1
DIOCESAN COLLEGE
HISTORY PAPER
GRADE 10
SOURCE-BASED
45 MINUTES
SEPTEMBER2015
ADDENDUM
2
QUESTION 1: BACKGROUND TO THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR: MINING
CAPITALISM
SOURCE 1A
A cartoon entitled “The Hungry Mine” published in “New Generation History” New
Generation Publishers September 2011. Cartoonist unknown.
SOURCE 1B
An extract from Rita M. Byrnes, “South Africa: A Country Study”. Washington: GPO
for the Library of Congress, 1996.
Gold mining companies traditionally kept expenses to a minimum by paying low wages.
Gold mines became known for their often exploitative labour policies, including the use
of migrant workers on limited contracts, strict worker control in company compounds,
and difficult working conditions. The mining corporations set about creating a labour
supply of lowly-paid semi-skilled labourers and they were able to extract this labour
force with ease. Labour costs were especially important in determining profits, because
the price of gold was set at US$35 per ounce through the 1960s. After the price of gold
was allowed to float in 1968, it gradually rose in response to market demand, and
companies could afford to produce less and still earn even greater profits. They then
began to expand operations into so-called low-grade-ore mines. The volume of South
African gold production fell, and gold prices skyrocketed to an all-time high of US$613
per ounce in 1980.
3
SOURCE 1C
A photograph taken in 1902 in Johannesburg.
Accessed via http://v1.sahistory.org.za/pages/libraryresources/onlinebooks/Luli/Gold-and-workers/part%201/unit4.htm
SOURCE 1D
A photograph taken in 1902 in the Crown Deep, in a mining village in Johannesburg.
Accessed via http://v1.sahistory.org.za/pages/governence-projects/randrevolt/randrevolt.htm
4
SOURCE 1E
A photograph taken in 1910 in the Langlaagte Deep Gold Mine, Johannesberg.
Accessed via https://soulsafari.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/a-diggers-lament-a-soulsafari-compilation/
5
SOURCE 1F
An extract from “WHITE LABOUR ARISTOCRACY AND BLACK PROLETARIAT
The Origins and Deployment of South Africa's racially divided Working Class”
Author: WP Visser
Published by: University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
http://sun025.sun.ac.za/portal/page/portal/Arts/Departemente1/geskiedenis/doc
s/white_labour_aristocracy.pdf
The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1886 caused South Africa's economic balance to tilt
towards the interior. South Africa was transformed from an agricultural into a mining country and the
mining industry was destined to become the impetus which would lead to gradual industrialisation and
the creation and growth of cities in the interior, such as Johannesburg and Kimberley. The rich mineralbearing diamond and gold lodes were deposited in deep level hard-rock. Subsequently, the demand for
labour increased as South Africa lacked skilled and technical expertise in hard-rock mining. Therefore
skilled experts, especially Cornish hard-rock tin miners (“Cousin Jacks"), were recruited mainly from the
British Empire and America. In order to attract and retain the required skills, these (white) immigrants
were paid high wages and accorded a privileged status. The privileges of (foreign) skilled labour were
extended to incorporate unskilled and semi-skilled white workers such as indigenous Afrikaners.
However, due to its nature of deep-level mining and low average mineral content of the ore, South
Africa's minerals could only be produced profitably at low production costs by creating and containing
a vast supply of cheap available labour. Thus, the proletarianisation of South Africa's black labour force
was initiated.
By the turn of the century the ratio of white to non-white labour on the Witwatersrand was one to
nine. There was no question of equality of skills, initiative, development or organisational ability
between the whites and indigenous blacks and the basic ingredients of a pattern of white "superiority"
and black "inferiority" were thus also introduced as a characteristic of the South African labour
movement. Whites succeeded in industrialising or "Europeanising" the country but failed to involve
blacks in the process. Because the whites feared the blacks’ numerical superiority and labour
competition, they effectively excluded them from opportunities to acquire competitive skills,
knowledge and expertise by introducing labour legislation and other discriminatory practices on the
basis of a colour bar in the work place.
Consequently, all white workers became an elitist "labour aristocracy" regardless of their skills and
correspondingly, all black workers formed a pool on unskilled, cheap labour. The South African working
class, therefore came to be made up of two groups of workers subject to quite different relations of
production with the property owning class - a group of exploitable non-white workers and a group of
politically free white workers. Thus, the South African labour movement emerged from a racial division
of labour along colour lines - on the one hand, a smaller white labour force, and on the other, a vast
emergent black proletariat.