Tuberculosis and Migrant Labour in the High Commission Territories: Basutoland and Swaziland: 1912–2005

Abstract

Basutoland came under British rule in the late nineteenth century. By the 1930s, the Territory’s transformation into a labour reserve for South Africa’s mines decimated its food production, impoverished its population and brought about a TB epidemic. The mines paid uneconomic wages and refused to pay compensation for occupational injury. In addition to those repatriated with tuberculosis or silicosis, the mines produced such a steady stream of sick and injured workers that mine accidents constituted the largest single cause of disability amongst men of working age.

Swaziland was the smallest of the three protectorates. Land alienation to white settlers under British concessions meant that by the early 1930s, the territory produced only a fifth of its food needs. As in the other HCTs, tax collection and occupational lung disease posed serious problems. However, commercial agriculture and large deposits of asbestos generated local employment and foreign exchange and made Swaziland less dependent on migrant wages.

In each of the HCTs, migrant workers faced even greater barriers in accessing compensation for occupational injury than black South Africans did. No circulars or instructions on the subject had been issued, miners were unaware of their rights, local officials did not understand the application process and travel to Johannesburg for medical examinations was not feasible for men who were dying. In all, the lack of medical capacity, the ongoing refusal to pay pensions to injured miners and the systematic failure to collect health statistics made the extent of the risk invisible. While the situation improved somewhat after independence, the mining industry continued to displace the burden of disability onto households and local communities.

Basutoland (now Lesotho), a small and densely populated mountainous territory with a relatively cool climate, came under British rule in the late nineteenth century. By the 1930s, its transformation into a labour reserve for South Africa’s mines had made it a net importer of maize. When the 1912 South African Tuberculosis Commission collected evidence on the spread of disease in the HCTs, the reports from Basutoland suggested that tuberculosis had been increasing, especially among those who had worked on the mines. Dr H.N. Macfarlane noted that during his 18 years as a Medical Officer, he had treated 322 cases, 80 per cent of them males. It was only after 1902, when significant numbers of men began going to the mines, that tuberculosis became prominent. Dr H.W. Dyke, a private practitioner at Butha Buthe, tended similar evidence. Men usually acquired tuberculosis on the mines and, on returning home, infected their families. Many of them also had fibrosis. In Dyke’s opinion, if those men remained away from mining, they may recover, but if they went back, they usually returned with ‘their lungs breaking down’. According to Dr G. Hertig, the medical officer at Morija, not a week passed that he did not see fresh cases, mostly from the gold mines.¹ Over time, the numbers of men entering the mines rose, but there was no corresponding increase in the capacity of the local medical service. In 1924, the medical staff at the capital Maseru consisted of a Principal Medical Officer, one Medical Officer, one relieving Medical Officer and the superintendent of the Leper Settlement. There were also seven Medical Officers stationed at major settlements such as Mohale’s Hoek.²

The Costs and Benefits of Migrant Labour in Basutoland

The mortality rates among Basuto miners were far higher than for South Africans. In June 1928, the High Commissioner wrote to the Secretary for Native Affairs in Johannesburg asking for an explanation. According to data on a cohort of 110 consecutive deaths among Basuto compiled by the NRC, the major causes were pneumonia and tuberculosis. The High Commissioner was greatly concerned, especially as Basutoland was sometimes called the Switzerland of South Africa, because so many Europeans with tuberculosis had been cured by living there.³ In October that year, Dr E. Cluver from the Department of Health was asked to investigate.⁴ He calculated that the death rates for Basuto on both the gold and coal mines were almost double those of South African workers. The data also showed that most deaths were due to pulmonary disease and accidents. The Basutos in general did the heaviest classes of work such as tramming and shovelling, but Cluver made no reference to the high dust exposures involved. Instead, he wondered if fatigue might account for their susceptibility to infection. He also thought it significant that a relatively large proportion of Basuto worked in B Mines, which had a depth of over 760 metres. Importantly, when men returned to the mines, as most did to serve successive contracts, they started again as recruits, without any history of their previous service. The resulting lack of reliable data made it difficult for Cluver to make firm recommendations.⁵

Eight years later, statistics remained elusive. After he was appointed Principal Medical Officer of Basutoland in 1936, Hamilton Dyke wrote an overview of tuberculosis in the Territory. As there were no notifications of deaths, it was impossible to estimate the mortality rate. In addition, almost all diagnoses were made without an X-ray or laboratory aids. In Dyke’s view, the chief factors which favoured the spread of the disease were improper diet and the lack of sufficient ventilation in sleeping rooms. Dyke opposed treating patients in hospitals: a good proportion of cases were acute and most died within a short period. More chronic cases would soon tire of hospital and leave prematurely, thereby exposing their families to infection. To protect other patients would require building specialist wards at a prohibitive cost.⁶ Dyke favoured controlling the disease by improved hygiene and enhanced diet rather than institutional care.⁷

