They
may amount to 20 or 30 or 40 within that area! They do not fall under
our control either. The Department of Native Affairs has no
jurisdiction over those Native towns on mining land. We do realize
that the mines need a certain limited number of experienced married
Natives such as boss boys, but our view is that there should be married
quarters only for those who are needed on the mines for night duties or
for emergency duties. The others who are needed there but who need not
live on the spot because of the nature of their work should find their
accommodation in the neighbouring locations or in Native areas where
locations may be established. There are such location areas near each
of those mining areas. That is possible in practice. In addition it is
our view that it must be borne in mind that the Natives who work in the
mines are not the sophisticated Natives. They are usually Natives who
have been recruited by agents in the reserves, but usually their
children who grow up in those mining towns do not want to work on the
mines. So when the married quarters have been created the Native
fathers will use them and the children will be pushed on to the
neighbouring general community. They will disappear from those mining
towns in the course of time and they will become a burden to the
neighbouring towns or cities where they will have to be accommodated in
the locations. They will be pushed off on to others. If such a
mine-worker Native himself contracts tuberculosis or silicosis the
mines will not keep him there in their housing scheme. He is paid
compensation, but he is also pushed off on to another housing scheme
because they need his house for the new mine worker. So it means that
those married quarters become a channel through which the rest of the
non-European population in the cities becomes greater and greater. It
is an unhealthy development if it occurs without control for the sake
of the non-European labour of one industry. We feel that this industry
must be treated like other industries and that its married Native
labourers must be accommodated as in the case of the other industries.
This
attitude, as Harry Oppenheimer was subsequently to point out, was
inconsistent with the policy favoured for industry in general, whereby
industry was to assume the responsibility for housing its own labour,
and not the local authority. The argument that married mine labour
should be housed in the municipal locations100 seemed to cut across this general policy.
A long correspondence was subsequently conducted with the appropriate government department. Government adhered to the view that
while
the establishment on a mine of villages for Native married mine workers
with their families is wholly disapproved, the continuance of the
100 Rand Daily Mail, 14
June 1952: 'Imagine the position if the mines are prevented from
housing their married employees, while secondary industries are
compelled to bear the cost of housing theirs.'
