Nigeria and its tin fields

by Albert Frederick Calvert

Mr. J. Tomson says of the natives that they make very good labourers: “They insist on being paid with English money, ‘threepenny bits’ being very popular. They have no liking for gold, and do not consider it so valuable as silver. The pagans, who are the farming class, appear to be a most industrious people. They still live in fear of invading Fulani, and always take their bows and arrows with them to the field. Neither men nor women wear dress of any kind. They have a juju or secret oath which forbids them to put on any garment. With these people the missionaries make no headway at all. Neither do they with the Mohammedans.”

The manager of the Lucky Chance Mines, reporting under date 29th August, said he was still paying 6d. per day for ordinary labour, and so far he had had little trouble with the men on day wages, although they had several times tried to get him to raise the rate of pay.

Reporting on a property at Juga in the tin district, Mr. Huddart says:

“The properties are very favourably situated to obtain labour. The men from Bauchi and the east come along the main caravan route looking for work to enable them to earn money to pay the taxes, &c. As this particular property is near the market, and the men usually halt at the market, they can easily be recruited. The cost of ordinary labour is 1d. per hour, and is easily trained. The Bornu and Eastern Kanuri are, in my opinion, the best workers available. A further advantage lies in the position of the property in settled country under the control of the Filani Emir of Bauchi, and the men prefer this to the pagan country.”

Referring to another property about twenty miles further south, Mr. Huddart says:

“When all is in proper working order, I am convinced that ample labour will be forthcoming, as the property is favourably situated in that it can tap the Angass country and the western part of Bornu, as well as the eastern Bauchi territory. When the proper camps are made, markets organised, and the natives learn that a certain income awaits them, I feel sure that labour will come in without any difficulty, and I speak as one knowing their language and having an intimate knowledge of the conditions.”

Mr. H. W. Laws, General Mining Manager of the Niger Company, in his report to the Bisichi Company, whose property is near Naraguta, says:

“There is a good supply of labour in the country; owing to a sudden increase in the demand for labour a temporary shortage was reported this wet season, but the labour market is now rapidly recovering, and in view of the very large amount of labour available in the Hausa States, and the Province of Bornu, no difficulties need be anticipated as to the supply in future.”

The concensus of opinions held by men who understand the amount and nature of the work entailed in this particular form of mining, and are, at the same time, personally familiar with the material that the country has to offer for the purpose, shows that the supply of labour in Northern Nigeria is entirely adequate, and although the development of West Africa depends almost entirely upon the labour question, there is no prospect of any difficulty on this account. Mr. Astley Cooper believes the chief grounds upon which trouble might arise, are the desire of the majority of the natives not to do too much work, the fear that a few months’ work in the mines would give a native sufficient money to live on for a year or two, and the difficulty of getting the right sort of European to take charge of the native labourers. But after all there is little reason to anticipate trouble on any one of these counts. No native in any part of the globe does more work than he is kindly but firmly obliged to perform, and there is no necessity for employers to demoralise the native labourers by a policy of over-payment. But the necessity of employing the right sort of European to put in control over the natives is quite to the point. The West African is more domestic than the Kaffir—of whom there are over 200,000 at work in the Transvaal mines—and there is no more willing worker if he has the proper white man over him. But it is the duty of the Government and the trading companies, and the mining corporations, to select the right men for their purpose, and if they are wise in this respect there need be no fear of labour troubles in either Southern or Northern Nigeria.