25065024

Journal of Southern African Studies
Maximum Average Violence: Underground Assaults on the South African Gold Mines, 19131965
Author(s): T. Dunbar Moodie
Source: Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Sep., 2005), pp. 547-567
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25065024
Accessed: 29-06-2016 23:57 UTC
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Journal of Southern African Studies, Taylor & Francis, Ltd. are collaborating with JSTOR to
digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Southern African Studies
This content downloaded from 158.170.10.44 on Wed, 29 Jun 2016 23:57:53 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 31, Number 3, September 2005 t\ Routledge
jjj^ Taylor & Francis Croup
Maximum Average Violence: Underground

Assaults on the South African Gold Mines,
1913-1965
T. Dunbar Moodie
(Hobart and William Smith Colleges)
In this article I argue that historically high levels of underground violence in South African gold
mines can be only partially explained by general cultural factors such as masculinity or race;
social factors such as corporal punishment in schools; political factors such as state support for
whites; or spatial factors such as the dangers of working underground. All are relevant and
important as background conditions, but for a complete explanation, attention must also be paid
to production relations in the workplaces themselves. The article begins with a close analysis of
the only complete set of extant archival transcripts on underground assaults, the evidence to the
1913 Native Affairs Department Commission of Inquiry into the Grievances of Workers at Crown
Mines. I argue that much of the workplace violence at Crown Mines in 1913 was specific to a
particular historical set of work conditions on that mine at that particular time, rather than
providing typical evidence of the incidence of assault underground. What the 1913 Crown Mines
evidence does point to is the importance of organisation at the point of production for
understanding workplace assaults. More generally, I argue that deeply entrenched industry
wide violent work practices underground should be attributed to the maximum average wage
system, introduced on the mines in 1913. It was not until the maximum average system was
abandoned in the 1960s that the institutionalisation of assault as a form of labour control could
be successfully abrogated on the gold mines.
Introduction
Violence in workplaces underground in the South African mines was endemic, at least until
the 1970s. Every black worker I asked, who had been in the mines in the 1930s and 1940s,
attested that some level of violent assault was integral to underground work. Violence by
white supervisors (and their black assistants) was such a standard and taken-for-granted part
of mine life that I soon stopped asking about it. Nor did white miners deny that they beat their
'boys'. The white union representative on a 1919 commission, for instance, insisted that often
'when you have given a cantankerous boy a good hiding or thrashing ... that boy is afterwards
your best boy' -1 The existence of such violence is undeniable. What is disputable is the reason
for such violence. Why did it occur? Under what conditions? Who was responsible? Could it
have been prevented? These are some of the questions addressed in this article.
* This article was drafted with the assistance of a research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in
1998 that supplemented a sabbatical leave from Hobart and William Smith Colleges. A much earlier version was
presented at a NEWS A Workshop in 1999. I greatly appreciated the supportive comments of Alan Jeeves at the
time. The final version has been much improved by astute editorial suggestions from my son, Benjamin, who
contributed immeasurably to the cogency of the argument and the clarity of the presentation.
1 Transvaal Archives Depot (hereafter TAD), Low-grades Mines Commission, para. 1,855.
ISSN 0305-7070 print; 1465-3893 online/05/030547-21

? 2005 The Editorial Board of Journal of Southern African Studies
DOI: 10.1080/0305707052000345090
548 Journal of Southern African Studies
Violence in the Mines

Theodora Williams, an Anglican missionary to the mines, gave evidence to the Buckle
Commission in October 1913. In her opinion, certain mines had a higher incidence of
violence because they were badly managed. On that we can certainly agree. But she went on
to speak of 'cruel' mines manned by 'a bad class of miners', where it was simply because of
'the personality of the white miners' that violence occurred. 'It is the white miners
themselves', she said: 'Until you can change human nature you cannot do much good. It is
the personality of the white miners and the language and blows and sordidness of the whole
thing underground'.2
Dispositional arguments like this are very common when explaining violence in large
organisations like prisons or the military as well as workplaces. Popular opinion continues
to attribute inhumane behaviour to the acts of 'a few bad apples', or, more generally, to
human nature. Such arguments run directly counter to convincing evidence, however.
Important social psychological experiments by Philip Zimbardo and Stanley Milgram have
established beyond doubt that it is characteristic for perfectly decent, psychologically

normal individuals, placed in situations in which they are given 'a total, exclusive and
untempered power over other people' (especially if those others are clearly demarcated as
different and distant), to treat such others inhumanely.3 If inhumane treatment has support
from peers and from those in authority, it is likely to continue. Racial and language
differences, along with mutually-supporting assumptions about the authority of white men
and regulatory support for white miners whatever their dispositions, exacerbated situational
tendencies at the point of production for 'white on black' violence in the mines.
Physical conditions underground were indeed important. In 1998, I spoke to Geoff

Livingstone, a retired white mine captain.4 At the very beginning of our conversation
Livingstone volunteered that mining is 'a physical game and a violent game':
Violent in the way we work. It's a violent environment. You're battling the elements all the time.
You're battling heat. You're battling rock falls. You're battling unnatural conditions, bad air. It
doesn't matter how you put it, it's not what we breathe on the surface. So it's a violent
environment... You know, mining is a game of muscle. It's not a game of intellect.
Keith Breckenridge, in a wide-ranging 1998 article,5 argues that South African conceptions
of manhood fed into mine violence and were constituted by it in turn. Masculinity was certainly
an important part of Geoff Livingstone's discourse. When he spoke of mine managers for
whom he had worked, for instance, he spoke of them as men: 'Ken Dicks. I hero-worshipped
him. He was a dog. He was a leader amongst men. Mike Smith, a leader amongst men. I don't
know how he shapes at Head Office, but that's my opinion. He was a man's man'. Later, when
he recalled his 'supervision boss boy', he said: 'He was a man's man. I mean [pause]... and he
was a Xhosa. He was just a very good person'. As for violence, Livingstone told me: 'The white
guy used his things indiscriminately. Not a problem. There was no system of appeal so they
were protected'. Later in the interview, he came to the question of accidents:
There was a lot of violence. Death meant nothing. Death was just bad luck. Death was nothing
because we were living in violent times - I mean, you know, so what if a guy got killed by a loco
2 TAD, K358, Native Grievances Inquiry (hereafter NGI), evidence of Theodora Williams, 15 October 1913.
She actually refers to problems at Rose Deep and Wits Deep, but her diagnosis has wider implications.
3 Z. Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 167-8.
4 I interviewed Geoff Livingstone in Stilfontein on 4 November 1998. My 1998 research trip was supported by a
research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
5 K. Breckenridge, 'The Allure of Violence: Men, Race and Masculinity on the South African Goldmines,
1900-1950', Journal of Southern African Studies, 24, 4 (1998), pp. 669-93.
Maximum Average Violence 549

underground, so what? So you've got to get an inspector of mines and he comes down and
investigates the cause and, if he's sympathetic to the management of the mine, well, it could have
been because the bloody arsehole that was driving the locomotive didn't have his eyes open, you
know - not because he wasn't trained correctly. Papers were signed and that was it. The
inspectors were part of the system - in fact they were the system. You take the guy out to lunch,
take [him] to the rugby and buy him half a sheep and thank you very much.
Virtually all Breckenridge's general arguments are encapsulated in these few sentences from
Livingstone's interview: a physically violent environment, a masculine ethic, an aesthetic of
violence, and support from the state for white domination.
Breckenridge writes also of a socialising function for violence that was built into the self
formation of both black and white men. The use of 'disciplinary' violence to induce work from
blacks was a standard aspect of the nineteenth-century racial colonial order in South Africa,
well expressed to the Transvaal Labour Commission in 1904 by JJ. van Staden, a Waterberg
farmer, who said: 'The case is that the majority of the Kaffirs [in my district] are in a very wild
state; they must be tamed... The Kaffir is like a horse. No horse in the wild state would want to
come to the stable of his own accord. You must first catch him, and tame him, and break him
in.'6 Violent discipline was standard also for young men in local African societies. For
example, in his evidence to the Labour Commission, Chief N.C. Umhalla from King William's
Town reported of mine workers that 'they say they are flogged, but the flogging, I think, is just a
little, encouraging them to go to work with a shovel, such as you would use with a crowd of
young Kaffirs'.7
In our conversation, Geoff Livingstone also mentioned the uses of disciplinary violence this time on himself by a black worker. T was taught by a black miner', he told me:
His name was Fernando. Fernando used to sit behind me and clout me with a flat hand because he
had the bosses' backing and he knew if I didn't make the grade they'd blame him. So he did
everything, that guy. Fernando used to klap us [smack us hard]. Give you a fat [smack] here 'It's not right, boy. I've told you three times!' And we did it, make no mistake. Make no mistake,
I'm not a liberal, but I'm sympathetic and I reckon Rob [a friend who was present at the
interview] and myself had one of the finest training programmes we've ever been in.
Slapping and caning were believed to be important, probably essential, pedagogical tools.
Being beaten was a completely normal part of growing up male in South Africa in the
twentieth century. In traditional African societies, older men and women felt free to clout
their juniors. Similarly, in South African schools, black and white alike, corporal punishment
was, for decades, a normal aspect of the educational process.8
Breckenridge's argument is intriguing and convincing at a general cultural level.9

Having just completed the interview with Geoff Livingstone when I read his essay, I was
struck by how his article and my oral findings illuminated each other. It is when
Breckenridge turns to the 'history of interpersonal conflict' that his argument requires more
historical context and closer attention to production processes.10 He also overlooks one
important general constraint imposed on underground production on the South African
mines that has long been acknowledged but whose relevance for underground violence has
6 Minutes of Proceedings of Transvaal Labour Commission [cd. 1896, London, 1904], paragraphs 8,871-72.
7 Ibid., paragraph 13,809 (cf. 13,829).
8 The most thorough treatment of corporal punishment in South Africa is probably a series of articles by R. Morrell.
See, most recently, 'Corporal Punishment and Masculinity in South African Schools', Men and Masculinities, 4,
2 (2001), pp. 140-57, and other work cited in that article.