The effects of the gold mines on Basutoland extended far beyond lung disease. In April 1943, C.N.A. Clarke, of the Resident Commissioner’s Office in Maseru, wrote an appraisal of the costs and benefits of migrant labour. In the 1940s, the population of Basutoland numbered some 650,000 people. Recruiting for the gold mines had expanded and by 1942, there were an estimated 70,000 Basuto employed in mines and industries. There were in addition 15,000 enlisted in the Pioneer Corps and a further 20,000 on farms. In all, over half of the adult male population of working age was away from the Territory at any given time. However, only a small proportion of a labourer’s earnings found its way back to the Territories. Under the Remittances and Voluntary Deferred Pay scheme, the largest return was in 1941 when 50,000 men brought home approximately £300,000 out of estimated earnings of £1,500,000.⁸

The first wave of emigration to the Union, Clare wrote, provided a useful addition to men’s incomes, enabling them to pay their taxes. Since then, the populations of the HCTs had doubled and the consequent pressure upon land had reduced the earning capacity of the peasantry. Families relied more and more on mine earnings. However, because wages had scarcely increased, the real income per head of population was lower than it had been 40 years earlier. By paying below-subsistence wages, the mining industry was retarding the Territories’ development. Clarke warned: ‘The payment, therefore, of an uneconomic wage by the Mines on the grounds that the labourer is only supplementing his income which is mainly derived from agriculture is unsound and will lead to disaster’. Migrant labour in Basutoland did not supplement farm incomes: there were usually no such incomes in a mountainous country where only 16 per cent of the land is arable.⁹

Clarke concluded that the Territories were responsible for maintaining the families of migrant workers and for producing medically fit men for the mines, with little contribution from the employers. While the Union Government received substantial revenue from taxation, the Territories benefitted only from the payment of a two-shilling capitation fee by the WNLA.¹⁰ The health and physique of labour improved after one or two months on the mines, but that gain was offset by the ill-effects of the compound system. Although Clarke makes no mention of silicosis or tuberculosis, his portrayal of the migrant labour system is damning. He also noted that it was imperial policy to encourage the formation of indigenous trade unions. The Colonial Development and Welfare Act, which set aside £50 million to be spent in the Colonies and Protectorates over the coming decade, stipulated that no assistance would be given to a colony which did not recognise unions. Trade Unions were already recognised in the three HCTs, but those rights were not available to men working in South Africa.

Clarke’s confidential enquiry complemented the conclusions of a 1942 report on migrant labour prepared by the HCT’s Office representative in Johannesburg. A.G.T. Chaplin found that it was difficult to arrive at reliable figures of the numbers of men, women and children from the Territories living on the Witwatersrand. He estimated that in 1936, half of Basuto men aged between 18 and 50 were working in the Union. Economic need was the major factor pushing men into the South African labour markets. However, there were other contributory factors, among them the dull life in the Territories, the breaking down of traditional authority, and the desire of young men to escape from the control of parents and Chiefs. Migrancy, Chaplin noted, came at a high social cost. Men living in mine compounds were divorced from their families and often formed illicit unions with local women. Once such a union had been established, men would often stop supporting their families at home. Large numbers of Basuto women too worked in South Africa. Their domestic conditions were unstable, with few living in a family unit. There were many cases where women went to Johannesburg to visit their husbands or for medical treatment but ended by staying permanently. According to Chaplin, the unauthorised influx of women was caused by the long absences from home of their menfolk, the uncontrolled and casual nature of male labour, the failure of men to support their families, and the lack of adequate medical care in Basutoland.¹¹

Like Clarke, Chaplin was highly critical of the inequalities inherent in labour migration. Through taxation on gold mining, the Union Government collected revenue, some of which went to the native Reserves inside South Africa. There was no such benefit for the HCTs, which in effect were subsidising the gold mines. The mines used the Territories for recruiting in order to force down local wages in South Africa. Chaplin recommended that deferred wages schemes be made compulsory, and that the period of employment be prescribed to ensure that men returned home.¹² Given the allied costs and social disruption, Chaplin questioned the benefits of the entire system of labour migration.¹³

The HCTs were asked to respond to the Report. Although the scale and impact of migrant labour was different in each of the Territories, there was common ground. The Government Secretary of Bechuanaland was concerned about the large number of young men who left to work in the south. There were an estimated 15,000 men on the Reef and probably another 15,000 to 20,000 employed elsewhere in the Union. They represented a large proportion of the Protectorate’s 60,000 taxpayers and their absence disrupted family life.¹⁴ The Resident Commissioner’s Office in Basutoland noted that the main cause of migration was economic pressure due to the high rates of local taxation. A simple form of income tax, based on the individual’s capacity to pay in place of a flat-rate poll tax, would see fewer men seeking work in the Union. Emigration was not in the best interests of the country or the Basuto, as it disrupted family life and social organisation. The estimated 50,000 Basuto on the Rand played an important part in gold production, from which the Union Government received tax revenue. The only return to Basutoland was the 2 s capitation fee and in some cases the payment of outstanding poll tax. The Resident Commissioner suggested an increase in the capitation fee to 10s or 15s. He also wanted contracts to require that two-thirds of a miner’s wages be deferred, with payment being made in the Territory.¹⁵ In contrast, so few men left Swaziland for the gold mines the Territory’s Resident Commissioner was not much concerned. In September 1941, there were 5677 Swazi on the gold mines, 633 on coal mines and a further 1087 in other employment. The Resident Commissioner reminded the High Commissioner that all the HCTs received a great deal of taxation revenue from miners.¹⁶

