The Chinese Question by Mae Ngai

Author:Mae Ngai
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2021-07-10T00:00:00+00:00

THROUGHOUT 1905 the mining companies and industry observers lauded the introduction of Chinese labor on the Rand. The recruitment of cheap, unskilled Chinese labor had solved the problem of labor shortage, restored profits to prewar levels, and enabled the expansion of deep-level mining operations. By the spring of 1905, the Engineering and Mining Journal reported that working costs on the Rand had dropped two to three shillings per ton from prewar levels and that the “margin of profit is such and the scale of working is so great that [the deep-level] mines on the Rand are today paying out in dividends fully 30% of their total output.”19

These achievements came at the price of a worsening crisis of labor discipline and social control. A number of factors made containment difficult: relentless pressure to maximize production; ineffective Chinese policemen; and political sensitivity to charges of “slavery.” Mine managers and colonial authorities in South Africa grappled with the exigencies posed by the first two factors, whereas the colonial secretary in London considered the latter problem paramount. The differences in priority created rifts between London and Johannesburg that reflected growing tensions within the empire between imperial interests and those of the white settler colonies, tensions that had already led to the Australian colonies to seek autonomy as a federated dominion.

Lord Elgin, a Liberal who succeeded Lyttelton as colonial secretary in 1905, was especially defensive about the outcries in Great Britain about “Chinese slavery” in South Africa. He refused proposals from Johannesburg that seemed to violate the individual rights of laborers, at least the most blatant ones. He also made some proposals of his own, aimed at quashing charges of slavery, in particular that Chinese laborers were detained in South Africa against their will. The press reported that Chinese labor recruits included artisans who were unaccustomed to manual labor and were unaware of the work that lay in store for them in the mines. Although the Ordinance of 1904 allowed for voluntary repatriation at the worker’s own expense (£17 6s., a considerable sum), it was said that many who wished to return home did not have the funds to do so. Elgin proposed that the government subsidize repatriation for any laborer lacking the funds to do so on his own. He believed such a provision would eliminate, “in one stroke,” all accusations that the British were keeping Chinese on the Rand against their will.20

Mine managers reacted with alarm, predicting a mass exodus from the mines and collapse of the industry. Taking a different tack, Jamieson said that the laborers would interpret the proposal as a trick to undermine their contracts and send them home against their will. He believed it was impossible to convey the sincerity of Elgin’s motives to the “suspicious Oriental mind.” All those actually desiring repatriation, he added, would claim they had no funds. Finally, Elgin and Selborne agreed to a policy that gave the appearance that no one would be kept against his will, while shifting the question of assistance to a case basis.

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