Review of Alan Jeeves, Migrant Labour in South Africa's Mining Economy: The Struggle for the Gold Mines' Labour Supply 1890-1920¶
Harries, Patrick (1986). Review of Alan Jeeves, Migrant Labour in South Africa's Mining Economy: The Struggle for the Gold Mines' Labour Supply 1890-1920. Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 13, No. 1. Taylor & Francis.
| Type | journal article |
| Scope | Economics and economic history of apartheid |
| Method | synthesis review |
| Period studied | 1890–1920 |
| Regions | Witwatersrand, Transvaal, Cape Province/Transkei, Mozambique |
| Themes | mining migrant labour, origins segregation, business and state, labour markets wages |
| Citation key | harries1986 |
Argument¶
Harries summarises Jeeves's claim that the migrant labour system was not the product of a unified, hegemonic mining capital. Jeeves argues it emerged from about thirty years of competition and struggle among mine houses, independent recruiters, rural interests, and a state (Het Volk after 1907) responsive to white working-class and Afrikaner interests. Harries calls the book well structured and important, but criticises it as resting on 'standard liberal arguments'. He objects that Jeeves accepts the low-wage/high-recovery-cost view, understates the role of the 1895-96 pass laws and the conquest of southern Mozambique in establishing cheap labour, and ignores African workers' own agency.
Evidence and method¶
Review of Jeeves's book. Harries notes its sources (the Chamber of Mines, recruiting records, government bureaux) and points to material it overlooked: Transvaal Republican archives, Portuguese archives and publications, popular accounts by recruiters, Mendelsohn on the Jameson Raid, and the Marks and Rathbone collection. The review itself offers no new data beyond figures quoted from Jeeves.
Place in the debates¶
- Cheap labour thesis / role of hegemonic capital in creating the migrant labour system (see Cheap labour thesis and the function of the reserves). Jeeves (as reported) denies that organised capital designed a cheap migrant system and stresses competition and white protectionism. Harries credits the 'struggle' point but contests Jeeves's liberal assumptions, giving more weight to the magnates' pass laws and wage-depressing measures.
- Liberal vs radical/revisionist historiography on mining, the state and racial labour policy (see Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth?). Harries criticises Jeeves for adopting liberal arguments: that the state forced migrancy and the colour bar on reluctant magnates, that Kruger's mismanagement caused the Anglo-Boer war, and that high gold recovery costs forced low wages. He argues liberal historiography reflected its own post-1948 political concerns.
- Whether workers were pushed into wage labour by proletarianisation or by local interests at the supply end (see The mine migrant labour system: origins, recruitment, foreign labour and stabilisation). Jeeves (reported) stresses chiefs, merchants and politicians pushing workers onto the market. Harries says this ignores African workers' own role and that the Mozambican conquest explains the cheap labour supply.
Findings¶
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Jeeves argues the industry needed independent recruiters and did not tend inexorably towards monopsony. (p. 3)
Jeeves shows in great detail that the mining industry, far from moving inexorably towards a recruiting monopsony, needed the independent recruiters.
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The mines' own recruiting organisations could not supply the rapidly growing labour demand. (p. 3)
their own recruiting organisations were unable to provide the sheer volume of labour needed by the mines (15,000 in 1890, 208,000 in 1910)
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Effective recruiting infrastructure depended on state help from 1907. (p. 3)
it was only with government aid after 1907 that their efforts bore fruit.
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The Cape, especially the Transkei, became a major recruiting area under the Government Native Labour Bureau. (p. 3)
Under the GNLB the Cape Province, and particularly the Transkei, became a major area of recruitment (10 per cent of the Rand workforce in 1905/6, 30 per cent in 1910).
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Jeeves attributes labour supply to local interest groups rather than to proletarianisation. (p. 3)
He argues that workers were pushed onto the market less by proletarianisation, as is commonly believed, than by these interest groups at the supply end.
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On Jeeves's account, capital was neither hegemonic nor the author of a cheap migrant labour system in this period. (p. 3)
Capital was competitive and disorganised and was in no way hegemonic or responsible, at this time, for a 'cheap' migrant labour system.
