Lionel Phillips

“ In addition to the distribution of money in wages, and for commodities consumed, the general revenue of the country, partly through the tax on profits, and partly through the railway system, which in South Africa is used to some extent as a means of taxation, benefits by an expansion in the mining operations. The cost of living is abnormally high, and the only hope of a very material reduction lies in the development of the internal resources of the country, and the establishment of local industries for which the conditions are favourable. ”

“ The results obtained in the past cannot be taken as any criterion for the future, because the discovery and working of minerals have created markets that were non-existent in the old days. In South Africa mineral wealth is the pioneer that furnishes a reason for, and will more and more supply the means of, establishing industries to support the growing population in the distant future when the mines cease to produce. ”

“ Apart from direct and indirect employment, the mining operations furnish good markets for the farmer, and an outlet for the products of the British manufacturer. Every new mine that starts, and is able to give employment to, say, 2,000 hands, has a beneficial effect upon the county, generally quite disproportionate to the persons directly engaged. It is, therefore, of great importance to South Africa that the cost of winning gold should be as low as possible, in order that ore of low value may be brought within the sphere of profitable manipulation. ”

“ South Africa needs, above all things, a larger white population, which is, at present, only about one-fourth of the numerical strength of the coloured people. The gravity of the position is illustrated by comparison with the United States, where, in spite of there being six white to every coloured man, the latter constitutes a serious social problem. ”

“ SOME ASPECTS OF THE MINING INDUSTRY IN SOUTH AFRICA
By LIONEL PHILLIPS
Nature is very capricious in the distribution of her favours. In some lands she has been bountiful in concealing treasures beneath the earth, as well as in so arranging the climatic conditions and the composition of the soil that the surface is a means of producing boundless wealth. In California, for instance, the fruits of the earth more than compensated for a declining mineral production. ”

“ The virgin lands of Canada are so favourable to wheat-growing that they offer attractions to agricultural settlers without any of the speculative allurements which precious stones or precious metals dazzle before the eyes of the emigrant. ”

“ The presence of a large black population results in the whole of the manual labour, in which mere muscular energy counts, being performed by the inferior race, white men occupying positions as overseers and skilled artisans. In this respect South Africa is not, and never will be, a white man's country in the same sense that England is. ”

“ It is impossible within the limits here assigned to the subject of mining to discuss the labour question, but it may be briefly stated, as a fact, that white men will not, unless driven by sheer necessity, undertake work which they regard as belonging to the sphere of the Kaffir, and, if they would do so, it would be extremely injurious to the prestige of the white races. ”

“ Claim licenses are held upon ground in which it would be necessary to sink from 8,000 to 10,000 feet before striking the reefs; and although this depth is greater than any at which successful mining operations have hitherto been carried on in the world, it is reasonable to expect that greater depths will be successfully reached in that region than in any other part of the globe, because the temperature of the earth, so far as tests at present indicate, only rises one degree for every 208 feet sunk, whereas the average in other parts of the world is about one degree for every 65 feet. ”

“ Besides diamonds, gold, copper, and coal, a small quantity of tin is now coming from the Transvaal, and a great many other minerals have been proved to exist in South Africa, whether or not in payable quantities remains to be proved. Large deposits of iron ore have been located in the Transvaal, and coal-beds proved in the same neighbourhood, so that in the future the working of that metal may be profitable ”

“ Certain it is, however, that much of the soil is capable of producing the staple commodities for man and beast, and nothing but a lack of enterprise or a little intelligent industry will stand in the way of the whole of the horses, stock, and sheep requisite for internal use being produced in South Africa. ”

“ Certain sections of the globe would assuredly have reason to complain at the way they have been treated if they had the power of making representations, notably some of the deserts and the icefields. There appears to have been as great a disparity in the endowment of the inanimate as of the animate world. ”

“ The conditions cannot change, and the country is destined to prosper or to languish under this system, because either the black man must be employed, if the civilizing mission of the white man is to be conscientiously pursued, or he must be driven away from the centres of labour into the wilds, where he can live in comparative idleness, as he did in days gone by. ”

“ The mining industry, besides giving direct employment to tens of thousands of men, indirectly supports hundreds of thousands more. In 1870 the total population of the Cape Colony and Natal was estimated at 860,000 souls. By 1887 it had grown to 1,860,000, and according to the census returns of 1904 the population had swollen to 3,518,558. This result is naturally not solely attributable to the mining industry, as it includes the natural increase among the natives, and was partly due to other industries ”

“ By supplementing the available supply of native labour by about 40,000 Chinamen, the output is now larger than it was before the war, general business has improved, and the field for the white wage-earner has become widened. Before the Labour Importation Ordinance was passed, however, merchants realized the mistake they had made by securing excessive stocks in 1903, and the result was manifested in a very serious falling-off in the imports for the following year. ”

“ In that case, no doubt, it would be possible to carry on the mining industry exclusively with white labourers, but so long as the black man occupies his present position in the industrial life of the country, the white man will not be found doing the same class of work. ”

“ The noteworthy rise in the imports for 1903 was occasioned by the belief on the part of merchants that the mines of the Transvaal would soon be worked at the pre-war rate of speed, and that a rapid further expansion with a commensurate effect upon general trade could be looked for. The inadequacy of the manual labour supply rendered that impossible, and resulted in a severe commercial depression. The ranks of the unemployed became swollen, and the country was in a parlous state. ”

“ The geological conditions do not in any way indicate that the limit of the beds is confined to the proved sixty-one and a half miles, and besides the Witwatersrand, there are a great many districts in the Transvaal where profitable mining is carried on to some extent, and where vast bodies of gold-bearing ore are known to exist, of which the yield is not, however, sufficiently high to leave a profit under existing conditions. ”

“ Under a progressive administration the counsels of science are now being taken, and indications are not wanting of increasing activity and success in rural industries. The rainfall over a large portion of the country is by no means inadequate, but it comes usually in heavy, fitful storms, and no attempt to impound it to any extent has yet been made. ”

“ In years to come the skill of the civil engineer will doubtless do much to remedy this evil, and the staff of bacteriologists, chemists, and highly-trained agriculturists will minimize where they do not entirely overcome the physical disadvantages. ”

“ South Africa, for instance, in regard to whose mineral wealth the following observations are made, had not, up to the discovery of diamonds, offered any great attraction to the surplus people of the overcrowded communities of Europe. In 1868 the imports and exports of Cape Colony and Natal combined were, respectively, £2,278,566 and £2,578,647. ”

“ Agricultural and pastoral pursuits may be said to be in their infancy for a great variety of reasons. Prior to the development of the mines there were no markets for the products of husbandry, in addition to which pests, blights, droughts, and hail-storms have stood in the way. ”

“ But apart from this aspect of the case, the race differences between the Dutch and the English would lose much of their significance if a stream of Europeans continued to flow into the country, because their survival is far more likely to be sustained by the struggle for political ascendancy than by the perpetuation of animosities due to past events. ”