During the Second World War, the regional medical services’ lack of capacity to provide care or to collect data on the disease burden was raised at a number of forums. One of these was a Conference on the Medical and Health Services in the HCTs, held at the beginning of 1942. In part, the Conference was intended to justify the Territories’ retention under British control once the war had ended, rather than their transfer to South Africa. The delegates agreed that the Territories should be an example to the Union of the advantages of liberal policies regarding race, and of the need to develop social and welfare services for the local population.¹⁷ They also concluded that the provision of more hospital beds, health education and the creation of rural clinics should be a priority. As always, a lack of funding was a major hurdle.

The territories might well serve as an example of enlightened policy in the future, but at the time, they were far from ideal. The High Commissioner, Lord Harlech, was highly critical of the HTCs’ medical services. In such small departments, there was little scope for specialised work or promotion, and the low salaries made it difficult to attract recruits. The annual rates of pay for medical officers varied between £600 in Bechuanaland and £500 in Swaziland. In contrast, medical officers in the South African health service were appointed at £800 per annum.¹⁸ During a conference at Cape Town in January 1943, Harlech reiterated his concerns: ‘Ever since I have been High Commissioner I have been dissatisfied with the existing provisions as regards public health in all these territories, and have so informed the Secretary of State’. He concluded: ‘The urgency of need of the patient and not his or her capacity to pay fees must be the governing criteria in receiving skilled medical attention if we are to get on to any morally defensible basis’.¹⁹

From the mid-1950s, there were occasional exposés in the British press about men from the HCTs being forced to work on South Africa’s mines to pay their taxes. The Labour politician, Arthur Creech Jones, took a particular interest in the issue: ‘It seems to me that … the threat of work in the mines—a foreign state for all practical purposes—ought never to be exercised, that this form of recruitment is indefensible … The practice exposes the people to abuse and inflicts on them an evil. Have we the moral right to condemn people to labour where the policy of apartheid is practised?’²⁰ In response, the Commonwealth Relations Office in London pointed out that compulsion was never used by authorities, but that sometimes, particularly in cases where men owed several years’ tax, it was suggested that by going to the gold mines they could earn sufficient to pay their arrears.²¹

Occupational Disease and Injury After Independence

Basutoland gained independence from Britain in 1966 and became the Kingdom of Lesotho. The country’s extreme dependence on mine wages made it a special case among the labour sending states. In 1976 there were just 27,500 Basotho wage labourers employed inside the country while 200,000 worked regularly in South Africa, half of these on the mines. In the late 1980s, remitted wages accounted for three quarters of Lesotho’s GDP, with each absentee miner directly supporting ten dependents and six others downstream.²² Lesotho’s dependency on migrant labour came at a high price in terms of family breakdowns, female headed households, and the impoverishment of women.²³ By the early 1960s, the capital Maseru had a population of less than 10,000, with more than 90 per cent of people living in rural areas. The Black Laws Amendment Act of 1963 made it impossible for migrant workers to gain rights to continuous residence in South Africa. Men could only engage for work in the mines by a contract not exceeding a year made in Lesotho.²⁴

According to the World Health Organization, a country with more than 200 tuberculosis cases per 100,000 of its population is experiencing an epidemic. In the period from 1991 to 2001, the recorded tuberculosis prevalence in Lesotho gradually increased from 159 to 506 per 100,000, with a heavy concentration of the disease among young men. The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare coordinates and manages the National Tuberculosis Program. The Maseru District has three hospitals, all of which treat tuberculosis. Treatment in government hospitals is free and since 2000, case reporting has improved. Because of limited resources, however, the health and welfare of migrant labourers, including mineworkers, had been neglected. In 2005, there were no reliable national health data.²⁵ In addition to the miners repatriated with tuberculosis or silicosis, the mines produced such a steady stream of sick and injured that mine accidents constituted the largest single cause of disability amongst Lesotho men of working age.²⁶

Due to the downsizing of the mining sector, the number of Basotho employed on South African mines fell from 95,913 in 1996 to 52,450 in 2005. Despite those retrenchments, Lesotho’s economy remained dependant on remittances. Oscillating migration, which disrupts normal family life, has been one of the key drivers of the current HIV/AIDS epidemic in Lesotho. Single-sex hostels for young men and limited home leave lead to loneliness and a breakdown in social cohesion. The vulnerability of migrant workers has been compounded by the dearth of information and the lack of HIV programmes in rural areas.²⁷ The UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers, ratified by Lesotho in 2005, states: ‘migrant workers and members of their families shall have the right to receive medical care’. The lack of state capacity has meant that the care available to former miners has been rudimentary at best.