9 I am less convinced by his implication that violence underground in the mines provided a model for more general
South African conceptions of masculinity. If he is correct, however, the indictment against the maximum average
system worked out in this article has even broader implications than I draw against it.
10 This article may in fact be read as an extended critique of the sections on 'The 1913 Crown Mines Inquiry' and
'Memories of the Boss Boys' Violence', in Breckenridge, 'Allure of Violence', pp. 681-87.
never been noted. This is the maximum average wage system, which I argue was
intimately implicated in the ongoing production of violence underground. In simple terms,
the issue was one of labour control. The maximum average system made it impossible for
mine managements to offer monetary incentives to black workers. While mine managers
might condemn violence in moral terms, in practice white supervisors were expected to
ensure that black workers moved rock underground. As a result, for decades, assault was
entrenched in the structure of production itself. I am grateful to Breckenridge for sending
me back to the evidence to the 1913 commission of inquiry into grievances of workers at
Crown Mines (which I had copied in 1981) and for the stimulation of his article.
Workplace Conditions at Crown Mines in 1913

The 1913 Crown Mines Inquiry
The evidence to the 1913 Crown Mines inquiry is the most complete archival record of
underground violence in South African mines during the twentieth century. Only fragments
of the evidence to H.O. Buckle's Native Grievances Inquiry (collected later in 1913) and the
Lansdowne Commission (which reported in 1943) are to be found in the archives, but a full
transcript of black evidence to the Crown Mines inquiry is available, along with handwritten
notes of interviews with a range of white officials at the mine, including mine captains and
compound managers. It thus provides a critical case study, used by Breckenridge as a primary
source for evidence of 'determining factors of violence underground'.

The inquiry was restricted to one mine at one point in time, however. The very fact that it
took place at all, points to the uniqueness of a particular historical set of work conditions on
Crown Mines in 1913, rather than providing evidence of the typical incidence of assault
underground. What the evidence does point to is the importance of organisation at the point of
production for understanding workplace assaults. Witnesses also referred frequently to

'normal' levels of violence that seem to have been general at all mines and against which they
measured the 'excessive' violence that was endemic at Crown Mines in 1913.
The inquiry came about because Crown Mines lost more than 1,000 workers during the first few
months of 1913. Workers returned home, especially to the eastern Cape, with such horrific tales of
rate-cutting and assaults that recruiters for the Native Recruiting Corporation (henceforth NRC), just
established in October 1912, threatened to send no further men forward for the mine, fearing loss of
their credibility in the countryside. Concerned about the implications for his labour supply, Samuel
Evans, Crown Mines General Manager, wrote at the request of H.M. Taberer, Superintendent of the
NRC, to the state's Director of Native Labour, asking for an investigation. H.S. Cooke, the Assistant
Director of Native Labour, was promptly dispatched to conduct an inquiry. Cooke took evidence
during the last week in June, right in the midst of the 1913 white miners' strike, when workers rioted
and men were shot down by imperial troops in the streets of Johannesburg.
Cooke's work at Crown Mines, however, was more seriously interrupted by his duties in
helping put down the black wage strike which occurred on 6 July, immediately after settlement of
the white strike. Thirteen thousand black workers came out all along the Reef, from Krugersdorp
in the west to Modder B in the east.12 Compounded workers at Village Main Reef, demanding 5
shillings a day, successfully and violently defied mounted men from the South African Police.
11 But see T.D. Moodie, Going for Gold (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1994), p. 65, where I mention the
issue in passing.
12 TAD, NTS 207,98/14/473, Director of Native Labour, Johannesburg, to Secretary of Native Affairs, Cape Town,
4 January 1914.

They were eventually subdued by a detachment of Imperial Infantrymen, who marched into the
compound with fixed bayonets. The Chief Magistrate of Johannesburg, H.O. Buckle, was
appointed to conduct the Native Grievances Inquiry as a result of this 1913 black strike.
Black worker demands for higher wages in July 1913 were directly related to the introduction
of an NRC wage schedule six months earlier. According to NRC evidence to the Buckle
Commission, average wages during the first six months of 1913 dropped about a penny a shift.13
Although black workers at Crown Mines did not strike in July 1913, it is clear that the primary
cause for Crown Mines' loss of migrant workers was not underground violence per se, but the
imposition by the NRC of the maximum average wage system earlier in the year. Reduction in
their wages was the first complaint of virtually all the workers interviewed by Cooke.
Given the opportunity to express their grievances, however, black miners poured forth
complaints about assaults. I shall undertake a close analysis of this aspect of their testimony. I
conclude that the very high level of workplace violence at Crown Mines in 1913 was specific to
a particular set of work conditions at that mine at that particular time. Much egregious violence
underground could have been avoided by a reorganisation of the labour process, and this did
eventually occur. We need to separate out causes specific to Crown Mines in 1913 from
systemic issues more general to production processes in the mines. Before such further detailed
consideration, however, some observations about the mining industry in the years before the
First World War are in order.
The Mining Industry in 1913

Geologically, once the open-pit outcrops were mined out,14 gold was laid down deep beneath
the thin South African soil in broken narrow seams of very poor quality ore.15 South African
deep-level gold mines are constructed by boring vertical shafts into the earth and then digging
out horizontal tunnels at different levels to intersect the ore at different points. Technically, this
process is known as 'development'. It devours large initial capital investment without any
immediate return. Once gold-bearing seams were reached, ore-bearing rock was drilled
(initially by hand but eventually with jackhammers) and blasted. The newly loosened rock was
broken and shovelled ('lashed' in South African mining parlance16) into the haulage where it
was 'trammed' in trucks to be tipped into lift cages at the hoisting areas and hauled out of
the mine.
Although gold mining on the Witwatersrand dates back to 1886, it was only in the
early 1900s that mine controllers definitely committed themselves to deep-level mining of low
grade ore. This decision imposed unique geological and engineering (and indeed labour
supply) constraints on mine managements. Moreover, European investors, turned off by mine
owners' speculative use of their funds and the long time it took for even rich mines to come on
line and pay dividends, placed their money elsewhere after 1903, leading to a desperate
shortage of development capital and heavy management pressures at the point of production.17
13 TAD, K358, NGI, evidence of C.W. Villiers, 3 March 1914.
14 For a useful account of the differences and similarities between outcrop and deep-level mines, see E. Katz,
'Outcrop and Deep Level Mining in South Africa before the Anglo-Boer War: Re-Examining the Blainey
Thesis', The Economic History Review, 48, 2 (1995), pp. 304-28.
15 Katz points out, 'Outcrop and Deep Level Mining', p. 314, that the average values of the Witwatersrand ores were
6.5 dwts. per ton, as opposed to Australia, Canada, and Latin and North America, where the average values were
12 dwts. per ton. Unlike Australia and the US, however, the South African ore neither petered out nor degraded in
value at greater depths.
16 For an interesting etymology of the word 'lash', see Breckenridge, 'Allure of Violence', p. 674.
17 R. V. Kubicek, Economic Imperialism in Theory and Practice: The Case of South African Gold Mining Finance,
1886-1914 (Durham NC, Duke University Press, 1979), is excellent on this point as well as much else on
financing and management of the Rand gold mines before the First World War.
A profitable return on the initial investment for a deep-level South African gold mine obliged
every manager to mine lower-grade ore at the lowest possible cost.18
The generally low grade of the ore and the concomitant need to contain costs, along with the
colossal amounts of capital necessary for deep-level development, obliged individual mines to
group themselves within mining houses, which helped them raise capital and provided
engineering advice. These groups together formed the Chamber of Mines, which prescribed
policy for all the mines. Each mining house contained both low-grade and high-grade mines.19
While high-grade mines were able to pay higher wages by mining only higher-grade ore, low
grade mines were threatened with closure whenever costs (including wages) rose. A
monopsonistic maximum average system for black wages, then, was necessary not only to ensure
'ultra-exploitation' of black migrants, as Johnstone is so often held to have argued, but, just as
importantly, to prevent competition for labour between mines of higher or lower grades.20
Amalgamations of already producing mines were common during frequent early periods of
investment drought in order to introduce economies of scale.21 Crown Mines was one such
amalgamation.22 It was the flagship mine of the Corner House group, the most substantial mining
house on the Witwatersrand. Formed in 1909 with the equipment and shafts of six producing mines
west of Johannesburg, Crown Mines was a particularly difficult engineering proposition for the new
general manager, Ruel Warriner.23 Crown Mines' amalgamation was established to use the profits
from already producing, shallower mines to open up deeper levels in a southerly direction.
Warriner's biggest problem was time. As long as development of deep levels ate up dividends from
already producing mines without profits from the new deep levels, top management kept after him.
Under severe pressure from his head office, Warriner divided Crown Mines mining
ground into two halves by constructing a large main underground haulage along which a
three-mile double locomotive track trammed ore from various outlying workings. The central
point of the main haulage was No. 5 shaft, which would hoist most of the ore.24 Other shafts
were gradually phased out but continued to work initially. Three compounds, Crown Deep
(supplemented by Crown Reef25), Langlaagte Deep and Robinson Central Deep were
retained and improved for black workers.26
18 On 13 February 1915, for instance, Schumacher of Central Mining wrote to his London principal, Francke, about the
juggling involved in mining low-grade ore at Rose Deep: 'In the Western section, for instance, at No. 4, a very large
proportion of the ore mined, nearly 10% Clifford says, has been left behind in pillars, and it must be the policy to
continue to leave pillars so that the low-grade Main Reef, which is immediately at hand and can be very cheaply
worked, can afterwards be extracted at a profit together with these pillars. This Main Reef averages, perhaps, not over
3 dwts, but, with the pillars should yield a profit. If the pillars were taken away now this Main Reef would be lost'. See
BRA (Barlow Rand Archives) Private Letters 128. For another interesting discussion of these issues, see Low-grade
Ore Commission (hereafter LGOC), evidence of SAMWU, October 1930, pp. 1,783-84.
19 An exception was the J.B. Robinson group of mines. This partially explains Robinson's reluctance to co-operate
with the Chamber of Mines and the recruiting monopsony.
20 F.A. Johnstone, Class, Race and Gold, A Study of Class Relations and Racial Discrimination in South Africa
(London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976). Johnstone, of course, was aware of such constraints, pp. 41 -45. His
book continues to be well worth reading, although it may be necessary to refine his account of social relations at
the point of production.
21 The best account of financial constraints and opportunities for the early Randlords is Kubicek, Economic
Imperialism.
22 Hence the plural title for a single large mine.
23 An accessible history of Crown Mines may be found in A.P. Cartwright, Golden Age (Cape Town, Purnell &
Sons, 1968), Chapter 14.

