LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE TRANS VAAL CHAMBER OF MINES' MEMO- RANDUM AND CHINESE LABOUR.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Srn,—The Chamber of Mines, adopting their old tactics of trying to frighten the public in the Transvaal,lave issued a 'Memorandum purporting to show that when the coolies at ..present on the Rand are repatriated the mineowners will be obliged to bang up 3,135 stamps out of the 7,335 which are running at present. How totally without foundation in fact this statement is the following figures will sufficiently demonstrate. In the September quarter of 1905 nine of the principal mines were employing 20,597 coloured labourers, coolies and natives. On these mines 1,340 stamps were at work, and if 10,000 labourers were taken away from them, according to the terrorising argument of the Chamber of Mines, they would 'have to suspend the operation of some 660 stamps. The best answer to this is to refer to the actual work on these same 'nine mines in the corresponding quarter of 1904, before any Chinese had been drafted to them. In that quarter 1,153 stamps were at work, instead of 680, as there should have been by the Chamber of Mines' argument, only 9,056 natives alto- gether being employed; and adopting the same ratio of natives to stamps, the 10,957 coloured labourers who would be left after deducting our supposed 10,000 would be sufficient to run the whole 1,340 stamps which are running to-day. Not one of their arguments as to sorting and development will avail them in this case, for in the 1904 quarter they were, in such cases as records are available for, developing more tonnage than they milled, and sorting on the whole practically as much as in 1905. Furthermore, the working cost is greater in the 1905 quarter, in most cases, than it was in 1904. As for the contention that such cutting off of the additional coloured supply would deprive 6,400 white men of employ- ment, unfortunately the figures of white employment for the respective quarters for all these nine mines are not available, the Government of the Transvaal regarding these as con- fidential, though no secrecy surrounds the figures relating to coolie or native employment. On one mine, however, of the nine, in the 1904 quarter, the average number of natives employed was about 815, and the average number of white men was some 460-500. In the July quarter of 1905 in the same mine, with exactly the same number of stamps at work and doing less sorting, it was only 280-300, while their native supply had risen to over 2,000. Obviously, so far as this mine is concerned, the effect of their having to go back to a state in ' which only 800 or 1,000 coloured labourers were available would be, not to deprive white men of employment, but to make the mines require and give employment to some 180 to 200 additional white men. Thus, so far from the Government policy resulting in 6,400 white men being thrown out of employment,. it is obvious that it will greatly increase the field of employment for white men, always supposing that those responsible for the conduct of the actual mining opera- tions act in the interests of the shareholders in those mines.—
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