MINES' TOLL OF LIFE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1837, 25 August 1913, Page 5

MINES' TOLL OF LIFE.

RAVAGES OF PHTHISIS.

DOOM OF THE ROCK DRILLERS,

To appreciate tho real seriousness of tho present industrial trouble in South Africa it is necessary to realiso that tlio miners—whose grievance looks compar.v tively trivial when it is merely stated as an objection to the disoliargo of five men whom tho employers offered subsequently to re-engage—pay a bigger price for their high wages than do any other class of workers in the world. In spite of tho improvements and precautionary measures which the mineowners have been called upon to observe in recent years, it remains a fa6t that tho mining of gold ill South Africa produces a mortality . roll which is simply appalling. Only a few months ago it was shown by tho latest statistics of tho Miners' 1 Phthisis Board that every day, including Sundays, eleven fresh cases of miners' phthisis had to be treated. The white underground workers in the South African mines number between 10,000 and 12,000; and (so it is re]K>rted by thoso on. ■ tho spot) there aro moro than 4000 now cases of miners' phthisis among them every year. It is among the rock-drillers that ( the highest mortality is found. ''Wihcn wo oomparo the methods in use in this district with those on tho Rand for getting the ore," said Dr. Thomas Oliver, of Newcastle, reporting on his examination of men. returned from tho Transvaal somo years ago, "we find iu South Africa a harder stone, greater depthi of mines, higher temperatures, longer hours, and, in addition, tho use of machine drills to an' extent unparalleled by anything in this country." "However healthy a Transvaal rockdrill man may appear to be on their return to this country," Dr. Haldanc told the Departmental Committee on Industrial Disposes in 1907, "he will probably bo dead'within a year or two." Miners' phthisis is said to be due to the inhalation of fine dust,, ivhich arises not merely from rock drilling without the accompaniment of water spraying, but also from tho blasting operations with explosives. Last year more than 1000 of 3000 men examined by the Medical Commission wero found to havo phthisis." No rock-driller could work in the mines for 1G years and escape it. Death took place as a rule before the age of 10. Here is a table which showed at that time how inevitable is the dcom of any man who undertakes this work:— Years of Percentage of Servioe. men affected. i H 25 ' 3J 40 •11 55 6| 70 ' 101 80 13* 90 ■ 151 100Conditions in tho mines are said to be particularly favourable to the spread of tuberculosis. Further, the death-rate from accidents, as Mr. J. Chilton pointed out in a paper ho read before a gathering of experts last year, has been higher in tlio South African mines than in those of any other part of the world. On every full working-day in 1910. three persons were killed and six injured in tlio mines of tho Transvaal. Tho accident 'deathrate at that' time was as high as 10.23 per 1000. In the House of Assembly on May 28 the Minister of Mines gave some startling figures. During the ten years ended December 31, 1912, of thoso employed in the Transvaal mines 52,205 natives died and 16,556 were killed or injured in accidents. Between 1907 and 1912, 32,103 natives were sent to their homes unfit for work. In 1900, 6900 men died at the mines of pulmonary disease alone. In the compounds of the Witwatersraud Native Labour Association (according to "The South African-Friend") thti"' death rate of tropical, natives has risen from i 70 per thousand last year to 115 ill i January,, 117 in February, and 118 per thousand in March.

"No less than 10,000 people die in these mines every year—people in the prime of life and health." Mr. Merriman has said,

Some of the refornis demanded recently wero these: That every human being must be out of the mine before a single hole is fired; that the holes must then be fired by electricity, not necessarily all at once; that for tho next twelve hours after blasting not a man should return underground, the ventilating fans meanwhile renewing every particle of air in tho mine; and that the contract sysrora should lie nbolished and the eight houra' day adopted.