24 As the mine deepened over the years, the central haulage was replicated at greater and greater depths - and at greater
length to reach the reefs as they inclined away at deeper levels - but No. 5 remained the major working shaft.
25 Workers housed at Crown Reef ate at the Crown Deep compound 300 yards away, but they had to cross the busy (and
dusty) Main Reef Road - a source of considerable grievance until it was fixed by the construction of a subway.
26 It is my impression from the testimony that Langlaagte Deep compound largely served the new deep level
western section of the mine, Crown Deep the eastern deep level development, and Robinson Central Deep the
older producing northern mine workings, although workers seem to have been shunted around as needed. Cooke
interviewed compound managers and black workers at all three main compounds.
By 1913, according to Kubicek, Crown Mines was the biggest producer on the Rand:
'Dividends between 1909 and 1913 averaged 103 per cent. In 1913 it produced gold valued at
?3.3 million, more than any other mine on the Rand, and at a working cost per ton milled of 16s.
5d., compared to the field's average cost of 17s. 1 Id'.27 Such relative success came at a price for
workers, however. In the mines in this period, top management's relentless push for production
was conveyed to white supervising contractors by tightening their contracts.28 Difficulties in
'making out'29 that ensued were transferred directly to the bodies of black subordinates.
Excessive and Arbitrary Underground Violence at Crown Mines

Given what we know about disciplinary practices in both South African upbringing and the
colonial system, we should not be surprised that violence was a favoured form of labour
control in the South African gold mines. Time and again, black witnesses at Crown Mines in
1913 mentioned violence as a regular part of their everyday work life. Indeed, black witnesses
themselves frequently recognised what they believed was the appropriateness of a certain
level of physical violence (especially for young and inexperienced men) at work. Beatings
underground were to be expected and seem to have been taken for granted by black workers.
T have worked at Benoni, Angelo, Robinson and Roodepoort', said an Mfengu called Njali
who had worked at Crown Deep about ten years. 'On the other mines even at Benoni there
used to be a lot of assaulting. I can hardly say one mine is better than another.' Njali was clear,
however, that assaults on Crown Mines in 1913 grossly exceeded the limits of 'proper'
discipline. The level had increased in recent months. Njali was perplexed. 'The work of the
mine would not stop if the boys were not chased and hammered', he said. 'On the contrary if
they would only leave off this assaulting it would go on much better as the people were all
frightened to go underground.'30
Especially troubling to workers who lived at Crown Deep and Langlaagte compounds and
worked on development in the new deep levels was the arbitrariness of the attacks and the
involvement of mine captains and shift bosses. 'They will pass you and give you a belt across
the head and you see him go along and suddenly hit someone else for amusement', said one
Xhosa-speaker from Mqanduli at Langlaagte Deep. 'It is the big bosses who are supposed to
protect us who do it.'31 'If we are walking along a drive and meet a white man he simply lets
rip at us and we meet another one and we get another belting', said another, this time Tswana
speaking, a timberer from Serowe: T know the white people very well. I have grown up
amongst them and I know my work. I have been hammered two or three times. They don't
care a bit if the boys are hurt at all.'32
At Langlaagte Deep an experienced Mfengu worker from Tsolo summed up the problem,
saying: 'It does not matter whether you work or whether you don't, you get assaulted just the
same'. He asserted on the basis of experience on several mines that he had 'never seen a mine
where people are not assaulted'. Langlaagte Deep was nonetheless different from anywhere else.
27 Kubicek, Economie Imperialism, p. 80. Some of the outcrop mines incorporated into Crown Mines had been
paying dividends of up to 200 per cent, however. The mining house had assured them of 150 per cent after the
amalgamation.
28 White miners at this stage usually contracted to produce a certain amount of gold ore at a particular price. The
costs of equipment and black workers were charged to their accounts. By 1915, largely thanks to
recommendations of the Buckle Commission, most white miners had become supervisors on a daily wage. They
were paid bonuses as incentives to produce.

29 For the concept of 'making out', see M. Burawoy, Manufacturing Consent (Chicago, Chicago University Press,
1979).
30 CMI, evidence of Njali (Fingo Hammer Boy), 25 June 1913, p. 97.

31 CMI, evidence of Jim, 24 June 1913, p. 80.
32 CMI, evidence of John from Khama country, 25 June 1913, p. 92.
'On other places I have been to there have been assaults, but in these cases the boys have done
wrong. Here you get beaten without doing anything at all.' As a senior man, his dignity was
affronted. He gave an example: 'If you have finished work you may be waiting at the cage
smoking. A white man comes along, takes the pipe out of your mouth and smashes it. I had a
pipe taken away and smashed... I have never seen a man assaulted for smoking down a mine. '33
It was the lack of respect and the arbitrariness of the assaults in the Crown Mines deep
level workings that offended most deeply. Why the increase in humiliating beatings,
even of senior experienced workers within the underground workings in the new deep-level
workings?
Hoisting Problems on the New Deep Level Shafts

We may begin to find answers by examining Cooke's evidence from black workers housed at
Robinson Central Deep compound, which served the already producing outcrop or shallow
deep-level mines whose profits were funding the deep-level development to the south. Sorely
troubled as they certainly were by the reduction in wages, lashers and trammers and drillers at
the Robinson Central Deep compound complained much less about violent treatment from
their white supervisors. Jim, for instance, a Xhosa-speaker, on lashing who had had
experience at Randfontein and Knights Central as well as Crown Mines, expressed himself
generally satisfied with work conditions at Robinson Central Deep. He did say that 'those
boys who behave themselves right don't get beaten, but I have seen boys beaten at the
work... I have really not much to complain about the treatment underground here. My
principal complaint is the reduction of wages'. 'They used to hammer us' on the other mines
where he worked, he added, 'but we used to get more money'.
For Jim and other senior workers on shovelling at Robinson Central Deep, it was the
reduction in wages that was the sore point; the assaults were not a major issue.34 'The white
men beat us at work sometimes just like a father if one does anything wrong', added another
Robinson Deep Xhosa-speaker, this time from Kentani. Such patriarchal admonition
apparently was expected and accepted.35 These comments give us a sense of what 'normal'
violence looked like from the point of view of black workers. The violence at new deep-level
workings was clearly not 'normal'. Why were things so much worse at Crown Deep and
Langlaagte Deep?
One clue is that workers at Robinson Central Deep, which was a first-row deep-level,
were often able to walk out of the mine, avoiding the elevator cages at the shafts. Indeed, the
only complaints of assault at Robinson Central Deep were from workers who had to be
hoisted.36 The Crown Reef shaft at Crown Deep also seems to have been relatively free of
complaints about assault, and here too hand drillers were permitted to walk out once their
tickets were marked.37 Since 6 June at Crown Reef, however, as a special favour, workers
from northern Mozambique ('tropicals') had been hoisted in skips. Almost at once, there was
a serious assault charge against the skip man and his 'boss boy'.38
33 CMI, evidence of Timothy, 24 June 1913, p. 81.
34 CMI, evidence, 26 June 1913, p. 102; see also the evidence of Gogoda, an Mpondo, 25 June 1913, pp. 86-87, and
Jobe from Kingwilliamstown, 26 June 1913, p. 101.
35 CMI, evidence of Jim, trammer, 26 June 1913, p. 104.
36 Indeed, the most detailed complaint about assault Cooke heard at Robinson Central Deep came from a hammer
driller who actually worked at Crown Deep and was beaten at the cage there. CMI, evidence of Charlie, 26 June
1913, p. 104.
37 CMI, handwritten notes of confidential interviews with E. Kuckard, 1 July 1913 and CE. Howe, 31 June(?).
Crown Reef's drillers were largely 'hammer boys'.
38 TAD, NLB (Native Labour Bureau) 111, 1376/13, S. McKenzie, Chief Compound Manager Crown Mines to
A.J. Brett, Acting General Manager, 14 June 1913.

