Important news bearing on the Rand labour question appeared in
Wednesday's papers. It will be remembered that Mr. Winston Churchill recently stated that an experiment was going to be tried by the Robinson group of mines with a view to ascertaining how large a proportion of white could be profitably employed in association with coloured labourers. It is now stated on the authority of the Daily Chronicle's Johannesburg correspondent that the Mine Workers' Associa- tion is recruiting a thousand natives a week from sources other than the East Coast, and is supplying groups other than the Robinson. Pressure has also been brought to bear on the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association, and we read in the Standard of Wednesday that "in view of the repeated assertions that the Association does not do its utmost to obtain natives," it will probably accede to the proposal to permit individual recruiting on the part of the mines anywhere in South Africa, the Transvaal and Portuguese territory excepted. According to the Daily Chronicle, the Native Labour Association has already yielded, in which ease we may expect to see the native supply greatly augmented, and the soundness of Mr. Creswell's contentions tested on a large and conclusive scale.
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