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Harries insists the 1895-96 pass laws, drafted by the magnates, entrenched the racially dual labour market. (p. 4)
It was the pass laws of 1895 and 1896, drawn up by the magnates, that legally entrenched the dual (racial) labour market and forced the white workers into racial protectionism.
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Harries locates the success of the cheap labour supply in the conquest of southern Mozambique. (p. 4)
Here one has to look to the conquest of southern Mozambique, always the largest supplier of labour, in order to find the reasons for the successful establishment of a cheap labour supply.
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Competition among recruiters benefited rural Africans and put pressure on mine wages and conditions, until monopsony in 1919 removed this. (p. 4)
Competitive recruiters, ever watchful of their human investment, had also combined with the Native Affairs Department to pressure the mines into improving wages and living conditions.
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Harries endorses Jeeves's central point that the migrant system was the outcome of prolonged struggle. (p. 5)
emerged as the hard-won product of 30 years of intense competition and bitter struggle between contending interests inside and outside the mining industry
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recruited mine labour force figures as given by Jeeves (15,000 in 1890; 208,000 in 1910); underlying series not named in the review | secondary literature compilation | 1890-1910 | Shows that the mines' own recruiting organisations could not supply the scale of labour needed, so independent recruiters were required. |
| Regional share of Rand workforce from the Cape Province/Transkei (10% in 1905/6, 30% in 1910), as given by Jeeves; source series not named | secondary literature compilation | 1905-1910 | Shows the rise of the Cape and Transkei as a major recruiting area under the Government Native Labour Bureau. |
| Transvaal pass laws of 1895 and 1896 | legislation gazette | 1895-1896 | The reviewer treats them as measures drawn up by the magnates to depress black wages, in opposition to Jeeves's reading of them as influx control. |
| Transvaal Republican archives and Portuguese archives and publications (named by the reviewer as overlooked by Jeeves) | state archives | c. 1890s | The reviewer says these archives were not used by Jeeves and would affect his account of Kruger-era labour policy and Mozambican recruiting. |
Inference¶
Quantification: Illustrative figures.
This is a book review. It summarises Jeeves's narrative, institutional and political argument about recruiting competition. It then contests parts of it by interpretive argument and historiographical critique, not by new data. The only figures are a few headline numbers taken from Jeeves.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| The mining industry needed independent recruiters rather than moving inexorably towards a recruiting monopsony. This is Jeeves's claim as relayed by the reviewer. (p. 3) | Jeeves's study, with only the 15,000 to 208,000 labour-force growth figures cited. | Partial data |
| Workers were pushed into migrant labour by Transkeian chiefs, merchants and politicians more than by proletarianisation. This is Jeeves's claim, which the reviewer calls his strongest chapter. (p. 3) | Jeeves's regional study of the Cape and Transkei, summarised without specific sources. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| White protective policies, combined with rural interests, generated and maintained the migrant labour system, and capital was not hegemonic. This is Jeeves's claim as relayed by the reviewer. (p. 3) | Jeeves's political narrative of the Het Volk government, the 1907 settlement and the colour bar; no data cited in the review. | Asserted |
| The 1895-96 pass laws were solely concerned with depressing black wages and had nothing to do with influx control. This is the reviewer's counter-claim. (p. 4) | The reviewer's own reading of the pass laws; no source given. | Asserted |
| The success of the June 1897 wage reduction is explained by the conquest of southern Mozambique and the forced supply of Mozambican labour at low wages. This is the reviewer's counter-claim. (p. 4) | The reviewer's own interpretation; Portuguese archives are said to be unused by Jeeves. | Asserted |
| The migrant labour system emerged from thirty years of competition and struggle, not as the immediate creation of hegemonic capital. (p. 5) | Jeeves's book as a whole (quoted from p. 16 of Jeeves); no specific data in the review. | Asserted |
Gaps in the evidence¶
The review names almost none of Jeeves's primary sources, so his evidence cannot be audited from this text. Both Jeeves's claims and the reviewer's counter-claims about pass laws, wage cuts and Mozambican labour would be better tested with Chamber of Mines recruiting and wage series, Transvaal Republican and Portuguese archival records, and recruiter and Native Affairs Department files. Most of these existed then and survive in archives today. The reviewer's critique rests on interpretation and on archives he says were not used.
Replicability: Not applicable.