Swaziland

Swaziland (renamed eSwatini in 2018) was the smallest of the three protectorates. Land alienation to white settlers under British concessions meant that by the early 1930s, the territory produced only a fifth of its food needs. However, commercial agriculture and large deposits of asbestos generated local employment and foreign exchange and made the territory less dependent on migrant wages. The major private sector employer was the Havelock/Bulembu asbestos mine, which operated from 1939 until 2001. It was owned by the British conglomerate Turner & Newall, which also had asbestos mines in Southern Rhodesia. Havelock was the country’s third largest settlement, and the largest earner of foreign currency. The work and living conditions were hazardous, but the pay was far higher than on white estates, and the mine provided family housing, medical care and a school.²⁸

As in the other HCTs, tax collection and occupational lung disease posed serious problems to the territory’s administration. In his 1932 report on Swaziland’s economy, Sir Alan Pim suggested that special arrangements be made for collecting tax from men employed on the Rand Mines. A representative of all three HCTs should liaise with the South African mines. His duties should include assisting men disabled by accident. Such an appointment, Pim suggested, could be combined with the collection of tax.²⁹ Four months before Pim’s report came out, Basutoland established an office in Johannesburg to assist Chiefs in collecting arrears and current tax, and to encourage miners to send remittances home. Collection was made at the various compounds on pay days. However, because of the large number of mines, the officer found it impossible to visit them all. In addition, some of the miners became aware of the collection and delayed drawing their pay to avoid paying tax.³⁰ In the following year, the number of staff was increased to three, and in line with Pim’s recommendation, the office began representing Swaziland.³¹ The agents also dealt with domestic matters and discouraged men settling permanently in Johannesburg. However, there is no evidence of them assisting miners gain access to compensation.

Pim’s report also expressed concern about the high rates of occupational disease. When Swazi labourers left the mines, they did not pass through the compounds and undergo a medical examination. Pim was sure that many men were unaware of their rights regarding compensation.³² The brief review of the Territories’ medical service by the Principal Medical Officer at Mbabane, Dr R. Jamison, endorsed Sir Alan Pim’s conclusion that the Administration had failed to provide adequate medical facilities, as well as his recommendation that such a small Territory should establish outposts run by trained black or Coloured nurses to treat women and children rather than build expensive central hospitals. In its first year of operation, the new hospital at Mbabane treated over 8000 African and 1095 European out-patients.³³ The staff workloads were heavy. On average, doctors saw 40 in-patients a day, examined another 35 out-patients, and carried out operations. Medical Officers also made home visits, did weekly court attendance and gaol inspections, had a small private practice and performed post-mortems. The service remained under-funded, even as the number of patients increased. During 1949, Swazi hospitals treated a total of 68 in-patients and 213 out-patients for tuberculosis, and it was proposed to begin localised tuberculin surveys. In the following year, the numbers of both in- and out-patients almost doubled, without an increase in capacity.³⁴

After the war, there were occasional references from the Resident Commissioner’s Office about lung disease in returning miners, but the medical service still lacked the staff and technology to treat tuberculosis. In 1950, the WHO Expert Committee on Tuberculosis’ guidelines for disease control in developing countries was circulated by the Colonial Secretary. The Committee endorsed the conventional wisdom that a reduction in tuberculosis was best achieved by improvements in nutrition, housing, education and occupational health. A control programme should aim to prevent the spread of infection from known cases; it must also protect highly exposed groups and promote preventive and curative measures, including after-care and rehabilitation. The WHO endorsed sample surveys using tuberculin testing and mass radiography to identify infection and morbidity rates. Surveys should be supported by a central laboratory for diagnosis and a comprehensive record system augmented by epidemiology and clinical services. Dispensaries, preferably at existing hospitals or public health centres, should be established to isolate infectious cases. Home nursing or health visiting services were essential. A nurse or health visitor could teach the patient and their family how to prevent infection. To control the disease, intensive education of the public about tuberculosis was essential.³⁵ The WHO’s 1950 prescriptions were based on public health principles used in Britain and Prussia from 1910 and this gives an indication of the inadequacy of the HCTs’ response.

