Contests over Labour in British Central African Colonies: 1935–1953

Abstract

Each of the parties involved in labour recruitment in Southern Africa had their own agendas. The mines’ recruiting agency wanted an expanded recruiting zone to guarantee a supply of labour. The British Colonial Office and its administrations wanted not only to collect the revenue that came from contracting labour to the mines but also to protect native interests. The Southern Rhodesian government wanted to give its mines and white farms access to cheap labour. The ILO was keen to promote labour rights and work safety. The South African government supported the mining houses; it also wanted to channel mine rejects onto farms in the Transvaal. During those contests for authority, the interests of the Nyasaland government and the mining houses often coincided. Those of Nyasaland and Southern Rhodesia rarely did. While there were constant references to returning miners suffering from tuberculosis in low-level correspondence, the risks to miners’ health from silicosis and tuberculosis were seldom mentioned in high-level meetings and documents. This chapter details some of the complex negotiations, with particular focus on the lifting of the ban on recruitment of tropical labour in 1938, and negotiations with the ILO and UN after the Second World War. Throughout, the superior negotiating power of the mining houses and their recruiting agency is highlighted.

As in South Africa and the HCTs, labour recruitment was the focus of smouldering tensions in Central African colonies. The interests and policies of the WNLA, the ILO, the government of South Africa, the British Colonial Office and the colonial administrations of Nyasaland (Malawi), Southern and Northern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe and Zambia) at times coincided, but frequently clashed. In charting a path through their complex negotiations, three issues stand out. There were constant references to tuberculosis and the lack of reliable statistics in low-level correspondence about returning miners. However, the risks to miners’ health from silicosis and tuberculosis, or the reliability of official morbidity and mortality rates, were seldom mentioned in high-level meetings and documents involving the Resident Commissioners or the Colonial Office. Finally, the underlying assumption that employers had the right to pay below-subsistence wages, and colonial governments the right to impose taxes on indigenous populations regardless of their ability to pay, was rarely challenged.

Although specific individuals and changing political and economic conditions made a difference to the ongoing contests, there were some constants. The WNLA wanted an expanded recruiting zone to guarantee a supply of workers without increasing wages. The British Colonial Office and its local administrations wanted to collect the revenue that came from contracting labour to the WNLA. They also hoped to protect native interests and be seen to observe international treaties. The ILO was keen to promote labour rights and work safety. The South African government supported the WNLA and in addition wanted to channel mine rejects onto farms in the Transvaal. The Nyasaland (Malawi) government often sided with the WNLA. However, it did not want its migrants to work on South African farms because the pay and conditions were poor and there were no capitation fees. Nor did it want men to seek work on Southern Rhodesian mines outside of the quota system. The administration of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) often seemed to agree with Nyasaland and oppose Southern Rhodesia. The Southern Rhodesian (Zimbabwe) government, in contrast, wanted secure access to cheap labour for its own mines and white farms.

The men contracted by the WNLA represented only a fraction of those moving south. A large proportion were assisted voluntary labourers (AVS) who found their own way to Johannesburg to work on scheduled mines.¹ There were others who, because of injury or age, were forced to seek work on small gold or asbestos mines. The least able ended up on white farms. The control of so-called clandestine labour added to the conflict between South Africa and the northern territories. From the mid-1930s, it was South African government policy to increase the supply of farm labour in the Transvaal.² White farmers were not only given access to those rejected for work in the mines but also hired illegals from the north.³ The recruitment of such men, who were willing to work for very low pay, had been declared unlawful by South African government Notice No. 2091 of 1924. However, the Native Affairs Department had not been able to exclude these workers from the Union.

With the end of the ban on the recruitment of tropical labour approaching, the mining houses’ most powerful negotiator, William Gemmill, stepped up his lobbying. In April 1937, he wrote to the Southern Rhodesian Secretary for Mines pointing out that the conditions of employment on the Rand were superior to those in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. ‘If, however’, he added, ‘the maximum number [of recruits] offered by each of the two Northern Governments concerned should be, in the opinion of the Chamber, too small, the object of the … industry would be better served by the engagement of suitable Natives who travel voluntarily to the Union in search of mining employment’.⁴ He repeated that threat to the Governor, Sir Herbert Stanley, with the proviso that if Southern Rhodesia agreed to an increase in recruiting from Nyasaland, the gold mines would not employ voluntary workers.⁵

All three Northern governments were keen to halt the unregulated flow of labour. A meeting of the Standing Committee on Migrant Labour in Salisbury in December 1937, attended by representatives from the Rhodesias and Nyasaland, noted that clandestine migration to South Africa had reached alarming proportions. Those present also agreed that the WNLA had not honoured its agreement regarding recruiting, and that it was instead encouraging voluntary labour to move south. The Committee recommended that the three governments approach South Africa to stop illicit migration.⁶ Despite that unified approach, the three territories had their own conflicts. Southern Rhodesia wanted 95,000 Nyasa for its own mines and farms and questioned the Nyasaland estimates of the number of workers available.⁷

Acting under the terms of the Salisbury Agreement (discussed in Chap. 5, pp. 7–9), in late August 1938 the three Northern governments filed a set of proposals with Pretoria. They wanted South Africa to exclude migrant workers who did not have identity certificates. In return, the Northern governments would not hinder the movement of legitimate workers to the Union. They also requested that after two years’ absence, men should be compelled to return home.⁸ The Secretary for Native Affairs in Cape Town, Mr D.L. Smit, replied that as all farmers and many mines in the Northern and Eastern Transvaal relied upon clandestine labour, there would be trouble if the flow was stopped. He suggested that the Union government could import contracted migrant labour from adjoining territories for employment on farms in the same way as the gold mines did. The Northern governments replied that under such an arrangement they would insist on conditions akin to those guaranteed by the WNLA, namely the fixing of wages, proper housing, rations and medical care.⁹ They knew well that white farmers would never agree to such high costs.

