dent
factor tending to keep costs up: moreover, it was in the year 1920 that
the first 'real' strike of Africans on the Rand took place;7
a warning that the grievances of Native labour required to be taken
seriously. White labour difficulties did culminate in the
quasi-revolutionary outbreak of 1922; thereafter, things were to go
better. Nevertheless, given the uncertainties of the situation and the
post-war depression, which followed on the short-lived boom of 1919-20,
the possibility of raising new capital for developing further mines was
gravely prejudiced, especially as the British pound then stood (in
London) at a considerable discount in terms of South African pounds.
Lack of funds and the impossibility of raising fresh capital, for
instance, held up the development of the Daggafontein Mine, one of the
first of the Far East Rand developing mines to come under the control
of the Anglo American Corporation group.
In
the nature of things, the continued existence of the gold-mining
industry, even given favourable environmental conditions, depends on
the discovery and the opening up of new mines as the older ones reach
the point of exhaustion. The significance of the Far East Rand had
already been emphasized by the Government Mining Engineer in his report
of 1916;8 in 1925 and 1927 Robert Kotze returned to the
subject of the future of the area. It was essential that new mines
should be opened up; in his 1925 report he estimated that if no new
producers entered the list, there would be a reduction of crushing
capacity of the mines then existing of 23 per cent after five years, 48
per cent after ten years, and 82 per cent after fifteen years, and the
total tonnage available
'
'. . . Within the last few weeks we have been confronted with a new
phenomenon. In February last there was, for the first time, a Native
strike in the true sense of the word. Hitherto, the form which any
Native expression of dislike to conditions of work has taken has been
something in the nature of a riot. In February it took the form of an
absolutely peaceful cessation of work; the occasional resorts to
violence which occurred were entirely incidental, just as similar
outbreaks are incidental to strikes of Europeans. I think we should
recognize it as an indication that the Native is advancing more rapidly
than we had anticipated, and that we should take measures accordingly.
'The
professed cause of the strike was the increased cost of living. I think
we may take it that the true cause was imitation of the methods of the
European employees. The case of the Native employees of the gold-mines
is not nearly so strong as that of the Europeans; the Natives are
provided, over and above their wages, with all the essentials of
existence. The increased cost of food and lodging affects them only in
so far as they have to provide for dependants at a distance; as far as
they themselves are concerned, that increase falls, not upon them, but
upon their employers.
'At
the same time we must not lose sight of the fact that the Native will
not for ever— nor indeed, by all signs, for very long—be satisfied with
his present position in industry. . . .'
(From the presidential speech of Sir E. Wallers, 30th annual report of the Transvaal Chamber of Mines, p. 69.)
8 Supra, p. 79.
