THE EFFECT OF CHINESE LABOUR. PROMISES AND PERFORMANCES
The introduction of Chinese indentured labour to the Transvaal has been
a complete failure--(1) Financially, (2) Socially, (3) Politically.
The slave-owning ideals of the Rand lords has made the Transvaal a
hell. It has not even made it a paying hell. Every security connected
with the Rand industry has decreased enormously. It is estimated that
the loss of capital runs to many millions of pounds sterling. It
cannot be said in excuse that this is the result of general commercial
depression throughout the Empire, for almost every other kind of
security, except Consols, has considerably appreciated in value.
Certainly the record monthly output of gold has long been passed. More
gold has been produced each month than was ever produced before, even
during the pre-war period. But these record outputs mean nothing.
Even at 1s. 6d. a day the Chinese labourer has been proved to be an
expensive luxury. He costs nearly 50 per cent. more than the Kaffir.
The expenses of nearly every mine where Chinese labour has been
employed have gone up; the expenses of every mine where Kaffir labour
is employed have gone down.
Mr. F. H. P. Cresswell had something pertinent to say on this topic in
the admirable address on the Chinese labour question which he delivered
the other day at Potchefstroom. Dealing with the argument that white
labour was prohibitively expensive, and that in order to work low-grade
mines coolies must be employed, the indefatigable fighter of the yellow
man observed--
"I have picked out at random a number of mines, and I find that the
mine showing the best results, the only one showing other than very
bad results with coolies, is the Van Ryn Mine. This mine in the
June quarter of 1904 was working at a cost of 24s. 5d. per ton, and
milled 30,000 tons in that quarter; they were then using native and,
I believe, no unskilled whites at all. A year before that they were
milling 24,500 tons, at a cost of 28s. 2d. per ton, with 1,000 natives.
In the June quarter of 1905 it worked at a cost of 21s. per ton, and
milled 60,000 tons. In that quarter it was using some 2,000 coolies."
Here is an instructive list which was compiled by the _Pall Mall
Gazette_ on September 8 last:--
MINES WITH CHINESE LABOUR
EXPENSES GOING UP
June 1905. Avge., 1904.
s. d. s. d.
Durban Roodepoort Deep 28 2 27 5
Geldenhuis Deep 22 11 19 1
Glen Deep 24 0 20 8
Nourse Deep 28 9 26 7
Rose Deep 21 9 17 2
Jumpers Deep 27 9 23 0
MINES WITH KAFFIR LABOUR
EXPENSES GOING DOWN
June 1905. Avge., 1904.
s. d. s. d.
Ferreira Deep 21 7 26 5
Crown Deep 19 3 20 2
Langlaagte Deep 22 2 20 9
Ever since the beginning of the war, we seem to have been watching in
a bewitched trance for the coming of the boom. Some people described
Johannesburg as the enchanted city waiting for the spell to be removed
for the boom to come. It has never come; and it never will come as long
as Chinamen are employed to do the work that can be done by Kaffirs or
white men.
When the incurable idleness of the Chinaman and his cost of keep is
added to that 1s. 6d. a day, he is dearer than the black man or the
white man.
The Rand lord was anxious to procure cheap labour and subservient
labour. The white man could not be employed because he would have held
the management of the country in the hollow of his hand, have formed
trade unions, and insisted on proper wages and proper treatment. Enough
black men, if time had been given, would have worked at the mines even
at the reduced wages paid by the Rand lords.
On this point, too, Mr. Cresswell, from whose Potchefstroom speech I
quoted just now, had something instructive to say. In dissecting the
official records, he observed--
"They show that between June 1904 and the end of last August--the
last month for which statistics are available--the number of natives
on the producing mines of the Rand had increased by 19,000, or an
average increase of 1,355 a month. Does any man here for a minute
really believe that if no Chinese had come here at all the gentlemen
controlling the mines would not have done exactly the same from June
1904 to August 1905, as they did from June 1903 to June 1904? Does any
one believe that in the latter period, as in the former period, they
would not have managed to bring an average of a hundred more stamps
into operation, and into the producing mines, for every 1,085 natives
at least that they added to their force of native labour? If they had
merely added on 100 stamps for every 1,085 natives, as they did up
to June 1904, do you know how many stamps would have been working in
August 1905? They would have had 6,503 stamps at work. Do you know how
many they actually had at work? They had 6,845 stamps at work, or a
paltry 342 stamps more than if no Chinese had ever been imported!"