Following protracted negotiations, Mr Smit met with William Gemmill to discuss the proposal. Gemmill protested that the Northern governments were seeking to control the flow of labour to the Union and therefore to the mines. If the Chamber agreed, the mines would get the residue after Southern Rhodesia had been served. Smit was unsympathetic and noted that the mines could always, if they wished, get clandestine labour to make up their needs.¹⁰ Eventually, following representations from the white farming community, the South African government decided to issue clandestine workers temporary permits for employment on farms.¹¹ Southern Rhodesia was aware that labour was badly needed in the Transvaal and that restrictive measures would have political repercussions. White farmers would probably engage workers who had no permits, and even though that would be illegal, the South African government would hesitate to prosecute them.¹²

Southern Rhodesian Mines

Southern Rhodesia was unique among the Northern governments as both an exporter and an importer of labour. As an exporter Southern Rhodesia saw local men, attracted by the higher wages on offer, migrate to the Union mines. As an importer of labour from the north, the colony was limited by the relatively low wages it offered, and after 1936 by the Salisbury Agreement, which was designed to close the frontiers to the north. The Southern Rhodesian economy was reliant on gold mining, which by 1924 accounted for three quarters of its export revenue. Although rock mining was dangerous and work conditions oppressive in both countries, there were significant differences between Southern Rhodesian and South African mines. The Rand mines were much deeper and larger in scale and the host ore had higher silica content. They were also subject to state regulation and a compensation system that produced masses of data, factors which appealed greatly to the British Colonial Office and the ILO. In Southern Rhodesia, the ore bodies were poor, and the average output was far lower than on the Rand. The scale of mining and the composition of the workforce were also different. By 1920, there were 295 mines but only 8 were substantial.¹³ There were few white miners, and no powerful white trade union. State regulation was minimal, and flagrant abuses such as the non-payment of wages and the use of credit to defraud workers were common.¹⁴ The low wages and poor conditions on Southern Rhodesian mines were often cited by the WNLA to bolster its own claims to migrant workers. Those criticisms were justified. Between 1900 and 1933, over 30,000 miners lost their lives in Southern Rhodesia; of those, 27,000 died from disease. As in South Africa, the mortality figures did not include those who died home from disease contracted on the mines. Mine profitability, as Charles van Onselen and Ian Phimister have shown, was achieved through low wages and cost cutting on safety, compounds, medical care, food and compensation.¹⁵

Southern Rhodesia’s mines had perennial difficulty in securing labour; by 1906, they were almost a third below their requirements.¹⁶ Attracted by higher wages across the border, about 8000 men went to the Union each year. Their places were often taken by Nyasa.¹⁷ The labour shortages were resolved for a time by chibaro or forced labour, which van Onselen likens to slavery. Once chibaro ended in 1933, workers from Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia filled the gap. The migration of men from the north was accompanied by heavy loss of life from pneumonia and scurvy. Workers from Nyasaland often arrived weakened from their journey and fell ill when exposed to sudden chills at higher altitudes. Crowded compounds, combined with poor ventilation, provided the ideal conditions for the spread of pneumonia.¹⁸ In South Africa, the Departments of Public Health and Native Labour were large and complex organisations; many of their officials frequently sided with black workers. With the exception of the Director of Public Health, Dr Fleming, that was not the case in Southern Rhodesia. In official correspondence, black miners were referred to as ‘labour devices’, ‘labour units’ or ‘tax-paying units’. After 1923, Southern Rhodesia became a self-governing Crown Colony, and the Colonial Office acquired the ability to influence mining practices through regulating the migrant labour system. However, it chose not to do so.¹⁹

Conflicts Between Nyasaland and Southern Rhodesia

Mining practices were, however, a source of conflict between Salisbury and Zomba. On some pits, eleven- and twelve-hour shifts were common, and migrant workers were agitating for fixed hours of work. In December 1939, the Southern Rhodesian Minister for Mines complained to the Acting Governor of Nyasaland, K.F. Hall, about the protests. He was sure that neither the mining industry nor white farmers would ever consider such a proposal. Hall was unimpressed. He wrote to London: ‘There are now on the Nyasaland statue book various ordinances ameliorating conditions of native labour and if Southern Rhodesia continues to shun similar legislation it will be difficult to reconcile such conflicting policies under a scheme of amalgamation [into the Central African Federation]’. Hall noted that the recent improvements in the labour conditions in Southern Rhodesia were due to pressure from Nyasaland.²⁰

The return of sick and injured men from Southern Rhodesia was another contentious issue. In the first eight months of 1936, many of the more than 100 men medically repatriated to Blantyre were tuberculosis cases requiring isolation and prolonged care. The Senior Medical Officer, Dr Calleja, warned the Director of Medical Services that the lack of beds at the Blantyre Hospital meant those men were housed in general wards, which put other patients at risk.²¹ There was also a steady stream of men with traumatic injuries who were given neither medical care nor compensation. The repatriations provoked criticism from the Secretariat in Blantyre, the Department of Health and the Missions. The Rev W.P. Young of the Ekwendeni Mission in Mzimba held a public meeting to discuss the problem. Many men from the district had been injured on the Rhodesian mines but few had received adequate treatment or compensation. One villager, James Nyanguru, had lost three fingers and was dismissed without an award. Samson Zimba had his leg amputated after working only three days on a mine at Que Que. He was awarded £25 for total disability but given no crutches.²²

The Abraham (1937) and Burden (1938) Reports (discussed in Chap. 5, pp.9–14) brought no change to working conditions in Southern Rhodesia. The criticisms continued—as did the repatriations. In February 1941, eight repatriates from Salisbury were admitted to the Zomba African Hospital. Their injuries included paralysis of the upper and lower limbs, total blindness and the loss of a right arm. Four had tuberculosis. The Senior Medical Officer questioned why the tubercular cases had been sent on from Blantyre. Zomba had no specialist facilities and the most his staff could do was confirm an existing diagnosis. He complained to the Director of Medical Services that the repatriation system was chaotic and requested that the Southern Rhodesia authorities issue certificates of disability and verify what compensation, if any, had been paid.²³