From the early 1950s, the British Red Cross Society took an interest in tuberculosis and the impact of migrant labour in Swaziland. The Society was concerned ‘[t]hat the incidence of TB among Swazi mine workers is the highest among any African tribe’.³⁶ The Society favoured treatment which catered for bed cases, convalescents and rehabilitation. On discharge, a system of Medical Officers and Outstation Clinics should monitor patients. The opening of a Hospital at Mahamba, with X-ray facilities and the proposed establishment of a rehabilitation settlement for tuberculotics, were major steps. Following the visit by a WHO specialist, a control scheme for the Territory was due to begin in 1960.³⁷

After political independence in 1968, Swazi nationals continued to work on South Africa’s gold, platinum and coal mines. The Swazi Labour Department attributed this to the lack of local employment and the better pay on offer across the border. If the working conditions in South Africa continued to improve, the Department expected the numbers would grow.³⁸ Nevertheless, of the more than 800,000 foreign migrants working in the economies of Southern Rhodesia and South Africa in 1972, just 4 per cent came from Swaziland. In contrast, Lesotho accounted for a quarter.³⁹ By 1975, there were 16,278 Swazi recruits on the gold mines and just 257 on the coal mines. In the following year those numbers rose to 20,334 and 451 respectively.⁴⁰ The recruitment of labour to South Africa was administered under the Employment Proclamation No.51 of 1962. Contracts could not exceed one year, with renewal for a further maximum period of nine months. The law stipulated that conditions of employment must be satisfactory. However, there was no machinery to ensure compliance by employers.⁴¹

In its annual report for 1979, the Swazi Labour Department presented a brief review of the Worker’s Compensation Act of 1941, under which many Swazis were employed. Although the South African Government had introduced a common scale for occupational injuries, these were based on earnings and thus there was a considerable difference in the benefits payable to black and white workers. The Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner made little effort to trace men entitled to compensation, and South African employers did not provide notification of accidents involving migrants. The Labour Commissioner noted that it would be difficult for any country in the region, acting individually, to change contractual conditions faced by migrant workers. There could be major benefits if the HCTs formed a cartel, enabling them to make joint approaches to the South African authorities. This was particularly so given that employers, particularly the Anglo-American Group, had consistently shown themselves to be ahead of the Government regarding the liberalisation of employment policies.⁴²

Access to Compensation for HCT Miners

The HCTs were selling labour into a racialised state which denied migrant workers the most basic rights. One of the glaring inequalities concerned the progression of occupational lung disease. Under the Miners’ Phthisis Acts from 1916, Europeans were entitled to pensions. Their health was monitored, and their awards were increased as the disease worsened. The small minority of black miners who received compensation were paid one-off lump sums. In theory at least, migrant workers had advocates in the British Colonial Office and the ILO. The Departments of Native Affairs and Native Labour repeatedly raised the issue of compensation with the Chamber. The issue was also raised in the South African Parliament, where Senator Ballinger pointed out the various inequalities inherent in the system. All this made the subject of pensions and disease progressions a sensitive political issue. For the Chamber, there was much at stake. Like all aspects of the Johannesburg mines, the racialised compensation system provided one of the pillars of the companies’ profitability.⁴³

The Chamber’s usual response to critics was to reiterate its opposition to providing pensions to blacks, and to deny that there were large numbers of former miners in the rural areas with uncompensated disease. It estimated that each year, there were at most around 30 men with miners’ phthisis unable to make the journey to Johannesburg for an examination.⁴⁴ How the Chamber arrived at that figure was not explained. By the late 1930s, the Chamber’s legal advisors had come to believe that if the industry did not change its stance, the government was likely to intervene. In 1939, the Gold Producers’ Committee agreed to a system of ex gratia payments to black beneficiaries whose silicosis had progressed, but excluded men from the High Commission Territories. In late 1941, it approved an increase in payments and three years later, it extended benefits to recruits from the three HCTs. The payments were modest, and as most migrant workers were unaware of the scheme, there were few beneficiaries. In the four years from 1939 to 1943, only 342 grants were made.⁴⁵ In March 1942, the Chamber’s Legal Adviser, G. Barry, wrote a position paper on the compensation system. He commented on the refusal of mine medical officers to refer men with compensable disease to the Bureau: ‘Dr Girdwood also tells me that there is a tendency on the part of Mine Medical officers to reject Natives with considerable underground history as such natives may soon be certified to be silicotic and the responsibility for compensation rests with the employer who has last signed him for underground work’.⁴⁶ There is no evidence that Barry or the Chamber made any effort to remedy that injustice.

Migrant workers from the HCTs faced even greater barriers in accessing compensation than black South Africans did. In November 1940 A.G.T. Chaplin, the HCTs representative in Johannesburg, wrote to the High Commission Office expressing his concern that so few men received payments. No circulars or instructions on the subject had been issued, miners were unaware of their rights and District Officers did not understand the application process. Consequently, in some districts of Basutoland, no claims had ever been lodged. There was no X-ray plant in the Territory capable of taking films of sufficient clarity, forcing those applicants who were able to do so to travel to Johannesburg. Chaplin’s own experience suggested that the majority of cases only came to light when a man was close to death. In half the cases he dealt with as a District Commissioner, the applicant died before his claim was assessed. Chaplin accepted that it would be difficult to conduct medicals for foreign workers, but was confident that could be largely overcome if up-to-date X-ray equipment was installed in the Territories.⁴⁷ However, it was war time, and the necessary equipment was not available.