But the Kaffir could not be forced to work. There was nothing to
prevent him from throwing up his employment when he had earned
sufficient money and was returning to his kraal. The only chance,
therefore, so the Rand lords argued, of acquiring the voteless and
subservient labour that they wanted, was to get Chinese labour.
The Chinaman is certainly voteless, but he has proved far from
subservient--far less subservient than a Kaffir.
Belonging to a more intelligent race, the child of an old though
dormant civilization, he has known exactly how to deal with his
masters. Of the gold extracted from the mines so much goes to wages
and so much goes to dividends; the wages are spent in the country, the
dividends are spent in Europe. Raise wages and you will render South
Africa prosperous; lower wages and you will denude South Africa.
The Chinese policy of so-called economy has ruined the small trader,
and turned the main stream of South African gold to Park Lane, Paris
and Berlin, with a thin stream to China. This country, which has given
so much for the Transvaal, has benefited least by the gold mines.
The Kaffir does nearly 50 per cent. more work than the Chinese coolie,
and Mr. Cresswell has proved that for the actual work of mining it is
better to employ a white man than a Kaffir. These are not fanciful
deductions, but indisputable facts proved finally and conclusively.
For almost two decades now the gold fields of South Africa have been
the most potent force in English society, a force more for evil than
for good. It is probable that we have lost more money in wars which
are the direct result of the gold fever than we have ever made from
the gold mines. If we were to estimate the cost of maintaining a large
military force in South Africa, the financial effect of the unrest
which existed in the pre-war period, the serious effect of the Jameson
Raid on the money market, the £250,000,000 that we spent on the war,
the millions that we have spent since in the work of repatriation, if
we were to compare these figures with the amount of wealth extracted
from the Rand, and made a simple profit and loss account, it is highly
probable that we should find ourselves very considerably out of pocket.
And yet, as if hypnotized by the glamour of gold, we continue to treat
the mine owners as if they were some particularly favoured class. We
continue to submit to their dictation, which has proved so ruinous in
the past, and we deliberately disregard the voices of the whole Empire
in their favour. Such a policy is neither good sense nor good business.
The introduction of Chinese labour into the Rand on the top of all
these grave financial and economical failures cannot be distinguished
for a moment from madness. It would seem, indeed, that we were
deliberately bent on destroying the Empire for the sake of the Jewish
and un-British houses in Johannesburg. "He whom the gods intend to
destroy they first make mad," is an ancient proverb, which seems
strangely applicable to those gentlemen who are responsible for the
management of our vast Empire.
They say here in Britain that the stories of gangs of murderers roaming
over the Transvaal are so many political fairy-tales, the result of
party feeling, the usual bait for the hustings, the stalking-horse to
bring into office one set of men and to throw out of office the other.
They say that the objection of the British public to Chinese labour
is a matter of hypocritical sentiment; that they really have none of
those fine ideals which they pretend to; that they have no passion for
liberty and freedom and the rights of man. Is not the Chinaman better
off than he is in his own country?
Such casuistry would justify the beating to death with the knout in
this country of a black criminal, because in his own country capital
punishment was carried out by the more cruel process of burying him
alive in an ant-heap to be eaten by the ants in the heat of the African
sun.
It has brought terror and fear into the Transvaal. And terror and fear
breed passions and vices which are a danger to every social community.
It emphasizes the cruelty and cunning in a man's nature. It destroys
in him that kindliness and sympathy--those "virtues of the heart," as
Dickens used to call them--which in spite of all are still noble and
fine sentiments to cherish.