In fact, generally at Crown Mines, those who had to be hoisted were more likely to mention
beatings, often while lining up at the cages. Keith Breckenridge also noted that the hoisting
places were flashpoints for violence at Crown Mines.39 Workers who were able to walk out of the
mine, even if it involved several thousand feet of stairs or winding through the workings of an
abandoned shaft, complained less often of assault (although they often complained about the long
climb).40 Thus, an experienced hand driller from Keiskammahoek reported to Cooke at

Langlaagte Deep that black workers 'are always being assaulted by Europeans at the cage. When
we are put into the cage they beat us and some of us will not go down in the cage but walk instead,
and the result is that at night we come out of the Mine late. '41 It was at the hoist that workers were
most likely to be hammered, said Jim Qongwana, a Transkeian speaking on behalf of a delegation
of aggrieved workers at Crown Deep. He added that 'it was just like a lot of fowls being put into a
fowl house when the boys were getting into the cage'.42
According to confidential evidence given to Cooke by CE. Howe, compound manager at
Crown Deep, in No. 5 shaft at the 'new mine', where trouble at the hoisting stations was
endemic, there were two skips, each of which could hold 80 workers. This was the central
shaft for the entire mine, which hauled 90 per cent of all its gold.43 In the compound
manager's opinion, 'at the stations it should not be difficult to prevent all the hustling that
goes on and which is one of the most [frequent] complaints'.44 The problems of hoisting were
more organisational than personal. Adjustments to deep-level mining did not come easily,
however, and organisational inadequacies tended to be taken out on black workers.
Crown Deep compound served four shafts with five Mine Captains amongst them. One of
them seems to have been exceptional. Despite the general notoriety of the Crown Deep section,
no workers complained about No. 2 shaft, which was presided over by a Mine Captain named
P.J. Rount, even though No. 2 had pathetically inadequate hauling facilities. Cooke's handwritten
notes of a confidential interview with Rount survive in the file. They indicate very competent
management and genuine compassion. But what made Rount different was more than his
personal decency. He had established an organisational solution to the vicious problems of

disorganised hoisting. 'There are always many boys waiting long before knock-off time and they
could be got up before', said Rount in regard to hoisting problems:

There is no reason why boys who have finished should not be taken out by the cages at once. All natives
are pulled up from one level. They walk up or down to this. [At the surface if the boys are late, a good deal
of hustling and assaulting takes place.] There used to be a great deal of this, but it is avoidable. I have put
up two gates well back from the shaft head. The gate is opened and ten boys brought in and get on.45
Although delays in hauling were a frequent cause for complaint on the mines for decades
after 1913, the extreme level of violence at the other deep-level cages at Crown Mines was a
39 Breckenridge, 'Allure of Violence', p. 683.
40 Except on 'E' section of Langlaagte Deep where F.L. Keeny, the Mine Captain, known to his black workers as
Gundwana (the Rat), was notorious for egregious assaults. See further below.
41 CMI, evidence, 24 June 1913.
42 CMI, evidence on behalf of 'a very large number of natives, who wished to interview the Commission and lay
complaints before them', 23 June 1913, p. 63.
43 See Cartwright, Golden Age, p. 214.
44 CMI, Cooke's handwritten notes of confidential evidence from CE. Howe, Compound Manager, Crown Deep,
31 June (?) 1913. Assaults at the hoisting stations seem to have been particularly problematic at Crown Mines
where the push for production was most intense. Hoisting problems must have been as severe at Block B,
Langlaagte Gold Mine, just north of Crown Mines, where the two skips could hold only eight men each. Workers
there complained to Buckle of delays in haulage, but seem not to have suffered serious assaults at the stations. See
NGI [K358], evidence of Hugh Mitchell, Manager, Langlaagte Gold Mine.

45 CMI, Cooke's handwritten notes of confidential interview with P.J. Rount, c.17 July 1913. Eventually most of the
mines adopted variations on Rount's strategy to overcome problems with hoisting, which was always a sore point
for tired men waiting to be hauled to the surface at the end of the shift. Note for reasons of clarity, the text in
square brackets has been inserted, from a different part of the notes on the interview cited.
product of lack of organisation. Rount's example shows what could be done by decent
management, and his measures were (and still are) standard organisational solutions to
hoisting problems that have long since been adopted on most mines.
Assaults in the Haulages

Although many deep-level workers on Crown Mines mentioned violence at the hoisting
places underground, their complaints were not restricted to the shambles at the cages. Such
violence spread also into the haulages. Workers from Crown Deep and Langlaagte
compounds were engaged largely in expensive development of new second and third row
deep-level shafts and haulages which would not reach payable ore for several more years.
Mine captains and shift bosses are always under intense pressure from management to move
rock during development phases of deep level mining. Theodora Williams, the mine
missionary, salted her general comments about the racism of 'a certain class' of white miners
with a shrewd observation about assault in the haulage drives, for instance, saying:
I must not [name particular mines] but... one of the mines of a very big group has a shocking
reputation [Crown Mines?] and cannot get good boys... One of the things [black workers]
complain of is that a boy goes down at 6 o'clock and has so many feet of rock to drill. He does it
by 10 o'clock and then he must stay down until 3 o'clock before he is hoisted. They say they loaf
about down in drafty stopes and everybody who comes kicks them out of the way for being in the
way. There is nowhere for them to go.46
That hand-drillers who had completed their tasks hung about in the drives certainly explains
some of the casual violence ascribed to underground officials and white miners, for whom any
black man not at work was considered a 'loafer'.
Indeed, hammer-drillers were noted for their refusal to drill extra inches despite several efforts
to provide incentives for them to do so. Had they done so, they argued, contract rates for inches
required to be drilled would have been raised. So they opted to knock off early and walk out of the
mine. Of course this had become impossible at deeper levels. These experienced and outspoken
senior workers were thus assaulted for 'loafing about' when they were quite legitimately waiting to
be hauled from the mine. Trapped underground, such men were easy targets for whites pushing for
production, especially given general disorganisation at underground workplaces.
Disorganisation at Work
Indeed, violence at the workplace at the developing deep levels was also considered excessive by
experienced workers - workers who took for granted a certain level of violence as normal on the
mines. 'We are assaulted underground even if we are working', said Jim, a Shangaan boss boy on
lashing at Crown Deep. 'We are assaulted by the man I am working for.'47 Nor were higher-level
underground officials excluded from these charges. Bangazi, an Mpondo from Bizana at Crown
Deep, asserted that 'his only trouble' was 'that the shift bosses are always assaulting natives
underground. They kick them, and fist them, and knock them on the ground and leave them there.
Even when the natives are working hard the shift bosses come along and tell them to work harder' ,48
In these cases, I believe, the specific problem at Crown Mines often had to do with the
organisation of underground work itself. On many shafts at Crown Mines (in 1913 at least),
underground organisation was not equal to the restructuring of production and the additional
46 TAD, K358, evidence of Theodora Williams.
47 CMI, evidence, 25 June 1913, p. 98.

pressures imposed by the amalgamation. Violence in the mines thrived on intense production
pressures and disorganisation in the workplaces underground.
Part of the problem was lack of co-operation between underground line management and
compound administrators. July, a Sotho boss boy with long experience at Crown Deep, who
complained of assaults from 'the masters who supervise our work underground', for instance,
said that he had 'been assaulted on many occasions'. He continued: 'MacKenzie [the Chief
Compound Manager] does all he can for us when we complain, but no notice is taken of the
notes we take to the mine. The note simply gets rotten and we never hear of it again. The notes
are read, torn up, and the boss says "all right", and that is the end of it.'49
Mine managers and the underground management hierarchies subject to them are driven
primarily by production needs and have to deal with white as well as black miners. The
requirements and interests of production management necessarily take precedence. No mine
manager can altogether ignore the compounds but managers tend to expect compound managers
to keep the peace and deliver the workers to the shaft heads every morning. Structural tensions
between underground and compound managements are inevitable and universal on the South
African mines, but under Ruel Warriner at Crown Mines at this time they seem to have been
particularly difficult. S.K. MacKenzie, the chief compound manager supposedly in charge of the
entire black work force at Crown Mines, was quite outspoken about this: 'At present there is no
co-operation between the compound and underground and they think as soon as natives are led to
them they can do as they please with [them]... The [General] Manager certainly favours the
underground people and is lacking in sympathy with the compound.'50
There were exceptions. Howe at Crown Deep compound said that four of his Mine
Captains 'usually tear up the notes and no action is taken', but he made an exception for
Rount, 'who either replies by note or comes and sees me and he usually looks fully into
matters'.51 This was a personal exception, however. The problem was structural. Moreover,
not only was there constant tension between production and compound managements, but the
organisation of underground work itself was chaotic, according to Howe:

