PROTECTION TO MILLIONAIRES. Yellow or White Labour on the Rand—Which ?

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 134, 24 January 1903, Page 8

PROTECTION TO MILLIONAIRES. Yellow or White Labour on the Rand— Which ?

JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN is a commercial main, and when the Rand magnates wailed before him the other day that the employment of only white labour in the mines meant that there would be no profit for the poor, suffering millionaires, they probably thought they were talking to Chamberlain, the Birmingham screw lnerchant. The man who replied, however, is Chamberlain the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Imperial statesman, and guardian of the liberties of the King's subjects. It is cur ous indeed that this sturdy Imperialist did not grasp the golden opportunity, open his ear wide, to the wails of the millionaires buying largely into the Rand, and recommend Ohinar mem and Hindoos as likely to furnish them, as shareholders, with a larger profit. But, Chamberlain refused to become wax in the hands of the Rand moulders. He wants to find out detfimtelj whether the richest block of mines in the world are to) be rendered l-payable by allowing the men who saved them to work in them, and, in the meantime, the mililionairesr are not importing shiploads of Chinamen. Evidently, the Rand mine-owners are not a particularly grateful class of men. They forget that British and colonial arms saved their property from partial destruction that would have taken many years' profits to rectify. They forget that it is the avowed intention of the British Government to make the South African colonies British countries, and not a dumping ground for vari-col-oured aliens. They forget, too, *hat (Continued on page 16.)

the brothers ot the white men they .seek to spurn died to save the goid they are so niggardly with, and they forget everything except to squeeze, if possible, the last penny out of a country which lias seethed with wai partly through thendiscontent . It is a common error to suppose that South Africa is not a white mam's country — that a whute mam cannot perform laborious work there on account of the heat. The climate of Africa, is absolutely perfect, from a colonial's point of view. Africa does not suffer from the extreme heat of Queensland, where white men are engaged in the hardest of toil. It is not subject to droughts, or floods, and ifc is in all respects a country where a white man can compete as far as quality and quantity of manual 1 labour goes with the Kaffir, the Hindoo, or the Chinaman. The African and the Asiartic require to be driven — the whi^e man occasionally has ai conscience, which he uses with his arms. The presence of large bodies of stalwart white men would be a source of safety to Africa' — the presenjse of Asiatics a source of danger. They are cheap — and nasty — and the Rand mine-owners want them. The repulse- of the white miner, who fought for those mines, and the w elcoming of hordes of heathens, who ha>ve nothing to recommend them, but their lack of individuality and their dog-like docility, would make Africa a place to be avoided. The judicious employment of African natives is reasonable enough. A Kaffir as a. labourer is worth two Chinamen and four Hindoos, if the latter has any worth as a labourer at aiQ. The Kaffir is ever troublesome if he is not employed, and usually he is ai b'g, strong fellow, whose strength is wasted in picking quarrels with his neighbours. Also, there are millions of Kaffirs' m Africa, more easily obtainable than Chinese, of better physique, and less crafty. Besides, it is their native land, and they have a natural right to live in it, and to have their interests studied. ■*■ •* It is utterly absurd to allege that the Rand mines would not pay if every man engaged in them was white. It isi more than likely that South Africa is really to be a white man's; country — a country where the men. who- have helped to win i^ may find some recompense for their patriotism, and devotion. The action of the mine magnates, probaibly to be happily checked by the Empire's Pacificator, is not a particularly sweet-smelling one, and the chances are that, if aliens are to be introduced wholesale, the last state of that dark country will be a great deal worse than its first. But, iln British hands, we have no fears of that eventuality.