Professor James Simpson, of New College, Edinburgh, who lately visited
South Africa with the British Association, takes the view, I see, that
ere long the more evilly-disposed among the Chinese will have been
worked out of their ranks, and the whole body will settle down to
"strenuous, if automatic, labour." It is devoutly to be hoped that such
will be the case, but up to the present there is nothing to indicate
that it will be so. On the contrary, everything points to the fact that
the Chinaman, emboldened by his successful efforts at checkmating the
representatives of law and order, will perpetrate fresh outrages with
increased impunity, and that the last phase of the yellow terror will
be worse than the first.
I had just written the foregoing when, happening to pick up an evening
paper, the following Reuter message from Johannesburg, dated November
3, caught my eye:--
"CHINESE SECRET SOCIETY ON THE RAND.
"_Johannesburg_, November 3.
"Evidence given at the trial here of some Chinamen charged with
being concerned in the disturbance at the New Modderfontein Mine,
disclosed the existence of an organized secret society among
the Chinese called the 'Red Door,' the object of which is the
committal of crime. The members, who are all of bad character,
are sworn to render each other assistance. The authorities are
breaking up the society and repatriating the ringleaders."
What has His Grace of Canterbury to say to this?
I have seen in a recent election in England a poster evidently intended
as a counterblast to the posters issued by the Opposition. It is a
poster, in which Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman is addressing an English
miner, while in the distance two happy Chinamen grin pleasantly in the
clean, well-laid-out mine. Says Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in effect,
"My dear man, these men are robbing you of your labour." "Not at all,"
replies the white miner, "for every batch of these yellow men one white
man is employed."
This is intended as a defence of the statement made by Lord Milner
on March 20, 1904, who then stated that he was prepared to stake his
reputation on the estimate that for every 10,000 coloured labourers
introduced there would be in three years' time 10,000 more whites in
the country. In effect, the implication underlying this statement was,
of course, that for every yellow man introduced, one white man would
come into the country and find employment.
Six months later--on September 5, 1904--the Colonial Secretary replied
as follows, to a correspondent who wrote asking him whether it would be
now advisable for a man to go out to the Transvaal.
"Mr. Lyttelton," so ran the answer, "would certainly not advise any one
to go out without a definite prospect of employment."
So far from 50,000 white men finding employment in the Transvaal since
the introduction of 50,000 Chinamen, the proportion is thousands below
this number, and not even the poverty-stricken state of Poplar or
West Ham can compare with the impecuniosity to be met with at every
street corner of the Gold Reef City. There are thousands of men in
South Africa who have been lured there by the prospects of the Rand
in a daily state of destitution. The streets of Johannesburg are
crowded with unemployed. The evil seeds of poverty and destitution
have been scattered throughout the length and breadth of South Africa.
Business in Durban is in a parlous condition. In Cape Town there are
thousands of absolutely destitute men, women, and children who have to
be provided for weekly out of funds now almost exhausted. Night after
night these unfortunate wretches are compelled to sleep on the mountain
slopes, whether it be winter or summer, and quite recently a man was
found on one of the seats in the Public Gardens in such a state of
starvation--for he had tasted nothing for five whole days--that he
died an hour and a half after.
This is the boasted prosperity which was to have come to the country
through the introduction of Chinese labour. And yet Mr. Balfour writes
to Mr. Herbert Samuel on November 22--_vide_ the correspondence in
_The Times_--that he can see "nothing in the condition of things to
induce the Government to reverse a policy which was recommended by an
overwhelming majority in the Transvaal Legislative Council, with the
approval of the great bulk of the white population."(!)
Many attempts have been made to justify the pledge made by Lord
Milner, that for every 10,000 introduced, 10,000 white men would find
employment. This is a side of the question which was admirably put by
Lord Coleridge in May last:--
The Government's policy seems to be that of the mine owner, or
rather to serve that of the mine owner--to get labour as cheaply
as possible, and, above all, to keep out the white man for fear he
should grow independent. Mr. Lyttelton, speaking at Exeter on May
5, said:--
"The result of the introduction of Chinamen has been that 3000
white men are employed on the mines in addition to those that were
employed before the introduction of that labour, and the result
is that, in round figures, £500,000 has been received by British
artisans."