The gang system is inoperative. Boys change from one boss to another and any boss under which the
boy happens to be working marks or refuses to mark52 as he thinks fit. Each boss has a sheet stating his
gang but as no penalties are conferred the system is in a chaotic state... Boys frequently complain
that they have not been able to work because their bosses did not come to work. In such cases their
tickets are not marked and they are kept underground which is a hardship.53
Where 'loafers' were regularly beaten underground, such a 'hardship' might turn out to be more
than merely an inconvenience.
MacKenzie, the Chief Compound Manager, confirmed his subordinate's view of this
disorganisation, saying: 'The gang system is very defective: boys are changed about and no entries
made in gang books. This reacts on the natives as tickets are lost and tickets are marked by others
than those that they should be working for.'54 As Mfunda, an Mpondo hammer driller, explained:
'Sometimes you get a white man here for a day and he never comes back again. We don't know
them by their names.'55 Mpalane, an experienced machine driller from Lesotho, provided an
instance of how workers themselves found more desirable supervisors, saying: T don't like my boss
very much because he grouses so much. The whole gang of his boys left him and ran away because

50 CMI, handwritten confidential evidence, 3 July 1913.
51 CMI, confidential handwritten evidence, 31 June (?) 1913.
52 In order to be paid for a shift, black workers needed their white supervisors to sign off on their work tickets.
53 CMI, confidential handwritten evidence, 31 June (?) 1913.

54 CMI, handwritten notes of confidential interview, 3 July 1913.

he hammered them all. I am the only one who remained with him. He has an entirely new gang.'
In situations where language barriers reduced training of new team members to clouts and shoves,
constant shifting of gang composition must have made it impossible even for experienced black
workers to avoid violence. Moreover, black workers wandering around underground looking for a
new boss would certainly be liable to assault from mine captains and shift bosses.
Since most white supervisors at Crown Mines were on contract, such behaviour seems
oddly counterproductive for them. Many white contractors pushed blacks viciously in order
to meet their production quotas. When their men left them, they stole from their mates or
demanded that management provide them with more black bodies. The system was
desperately in need of reform, if only to sustain production.
Howe told Cooke that underground 'native controllers' were to be appointed that very
week to correct these problems. Buckle recommended the appointment of such officials on all
mines. Since native controllers reported to the mine captains, however, there is little evidence
that they did much to contain 'normal' violence underground. Many workers told me that the
'native controller' was simply another white man to hit them. Native controllers did manage
to organise work gangs and assign them to particular white supervisors, however, which
would at least have reduced some of the 'abnormal' violence that seems to have been widely
prevalent in Crown Mines in 1913.57
Differing Underground Management Styles

Near the end of his inquiry, Cooke conducted confidential interviews with two Mine Captains,
P.J. Rount, who was generally respected and, as we have seen, ran a tight ship at No. 2 shaft,
Crown Deep, and F.L. Keeny, who was in charge of 'E' section at Langlaagte Deep and was
known to black workers as Gundwana ('The Rat') because of his violent and abusive
supervision underground. These interviews reinforce the argument that, while individual styles
of supervision might make something of a difference in preventing underground violence,
Rount's effectiveness as a manager stemmed from organisational restructuring of production
processes rather than simply from his more agreeable temperament. Let us start the comparison
with Keeny.
Cooke's most detailed account of Keeny's methods of supervision came from an Mfengu
lasher called Willie, who reported:
I was at the skip breaking stones and I went to the stope. 'Mogundwana' [Keeny] said there is
some stuff to shovel. I picked up the shovel and was putting [the stuff] in the Koko pan [the
tramming trolley]. [Keeny] went away and then my own boss came along and said 'leave this
work alone, go back and carry on with breaking stones at the skip; the skip is full'. I went back
and broke all the stones. Just as I have finished up rolled 'Mogundwana' and said 'What are you
doing here?' and I answered that my boss told me I must break stones. 'Mogundwana' said 'come
along with a spade'. I went thinking that I was going to go in shovelling. I did not think he was
going to hammer me. He kicked me in the ribs, knocked me down and then he just did as he liked
with me. When I fell down my head went wrong altogether. I woke up and I could not even see.
Two Quilimane boys had hold of me, were picking me up and throwing water over me. I don't
know what happened. I never saw 'Mogundwana' after that. I came straight to the compound. The
Compound Manager gave me a note to the Police. I went to the Police and I felt so bad that I
really thought I could not even tell the story. I felt as if I were going to die. I went to hospital and
stayed a fortnight there. [Afterwards] I went with the Police and I identified 'Mogundwana' as he
came out of the shaft... 'Mogundwana' approached the Police then. The case was talked over
then and they never arrested him. They told me the case was over and I was to come back to the
Compound... I am on my last ticket. I am going away and I won't come back to this mine
57 See Moodie, Going for Gold, pp. 58-61.

anymore. That is how my heart feels. The Compound Manager did his best for me and so did
MacKenzie, but they were got the best of.58
An Mpondo underground worker from Tabankulu who had seen Keeny at work commented dryly at
the end of his evidence: 'Mogundwana would not dare to come into my country to recruit natives.'59
Not surprisingly, when interviewed by Cooke, Keeny reported that few cases of assault
had come to his attention (T have always got on all right with natives'), but both he and Rount
confirmed the compound managers' accounts of chaos underground. According to Rount,

'There is a great difference between the popularity of miners and when they are changed the
boys look at them and if they do not like him they skin out. The gang system as a whole is
very badly defective and it is not much use one man trying to keep his lists properly.' Keeny
clearly had given up enforcing gang organisation in his shaft:
There are no gang books in my section. A man is expected to know what boys he has got. Bosses
of lashers and trammers work with what boys he has. The shift bosses are supposed to supervise
this. The men can get gang books if they want them. If boys don't turn up for a couple of days it is
reported to the compound manager.60
Such chaos was exacerbated by the frequent absenteeism of white miners and their
tendency to move along the Rand from mine to mine in search of easy contracts. Assaults
were hardly surprising given the constant reshuffling of workers and failures to mark tickets.
According to Rount, 'The men often beat boys for no real reason. If strong action was taken
the men would soon stop it. I have sacked men for assaulting boys.' But, as we have seen,
Rount also made organisational changes wherever possible.
Even Keeny admitted that 'the natives have a grievance that they are assaulted [by their white
bosses] for no reason whatever'. His solution, however, was as pointlessly punitive in the case of
white contractors as his own regular personal assaults on blacks. 'Fine the whites', he said. He
made no suggestions for reorganising the structure of underground work or insisting that white
gangers mark workers' tickets. Similarly, while he admitted getting frequent notes from the
compound manager, he denied tearing them up. T go into matters', he said. T generally find that
when the boy complains he is usually in the right. ' He did not report the result of his investigations
to the compound manager, however, nor does he seemed to have bothered to rectify wrongly
marked tickets, leaving it up to the blacks to 'keep on till things are done for them'. 'Keeping on'
in the face of beatings from the white man they called 'The Rat' must have taken more temerity
than most workers possessed.

Virtually all supervisors recognised that hand-drillers working over their heads on so-called
dry holes should be credited six or nine inches, but not Keeny.61 'There is no instance that a boy on
a dry hole should receive special consideration', he said. Moreover, in Keeny's opinion, 'lashing
and tramming boys are paid well enough'. Indeed, he thought that when Xhosa-speakers from the
Cape could not get hammer-drilling work, they turned to 'a job like lashing where they can do as
little as they like'. He seemed to have no comprehension of the widespread black worker opinion
that lashing was both underpaid and subject to the most systematic violence from supervisors.
Rount was much more constructive and understanding. T find boys fairly content when
properly handled', he told Cooke. 'The lashing boy is the donkey of the mine and does not get
enough money. Tramming boys are also underpaid at 1/8... Instances of many complaints are
from lashing boys who do not see why the hand drillers be so highly paid and yet leave the mine so
58 CMI, evidence of Willie, 24 June 1913, pp. 80-81.