Those applying for re-classification of their occupational injury were required to attend an examination in Johannesburg, something which was not feasible for men who were dying.⁴⁸ In addition, African families were strongly opposed to post-mortems on religious grounds, and this ruled out applications from dependents of most deceased miners. By November 1946, the ex-gratia scheme for the HCTs had been in operation for two years, but there had been no applications from living beneficiaries and only four from the relatives of deceased miners. In only one of those four cases was there a post-mortem, so no further compensation was paid to the other surviving relatives.⁴⁹ The Chamber was adamant that X-ray facilities ought to be available in the Territories, and it refused to pay the transport costs to Johannesburg for ex gratia cases.⁵⁰ As the scheme was deemed a form of charity which fell outside of the Act, the Department of Mines ruled that all costs of transport, maintenance, and medical examination must be borne by the HCTs.⁵¹ The Assistant Secretary in Mafeking acknowledged that the ex gratia scheme was not working in the Bechuanaland Protectorate.⁵² During 1948, 16 claims were processed. However, ten of those men had died without a post-mortem and so no award was made. Only three men were compensated.⁵³

The 1942 Stratford Commission provided another platform for highlighting the shortcomings of the then compensation scheme, and for proposing improvements. The HTC representatives argued that the application process for miners who had returned home made access to compensation all but impossible. There were no X-ray facilities in the Territories capable of taking plates which met the Bureau’s requirements, and most applicants were too ill or too poor to make the long journey back to Johannesburg. The Territories asked the Commission to consider whether some concessions could be made for applicants in remote areas.⁵⁴ A second issue raised at the Stratford Commission was disease progression. The Director of Native Labour, E.W. Lowe, told Stratford that the failure of the legislation to take account of disease progression in back miners was unjustifiable. For that reason, he favoured pensions over lump sums. However, he acknowledged that it may not be feasible to provide pensions for foreign labour.⁵⁵ The Gold Producers Committee (GPC), which made written and oral submissions to Stratford, was unsympathetic. It had introduced an ex-gratia scheme in lieu of lump sums because of the administrative difficulties. Many black miners lived in remote areas, and it would be impossible to guard against impersonation and fraud. For the same reasons, the provision of pensions for surviving dependants was impracticable. In any case, the life expectancy of a black miner with tuberculosis was too brief to justify a pension.⁵⁶

The Stratford Commission was not convinced by the GPC’s submissions and made several recommendations, including the creation of sanatoria for black miners. It also proposed that a monthly pension replace lump sums, with a minimum payment of £1 12 s 6d for a married man with two children.⁵⁷ Three months after Stratford’s Report was tabled, in what was to be the first in a series of meetings, the Miners’ Phthisis Board met with senior officers from the Departments of Mines, Native Affairs and Native Labour, and the Miners’ Phthisis Bureau to discuss pensions. It was a high-level meeting. Those present included the Secretary for Mines, J.F. Muller; the Chairman of the Miners’ Phthisis Board, C.G. Southgate; the Chairman of the Miners’ Phthisis Medical Bureau, Dr J.M. Smith; a Senior Law Advisor from the Department of Justice, Dr A. Schoch; the Under-Secretary for Native Affairs, W.J.G. Mears; and the Director of Native Labour, C. Alport. In line with the Chamber’s consistent position, the Secretary for Mines doubted whether it was possible to pay pensions to black miners because of the many administrative obstacles. In particular, there was the question of identity, which made fraud more likely. Messrs. Smith and Southgate agreed. In contrast, the Director of Native Labour and the Under-Secretary for Native Affairs could see no difficulty in tracing men after they left the mines, as they would willingly come forward to receive entitlements. Native Affairs also favoured pensions, which it wanted to be set at around £2 a month. However, the Director of Native Labour was concerned that there would be an outcry from farmers that ‘the Government is paying the native pension at the cost of labour supplies’, and that the mining industry might say they were ‘stopping Natives from coming back to the mines’.⁵⁸

At a second meeting in November, the Minister of Native Affairs noted that the levels of benefits were very low, and he wanted the meeting to discuss the lack of compensation for disease progression. Mr Southgate reiterated that if a pension were paid, the first difficulty would be to trace men who had returned to the rural areas. How could the industry establish a scheme for 400,000 men? Mr Mears could see no such difficulties as the government was already paying military, old age and disability pensions to hundreds of thousands of recipients. The Board meetings produced only one notable outcome: the creation of a small pool of data on disease progression. The Chairman of the Miners’ Phthisis Medical Bureau, Dr Smith, noted that according to data from the ex-gratia scheme, in the period 1939 to 1940 around half of the ante-primary and primary cases had progressed in the space of four years. That indicated a rate of progression of disease far higher than amongst white miners. Mr Southgate agreed that the information was significant and pointed out that if black miners were to be compensated for progression, it would require frequent medical examinations, at a high cost to the industry.⁵⁹

At the beginning of 1945, the Chamber finally agreed that the ex-gratia scheme would be extended to the HCTs. Miners were required to submit an X-ray, a medical report and a sputum specimen to the Bureau. In the case of an applicant’s death, his dependents could submit an X-ray, or a post-mortem examination could be performed. If the examining physician considered silicosis or tuberculosis to be present, the lungs were to be sent with a report to the Bureau in Johannesburg.⁶⁰ The small number of patients from the HCTs required to travel to Johannesburg for a medical were to be housed at the WNLA Compound, and the cost charged to their Territory of origin.⁶¹ Arrangements were being made for the installation of an X-ray plant, capable of making suitable films, at Mbabane in Swaziland. Until those facilities were available, the Swazi government agreed to pay for the transport costs to Johannesburg.