Complaints from the Missions and the Zomba hospital finally provoked Mr Juxon Barton, a member of the Secretariat, to set out a list of recommendations for improving the repatriation system.²⁴ There was an urgent need for periodic examinations and for the treatment of men with lung disease. Men repatriated with miners’ phthisis should be compensated, and notification sent to the Nyasaland authorities so they could be monitored. Barton noted there were no sanatoria in Nyasaland, and it was undesirable that men with tuberculosis be admitted to general hospitals. The Secretariat in Blantyre wanted those men treated before repatriation. However, if the Southern Rhodesian government preferred not to assume that responsibility, perhaps it might agree to contribute to the creation and maintenance of a sanatorium in Nyasaland?²⁵ A month later, the Governor of Nyasaland, Donald Mackenzie-Kennedy, granted the Southern Rhodesian Chamber of Mines a permit to engage 2000 men from the Northern Province. In return, the Chamber paid a capitation fee of ten shillings per recruit and agreed to remit any outstanding government taxes from the miners’ wages. The contract made no reference to exit examinations, medical referrals or access to compensation.²⁶ By 1944, the estimated 21,000 Nyasa employed in Southern Rhodesia accounted for 30 per cent of the mines’ workforce.²⁷ Each year, a significant number of Nyasa died on the mines or were repatriated. Migrant workers were often discharged while seriously ill, and many perished before reaching home. Their surviving dependents rarely received compensation. Few mine owners complied with the Mines and Mineral Act of 1935, which required that all tuberculosis cases be reported to a District Magistrate.²⁸

The Framing of Public Knowledge

By the mid-1930s, a significant number of silicosis cases began to appear among white miners in Southern Rhodesia. Their plight led the Director of Public Health, Dr Fleming, to set up an enquiry.²⁹ The 1935 Report on Tuberculosis, Phthisis and Asbestosis found that black miners were often repatriated without a medical examination and that the lack of data made a review of lung disease all but impossible.³⁰ Many white silicotics were married men with dependent children, and the loss of employment plunged their families into poverty. In response, the government established a Silicosis Commission chaired by Dr Louis Irvine, Chair of the Bureau in Johannesburg.³¹

The Irvine Commission relied upon the mining companies and their medical officers for opinion and data; the only original research it cited was provided by the Salisbury Chamber of Mines. The Commission ignored black miners and found there was no serious hazard facing white miners, who as in South Africa only served in supervisory roles.³² The Commission report was tabled in 1938, but it took a further six years before a new Miners Phthisis Act was passed. The war was one reason for the delay. The other was the refusal of the mining companies to improve conditions or provide compensation. In the Commission’s report, as in the official correspondence, there was no suggestion that dust exposure was a problem.³³ Such omission was not due to lack of an alternative perspective. In 1940, a Northern Rhodesian government enquiry into silicosis on the local copper mines took a very different view. It found that silica dust exposure was a serious hazard and recommended regular X-rays and improved dust control measures.³⁴

The 1944 correspondence between Chief Secretary of Nyasaland, Lambert-Hall, and the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia encapsulates the differences between the two administrations regarding miners.³⁵ Lambert-Hall was concerned that healthy workers went south, and sick men returned home. He did not want invalid workers repatriated without treatment because they placed pressure on local medical services. To reduce the numbers, Lambert-Hall proposed compulsory examinations prior to employment and at discharge.³⁶ He also wanted pamphlets informing workers of the dangers of mining and of their right to compensation, prepared in various languages. The Chief Secretary was unimpressed by the proposed Southern Rhodesian Miners’ Phthisis Act, which offered lump sums well below those payable in South Africa for the same injuries. He was also concerned that although blacks constituted almost the entire mine labour force, there was to be no native representative on the Miners Phthisis Board which would decide compensation.³⁷ The Governor of Northern Rhodesia, E.J. Waddington, shared Lambert-Hall’s concerns. In 1941, a total of 36 Northern Rhodesians who had mined in Southern Rhodesia died; in 1944 that rose to 54. In only one case was compensation paid.³⁸ Waddington pointed out that the proposed Act compared poorly with what was available in Australia and South Africa. For example, the criteria for compensation were total disability, and proof of injury or liability was not open to appeal or independent review.³⁹

The Nyasaland government was represented at a Southern Rhodesian Enquiry into the Mining Industry held at the end of 1945. Its delegates referred to ‘the deplorable effect unrestricted migration was having on the social and economic system of the Protectorate and the misery and hardship endured by abandoned wives and children’.⁴⁰ During the previous year, approximately 40 per cent of able-bodied men were absent from the territory. The treatment of migrant labour on Southern Rhodesian mines, the delegates noted, was far worse than in South Africa. They wanted contracts of service limited to specified periods, exit medical examinations and a compulsory scheme of deferred pay. Those measures were in accord with the ILO Conventions to which Nyasaland subscribed but which were rarely honoured by Southern Rhodesian employers. Nyasaland’s presentations to the Enquiry brought no change. The oppressive conditions on Southern Rhodesian mines and the refusal of London to force improvements did, however, ensure that the WNLA remained an attractive employer to the Colonial Office.

In negotiating quotas, British Colonial Office never specified what it considered an acceptable annual number of deaths per thousand recruits, nor did it ask for detailed morbidity and mortality statistics. The WNLA data was usually crude, with categories changing from year to year. There were no details about the men concerned, the type of work they performed or the types of mines on which they were employed. During what were often protracted negotiations, neither did the Colonial Office ever request data on exit medicals, repatriations or compensation.

Labour Negotiations After the Ban on the Recruitment of Tropical Labour Was Lifted in 1937

As soon as the ban on the recruitment of tropical labour was fully lifted in 1937, the WNLA initiated new negotiations with northern administrations. Sir Harold Kittermaster, the Governor of Nyasaland, was aware of the Protectorate’s weak bargaining position. He also understood what his government stood to gain by contracting labour to the WNLA. Thirty thousand Nyasa going to the Rand would mean an extra income of £200,000 a year, most of which would be spent at home. At that time, the Protectorate’s total annual revenue was less than £450,000. Kittermaster was concerned by the efforts of the Southern Rhodesian government to compel Nyasa to accept lower wages, and in January 1938 he wrote in protest to its Governor, Sir Herbert Stanley. Kittermaster acknowledged that Nyasa labour was essential to small mines and white farms in Southern Rhodesia, but he was aware that the work conditions and the pay offered were inferior to those on the Rand. He was also concerned about the potential impact of uncontrolled recruiting by South Africa’s mines. ‘I am filled to the brim with terror at the prospect of a free flow of uncontrolled labour going to the Rand. Can the Prime Minister show me any effective way of opposing the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association’s economic dictation except by making terms with them? It has not done so yet.’⁴¹

