RAND MINERS' STRUGGLE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1857, 17 September 1913, Page 5

RAND MINERS' STRUGGLE.

NO REDRESS AFTER, YEARS OF SUFFERING. A South African correspondent of the "Westminster Gazette" describes tho long struggle of the Rand miners for better conditions, which has culminated in the present crisis. For years, says the miter, a subterranean struggle has been going on between the miners and the mine-owners. A critical stage was reached last year. Tho miners, as was their right under the, Industrial Disputes Prevention Act. demanded that the jGovernment should appoint a Conciliation Board. After the owners had agreed, though under protest, a board was appointed. It sat, took evidence, _ and deliberated, but the result was "just plain, blank emptiness," liono of the men's grievances being redressed. Among tho demands of the miners is the repeal of tlie Industrial Disputes Prevention Act, of which ono minor declared nearly a year ago: "It says that we must do all wo can to avoid a strike before going on the warpath, and iu all conscience we have done our best.''

Another grievance of the men concerns tlio contract system, under which most of the work underground is dono. By it the work is let out to a contracting miner at certain rates, out of which ho pays white and native assistants and buys dynamite and so on. Tho writer states that tho rates have been cut to sudli an extent that many cases occur of men being in debt to the company instead of earning money. The men, therefore, demand a minimum wage. Apart from the death toll exacted by phthisis, tho "Rand has a record equalled only by Mexico in its deadliness" in regard to accidents. Tlie statement that tlie Rand miners are among the highest paid in the world is described as a "contemptible distortion of the truth. . . • The president of the Mine Managers' Association, speaking a few months' ago, pressed for better housing for young ina,tried miners— there are no old tlie very dofinite plea, as lie put it, that 'there are ample numbers of them living in comparative poverty."