59 CMI, evidence of Jantje, 26 June 1913, p. 83.
60 CMI, confidential handwritten evidence, 7 July 1913 (Rount's evidence undated, but presumably same date as
Keeny).
61 'Dry holes' were holes drilled into the ceiling of the tunnel directly overhead. Working with a jumper (heavy cold
chisel) and sledgehammer over one's head was obviously much more strenuous.
early.' Indeed, Rount said, the threat of being put on lashing was often used by shift bosses to
control better-paid workers like timberers, although 'there is not much actual degrading of boys'.
The exclusion of hand-drillers from the maximum average limitations gave them an
unfair advantage, Rount thought: '[Rock drillers] try to keep their own benches and have an
interest in keeping them square as it is easier. They grumble if moved to other benches... I
can see no advantage in limiting the general average for machine boys on piece-work to 2/3. It
is sound to let the boys drill as much as they like.' He tried to even things out in his shaft by
(illegally) limiting earnings for hammer-drillers.62
He also tried to limit exploitation of machine-drillers by white miners who had a habit on
some shafts of working them overtime now that they were off piecework. 'There is no
overtime of machine boys on my section', he said, 'at 3.45 all the air in my section is turned
off and this is locked. This has the effect of compelling everyone to knock off work.' So far as
I can make out, not one of Rount's black workers at Crown Deep appeared at Cooke's inquiry
to complain about their treatment. Rount was exceptional in his understanding of structural
issues, however. Keeny seems to have been more typical.
The Particularity of the Crown Mines Situation

Let us reflect for a moment on what has emerged from this detailed discussion of underground
violence at Crown Mines. It seems clear from the evidence that black workers there accepted as
normal a certain level of violent supervision. What made much of the violence at Crown Mines
so unacceptable to them was its arbitrariness and the general disorganisation underground. As
things settled down and new structures were put into place, one might expect that the extreme
levels of violent assault experienced by workers at Crown Mines in 1913 would have returned
to a 'normal' level. This does seem to have been the case.
Underground controllers were installed on the mine to correct the chaos at the work-gang level.
MacKenzie and his compound managers regained some of their clout with fine management and
MacKenzie had a long and successful career as chief compound manager on the Crown. Hoisting
was systematised (although it always remained an area of contention). Hammer-drillers were
gradually phased out. In 1919, Ruel Warriner was replaced as general manager by A.J. Walton.63
According to Cartwright, this was a good move. Walton 'proceeded to make the mine a model of
efficiency'. Until Walton's arrival, Cartwright says, Crown Mines had not been 'a very happy
ship' ,M Judging from evidence to the Cooke inquiry, this is an understatement.
Violent Consequences of the Maximum Average System

Universality of Wage Grievances from those Subject to the Maximum Average
In February 1914, the NRC dropped its maximum average for machine drilling and
introduced piece-rates for the number of feet drilled with a minimum of 30 feet per shift. This
62 The Schedule of Rates almost at once excluded machine-drillers from the maximum average system. They were
on piecework by the end of 1913.
63 On 26 November 1917, Lionel Phillips had written from Central Mining head office in London to E.A. Wallers,
who was running the Johannesburg operation, as follows: 'Although I am sure our decision not to renew
Warriner's contract came to you as rather a shock and though we are just as grieved personally as you are, the
tone of my letters during the last two or three years must have convinced you that I was very uneasy on the subject
of the system of working, particularly at the Crown Mines for which he is primarily responsible.' M. Fraser and
A. Jeeves, All That Glittered (Cape Town, Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 306. See also pp. 287-8, where, as
early as January 1915, Phillips suggests that Crown Mines' 'organisation is not working as well as it should'.
64 Cartwright, Golden Age, p. 224.

removed an important inequity between hammer- and machine-drillers (and indeed older and
more modern mines). Piecework immediately became standard for machine drilling. Mpondo
miners from the 1930s and 1940s to whom Vivienne Ndatshe and I spoke in the 1980s told us
that machine-drillers were 'the kings of the mine', typically earning more than boss boys.
The maximum average system continued to apply to lashers and trammers, however.
There is ample evidence that no manner of structural reform by mine managers could offer
non-violent incentives to address problems of worker motivation unless the industry as a
whole abandoned the maximum average system. Without incentives, 'scientific management'
in any meaningful sense was impossible and violence reigned. While many of the specific
structural problems at Crown Mines could be addressed by organisational reform, the

continuation of the maximum average system entrenched violent assault as virtually the only
form of labour control in lashing and tramming on all the mines for the next 50 years. Despite
occasional muted objections to the system from progressive mine managers and efficiency
experts, the general advantages of the system were nonetheless perceived to outweigh its
disadvantages for five more decades after the specific causes of the most egregious
underground violence had been removed at Crown Mines.
It is my contention that one unintended consequence of the maximum average system was a
steady level of 'normal' supervisory violence underground. The 1913 black strike and the
shortage of labour at Crown Mines both resulted from changes in the wage structure of the mining
industry initiated by the formation of the NRC in October 1912 and the imposition in January
1913 of maximum average wage schedules (set by the Chamber's Committee of Consulting
Engineers) on all member mines. July, the Sotho boss boy on Crown Mines at Crown Deep with
long experience at the mine, summed up black worker grievances when he gave evidence to the
Cooke inquiry on 25 June 1913. His first complaint, as with most of the Crown Mines black
witnesses who were not hand-drillers, had to do with the reduction in wages brought about by the
new NRC Schedule, which had introduced the maximum average system. Crown Mines had
implemented the new schedule promptly. July was careful to pinpoint the date of the reduction
precisely, saying 'this is the third ticket [of 30 working days] I am on since we have been
reduced'. Again and again, workers giving evidence to Cooke first mentioned the wage
reduction: T really came here to work for my children, but this sort ofthing is no good. The money
is too small.'65 T have written in my book 2/3, but the 3d. I have never received.'66 'We are not
paid for our full number of feet. '67 'The first time he was here he was doing the same work as he is
now, but was making ?3-5/- per month; he now finds that the money has been reduced to ?3 per
month since he was last here. '68 'When I finished my first month I suddenly discovered the money
had been reduced to ?2-5/-. My heart is very sore that I should come here to work for that
amount of money.'69 'We want the money to be raised.'70 Reduction in wages was thus a very
general grievance on Crown Mines, exceeded in volume only by graphic accounts of assaults
underground.
Management Exasperation with the Maximum Average System

As we have seen, machine-drillers were moved back to piecework as early as February 1914. The
maximum average clause's effect on tramming and shovelling pieceworkers was much more
long-lasting. The best example of its initial impact is the case of Nourse Mines. In 1909, Morkel
65
66
67
68
69
70
CMI, evidence of Jim, 24 June 1913, p. 80.

CMI, evidence of Jantje, 24 June 1913, p. 83.
CMI, evidence of Mpalane, 25 June 1913, p. 86.
CMI, evidence of John, 23 June 1913, p. 53.
CMI, evidence of Jim from Mqanduli, 24 June 1913, p. 80.
CMI, evidence of Mfunda, 25 June 1913, p. 95.

Brothers had introduced a system of gang contracts for lashing and tramming at Robinson Central
Deep Mine, soon to be incorporated into the Crown Mines conglomerate. These gangs, largely
recruited in Lesotho, were paid by the tramming truck, fully loaded at the stope and delivered to
the hoisting shaft. They were supervised by black 'boss boys' who pocketed every fourth week's
wages (with a percentage to the Morkels). Petty chiefs in Lesotho quickly got in on the act and
many 'boss boys' were in fact their representatives. The scheme spread from Lesotho to parts of
the Transkei. Although these gangs were quite expensive for the mines, they were enormously
productive and they led to relatively high wages - up front at least, such workers earned close to
the 5/- a day demanded by the 1913 black strikers.71
Nourse Mines as a high-grade mine could afford high piece rates for efficient tramming
and lashing. The mine manager, Richard Barry, John X. Merriman's nephew, warmly
favoured Frank Gilbreth's method of scientific management. If 'the right class of boy' was
recruited for a piecework tramming contract, he believed:
a boy who understands that his remuneration depends solely on the result of his personal efforts,
his ability to overcome local difficulties, to improve conditions on his particular section, etc, etc,
then the piece-work contract system undoubtedly has the great economical advantage of
increasing the tonnage produced per boy from any given place, as compared with the results
obtained under ordinary day's pay.72
By December 1912, when the NRC first published its new rates, Barry had sixteen lashing and
tramming piecework gangs at work in his mine. This made for between 300 and 400 workers
earning slightly under 3/6 a shift and delivering about 3.75 trucks per worker per shift. Anybody
who believes that mine managers supported the maximum average system (or had absolute
control of operations on their mines) should read the agitated and irate correspondence that
ensued between Barry, his consulting engineer and the NRC when the recruiting corporation
published its schedule of rates insisting on a maximum average of 2/3 (with an additional 4d. if no
food was provided) to be imposed immediately on lashing and tramming pieceworkers.73