Two months later, there was a meeting of the Governors of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland and the Chamber. They agreed that, as an experiment, 1000 Barotse and 4000 Nyasa be recruited by the WNLA. If the experiment proved satisfactory to those governments and the Secretary of State for the Colonies, further agreements could be reached subject to the Salisbury Agreement. The Governors of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland were, however, alarmed by the high death rates and wrote to Gemmill: ‘The figures submitted by the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association show a disquietingly high mortality rate, which is borne out by the result of enquires made from individual mines by the representative of the Northern Rhodesian Government’. As a result, the three governments would not agree to an extension until the experiment was ‘further developed’, presumably meaning until the mines became safer. In Northern Rhodesia, half of able-bodied men were already absent and there was no labour surplus as ‘the margin of safety [for preserving social life] had already been exceeded’. The three governors were adamant that as a condition for future recruiting, the WNLA must undertake not to encourage the flow of voluntary or clandestine labour. No concessions were made, but the prospect of financial benefit soon eclipsed the governors’ initial concerns about the death rates, which suddenly disappeared from the correspondence.⁴²

While the negotiations were taking place, Lord Dufferin toured the Johannesburg mines as a guest of the Chamber. He was greatly impressed: ‘The hospitals, even the old ones, are not over-crowded and the new one at the Sub-Nigel mine is the finest native hospital by far that I have seen’.⁴³ Dufferin noted that the death rate of Tropicals from pneumonia was double that of other miners, and he recommended that the Colonial Office bring pressure to bear on the Chamber to make the mines safer. He made no mention of dust, tuberculosis or repatriations.

Northern Rhodesia Negotiates with WNLA

In late October 1938, William Gemmill met with the Governor of Northern Rhodesia, J.A. Maybin, to discuss recruitment. The two men agreed that initial medical examinations would be conducted by a Northern Rhodesian government medical officer at a fee and that the WNLA would pay a commission of 1s for each month served by each recruit. The period of contracts was to be twelve calendar months. Finally, no man who had previously worked on the gold mines was to be recruited again until he had spent at least six months at home.⁴⁴ Having established that much common ground, the negotiations broke down over two issues. The first was what Maybin viewed as the unacceptably high mortality rate. As of 31 January 1937, the experiment with Barotse from Northern Rhodesia was 13 months old. According to William Gemmill, the death rate from disease for the Barotse was 14.83 per 1000 per annum: that compared unfavourably with the rate of 6.87 for other classes of recruits. However, as he pointed out correctly, the mortality amongst ‘tropical natives’ from Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland employed on Southern Rhodesian mines in 1935 was 15.90 and 18.22 respectively. During the same period, the annual death rate among all Tropical Natives employed on the South African mines was 14.14.⁴⁵

The second issue was who should pay for repatriation. While the WNLA had agreed to provide free transport to the mines, Gemmill was unwilling to pay return fares. He argued that the International Convention did not require such a payment. To provide free repatriation would involve all those territories from which the gold mines drew labour and would cost the mines £500,000 per annum. According to Gemmill, the wage rates were fixed deliberately high to enable recruited labour to pay their own return fares. Furthermore, the Union government would not agree to free repatriation as it would adversely affect white farmers. The meeting ended in a stalemate. A week later the Governor of Northern Rhodesia wrote to the Secretary of State in London explaining there had been a delay in negotiations with the WNLA. The cumulative mortality figures for Nyasaland recruits had shown a steady improvement since November 1937, but the figures for Northern Rhodesia remained high at around 22.75 per 1000. That was almost a third higher than for other Tropicals and more than three times higher than for other classes of labour. With surprising optimism, Maybin noted that once that issue had ‘been resolved’, he was willing for the gold mines to recruit a maximum of 10,000 Barotse per annum under the Salisbury Agreement. Maybin felt he had no alternative: ‘In the latter event, of negotiations having broken down, our only weapon for preventing the Witwatersrand enticing our labour without any conditions at all would be organised propaganda through the Paramount Chief to advertise the mortality rates and discourage emigration. This might or might not be successful.’⁴⁶ A decade later, Maybin’s retreat on the death rates was to be repeated by the Governor of Nyasaland.

Negotiating a Big Nyasaland Quota

After the ban on tropical recruiting was lifted, Nyasaland offered the WNLA an initial quota of 8500 men. In December 1938, Harold Kittermaster received a request from William Gemmill for the quota to be increased to 15,000.⁴⁷ According to Gemmill, among Northern Rhodesians, nearly all of whom were Barotse, the total death rate for the 33 months ending 30 September 1938 was 26.4 per thousand. This compared unfavourably with the rate for Nyasa recruits for the 57 months ending September 1938, which was 16.08 per 1000. However, like the Colonial Office, Kittermaster was swayed by Dr A.J. Orenstein’s assurance that the incidence of fatal disease among men employed for the first time in industrial undertakings was always heavy during the first decade but would soon decline.⁴⁸ The WNLA never conducted a study to test that supposition.

In accordance with the Salisbury Agreement, Kittermaster visited Salisbury to gain the support of the Southern Rhodesian government. The colony’s Prime Minister, G.M. Huggins, was however alarmed by the number of voluntaries moving south and insisted that the WNLA quota form part of a scheme for the overall regulation of migration to South Africa.⁴⁹ As always, the negotiations dragged on. In March 1940, there was a further meeting between Huggins and the Governors of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland in Salisbury. The Acting Governor of Nyasaland, Mr Hall, who supported the WNLA application, pointed out that it had invested a good deal of capital and wanted a guarantee it would receive some return. Huggins would not agree to an increase. The discussion then turned to illicit migration. The war had just begun and the clandestine movement of labour to South Africa was assuming greater importance.⁵⁰

Following the Salisbury meeting, the new Governor of Nyasaland, D.M. Kennedy, wrote to London. Frustrated that Southern Rhodesia would not endorse the new quota, he framed his argument around competing white visions of desirable African futures. Gemmill claimed that oscillating migration helped preserve traditional African society while at the same time modernising it. In contrast, white farmers in the labour-sending states argued it helped destroy it. Kennedy told the Secretary of State that the rights of the African to sell his labour in the best market were being challenged by white farmers in Nyasaland. These wanted to pay low wages and were claiming that migration to the mines was destroying African society. The farmers were supported by District Commissioners as well as the Missions and Native Authorities, who were all disturbed by the drain on the adult male population. Kennedy warned London that any attempt to halt the flow of labour to the gold mines would meet strong political opposition. The South African mines paid well and provided good rations and accommodation. The men who returned from the mines were healthy.⁵¹ At 6.06 per 1000 per annum, the death rate from all diseases was negligible.⁵²

