THE CLOSE OF THE TRANS VAAL LABOUR COMMISSION.
THE closing meetings of the Transvaal Labour Com- mission have been made remarkable by the evidenci of one witness, who put the question of white as against coloured labour in what we have always maintained to be the true light. Mr. F. H. Cresswell, the manager of the Village Main Reef, began in June, 1902, a highly valuable experiment with a view to increasing the area over which white workmen could be employed. In March, 1903, at the request of his directors, the experiment was to all in- tents discontinued ; and in Mr. Cresswell's evidence before the Commission we have his views on the results. So far as we call judge, the attempt under the abnormal conditions then existing has not been absolutely successful ; at least, it has not provided a means by which the labour diffi- culty can be fully solved. Mr. Cresswell argues that the organisation of the mining industry on a different method .would make white labour generally possible ; but such a reorganisation would require a new capital expenditure and a considerable delay, and in the present crisis it is, we greatly fear, too much to expect the mine-owners to agree to tliis, But Mr. Cresswell, whose courage and patience in his difficult task we cannot sufficiently praise, has stated the political side of the question in a way which we trust people both here and in South Africa will not forget. Leaving economic considerations wholly out of the question, he maintains that there has been a distinct bias from the first against white labour in the minds of the majority of the mining magnates. The mine-owners are afraid of the rise of a great white industrial population which "would make the labour element too strong a factor in economic questions, and when representative government is given, in political questions." To be sure, many of the leaders of the mining industry have shown themselves most sympathetic towards the cause of white labour, arid would be the last to use an argument so alien to British and Colonial traditions. But that some such fear is abroad is obvious from the tone in which the discussion has been conducted in many quarters, and we may not be far wrong in attributing the bitterness of the controversy to this false issue.
We believe that Mr. Cresswell has done a great service to South Africa in giving publicity to this heresy and insisting upon the true political aspect of the labour question. No free Colony can arise from the ruins of war unless free industrial conditions exist. To stereotype one form of subject labour in order that the mine-owners may have less trouble in the management of it, and in order that the political stream may flow smoothly, is to postpone the birth of a free nation for ever. We have the greatest admiration for the skill and courage shown in building up the great gold industry, and we readily grant that without the mines the Transvaal would be a poor and backward State with little future ; but we cannot admit that the directors of any industry, however important, have a right to dictate the political conditions under which their profits are to be made. The political conditions must be settled by the people of the country, and cannot be arbitrarily fixed in order to provide against a future inconvenience to one class. In any case, we do not see any justification for the fears of those who see in white labour the beginning of endless labour troubles, culminating in the tyranny of the working man To say such things is to make the most odious of imputations, not only against our own people at home, but against the free nations within the Empire, against Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The situation will be the same as in any industrial city, as in Manchester, Sheffield, or Glasgow, where the bulk of the population are industrial employes. Strikes and lock-outs will come, but it is better to have in a British city a free and vigorous British population than to bolster up the chief industry by an exotic labour system.
We would emphasise this point, because unless white labour is kept before the people of the Transvaal as the goal to be aimed at, the temporary introduction of im- ported labour will be attended with the gravest dangers. The evidence brought before the Labour Commission has unfortunately, however, made it arguable that some immediate relief must be found, and that South Africa by itself cannot afford this relief. The advo- cates of Chinese labour have good enough arguments on their side without any fallacious political fore- casts. The country has been, wisely or unwisely, saddled with a Debt of £65,000,000, involving, some time in the next few years, an annual charge of £2,600,000. To keep it solvent railway and Custom revenues must remain not less than at present, and the sums raised from direct taxation of the mining industry, such as the Profits-tax, must be increased. But unless mining development is possible we cannot look for the maintenance of the present revenue, and we can assuredly look for no addition to it. The subsidiary industries which are awaiting development, the coal and iron and copper reefs which are awaiting exploitation, the agricultural progress which is so urgent a political need,—all depend. upon the restitution of the gold industry to a proper basis. Under present conditions, with capital short and heavy liabilities incurred, an immediate supply of labour is a primary necessity even for the established mines ; and for the working of the low-grade properties, which contain most of the future wealth of the country, it is essential that ore worth .21 should be mined at 'a cost under 20s. Unless more labour can be immediately pro- cured, the development of the country must be cramped at its most critical time, and, a livelihood made impossible for many, of the existing white working men. • In such circumstances it is, perhaps, too much to expect the people of the Transvaal to make so great a renunciation, and to refuse a temporary assistance in favour of an ideal which must take some time to realise.