Basotho workers on Nourse Mines promptly went on strike. Barry was forced to renegotiate
their contracts at a somewhat lower rate (but still above the maximum average) and as their
contracts expired they began to leave the mine. The Chamber exempted Nourse Mines from the
penalty for exceeding the maximum average but the NRC did not (or could not) deliver on a
promise to replace the pieceworkers. Soon the mine was 10 per cent below the complement of
other mines in the Central Mining group.74 Barry was livid and kept up his angry correspondence
with the NRC, but he soon lost the sympathy of his consulting engineer, who could not see why he
continued to object to 'rules and regulations which have been agreed upon by all parties'.
71 The system did lead to occasional disputes among gang members about sharing out the proceeds. In one case at
Crown Mines, a portion of the workers' three-quarter share was 'given to a white man underground for his
generosity of exaggerating the number of our trucks we made'. Gang members thought that such overheads
should have been paid out of the fourth week's takings. See court records for 28 January 1913, in TAD, NLB 3,
313/09. A. Jeeves, Migrant Labour in South Africa's Mining Economy (Kingston and Montreal, McGill/Queens
University Press, 1985), pp. 158-61, has a useful summary of how the system worked.
72 BRA, Nourse Mines, Box 382, File No. 5, Native Labour 1910-18, R.A. Barry, Manager, to NRC, 15 April 1913.
73 Correspondence in BRA, Nourse Mines, Box 382, File No. 5, Native Labour 1910-18, 4 January 1913 and
following. See also Native Affairs Department Commission Report in TAD, NLB 3, 313/09. The Cooke Inquiry
at Crown Mines heard evidence from a representative of Sotho pieceworkers at Crown Deep, who said that: 'The
Basutos were fed by the Company now and only get 5d. a truck, but they would much rather buy their own food
and get more money. When they were cut down from lOd. to 5d. they had to feed themselves but the Crown
Mines decided to feed them because they grumbled and were leaving the work. Witness went on to say that he
was a Boss Boy with 20 natives under him (two gangs). He collects all the money and pays out the gang according
to the Time Office sheets, but he keeps all the money of the fourth week, except for giving the boys some little
present if they have worked well.' CMI, evidence of a large deputation, 23 June 1913, p. 64.
74 BRA, Nourse Mines, Box 382, File No. 5, Native Labour 1910-18, Barry to Madew, 29 May 1913. See also NRC
evidence to the Buckle Commission (K358), 3 March 1914, p. 14, where C.W. Villiers criticises Barry's handling
of the affair.

Barry was by no means alone in his objection to the maximum average system, however.
He was just more vociferous. Many managers simply ignored the rules and exceeded the
maximum average in the early teething stages, but several of them testified to Buckle in early
1914 that they had had to abandon piecework for lashing and tramming even though they
were 'perfectly satisfied they were getting better value' out of it.75 Ironically enough, Taberer
of the NRC was himself adamantly opposed to the entire maximum average system. Told by
Buckle that mine managers had insisted to him that the NRC schedule had broken down a
perfectly satisfactory system in which 'boys making high wages' gave the mines 'full value
for their money', Taberer replied: 'That is perfectly correct. 600 boys left one mine alone
[Crown Mines?] in one or two weeks, because of the cutting of the tramming rate and
averaging the earning pay. Some mines as soon as they put boys on to earning what they can,
find that the costs go down and the tonnage goes up.' 76
Buckle was puzzled, as Barry no doubt would have been, that the superintendent of the
NRC - which had imposed the schedule - was so vehemently opposed to it. 'Can you tell me
who I can get hold of to put the case in favour of that maximum rate, because practically
everybody I have got hold of has been opposed it?', he asked Taberer.77 Taberer suggested he
speak to the consulting engineers.
Monopsony versus Efficiency

Buckle eventually examined A.W. Stockett, Technical Adviser (Engineering) to the NRC,
who was in the process of calculating the labour complement for each mine and was a prime
mover in drawing up the NRC schedules.78 Stockett was very clear that the problem was both
competition for labour and the danger of wage hikes for black workers. From the point of
view of scientific management, he said, 'theoretically the maximum average is wrong and
there should be no limit to piece-work' in shovelling. The problem lay in variations between
mines, and even on the same mine, in conditions for lashing and tramming. He mentioned the
length of the haul, the state of the trucks and the tracks, whether it was possible to install
electrical or mechanical haulage, the steepness of the stope, the roughness of the foot wall,
faults in the reef, and, of course, the overall organisation of the work on each mine. 'The tons
per boy varied from two tons to nine tons... depending on the conditions on the same mine',
let alone between mines. The maximum average was intended to get everybody on the same
footing, 'to give all boys throughout the Rand an equal chance on tramming and shovelling'.
By that logic, as Buckle was quick to point out, more efficient workers and more efficient
mines were being penalised. Under a piecework system in lashing and tramming with no
maximum average, Stockett responded, there was nothing 'to prevent the rich mine from offering
an undue advantage to the boy over the poorer mine'. The crux of the matter was that the Chamber
was determined to banish competition amongst mines for labour in a situation where technological
constraints had often been set at the development stages of each mine.79 Open competition for
75 TAD, K358, Buckle's remarks to C.W. Villiers, 3 March 1914, p. 14.
76 See, for instance, Taberer's lengthy Report on Native Labour for the Economic Commission, 27 November 1913,
in TAD, COM, T2380, Economic Commission - Native Labour, p. 1,910, where he attacks the 'absurd
restrictions to the earning power of natives' imposed by the NRC Schedule of Wages and its maximum average
system.
77 TAD, K358, evidence of H.M. Taberer, NRC, 6 February 1914, p. 31.
78 TAD, K358, evidence of A.W. Stocke?, March 1914.
79 In Marxist language, unrestrained extraction of relative surplus value would have made it impossible to work
technologically backward mines. These would immediately have become 'low-grade' by definition because of
their organisation of work, regardless of their 'actual' grade of ore. Hammer mines, for instance, which required
far more black workers, would have had to pay very high wages or close up shop. Conversion to machines would
have involved widening stopes, both excessively expensive and quite dangerous.

labour was posing a threat that the 'low-grade mines' would have to go out of business. That a mine
was 'low-grade' had to do with its initial development and its productive efficiency as well as the
actual gold content of its ore. In the end, despite opposition from mine managers and NRC
recruiters (and even uneasiness among many consulting engineers themselves), monopsony won
out over productivity in order that investors in low-grade mines receive some return on their
capital. Piecework virtually disappeared from all but drilling on the mines.
Without cheap black labour, every South African gold mine would have been 'low
grade'. The long-term survival of the entire industry depended on a reliable supply of cheap
black labour spread evenly across the entire spectrum of gold mines from the best designed
and most efficient to the incompetently run and from highest to lowest grades of ore that
could squeeze out a profit on the margins. 'This system', as Johnstone puts it, 'was an
interesting form of capitalist collectivism, which inhibited the profit maximisation of certain
individual companies for the sake of maximising the profitability of all of the companies'.80
What has never been noticed is the connection between the maximum average system and
violent forms of labour control underground. What the maximum average system did, as
Barry saw at the outset, was to remove the possibility of using monetary incentives to
encourage hard work. This led to a fundamental systemic contradiction. While, on the one
hand, the maximum average system efficiently kept down the cost of black labour and
distributed black workers to all the mines, on the other hand, it limited the possibility for
adequately rewarding competent and hard workers. Efficient and non-violent production
incentives were sacrificed on the altar of low wages.
Underground Work Practices

Consulting engineers and mine managers, of course, were obsessed with efficient social
organisation of production for greater profitability. Hence their recurring interest in 'scientific
management' and their acceptance of the need to motivate workers, whether by coercion or
inducement. For most of them, humanity with regard to black labour was hardly an issue. What
was at stake was simply finding the right carrot or stick. It was lower level supervisors who were
obliged to put scientific management into practice by ensuring that black miners worked hard as
well as putting in their time. Production contracts for white miners were little help unless they
could effectively organise the work of their black subordinates. Having precious few carrots
(although sometimes they over-marked holes to reward assiduous drillers81), white miners
literally had recourse to the stick (in the shape of sjamboks or short pieces of hosepipe - or
whatever else they could lay their hands on, as we saw on Crown Mines), especially those
supervising lashing and tramming.
A measure of assault in the push for production was taken for granted in the mines. Pohl,
the union representative on the Low-grade Mines Commission in 1919, put the white
supervisor's dilemma very neatly:
He is forced to get a job and he goes underground and he is told that [this and] that is required of
him and of the natives. His boss - the mine captain or the shift boss or the underground manager,
tells him at the same time 'you must not hit the boys, you will get fired if you do'. Well, if he does
80 Johnstone, Class, Race and Gold, p. 44.

81 See, for example, Cooke's handwritten notes of his interview with P.J. Rount, Mine Captain at No. 2 Shaft,
Crown Deep, n.d. (c. 17 July 1913), in TAD, NLB 111, 136/13/154. In a participant observation study on Welkom
mine in 1975-6, we found occasional white miners who shared a portion of their production bonus with their
teams. As I recall, Patrick Pearson was able to cite similar instances from his experience. Such miners were
always superb producers. By then, the maximum average system was no longer being applied and everyone in
authority frowned on violence underground. I suspect that in earlier periods there were probably also cases of this
sort.

not he gets fired as well because the work is not done; if he does not get the work out of the boys,
he stands a chance of being fired. What position do you put him in?82
In 1930, Reich, the union representative to the Low-grade Ore Commission, made essentially the
same point: 'There was no question about the sincerity of the manager nor the compound manager,
with regard to his instructions [to treat the workers well]. But as soon as your tonnage fell, then the
mine captain and the shift boss want to know "What the hell... what had I a pair of boots for!'"83
Every management effort to improve 'native efficiency' by training and installing 'boss
boys' on the mines fell foul of the maximum average system. The system precluded the
development of more than very moderate wage differentials in the black labour force. In fact,
machine-drillers made more money than boss boys - and without the responsibility.
Experienced progressive managers' suggestions that 'a special schedule of rates might be
established for boss boys and be excluded when arriving at the maximum average rates
permitted' were simply ignored by the Chamber.84
Breckenridge assumes that it was piecework that encouraged boss boy beatings. But his
informants themselves describe violence as the means of establishing work rhythms.