With the outbreak of war, the WNLA wanted a dramatic increase in the quota, from 4500 to 45,000. In February 1940 K.F. Hall, the Acting Governor of Nyasaland, informed London that he would raise the matter at the up-coming Inter-Territorial Conference in Salisbury. Hall had made little progress with South Africa over reducing clandestine migration and warned the Colonial Office that until that was resolved there could be no effective agreement among the Northern governments. Hall believed that unless South Africa accepted a fixed annual quota and refused entry to men without certificates, Southern Rhodesian employers were faced with having to raise wages. Hall did not want to halt the flow of workers. ‘We have no bargaining factor with the southern territories except our labour and the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association offers us the best terms.’ He was unhappy with the stance taken by Southern Rhodesia, and he had considered renouncing the Salisbury Agreement in favour of a new agreement with South Africa.

Hall reminded London that each year, large numbers of men from Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland went south in search of work. Some went under contract with the WNLA, but most went on their own to find work on farms, on mines and in domestic service. The Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland governments accepted that migration was inevitable and welcomed higher WNLA quotas, as they guaranteed repatriated wages and the payment of taxes. In contrast, the Southern Rhodesian Prime Minister worried that the labour shortages in Southern Rhodesia would become acute and wanted South Africa to control clandestine migration. Until that was done, he opposed any increase in the quotas. The matter was referred to the Secretary of State in London, who sided with Southern Rhodesia.⁵³

Increased Tensions After the Second World War

During the immediate post-war period, the struggle between the WNLA, the ILO and the British territories over the flow of labour intensified. The beginning of apartheid coincided with the creation of the UN. It also coincided with the development of the Orange Free State mines, which wanted recruits from Nyasaland and the HCTs to offset their inability to attract enough South African workers for the wages they offered. In negotiating higher quotas, the WNLA used ILO labour conventions to expose the contradictory policies of the HCTs and the Colonial Office. In his presentations to the ILO, Gemmill also invoked the UN Charter on Human Rights to berate the British delegation. Silicosis and tuberculosis were rarely mentioned in these high-level debates.

Britain’s ILO commitments were part of a wider set of obligations regarding risk management in the workplace. In 1930, the Colonial Office Labour Committee was set up to review workmen’s compensation law in the territories, and in particular to ensure that such legislation conformed with the ILO Conventions to which Britain was a signatory.⁵⁴ In 1935, the Secretary of State, Malcolm MacDonald, asked the colonial governments to create the machinery to inspect and examine workplaces. MacDonald pointed out that the far-reaching economic and social changes sweeping the empire were bringing potential conflict between employers and workers.⁵⁵ Between 1937 and 1943, protective legislation and the appointment of dedicated staff saw some progress in government supervision of labour conditions.⁵⁶ In those colonies where trade union movements were rudimentary, however, the Colonial Office tended not to insist on legislation based on metropolitan law.

At its Thirty-Second Session held at Geneva in 1949, the ILO debated a revised text on Migration for Employment. Before departure from their home territory, migrant workers should be examined for their occupational and medical fitness by a local physician.⁵⁷ Medical selection should be thorough and, if necessary, include an X-ray. Article 17 prescribed that ‘equality of treatment in the workplace should apply, without discrimination in regard to nationality, race, religion or sex’. Finally, all labour should have the right to membership of a trade union and the benefits of collective bargaining. South Africa’s gold mines met virtually none of those requirements.

The ILO prescriptions for labour rights were incompatible with minority rule, and this exposed the ambiguities of British colonial states selling labour to the WNLA. In addition, when negotiating labour quotas, the Colonial Office operated under a major constraint. It was difficult for London to criticise the WNLA when the South African silicosis and tuberculosis legislation was enacted earlier, was more comprehensive and far more generous in its ambit than comparable laws in Britain. This problem was compounded by the fact that neither the ILO nor the Colonial Office understood the extent to which the South African laws were racialised.

In the early 1950s, the Colonial Office issued a number of memos on silicosis and occupational disease to assist administrations in framing legislation. It noted that compensating for such diseases was especially complex, and some territories had created problems for themselves by adding specific lung diseases to existing schedules. In the United Kingdom, the problem was dealt with under the Industrial Injuries Act, which treated pneumoconiosis separately from other prescribed diseases. To secure benefits, a workman had to prove to a Pneumoconiosis Medical Board that he had been employed in a prescribed occupation for a period amounting to at least two years. Tuberculosis was compensable for certain classes of health workers but not for miners.⁵⁸

In 1952 and 1953, the ILO prepared position papers on migrant labour for the UN.⁵⁹ The organisation noted that in Africa, rapid population growth after the war had forced more men and women into wage labour. Most people lived in self-subsistence economies and so were not bound to employers as were workers in industrial states. Migrant workers often reacted to a wage increase by leaving employment, because they were able to satisfy their needs more rapidly. The Colonial Office believed that unskilled labourers’ tendency to work for only brief periods was a major barrier to development.⁶⁰ A free and strong trade union movement was essential to ensure workers received a share of the benefits of economic development and to encourage permanent employment.⁶¹

Big Politics

Both the UN and the ILO assumed that migrant labour was transitory and would disappear as colonial economies matured. William Gemmill and the Chamber, the architects of oscillating migration, had a different view. As the winds of change swept the British empire, the Chamber remained determined that the HCTs and other British Protectorates continue to act as its labour agents. In 1943, the High Commissioner’s Office in Cape Town submitted a memorandum to the Lansdown Commission into mine wages.⁶² It proposed compulsory repatriation at the end of contracts, the compulsory deferment of pay, and for the mines to provide married quarters. Lansdown rejected those proposals, ostensibly because they would interfere with the African’s freedom to sell his labour as he wished. According to High Commissioner’s Office, the explanation lay in new challenges facing the mines. Production costs were rising while the gold price remained static. The mines also faced increasing competition in the South African labour market, with factory owners offering higher wages.

