With the British Association in Africa. 25 



On the whole, I gathered that the mine managers preferred 

 Kaffirs, but the Chinese importation has brought the Kaffirs to a 

 more reasonable frame of mind, and they are more easily dealt 

 with, both by the mine-owners and farmers in the country. If the 

 Chinese were sent home it is reasonable to suppose the Kaffirs 

 would hold out again for higher pay from both managers and 

 farmers. It has been said that if high pay were offered it would 

 produce a larger supply of Kaffir labour. Probably it would 

 ultimately do just the reverse. The Kaffirs are naturally easily 

 contented and disinclined to work, so the Kaffir " boy " merely 

 works long enough to earn sufficient to pay his hut tax and to 

 purchase a couple of oxen, which he can exchange for a wife, who, 

 according to the custom of his country, will do all the hard work 

 at home. High pay would enable him to cease working sooner, 

 a result seen after the high wages paid him during the war. Yet 

 the native Commissioners reported that all over South Africa 

 270,000 more labourers were still needed. 



There is absolutely no question of competition between Kaffirs 

 or Chinese and white men. Both on account of the comparatively 

 small wages the mining, farming, and other South African industries 

 can afford, and the hard work in a hot climate, the white man 

 prefers to be the overseer, the clerk, the responsible " boss." As 

 a matter of fact, according to Sir George Farrar, the importation 

 of Chinese gave employment to 4,000 white men. 



As to the cry that the Chinese were in slavery, I must confess 

 I do not understand it. It is scarcely polite to the Emperor of 

 China to assume he would permit it. Mr. Douglas Blackburn, 

 ex-assistant editor of the " Johannesburg Daily Express," writing 

 to the " Times " recently, stated that, while at first there was 

 injustice by incompetent compound managers, the Chamber of 

 Mines took steps to remedy the evil, and now the treatment of 

 Chinese was luxurious, compared with that meted out to the Kaffirs 

 under the old regime, but Mr. Blackburn could not induce the 

 Liberal English papers to ventilate Kaffir grievances. Why this 

 touching sympathy for the Chinese in their comparative luxury ? 