The third and final pensions meeting was held in November 1946. As previously, there was heated discussion, but this time the differences between industry and Native Affairs and Native Labour became more apparent. The legislation recognised that black miners with silicosis had a marked tendency to contract tuberculosis. For that reason, they were barred from further employment in a dusty occupation. Despite acknowledging that principle, the Chairman of the Miners’ Phthisis Board, G.G. Southgate, remained opposed to pensions. Under the Mozambique Convention, compensation to recruits from the Portuguese Territory was required to be the same as that payable to black South African miners. Therefore, it was not possible to provide pensions for men domiciled inside the Union unless the same provision was made for Portuguese recruits. He argued that until facilities for radiographic examination existed in the labour sending states, it was not possible to provide graduated compensation.⁶² There were also administrative problems regarding identification, proof of payment and questions of dependency, which he believed were insurmountable.

According to the Secretary for Native Affairs, Mr Mears, both his department and Native Labour had always opposed lump sums. Pensions were already provided in the Union for the aged, the blind and for black soldiers under the War Pensions Act of 1942, and he could see no major obstacles. His department was willing to provide the necessary administrative support. Mr Barry from the Chamber acknowledged the principle that a workman seriously incapacitated by industrial disease or accident should receive a pension. The gold mines employed roughly 222,000 black miners, of whom approximately 85,000 were from the Union. The Chamber had introduced ex-gratia payments to South African miners in cases where the disease had progressed. That scheme required applicants to be examined and certified by the Bureau. Although few cases had come forward, the scheme was working satisfactorily. However, Barry could not visualise the extension of a pension scheme to recruits from outside of South Africa.

The Minister for Mines, Mr S.F. Waterson, pointed out that a chain of fully equipped X-ray depots staffed by radiographers and doctors would be required if examinations were to be carried out in rural areas. If a pension scheme was adopted for South African labour, the HCTs would demand that their workers be given the same benefits. Neither his department nor Native Affairs had data on disease progression, and the Government Actuaries were unable to estimate the costs. Before the committee saddled the mines with a liability, it must know what that liability would be. The Bureau Director, Dr Smith, reminded the meeting that the black miner certified with silicosis progressed more rapidly than the European did and was also more liable to contract tuberculosis. The Bureau depended on the X-ray examinations and sputum samples made by District Surgeons. In most cases, those reports were unreliable and the X-rays useless. Sputum analyses were vital in diagnosing tuberculosis. In Johannesburg, the Bureau may take up to 30 specimens for one patient, but only single samples were submitted from the rural areas. Physical examinations were another difficulty, as former miners were usually too ill to travel long distances. Dr Smith had written to the Magistrates in all labour sending districts within the Union asking for details of the X-ray apparatus in use. The reports indicated that most machines were unsuitable for the Bureau’s purposes.⁶³

The final and most contentious issue was the building of isolation hospitals as recommended by the Stratford Commission. The Director of Native Labour, J.M. Brink, suggested that sanatoria be provided for black miners. The Chamber had much to gain, as sanatoria would have isolated infective cases, thereby protecting the labour pool and to some extent dampening criticism about repatriations from the Department of Native Affairs. Despite such potential benefits, Mr Barry from the Chamber strongly disagreed. For many years, Barry had been involved with the silicosis question and he was certain that under the existing scheme, the black miner was better off than if he was treated on the same basis as the European.⁶⁴ The Chamber’s opposition to sanatoria suggests that other factors were at play. Perhaps it feared that such facilities would soon be filled with infected men and the extent of the tuberculosis problem would become visible.