The High Commissioner, Sir Evelyn Baring, viewed migrant labour as one of the major challenges facing the HCTs. However, he also wanted to avoid what he termed ‘a head-on collision’ with the Chamber. The higher wages on offer in the urban areas were attractive and a journey to the towns, and particularly to the South African mines, had become customary for young men. Baring was aware of the negative impact on indigenous farming and family life as economic forces encouraged men to start mine work at an earlier age, to spend longer periods away, and shorter periods home.⁶³ The mines were the largest employer of labour from the HCTs, and the WNLA and the Native Recruiting Corporation were in a strong bargaining position. If legal recruitment within the HCTs was forbidden, Baring was sure the NRC would simply place its agents along the borders and recruit men as they crossed. Gold mining was the foundation of South Africa’s economy, and the Union government would always side with the industry.

In October 1950, representatives from the South African government, the Chamber and the Standing Committee on African Labour of the Central African Council met in Salisbury. William Gemmill and his son James, who represented the WNLA, made it clear that if they were not given permission to recruit it would be impossible to refuse entry to Northern men who entered the Union ‘without properly endorsed identity certificates’. The Gemmills were keen to reach an agreement: ‘In order to be able to say to the world that the South African government was co-operative and anxious to safeguard the interests of Africans entering the Union’.⁶⁴ The South African government supported the WNLA. If the Northern governments refused to meet the WNLA’s quotas, it threatened to allow Northern labour to enter the Union without identity certificates.⁶⁵

The government of Nyasaland shared Baring’s concerns about the negative impact of WNLA recruiting. In 1950, it agreed that the WNLA could recruit 8000 men over the coming year: well below the 10,000 it wanted. The government also refused the WNLA’s request that the contract period be increased from twelve to eighteen months. Owing to the development of the tobacco industry, recruiting in the Kasungu District was prohibited.⁶⁶ Gemmill wrote immediately in protest to the Colonial Office. The Nyasaland government was forcing Africans to work for low wages for the benefit of European tea planters. Gemmill went on: ‘I shall regretfully be compelled to raise the matter in public at the forthcoming International Labour Conference at Geneva in June and to indict the Nyasaland Government, and through it the British Government, before the full Conference, of which I shall probably be Vice-President. It is only right to let you know the position in advance in order that your people may be prepared.’⁶⁷

The Colonial Office was annoyed that Nyasaland adopted such a hard line at a time when negotiations were underway with South Africa over controlling illicit migration. It doubted that Nyasaland’s decision to reduce the WNLA quota would increase the labour supply within the territory unless it was able to restrain the flow of voluntary migrants. London was sure, however, that the decision would worsen relations with the WNLA.⁶⁸

Behind-the-Scenes Negotiations Before the 1951 ILO Meeting in Geneva

While the Secretary of State thought it disingenuous of the WNLA to present itself as a champion of African labour, he was concerned about Gemmill’s warning. ‘It might well be embarrassing if this matter were raised at an international meeting, particularly one constituted on a tripartite basis, with workers’ representation, as is the case with the International Labour Conference.’ Should the matter be raised, the Secretary suggested a justification for refusing the WNLA demands. Under the provisions of ILO Convention No.50, the Nyasaland government was entitled to consider the effects on social life, health, welfare and development, particularly regarding food security. ‘Despite this argument, however, it might well be difficult to present a convincing case regarding the present wage levels in agricultural employment in Nyasaland.’⁶⁹

In preparation for the Geneva ILO meeting, Gemmill forwarded a brief history of the WNLA’s agreements to the Nyasaland government. In 1938, he noted, the Rhodesias and Nyasaland agreed to allow the WNLA to establish recruiting stations and to recruit up to 9000 men. In return, the WNLA and the NRC undertook not to engage workers from those territories already resident in South Africa. According to Gemmill, while the mines had been scrupulous in observing their part of the agreement, the Governor’s Permit of 1951 had reduced the quota to 8000. A still more serious breach was the prohibition on recruitment in the Southern Province. Men from that Province had always worked on the mines and the ban involved the exploitation of African labour for the benefit of white farmers.

Gemmill argued, with some justification, that any labour shortage in Nyasaland was due to the wages which ranged from 12s 6d to 30s a month: the minimum wage on the gold mines was £4. Gold miners also received a bonus on completion of 18 months’ service and liberal re-engagement benefits. Free accommodation and ample food were provided, together with medical care. Those benefits attracted the best Nyasa workers. The official estimate of the number of men absent from the country was 150,000. Gemmill warned that he was merely stating the Chamber’s position before the matter ‘became a question for those international bodies interested in the welfare of indigenous populations’.⁷⁰

Nyasaland had no significant mineral resources. To encourage development, Governor Geoffrey Colby, who served from 1948 to 1956, sought to shift the economy from subsistence to cash cropping. Colby was successful in expanding social services, and during his term the civil service doubled in size, as did the education and health budgets. Despite that extra spending, the medical service was hampered by a lack of qualified staff.⁷¹ Colby found that while Nyasaland was a major exporter of labour, an internal shortage of manpower was stifling the agricultural development on which the colony’s future depended.

In response to the issues raised in Gemmill’s memo, Colby set out his own position for the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Oscillating migration, he stated, was the most serious barrier to the territory’s development. Those areas from which the greatest migration took place had the worst farming practices and it was there that the drought and famine of 1948–1949 had its most serious effects. Because of the absence of so many able-bodied men, large numbers of women, children and elderly had died of starvation. Colby had seen villages where there were no men between the ages of 20 and 45. Gold mining was diverting manpower from the production of food, which was left to women and old men. For that reason, members of African Congress had long been opposed to WNLA’s recruiting. The government’s restrictions on the quota, to which Gemmill so strenuously objected, were part of its efforts to reduce the threats that chronic shortages of labour posed to the Protectorate’s development. Colby’s initiatives to halt the flow of labour included a general improvement in the salaries, wages and conditions for government employees, a large-scale housing programme, an increase in the minimum wage for non-government workers and encouragement for employers to improve work conditions. Training schemes for artisans had also been established and the production of commercial crops had begun. Colby reminded the Colonial Office that William Gemmill would not hesitate to cause Nyasaland embarrassment at the ILO. He was employed by one of the most powerful financial groups in the world, whose profits depended on securing adequate supplies of labour. The mines were already short of men, and a greatly increased workforce would be needed to develop the Orange Free State fields. ‘The treatment [of migrant workers] however is more akin to the treatment of prize fat stock than of human beings since each of them represents a cash profit: it is sometimes forgotten that these men are herded in compounds in the Transvaal where they have no family life and are exposed to the most vicious influences.’⁷²