But if, in deference to the Report of the Commission, the importation of Asiatics is undertaken, it must be on a very clear understanding, and with a very distinct object in view. The thing at the best is far too dangerous to be made the domain of ill-considered experiments. The ideal of white labour must be jealously preserved ; and we must take care that by the creation of a foreign labouring class the way is not barred, not only against the growth of a large white community, but also against that industrialisation of the native races on which the future of South Africa so largely depends. The temporary character of the experi- ment must be emphasised, and every precaution should be taken by means of short indentures and strict conditions of repatriation to prevent any settlement of Asiatics in the country. We believe that no sooner will they have been imported than an agitation will be begun for their with- drawal. The mine-owners will find that work on a time- contract by alien labourers is not satisfactory, and if the eyes• of the community are kept steadfastly upon white labour as an ideal, the development in machinery and the reforms in organisation, by which it can be made possible, will not be long in coming. It is precisely in the fact that Asiatic labour, if it is introduced, will be introduced in spite of an influential opposition, and will be jealously watched by unfriendly eyes, that we place our hope that the experiment will be a short one. We do not wish to overstate the case. There are, no doubt, forms of labour in the mines which are unsuited for white men. But since the tendency of mining development is towards fewer and more highly skilled workmen, the time must inevitably come when the area over which white labour can be employed will be greatly extended. We wish the British people to reap the benefit of the development. We wish to see the popu- lation of the Rand grow, not among the compounds, but in the minors' cottages. We do not wish to see a temporary expedient, introduced to meet a need of the moment, preju- dice in any way the chances of white employment iu the future, or so consolidate the power of the mine-owner that he can declare himself independent of the white miner. The experiment, therefore, must be jealously watched from the start, and the ideal of white labour must be brought gradually into practical politics. For so long as the new Colonies are administered under Crown Colony government, the British people owe a duty to the whole Empire to see that nothing is done to prejudice the traditions of free Colonial development. We are trustees for all the white men of the Empire. An Australian may well complain if he sees the labour in a country for which his fellows have fought made the perquisite of that race which he fears most in the world. If during the. Crown Colony period we so conduct the labour question that on the advent of representative institu- tions it is handed over unprejudiced to the people for their ultimate decision, we shall have performed our duty. And this result can only be achieved by insisting that any experiment in imported labour must be made under the strictest conditions as to seclusion and repatriation, and by keeping white labour constantly in view as the only final settlement. The men who have in the past striven for this end will, we trust, have lost nothing by any decision of the Commission. For our own part, we may say that it is with the utmost reluctance and regret that we have been forced to come to the conclusion that it is better that the immediate need should be temporarily met, even at the cost of doing temporary violence to a principle ; for once the distress caused by a stagnant industry has been remedied, the popular mind will more readily grasp its ultimate interest, and the white labour party, which at present is only a party, will come to embrace all South Africans who are seriously devoted to the future of their land.
To put the matter shortly, we are most anxious to see as soon as possible a large influx of white men into the Transvaal, and we have come to the conclusion that the first step to achieve this result must be the temporary development of the mines by a strictly guarded use of Asiatic imported labour. But the retreat must only be made in order to spring forward the better, and nothing must be done to prejudice the case or to ear-mark minin as an affair of coloured labour.
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