Chamber of Mines Archive (CMA) files and internal correspondence

Literature › Primary sources

Kind	chamber of mines or recruiting records
Producer	Chamber of Mines
Coverage	1904-1982
Works using it	7

Debates

Debate	Works
The mine migrant labour system: origins, recruitment, foreign labour and stabilisation	4
Cheap labour thesis and the function of the reserves	3
The state and capital: instrumentalism, autonomy and fractions of capital	3
Worker consciousness, strikes and conflict on the mines and shop floor	2
Agricultural policy, productivity, farm size and land reform	1
Agrarian transition to capitalism and the fate of the African peasantry	1
Finance, capital flight, the 1985 debt crisis and banking	1
Historiographical approaches	1

Works using this source

Work	As cited	Period	How used
Beinart (1982)	Chamber of Mines Archive, Johannesburg (WNLA reports, memoranda, back files on Native Labour)	1904-1909	Documents WNLA's cattle advance scheme, its losses and the Chamber's drive to abolish advances.
Breckenridge (1995)	Chamber of Mines Archive (CMA) files: Gold Standard 1931; Native Labour Miscellaneous 1924-29; Native Labour Supply 1932; Native Wages 1932; Taxation 1933	1924-1933	Supports the Chamber's wage-in-gold policy, the savings societies investigation, wage-cut deliberations in 1932, and the 1931 response to Britain's exit from gold.
Breckenridge (1995)	Table dated 16 Sept 1927, CMA Native Labour Miscellaneous, 1927; Territorial analysis of desertions, 21 Mar 1928	1927-1928	Provides the African wage bill and workforce composition (East Coast and Cape migrants over 80 per cent of 200,000).
James (1987)	Chamber of Mines archives, unlisted source: Gold Producers' Committee, 'Native Labour-Native Trade Unions-Strike' (1945)	1945-1946	Records the food disturbances in the compounds in 1945, including the first on 4 February at Marievale and a fatal incident at Modderfontein East.
Jeeves and Crush (1992)	Chamber of Mines Archive (CMA) rolls: 2149/2535, 1705/634, 1962/1853, 1705/651, 543/650, 1705/630, 1951/1753, 1705/728	1950s	Document Chamber policy, costs, the 3 percent rule and the 1954 count of mineworkers in married quarters.
McNamara (1985)	Chamber of Mines central records and correspondence (COMGU unrest files; COMNL native labour files for Lesotho, Mozambique, Rhodesia, Tropicals, Malawi Air Crash; COM Blacks-Discipline)	1967-1982	Documents Chamber/ministerial/Banda negotiations, Rhodesian recruitment decisions and responses to unrest.
Yudelman and Jeeves (1986a)	Chamber of Mines President's letter to Minister of Mines, 6 October 1961	1961	Shows the Chamber's argument about labour shortage and the need to recruit freely abroad.
Yudelman and Jeeves (1986b)	Chamber of Mines internal and correspondence documents of the 1960s-70s (1961 President's letter to Minister of Mines; 1970 Gemmill briefing; July 1970 letter to Koornhof's secretary; 1974 Fleischer report)	1961-1974	Reconstructs Chamber-state debate on foreign sourcing, wage levels and stabilisation before 1974.