The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-08-24

NzAARA7Lai SHlaiAA a ' Elaeaazztn ----===-=>----.--.---- -=>---.---.---- labor The day of the native as q skilled worker is approaching. It is seen on the mines. Where the ratio was once one white to five or six col ored, it is now one to twelve or thir- teen It is difficult to blame the mine managers. European shareholders have demanded reduction of work ing costs; additional capital cannot be secured unless the attraction of biz profits is held out
 So the policy is this: Increase tbe efficiency of cheap colored labor. and decrease the number of expensive white overseers and supervisors. There IS no question about this policy being enforced. Witness after witness be- fore the mining industry commits sion has admitted it. Already there is an agitation calling upon the gov ernment to fix the ratio by act of Par lament to insist upon the emplov- ment of a certain number of white men by law--a revolutionary principle | to admit.
 Added to this is the disastrous ef- rect or the strike. The Afrikander at los day is underground; the Cornish miner who used to draw anything be- tween 50 pounds and 150 pounds a month is walking the streets idle The Afrikander spends as little as possi- ble on the Reef, His money goes to the veldt
 Thus the proces of attrition goes on. Miners with money have left for England; men with salaries reduced have sent their families home, and live as cheaply as possible. These things in turn mean further cutting down and retrenchnent in the shops and business, and still more workers and clerks are unemployed. The money circulating monthly must have fallen off thousands of pounds-hun- dreds of thousands of pounds. Ev- erything has fallen off. Architects and lawyers, doctors and engineers, trades people and hawkers-all alike ,,om- plain Compare the advertisement pages in the Rand papers to-day with those of 1903, and tho tremendous extent of the slump" is seen. News papers which printed IS to 24 pages a day have dropped to ten or twelve--- and they look very thin.
 Nor is it easy to find grounds for hope of an early improvement. Even native labor is found to be adequate, and a,few more mines are opened, the new policy must reduce the number of white laborers needed to a minimum. The colored man is doing the white mans work more and more.
 The position is really serious. If the tendency goes on, what chance is there of building up white nation, q white mans country in South Africa :? A people must have work. If the black man and eolored man are to do the work there can be no room, for more than a certain number of white overseers. South Africa must inevit- ably resemble the West Indies rather than Australia or Canada.
 But let not the shareholder or in lvestor in Europe be depressed. The prospects. of immense dividends were never greater than to-day. Reduce the number of whites and increase the ef- ficiency of the colored and working costs will go down and dividends go lup. The investor need not trouble. It is the white people in South Africa, who have cause for anxiety; the 300,- 900 white children growing up in @ land which threatens to have no place for them.
 The problem is one of immense diff flculty. Economic laws, the seeking for labor in the cheapest markets, must inevitably mean the doom of the white worker under present conditions
 -the triumph of the half-cas and the Indian and the native. And with the busting of the white man depres- sion must continue. Johannesburg must dwindle. There are 6O,O00 whites here to-day--there, may be only 30, 900 in another five years if the new policy continues. That is why the gloom is so deep, the pessimism unrelieved.
 AS far as I can see, the only hope is for the white man to beat the na- tive and the colored man on their own ground. He must no longer despise "Kaff1rs work" He must be prepared to enter the ring and knock out his opponent by greater efficiency and in- tellisence
 To do so, wages must come down, the cost of living must be reduced, house rents must fall. The white man must prove that he is worth more than two or three natives, that it paws the employer better to have a few efficient whites than a dozen or two half-efficient colored men Un- less the white man will do this all over South Africa, the subcontinent must become the heritage of the black man. Unles he vii do this the Rand must dwindle until it has reach ed the level of Kimberley. There is no other way Johannesburg cannot grow, cannot do anything but dimin- ish, unless the white poulation, the u-l,tta consumers inpreasp And the