And so on. That is a completely misleading statement. I say,
and I think I shall show, that the employment of Chinese has
led to a decrease in the amount of white labour employed. Take
the year from June 1903 to June 1904. The proportion of white
men to Kaffirs during those twelve months remained practically
stationary, at one in six, in round figures. On March 31,
1905, which is the date of the last Return we have, there were
105,184 Kaffirs working in the mines, and at the proportion of
one-sixth there would have been 17,530 white men. But the number
of white men employed at that date was only 16,235. Following
that proportion, if the Chinese had not arrived we should have
had at least 1300 or 1400 more white men employed than there are
now. In addition to that there are over 34,000 Chinese employed
not represented by a single white man, and Lord Milner does not
hold out any hope that the proportion of white men to coloured
labourers will in future be greater than one in fourteen.
Crime and outrage are all that this degrading policy of Chinese slavery
has brought to the country. There is an old text that says, "Be sure
your sins will find you out." But rarely does it happen within the
space of a year and a half, that a national crime meets with its reward.
Immediately after the war one could not say that the Transvaal was
peopled by a happy, industrious community, but it was a veritable
heaven compared with the Transvaal of 1905; a veritable paradise of
plenty. This has been the social effect of the importation of Chinese
labour. The political effect is quite as serious.
It has been said that the ultimate object of our rule in South
Africa is the federation of all the states of South Africa into one
commonwealth. It was the dream of Cecil Rhodes that South Africa should
take her place among the commonwealths of the Empire. A constitution,
such as exists in Australia at the present moment, was to be given to
South Africa. The states of Cape Colony, Natal, the Orange River Colony
and the Transvaal--all free, self-governing units--were to be welded
together into one great self-governing Imperial unit. The introduction
of Chinese labour in the Transvaal has rendered this impossible. Until
these Chinamen are repatriated there will be no commonwealth for South
Africa.
In the first place, one of the essentials for such a federation
would be that each state should be a self-governing colony. The mine
owner knows, and the Government of Great Britain must know by now,
that once self-government is given to the Transvaal, Chinese slavery
would be at an end. Therefore the mine owners, who really "boss" the
Transvaal, would take care to suppress any agitation in favour of
self-government. As they refused the referendum so will they refuse the
Boer and the Briton the right of free constitution. Hence the granting
of responsible government to the Transvaal is deferred, and hence the
federation of South Africa is postponed indefinitely.
Again, Cape Colony would never consent to the federation of the
Transvaal unless the Chinese labourers were repatriated. They have
stated their opinion in no uncertain language. They would have no
desire to enter into a partnership arrangement with a community which
was hampered with such a grave social problem as Chinese labour. The
Transvaal has done harm enough to Cape Colony, without adding this last
straw to the load of evil which the gold mines of the Rand have bred
for her.
This is one of the Imperial political disasters resulting immediately
from the importation of Chinese labour.
There is another Imperial consideration even more serious.
No one can read the protests sent to the Colonial Office by the great
self-governing colonies that fought in the war, without realizing the
gravity with which such a breaking away from the traditions of the
Empire has been received by these colonies. Had we known it was to be
war for the Chinese miners, the appeal made to Australia for men and
arms would have had a very different effect. This is the substance of
Australia's protest. Sentiment is a thing easily destroyed. Not even
the Government, I think, can realize the indignation felt in Canada,
Australia, and New Zealand by the Indentured Labour Ordinance. It
should have been the policy of the Imperial Government to foster the
tie that binds all the units of the Empire together. Mr. Chamberlain
has voiced this opinion times out of number; our Imperial bards have
sung it. The Government, which has always boasted that it was more
Imperial than the Opposition, more wrapped up in the honour and the
greatness of the Empire, has made this sentiment a commonplace in every
election speech. And yet they have done more to destroy this bond than
any other party in the state.
Again, some attention should have been paid to the Dutch problem in the
Transvaal. No attention was paid to it. We hear little now of the war.
The Transvaal might have been ruled from the beginning by the British
Government. Now and again the English papers mention casually the once
familiar name of General Botha as having addressed the Het Volk. But
the Dutch problem is never considered at all in England by the great
men of the people. And yet it is a very vital and important question.
Next to the native question it is, perhaps, the most vital question
with which South Africa has to deal.
