Foiled in their attempt to get cheap black labour, threatened with an inundation of Englishmen, the cosmopolitan Rand lords tried to obtain the slaves they required from Central Africa. This was not a success. It was admitted by a speaker at a commercial meeting in Johannesburg in July 1903 that various experiments had been tried to get native labour, and that the best results had been obtained at the Robinson Deep, which paid 25 per cent. dividend. "They imported 316 natives from Central Africa only three weeks ago. So far only eight had died--(laughter)--but there were 150 in the hospital, and by the end of the month the whole will be in hospital. (Hear, hear.) They were coming in at the rate of thirty a day. These men cost £30 a head, and were not worth a 'bob' a head when they arrived. (Cheers.)" What were the mine lords to do? If only they were allowed they were quite prepared to employ slaves. Their amazing reduction in wages had not induced the Kaffir to come to the Rand. In the words of the native chief the natives did not like to go to Johannesburg, "because they went there to die." The majority at the Labour Commission had proved that if good wages and treatment were extended to the Kaffirs, hosts of natives would flock to the mines. But the Rand lords cared nothing about kindness, and they were determined to reduce wages. It was at this juncture that the question of Chinese indentured labour was seriously mooted. The black men were tired of being carted about in trucks, and herded like cattle, and beaten and maimed for life without any chance of compensation. It was said that the Chinaman was docile and tractable, and would work for practically nothing, with extremely little food, for as many hours as he might be requested. Chinese labour, therefore, it was decided to obtain. But the Rand lords had to proceed with guile. They did this country the credit to believe that any hasty determination to import thousands of Chinamen would have met with an outburst of popular indignation against which they could not have hoped to have stood firm. Forming a pretty accurate estimate of the leading passions that guide men's minds they determined to appeal to the cupidity of the Englishman at home. Their press began to pour forth a torrent of sobs over the lamentable decay of the gold industry in the Transvaal. The country was ruined, they said; the industry had gone to pieces. For ridiculous considerations of hypocritical morality the Rand, for which Great Britain had sacrificed so much, was to be made bankrupt. In a word, it was bankruptcy--or Chinese. They found many powerful supporters in this country. The trail of their wealth was on a section of the press, and that section echoed whatever principles it might please the cosmopolitan gentlemen of Johannesburg to give voice to. Even now one can recall the despairing moans of leader writers over the ruin that had overtaken the Transvaal.