Following the meeting, Brink traced a cohort of compensated tuberculosis cases. Of the 309 he investigated, 197 were reported dead, 26 not traced and 86 still under investigation. The 197 beneficiaries who had died did so within a short period after being certified. In not one case was a post-mortem held, with the result that compensation could not be claimed by the dependents.⁶⁵ For that reason, Brink wanted the Silicosis Act amended as a matter of urgency. There was no response from the Chamber, and there was no attempt to replicate Brink’s study. Almost a year later, the Silicosis Medical Board acknowledged that in the absence of any follow-up of cases, there was no data on the mortality from silicosis or tuberculosis in black miners. Nor was there any data on disease progression.⁶⁶

There was no improvement in access to compensation during the immediate post-war period. In early 1948, the Government Secretary in Swaziland wrote to the High Commissioner that the failure to help phthisis sufferers was causing great hardship. On being told that they must attend Mbabane Hospital for an X-ray examination, several former miners at Mankalana said that they had no money for the bus and were too sick to walk. The Bureau in Johannesburg was not prepared to issue travel warrants.⁶⁷ The problems of gaining compensation for miners’ occupational disease were also frequently raised by the Bechuanaland African Advisory Council. At a meeting at Mafeking in April 1949, for example, Kgosi Bathoen II commented that tuberculosis was rife amongst young men who had returned from the mines. When miners were recruited, care was not taken with the spelling of Setswana names, and often the wrong name was recorded. Problems also rose with the interpretation of dependence. The meaning of the word in Setswana was altogether different—and much broader—than the English idea of a dependant. Mr A.M. Bome from Bangwaketse pointed out that few Setswana men consulted European doctors, and asked that if a miner contracted disease while at the mines, was he given a certificate as proof. Mr G.F. Nettelton, the Deputy Resident Commissioner who chaired the meeting, explained there were no certificates.⁶⁸ In 1950, the question of compensation was again reviewed by the HCTs, with all three territories agreeing that awards to deceased miners should be paid in full to their heirs.⁶⁹ The amounts involved were trivial: during the previous year, 15 awards, totalling £1753 -12d, were made to Bechuanaland miners and their dependents.⁷⁰

At the request of regional medical services, during 1963 a number of compensation examinations were conducted in decolonising territories outside of South Africa. There were 262 in Lesotho, 54 in Botswana, 9 in Swaziland and 21 in the Central African Federation (Southern and Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland).⁷¹ In the following year, 245 benefit exams were carried out, with 180 in Lesotho, 40 in Swaziland and 25 in the Rhodesias. The numbers were minuscule in terms of the volume of labour flowing to the gold mines. From that point, the volume of examinations fell sharply. During 1966, a total of 24 benefit exams were performed at the request of the Director of African territories. There were 16 in Lesotho, three in Swaziland, four in Botswana and one in Malawi.⁷²

Over the following decades, the Chamber maintained its opposition to pensions. In 1960, the Director of Medical Services in Mafeking pointed out that many former miners who had received compensation were never reviewed for an increase in their awards. That state of affairs had come about partly because District Officers and Medical Officers had such heavy workloads, and partly because former miners were reluctant to present themselves for examination. In any case, there was no qualified radiologist or radiographer in the Protectorate, and the Director suggested that the Chamber should accept more responsibility for re-examinations, which should take place in Johannesburg.⁷³ The Bechuanaland Government Secretary supported the Director’s request. He asked the HCT’s Office to raise the matter with the Chamber.⁷⁴ The NRC replied that it was impracticable to conduct re-examinations in Mafeking, as the necessary equipment was not available. Furthermore, it would be ‘unsound to refer distant cases’ for examination in Johannesburg.⁷⁵ The Chamber’s opposition to pensions is curious: according to its own estimates, the life expectancy of repatriated men was so brief that paying pensions instead of lump sums would have saved the industry money.

Conclusion

The WNLA’s senior management was aware that many families of repatriated miners lived in dire poverty. It was common for men to be in debt before they left for Johannesburg. Mine wages, they hoped, would solve their problems. When they were repatriated, their debts increased, and the men fell into poverty; some families lost their cattle.⁷⁶ The Chamber acknowledged that paying pensions rather than lump sums was a core principle of compensation schemes, including those available to white miners. However, it remained adamant that pensions could not be paid to black miners. Despite evidence to the contrary, it claimed that there was no administrative grid to reach men who lived in remote regions, and hence that fraud would be inevitable. The Chamber also argued that since compensated miners died so quickly, their families received more money from a lump sum than they would from pensions. This rare example of the industry refusing to minimise a production cost suggests there were other factors at play.

The Chamber’s refusal to pay pensions attracted criticism from the Departments of Health, Native Affairs and Native Labour. This was not in itself unusual, as these departments were often at odds with Chamber policies. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Department of Native Affairs had to a degree championed the rights of miners to pensions. That changed as apartheid was established after the war. In November 1947, the South African Institute of Race Relations asked the Department of Native Affairs if it would consider making several changes to the compensation system. It wanted black miners to receive pensions rather than lump sums, and for the Bureau to collect mortality data on the fate of repatriated men so the progress of disease could be gauged. The Department replied that a pension scheme presented major problems; neither was it possible for the Silicosis Board to compile mortality rates for repatriated miners. There was no provision for the periodic re-examination of compensated miners as many beneficiaries simply disappeared ‘into the blue. The monitoring of extra-Union Natives would be impossible’.⁷⁷ Such difficulties, in turn, made the extent of the risk invisible and compensation for occupational injury to black miners de facto impossible. It was against this system that the recent miners’ class action was fought.