discretion of the management.
Further,,
if the solution should lie in progression through a series of stages,
our companies would seek the agreement of the European employees to the
details of each stage.
3.
We hold that whatever is done is best done slowly, so as to give
the necessary time for the substantial human and economic adjustments
that obviously have to be made. Precipitate action, in whatever
direction, is almost certainly foredoomed to failure.
4.
We renew the guarantee that we should not seek any solution that
deprived a European employee of employment by reason of being displaced
by an African. We are satisfied that the capacity for expansion of the
copper-mining industry is very great—not only enough to ensure the
future of present European employees and their descendants but also to
provide opportunities for numbers of new European entrants.
Beyond
these principles, our views are that our discussions must be directed
towards producing practical and not merely theoretical opporÂtunities
for our African employees to progress; and we do not think that the
European union's attachment to the principle of 'the rate for the job
need be an insurmountable barrier to practical progress.
In spite of all the difficulties and complexities that confront the industry,