Breckenridge quotes Kathazo Sodlala as follows, for instance:
Wow, they really beat Beatings [sic] us. If you don't load, you're beaten. They said, 'Come on,
come on, come on'. It [the sjambok] would really get in. The fijas would really get in... It would
land on your ribs and we'd load. It was hard... If you don't take out the stuff in front of you, you
get a beating, the boss boy wants to push things.
While the interview material is fascinating, I very much doubt there was piecework involved.
As Breckenridge himself writes: 'Violence served to maintain the rhythm of work, and it
served as the backbone of the underground work hierarchy.'85
The interdependence that his informants described was much more primitive than
'Fordism', as Breckenridge chooses to dub the system. As Richard Barry knew decades before,
'scientific management' actually was useful in ensuring effective production, but it had been
abolished in 1913 with the introduction of the maximum average system. In the mines, the
'rhythm of work' had long since been maintained by violence alone - violence and the very
movement of the ore line itself. No doubt, on the whole, as Breckenridge says, 'the experience
of supervisory violence' tended to be restricted 'to new workers, or to the very young'. People
learned by being beaten and, once skilled or promoted, avoided the worst of it. In fact, the boss
boys themselves became the ones doing the hitting. To quote Geoff Livingstone one final time:
'The team leader was a man's man. Big badge. He was your lackey. He helped out. You'd say,
"Listen, that guy there, take [him] behind the packs". And he was given a hiding.'
Although managers repeatedly struggled to train boss boys, in the actual hustle and
din underground, promotions themselves came about through violence.86 When I
interviewed a group of older clerks at Vaal Reefs in 1984 they told me that, in the 1940s
and 1950s:
There were no promotions underground at that time. If you started as a lasher, you lashed until
you finished your contract - unless you assaulted the boss boy and took all those first-aid badges
and put them on yourself and said, 'Hey, lash'. Then you would become the boss boy. The white
miner didn't mind if you beat up the boss boy as long as you pushed the people: 'Keep up the
dust!' If you wanted to be a boss boy, you took the job.
82
83
84
85
86
TAD, LGMC, 21 August 1919, paragraph 13,488.

TAD, LGOC, October 1930, Paragraph 2,301.
Moodie, Going for Gold, p. 65.
Breckenridge, 'Allure of Violence', p. 685.
Moodie, Going for Gold, pp. 66-7.
Robert Mahlati at Libanon confirmed this account, saying:

On those days there was a bit of roughness, although on the surface it was tame. People could
become team leaders by means of roughness. You might well find a boss boy who had been in the
school of mines pushing a cocopan [tramming trolley] because another lasher was brave enough
to hit that boss boy and take all his badges off. The white man wouldn't care whether his boss boy
had been [replaced]... They were after production.

In the longer run, of course, production suffered. After things changed in the late 1960s, workers
came to see this. When the maximum average system was replaced by the Patterson Scale (which
remunerated black mine workers in accordance with their skills and trained them thoroughly),
productivity leapt ahead. 'There were no criteria for choosing boss boys in those days - except how
well a man could fight', a group of Vaal Reefs black mineworkers told Mark Ntshangase in 1984: 'If
he was afraid of his men, he was fired, and an aggressive man chosen in his place. There was no
training centre or ability training in those days. This was why people worked so badly. Nowadays
men know their jobs and are not pushed around. No one has to be taught his job underground.' 87
Conclusion
After the end of the 1960s, violent whites (and certainly boss boys who hit) risked their
own jobs. The fact that violence was no longer built into the process of production as the
primary form of labour control meant that it was used less often and could be policed
more easily. It was much more likely that the incompetent or lazy worker would be
'charged', a semi-legal procedure which black and white workers both hated, but surely an
improvement over the older discipline by violence. Moreover, an elaborate training system
was instituted, which largely obviated the violent initiation experienced by all of the older
workers. The ethic of manliness remained, as Geoff Livingstone so eloquently testified,

but the mining system, for all its rigours, no longer called forth rhythms of sustained
violent supervision. The naked coercion associated with the maximum average system was
gone.
In the early years of gold mining, blacks were initiated into the rigours of underground
mining by violent assault. Difficult as it is to imagine, Buckle was told by a group of workers
that, by 1913, conditions in this regard were enormously improved.88 However that may be,
in the 50 years after Buckle's hearings, matters got no better. Violence was built into the very
rhythm of underground work, as Breckenridge's informants so graphically described. Black
workers resigned themselves to the system, clambering to a precarious seniority based on
skill and strength. Managers resigned themselves to inefficiency, offset by abundant cheap
labour, or sometimes struggled unavailingly against the current, seeking to establish

competent management in a world without incentives. Invariably they ended up turning a
blind eye to structural tendencies to violence, as underground supervisors pushed for results
at the point of production.
When things changed, it became clear that 'the endless violence of mine work' had
depended, not on particular conceptions of masculinity (although these certainly reflected it)
but rather, much more simply, on structural consequences of the maximum average system.
Methods to control wages gave rise to a system of production noted not only for its racial
87 Ibid., p. 61.
88 Buckle told Theodora Williams, the missionary, that overall in the mines things were much improved with regard
to assaults: 'A group of extremely intelligent Xosas on the E.R.P.M. who had been working on the mines ever
since the mines had been here told me... there was no comparison between the old conditions and the present day
conditions and they are much improved... they were unanimous'. See TAD, K358, 15 October 1913, p. 12.

ultra-exploitation but also for the casual violence of its marginally efficient systems of
supervision and labour control. Whereas, as in Crown Mines after 1913, reorganisation of
production might eliminate some structural aspects of violence underground, incentives
providing useful alternatives to institutionalised violent supervision had to wait until the
eventual abandonment of the maximum average system in the 1960s.
T. DUNBAR MOODIE
Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY 14456, USA. E-mail: moodle@hws.edu

25065024

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

25065024

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Journal of Southern African Studies

jjj^ Taylor & Francis Croup

Maximum Average Violence: Underground

ISSN 0305-7070 print; 1465-3893 online/05/030547-21

548 Journal of Southern African Studies

Violence in the Mines

established beyond doubt that it is characteristic for perfectly decent, psychologically

Physical conditions underground were indeed important. In 1998, I spoke to Geoff

Maximum Average Violence 549

was, for decades, a normal aspect of the educational process.8

Breckenridge's argument is intriguing and convincing at a general cultural level.9

2 (2001), pp. 140-57, and other work cited in that article.

550 Journal of Southern African Studies

Workplace Conditions at Crown Mines in 1913

source for evidence of 'determining factors of violence underground'.

production for understanding workplace assaults. Witnesses also referred frequently to

Maximum Average Violence 551

The Mining Industry in 1913

552 Journal of Southern African Studies

Sons, 1968), Chapter 14.

Maximum Average Violence 553

Excessive and Arbitrary Underground Violence at Crown Mines

were paid bonuses as incentives to produce.

30 CMI, evidence of Njali (Fingo Hammer Boy), 25 June 1913, p. 97.

554 Journal of Southern African Studies

Hoisting Problems on the New Deep Level Shafts

Maximum Average Violence 555

climb).40 Thus, an experienced hand driller from Keiskammahoek reported to Cooke at

personal decency. He had established an organisational solution to the vicious problems of

could be got up before', said Rount in regard to hoisting problems:

NGI [K358], evidence of Hugh Mitchell, Manager, Langlaagte Gold Mine.

556 Journal of Southern African Studies

Assaults in the Haulages

way. There is nowhere for them to go.46

production, especially given general disorganisation at underground workplaces.

Maximum Average Violence 557

organisation of underground work itself was chaotic, according to Howe:

49 CMI, evidence, 25 June 1913, p. 99.

53 CMI, confidential handwritten evidence, 31 June (?) 1913.

55 CMI, evidence, 25 June 1913, p. 95.

558 Journal of Southern African Studies

Differing Underground Management Styles

Maximum Average Violence 559

confirmed the compound managers' accounts of chaos underground. According to Rount,

reported to the compound manager.60

than most workers possessed.

58 CMI, evidence of Willie, 24 June 1913, pp. 80-81.

560 Journal of Southern African Studies

The Particularity of the Crown Mines Situation

Violent Consequences of the Maximum Average System

64 Cartwright, Golden Age, p. 224.

Maximum Average Violence 561

structural problems at Crown Mines could be addressed by organisational reform, the

Management Exasperation with the Maximum Average System

CMI, evidence of Jim, 24 June 1913, p. 80.

562 Journal of Southern African Studies

the 5/- a day demanded by the 1913 black strikers.71

food was provided) to be imposed immediately on lashing and tramming pieceworkers.73

Maximum Average Violence 563

Monopsony versus Efficiency

564 Journal of Southern African Studies

Underground Work Practices

80 Johnstone, Class, Race and Gold, p. 44.

Maximum Average Violence 565