Only twenty years after the first mine was started at Langlaagte, gold had become the most important industry in South Africa, bringing much money into the country. Gold mining on the Rand created a revolution in mining methods, and changed South Africa in a very significant way. This section examines the nature and the needs of the Rand gold mines.
People have always treasured gold for its lasting beauty and usefulness. Thousands of years ago a Greek poet, Sappho, wrote about gold:
'Neither rust nor worms can spoil this metal. It has the power to excite the minds of men.'
Kings
and traders sought after gold because it could be stored for years
yet keep its value. It could also be divided into small units
and used as coins. Eventually, gold coins became the standard form
of money. Later,
paper money was used, and the stores of gold were held by governments.
Gold therefore is important for many reasons and people will go to great
trouble and expense to find it.
There are four points to remember about gold mining in South
Africa, which help to explain the special needs of the mines.
Let’s deal
with these points one by one:
Shaft
Mining head
Gold is like all other useful things that are bought and sold. It is the product of human labour. The more labour needed to produce gold, the more valuable it becomes. Governments can fix the price for a time. But as gold becomes more and more difficult to produce, the price eventually has to increase.
When gold was discovered on the Rand the price of gold was fixed and stayed that way for many years. This meant that the mine-owners could not charge more for the gold. To make profits, they had to cut the cost of producing the gold. We shall see later how they did this by forcing down the wages of the unskilled workers.
The
early outcrop mine.The gold seemed
to be near the surface of the ground.
In those days, gold was not difficult to mine especially if the prospector
had many labourers to dig for him!
But soon, miners found that they had to dig deeper and deeper to find the gold - 100 metres, 500 metres, a kilometre underground and even deeper. This type of mining became known as deep-level mining.
Prospectors found that they needed special machines to get the gold that was so deep down - they needed ventilation to provide air and sometimes, when there was water underground,’ they needed pumps.
They also realised that the stopes were dangerous. Special props had to be made to stop the stopes from caving in.
There were many problems, and they became worse as gold mining went deeper and deeper underground. We shall see later how the problems of deep-level mining were solved.
The reef of gold that runs underground is very thin. It has been compared to a ‘page in a very thick book of rock'. In South Africa, there is much less gold in each ton of ore than in other countries that mine gold.
The ore in South Africa, therefore, is poor in gold. It is known as low-grade ore
At the same time, South Africa is very rich in gold, for the thin reef of gold so deep down under the Witwatersrand stretches for more than 300 miles. The reef stretches from Heidelberg in the east all the way across to Virginia.
This area produces most of the world’s gold - and people could carry on mining for hundreds of years.
It
is important to understand how gold is mined in South Africa, because
the needs of gold mining changed South Africa in a very
significant way.
The truck Filled with ore makes its way three or four metres up the
shaft
There were three things that created problems for the mine-owners:
(1) deep-level mining; (2) low grade and (3) the many miles of gold.
What did they need to overcome their problems?
First of all, deep-level mining of low-grade ore was very expensive, dangerous and difficult. But mineowners knew that they could make big profits if they produced enough gold and managed to keep down their mining costs, so they were ready to spend millions of rand to start even a low-grade ore gold mine.
- So the first need for the gold mines was lots of money -known as capital.
- The mines needed special machinery. As mining went deeper and deeper, more and more expensive machinery was needed. The mine owners had to import these machines from other countries and pay to transport them to the Witwatersrand.
- The mines had to have skilled labour. Experienced men were needed to sink shafts, fit pipes and pumps, install lifts, build props, drive engines and operate drilling machines - as well as sort and extract the gold from the ore above ground.
At first, there were very few men in South Africa who had experience of deep-level mining. The mine-owners had to get skilled miners from the mines of America and Australia, and from the deep coal mines of Britain. These skilled men demanded high wages for their work.
- The mine-owners also needed thousands of unskilled labourers. These workers were needed to .do the heavy task of lashing and tramming, and also to hammer small tunnels into the ore.
As the mines expanded, the mine-owners called for more and more labour. Within a few years, many thousands of men were leaving their homes on the land and going to work for wages on the mines. Unskilled workers were paid a very low wage
- Each mine also needed supervisors to direct and control the thousands of workers. And to keep production working smoothly, the mines needed managers.
As the numbers of black unskilled labourers grew, supervisors and managers became more and more important, and they were paid well. Managers were the most privileged of all, some of them earning enormous salaries plus many other extras such as free housing and domestic servants.
Deep level mining needed a massive labour force