Firstly, by the fact that the mass of speculators, company-controllers,
and their shareholders are Jews, Englishmen, Americans, or
Continentals, wholly non-resident in South Africa, or residing here
merely while they make sufficient wealth to ensure their retirement
to a life of ease and luxury in Europe, or, in the case of ambitious
Englishmen, till they are enabled, by means of their wealth, to enter
the English Parliament or obtain titles. From this fact it follows
that a decrease in the wages of our native labouring-class and an
increase in dividends, while it makes larger the number of yachts on
the Mediterranean, the palaces of Jewish and other parvenus in London
and on the Continent, and while it increases the gains of the tables at
Monte Carlo and of the racing grounds of England, and replenishes the
purse of debilitated and degenerate English aristocrats, yet not only
adds _nothing_ to the material wealth of South Africa, but positively
diminishes those very small returns which, under existing legislation,
is all she receives from her mines. European skilled miners and
overseers, as a rule, take their extensive earnings back to Europe
with them; and, with the exception of what the Government railways may
earn, it is mainly through the wages of the native labourer, expended
in buying the necessaries of life, and to no inconsiderable extent in
supporting his schools and churches, that the legitimate commerce of
the country and its general population are benefited by its mineral
wealth. Thus, on this all-important point, our native problem, which
is also our labour problem, differs materially and most essentially
from the labour problem of Europe, in that it is not merely a question
of dividing the wealth of the country between one class or another (as
is generally the case in Europe and America), but of retaining the
products of the land in the land of all.
It has been said by a leading speculator and millionaire in South
Africa that, if the States of South Africa could be broken down and
crushed into one, a united and uniform labour system might then be
adopted, and the wages of natives brought down; and he has held up
as an ideal for imitation the condition in India where natives are
supposed to labour for twopence a day, living therefore so closely
upon the border of starvation that the slightest rise in the price of
foodstuffs renders them liable to widespread famine and destruction,
and therefore also eager to accept the smallest amount of remuneration
which will maintain life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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