[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—In your note to Mr. Maguire's letter in the Spectator of August 15th you state that ores of a lower grade than those of the Transvaal mines are worked successfully by white labour in Australia and in Western America. As this is a statement which, if borne out by the facts, would go far towards settling the question of the importation of Asiatics, you would be doing a great service if you or some of your readers would give some examples. Personally I know of none and can hear of none which are being worked at a profit in similar circumstances in regard to the size of the lode and the depth of working where the motive power is steam and coal is not easily accessible.—I am, Sir, &c., F. B.
[In contending that white labour might be profitably employed on the Rand mines we relied on the information furnished us at different times by various correspondents. Thus "R. H.," in the Spectator of October 18th, 1902, states : —" I am largely interested in gold-mining in Queensland, where our labour is white. As regards climate, it has one at least not better than the Transvaal. We can make good profits there, and have to work with material which on the average is not so rich in gold as that on the Rand, and our material is, moreover, harder to treat, requiring a greater number of stamps to crush a given quantity." Again, " A. M. G.," recently returned from South Africa, describes in the Spectator of February 28th, 1903, the experiments made by the manager of one South African mine who was ." demonstrating that white labour plus machinery can in some mines be profitably employed to do work on which black labour has hitherto been exclusively used." Again, Mr. W. Fischer Wilkinson, a high authority, writing to the Spectator on March 21st, 1903, while holding that to substitute white labour for black on a large scale, at present rates of pay, is impracticable, admits that "the number of whites employed [on the Rand mines] has been on the increase, and a consider- able amount of work formerly done by natives is now per- formed by unskilled white labour." Lastly, in the current number of the Nineteenth Century, in an article by Mr. Edgar P. Rathbone, late Inspector of Mines to President Krfiger's Government, a strong advocate of making the native work, and an uncompromising opponent of the Exeter Hall view, the writer quotes the opinions of various experts. One, whom he describes as taking the deepest interest in the native labour question, while dismissing the notion of substituting white for Kaffir labour en bloc as im- practicable, says :—" There is, I venture to think, an enormous scope for white men in the branches of the work in the mines and on the surface which the native is not fit for, and should never be permitted to compete for." Another witness, one of the higher officials, says :—" I think there will be soon only two alternatives—the introduction of either white unskilled labour or of Asiatics. The latter I would fight against tooth and nail, and the former I think quite practicable."—En. Spectator.]
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