Throughout South Africa the Boers are to-day the most thrifty, the most
industrious, and almost the most agricultural section of the community.
Of their ability in war we have had a long experience. Of their courage
and patriotism we gained a knowledge at a great cost. They outnumber
the English population in the Transvaal and Cape Colony. And South
Africa will never be absolutely secured to the British Empire until the
proportion of Boers to the total white population is reduced.
It should have been the object of the Government, immediately after the
war, to pack the Transvaal with Englishmen, to act as a counterbalance
to the Boer population. This would have been a dangerous experience if
there was no excuse for introducing such a large number of Englishmen.
But the excuse was to hand. A splendid opportunity of reducing the
population of the Boers to the total white population occurred at the
re-opening of the mines. Increased use of white labour in the mines
would have given to the Transvaal that preponderating majority of
Britons which the safety of the Empire demands. The home Government did
not take that opportunity, and South Africa has been left in exactly
the same dangerous condition as she was after the war.
Instead of performing this obvious duty to the country, the Government
listened to the objections of the mine owners to swarming the country
with white labour, upon the grounds that they would prove a disturbing
element socially and politically, and agreed to the importation of the
Chinamen.
There is yet another grave political aspect of this deplorable problem.
As the British people are apt to forget that the Boers outnumber the
Britons in the Transvaal, so they forget, when considering the problem
of South Africa, that there is a vast population of natives within our
territory.
These black tribes are utterly demoralized, and, it is recognized, by
the war of the white man against the white man, and certain causes
which could not have been foreseen, have increased the unrest and
lawlessness.
From Lagos to the Cape the same story has been told for the last two
years: that the black man is growing restive under the white man's
rule, that the white man is losing rapidly that superstitious authority
which up till then he had always carried with him. The cause of this
is the utter failure of the Germans to bring the war in Damaraland
to a successful conclusion. The continued successes scored by the
Hereroes have undoubtedly set aflame the ambitions of the black tribes
throughout the south-west coast and inland. In some cases it has been
fomented and worked up by Mahommedan and Ethiopian missionaries. In
addition to these disturbing elements the death of Lerothodi, the
paramount chief of Basutoland, has increased the natives' restlessness.
The spectacle of Chinese bands roaming the country, looting farms,
killing white men and raping white women has added to these symptoms of
native disaffection.
A rising among the Basutos--which more likely than not would be
followed by a general rising of natives throughout Swaziland, Zululand
and the Transvaal--would engage all our strength to suppress. We should
have to make use of the constabulary which is now with great difficulty
keeping under control the Chinese labourers. It is not hard to imagine
the terrible state of affairs that would result from such a rising.
While we suppress the black man the Chinaman would be left unguarded
and unpoliced free to desert and to commit outrages. Indeed, should the
Chinaman rise with the black man the safety of both Briton and Boer
would be in the gravest jeopardy.
These are the deplorable risks which are being run by maintaining in
the Transvaal some 50,000 Chinamen.
Financially the Chinamen have been a failure, a very grave failure.
Socially their importation has proved disastrous. Instead of bringing
wealth they have brought stagnation. Instead of bringing employment
for the white man they have brought destitution and abject poverty. In
introducing them it was recognized that some system must be devised by
which they could be prevented from mixing with the population. That
system has failed utterly and completely. They were to have brought
wealth; they were to have brought employment for the white man. All
they have brought is chaos. All they have done is to increase the
output of gold at a cost which has decreased instead of increasing
the mining companies' dividends. They have spread a terror throughout
the length and breadth of the Transvaal. Economically and socially
the policy proposed by the mine owners and forced upon the Government
has proved deplorable. Their introduction has been a grave Imperial
error which has aroused in the great self-governing Colonies anger and
indignation. It has already loosened the bonds which the common danger
of war had tightened.
Their continued stay in South Africa, and the continued introduction of
more coolies has given rise to the possibility of danger that is awful
to contemplate. The rising of the black man would leave the policing of
nearly 50,000 Chinamen in the hands of a few white men.
It is not too much to say that no greater sin against the ideals of
the British people, no more vicious and ruinous policy, has ever been
adopted.
THE END
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