William Gemmill at the ILO

When he spoke at the ILO’s conference in Geneva in June 1951, William Gemmill did so as an ‘Employers’ Delegate from South Africa’ rather than as a WNLA official. Gemmill reminded his audience that he had been a member of the ILO’s governing body since 1922, during which time he had promoted African welfare. He had, for example, played a part in drawing up the Recruiting of Indigenous Workers Convention of 1936, and the Contracts of Employment (Indigenous Workers) Convention of 1939. Prior to the opening of the Conference, Gemmill promised the British delegation that he would give them a draft copy of his speech. At the request of the South African Ministry of Labour, who saw the speech only minutes before it was delivered, Gemmill left out the final paragraph, which accused Nyasaland of violating ILO Conventions.⁷³

Gemmill explained that it was common in African territories for a tiny proportion of the population to be engaged in wage labour. Such backwardness could only be overcome by inculcating the habit of work and the desire for a higher standard of living. One of the most effective ways of promoting change was employment on South Africa’s mines. Gemmill wanted to draw the Conference’s attention to an oppressive and growing practice in some African territories, which prevented workers selling their labour in the best market. Those restrictions were designed to compel Africans to accept employment inside their own territory at lower wages and under inferior conditions than were available elsewhere. ‘The British Colonial Office is itself a party to the practice, an instance being Nyasaland, a British Colonial Office territory.’

The wages on the gold mines were relatively high, Gemmill noted, and the conditions of employment excellent. In fact, the conditions were so good that the Witwatersrand had become the Mecca of the Central and South African labourer. In Nyasaland, the wages paid by employers ranged from 17s 6d to 30s per month, plus rations. On the Rand, the average pay was more than four times higher. Gemmill objected to the Nyasaland government’s policies: ‘I characterise restrictions such as these as constituting indirect compulsion and interference with the liberty of the subject and as coming very near to exploitation of the African for the benefit of low wage scale employers’.⁷⁴ Article 13 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in December 1948, provided that ‘everyone has the right to leave any country including his own and to return to his country’. Article 23 states: ‘everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment’. Forty-eight nations, including the United Kingdom, voted in favour of the Declaration. Gemmill concluded that it would be strange for a country to support the Declaration and at the same time compel a man to remain in his own country to work at very low rates of pay. He called on the ILO to end an abuse of power. Gemmill failed to remind his audience that of the eight countries which abstained from supporting the Human Rights Declaration in 1948 only two, namely South Africa and Saudi Arabia, were not members of the Soviet bloc.

In response, Alfred Robens, the British Minister of Labour, questioned Gemmill’s right to raise the issue of WNLA’s recruiting at such a forum. The fixing of the quota was entirely within the discretion of the Nyasaland government, which was entitled, and indeed obliged, under Article 5 of the ILOs Convention No.50, to consider the social impact of the withdrawal of adult males from the population. The comparison Gemmill drew between the wages a worker might earn in employment in Nyasaland and elsewhere was irrelevant.⁷⁵

In a closing speech to the Conference, Gemmill attacked the ILO itself and reminded the audience of what he took to be endorsement of his critique of the British. He referred to ‘certain unfavourable changes developing in the internal operations of the International Labour Organization’, one of which was the method of electing the governing body. Gemmill also emphasised that early in the debate on the Director General’s Report, he had drawn attention to an abuse of power prevalent in some African territories. Gemmill was pleased that the matter was to be considered by the ILO Committee of Experts on Non-Metropolitan Territories.⁷⁶ In his report on the Conference to the South African Minister of Labour, Gemmill claimed that he ‘broke fresh ground’ by drawing attention to the pernicious practice of some territories in restricting Africans from selling their labour. According to Gemmill, his own views were not seriously challenged, although Robens, the British Minister of Labour, had defended Nyasaland’s policies.⁷⁷

Since Gemmill had not directly accused Nyasaland of breaching ILO Conventions, the Colonial Office did not object to the matter being referred to the ILO’s Committee of Experts. It assumed that the ILO would not consider it necessary to examine such criticisms in detail but rather to take the WNLA’s views into account in so far as they were relevant to the general problem of migrant labour. Gemmill’s speech was, however, an attack on British policy in Southern Africa, and the Colonial Office produced a review. The WNLA’s notion of the free movement of labour to the best market implied that the social and economic impact on the sending-community was to be disregarded so long as the flow of migrants was voluntary and spontaneous. Article 5 of ILO Convention No.50, however, recognised the need for the protection of labour-sending communities.⁷⁸ Nyasaland’s manpower was constantly drained through migration, most of it voluntary and individual movement, and the local chiefs and other African representatives were opposed to WNLA’s operations.⁷⁹

Sir Geoffrey Colby Changes his Mind

While the Colonial Office was concerned about Gemmill’s participation in the next ILO Conference, it was determined to adhere to its existing general principles regarding migrant labour. The problem, it believed, had two aspects: the preservation of the economic and social life of indigenous communities, and the protection of the individual migrant. A predominantly agricultural community which was adjacent to an industrialised territory would inevitably suffer a drain of its manpower. Should that increase to a level where agriculture suffered and social problems arose, then government had to intervene: a principle enshrined in the ILO Convention on Recruiting. The protection of migrant workers required the supervision of recruiting and contracts, and some supervision over the actual conditions of employment.⁸⁰ Since the Nyasaland government was unable to prevent spontaneous emigration to the Union, and South Africa seemed unwilling to control the movement of informal migrants, the Colonial Office concluded it could best reduce spontaneous migration by allowing the WNLA to increase its recruitment quota.

This contentious logic was now endorsed by the Governor of Nyasaland, Sir Geoffrey Colby. On his appointment, Colby had strongly opposed WNLA recruiting because of its harmful effect on food production. His administration was, however, starved of revenue at a time when there was a desperate need for investment in health, education and infrastructure. The economy’s major export was labour, and the WNLA provided the best market. Within three years, Colby was keen for Nyasaland to sell labour to the WNLA. In January 1953, he participated in an important meeting held at the Colonial Office in London. Also present were Mr Barltrop, P. Nield and N.D. Watson from the Colonial Office. Providing that the annual quota be raised, the meeting was told, the WNLA had offered to pay the Nyasaland government £5 for each man who enlisted. That payment was in addition to a 10s attestation fee per recruit. Colby explained that for many years, Nyasaland had lacked public revenue and had few options to increase it. Many men earned a living outside the territory, and it was only reasonable that the administration gain some benefit. Colby acknowledged that the WNLA offer would be open to criticism, but that could be overcome if the money was paid into a Native Development Welfare Fund rather than General Revenue.

