3i8 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



same effect being accomplished on neighbouring properties in a \\ ry 

 much simpler fashion. 



One of the means adopted on the Rand to obviate this waste of 

 thought has been the grouping of several mines under one Central 

 Administration. While undoubtedly centralization, when pushed to 

 an extreme, can have a deleterious effect in crushing out initiative and 

 reducing the sense of responsibility of the Manager, it has had, and 

 when wisely administered will continue to have, a most beneficial 

 effect in making the results of one experiment in any given direction, 

 whether positive or negative, immediately available to all the members 

 of the group, by aiding the Manager in all his difficulties with the 

 advice of another experienced and matured mind, thus substituli ig 

 the deliberative judgment of two men for the possible rash acts 

 of one. Centralization also allows the results achieved in any one 

 department of a mine to be compared on a uniform basis with rhe 

 results achieved in the same department on any other mine of the 

 same group. Thus while centralization saves the waste of thought 

 in experimenting and resolving problems already adequately disposed 

 of, it promotes thought in showing what other men have achieved in 

 the same line, for nothing gives cause for such quick and steady think- 

 ing as a comparison on a uniform basis which shows your own work in 

 an unfavourable light. Centralized management has also other 

 advantages which do not come within the range of our present 

 consideration, and which therefore I will not deal with now. 



Undoubtedly it can be pushed to such an extreme that its evils 

 outweigh its advantages. But these prejudicial effects are not 

 inherent in the idea of centralization ; thev are mere excrescences 

 which have been allowed to grow on the system, whereas the good 

 that can be achieved by the system is an integral part of the idea 

 on which it is founded. These inherent advantages give the central- 

 ized system a vitality by means of which it must survive any surgical 

 operation, however heroic it may be, necessary to cut away its 

 abuses. 



IT. — The Waste of Labour. 



The waste of labour is so easy and so universal in comparatively 

 new industrial enterprises that it is somewhat difficult to give really 

 striking examples that either startle by their magnitude or arrest the 

 imagination by their novelty. The muscular energy with which any 

 one man is endowed is a certain strictly limited amount ; but by the 

 exercise of his brains and the use of tools this energy may be multi- 

 plied by many thousand. Wherever man is utilized purely as a 

 source of muscular energy, there you will have to look for and you 

 undoubtedly will find, waste of labour. Here in South Africa, where 

 the division between labourer and overseer is so sharply accentuated 

 by the colour line, where the Kaffir forms such an exceptionally 

 powerful muscular machine and at the same time is supposed to be 

 so relatively cheap, the temptation to waste labour is tremendous, and 

 is I am afraid not alwavs successfullv combated. Not only does 