N.D. Watson agreed that there would be criticism if the government increased the quota because of monetary inducement from the WNLA. Since Colby’s current proposal was at odds with his government’s previous position, it was all the more important to avoid the ILO seeing any rise in the quota as being due to WNLA payments. The only justification for altering the quota must be the same as that used previously, namely to protect the social and economic welfare of the indigenous population. Mr Barltrop pointed out that on both political and moral grounds, the ILO opposed per capita payments to recruiting agencies or governments. To avoid conflict, it was suggested that Nyasaland should not enter into such an agreement. If, however, the WNLA later made a lump sum payment which was not formally associated with the quota, the money could be justified as a donation. After a long discussion, the meeting agreed to endorse a rise in the quota, and for Nyasaland to accept payment from the WNLA. To avoid criticism that the government was acting as a labour agent, the Committee decided that the rise in the quota should be announced immediately. Then, after a six-month interval, and as a completely separate arrangement, the WNLA should donate £5 per head to the government for labour supplied to the mines.⁸¹

That deception had its origins with Harold Kittermaster. In 1938, the then Governor of Nyasaland wrote to W. Ormsby Gore at the Colonial Office about the political implications of contracting labour to the WNLA. For some time, Kittermaster had wanted to charge a capitation fee for men working abroad. Such fees had been charged on a batch of men engaged to work in Tanganyika and several groups going to Southern Rhodesia. The WNLA had agreed to pay a monthly fee and it was Kittermaster’s intention to create a Native Welfare Fund into which all such monies would be deposited. Kittermaster believed that was necessary if the government was to escape the accusation that it was selling labour.⁸² Initially, the fees had no statutory authority, but were imposed as one of the conditions of receiving the Governor’s Permit for agents engaging labour for work abroad. Soon after Kittermaster’s sudden death from appendicitis in 1939, the Employment of Natives Ordinance was amended by Ordinance No. 25, which empowered the Governor to prescribe fees.⁸³ The way the Ordinance was written enabled the Colonial Office to hide from the ILO the fact that, from 1953, British territories were selling labour to an apartheid state.

William Gemmill’s Vision of the WNLA

After the 1951 ILO Conference, William Gemmill presented the organisation with a review of the WNLA’s operations in Southern Africa. Migrant labourers, he noted, were strongly attached to their tribal lives and their aim was consolidating a traditional way of life by earning the necessary money. In responding to those complex needs, the WNLA had devised the controlled migrant system. Gemmill explained that the WNLA was a non-profit organisation which, since its foundation in 1902, had engaged almost four million men for employment. Under its auspices, men were employed on the condition that they must return to their homes at the end of a stipulated period. The wages paid were usually much higher than in their countries of origin, and the conditions of engagement conformed to those laid down by the ILO. The system had the approval of the South African, Portuguese and British governments.

The migrant labour system, Gemmill emphasised, preserved family life. Better still, the educative influence of men on returning to their homes was an important factor in social progress. The evils associated with migrant work were confined almost entirely to uncontrolled migration. The annual death rate amongst black miners was under 5.00 per 1000 from disease and under 2.00 per 1000 from accidents. ‘Employment on the Witwatersrand Gold Mines is one of the greatest civilising factors in the whole field of employment of African labour. If the standard of living of the African peoples is to be raised, their productive capacity and efficiency must increase, and nothing is more conducive to this than employment on the Gold Mines.’ Government restrictions on the free movement of labour, Gemmill reiterated, promoted the exploitation of the African for the benefit of local low-wage-paying employers.⁸⁴ Gemmill’s account of WNLA’s recruiting was accurate about wage rates and the support the system received from the British government. In most other respects, it was disingenuous. Borrowing from the ideology of South Africa’s apartheid state, Gemmill claimed that migrant labour preserved traditional societies while modernising subsistence economies. Yet the Chamber’s Northern strategy did just the opposite. It was designed to avoid the play of market forces within South Africa which would have driven up mine wages. In the long run, it retarded the economic development not only of South Africa but also of the whole region.⁸⁵

Conclusion

On the eve of the Second World War, the ILO drew up a schedule of rights to reduce the hardships of migrancy. The organisation wanted to prevent the separation or desertion of families, and to enable migrants to remit their savings to their country of origin. It also lobbied for pension rights under old age, invalidity and survivors’ insurance schemes. The ILO was determined that labour be informed of the risks of work before entering a contract.⁸⁶

In the protracted and often heated high-level contests over the labour of black miners, few of these conditions were met. The single clause honoured by the WNLA was the remission of wages. It was not until after the Leon Commission in 1994 that miners were warned by the industry of the dangers of silica dust. Britain’s negotiations with the WNLA did little to help. Three failures were particularly important. The first was the failure to pressure the gold mines over repatriations, accurate mortality rates and the spread of infectious disease. For example, the Colonial Office never questioned Gemmill’s mortality data, even though the figures were always far lower than the Bureau’s own annual returns. The second was London’s refusal to urge the Southern Rhodesian governments to improve wages and work conditions on their mines and farms. That in turn made the WNLA a more attractive employer. Finally, there was the willingness of the Colonial Office to violate the ILO Conventions to which Britain was a signatory. The ambiguity of the HCTs selling labour to the WNLA was worsened by apartheid. That encouraged the WNLA and London to emphasise the health benefits of migrancy, and to conceal the payments British administrations received for contracting labour. On their part, the HCTs were dependent upon the WNLA for revenue; that dependence grew in proportion with their perceived need to invest in housing, health and education.

Over time, several key underlying assumptions were consolidated in negotiations between the WNLA, the Southern African governments and the Colonial Office. By the mid-1930s, the mines were no longer perceived as a phthisis-producing industry. As a result, tuberculosis spread by migrant workers disappeared from view as a factor in the WNLA’s recruiting. After the war, negotiations assumed an even higher degree of dissembling. The core concealments were the missing health costs of contracting men to work in an industry which made them, their families and their communities sick.