The amended Ordinance now forced them to pay by withholding from them a portion of their wage equal to the amount of the fine. It has been found useless, in fact, to pretend that other than a reign of terror pertains in the Transvaal. The Chinamen have broken loose, and only their prompt deportation can prevent a very grave crisis. Neither fines nor floggings have any terror for them, and from their earliest years they have been accustomed to regard death without a semblance of fear.
I will relate some of the more notorious instances in which these yellow slaves have figured in the last year. The list includes, murder, rape, robbery with violence, and that class of criminal assault with which we deal in England under the Criminal Law Amendment Act.
While working in the mines the Chinaman does exactly what he pleases. The overseers dare not interfere. Their policy of putting the black man on to the yellow man has resulted in murder. The Chinaman has a short way with any white or black man who tries to interfere with his sense of liberty. He kills the man. Every Chinaman belongs to a secret society, and when he has determined to kill a white or a black man he reports his decision to the society. He knows that the deed which he meditates will be rewarded by his own death: but for this he cares nothing. All his preparations are made beforehand. His secret society probably consists of from four to five thousand members. All these members contribute something like sixpence a-piece to make up a sum, say of £100. When this amount is collected, it is sent over to his wife and family in China. Having thus made all the necessary provision for his wife and children, the Chinaman perpetrates the deed. He is then arrested, sentenced and hanged. And he meets his end with a stoical indifference, quite content that he has secured his revenge and set his worldly affairs in order.
In the face of such sentiments compulsion is futile.
On Wednesday, September 13, a gang of Chinese coolies working at the Geldenhuis Deep Mine decided to take a holiday. The management of the mine were instructed to offer them extra pay if they would work. They refused, and took their holiday. They promised, however, that they would start their first shift at midnight on the following Sunday, September 17. When midnight on Sunday, September 17, arrived, they determined to keep their holiday up. The compound manager endeavoured to use force. The Chinese met force by force. The police were called in. The riot at that juncture had reached a most alarming state. The police were ordered to fire: they obeyed, killing one Chinaman and wounding another; but not before the compound manager had been attacked and somewhat seriously injured. Finally the Chinamen were driven to their work.
On the same Sunday the utter uselessness of the compound system was proved. One hundred Chinamen bolted from the French Rand Mine. Somebody, it is supposed, had spread among them the report that the Boers were enlisting coolies at £4 a month to fight the English. In vain has the number of police in the Witwatersrand district been increased. Gangs of deserters are wandering about the country murdering and looting.
"Last night," wrote a young South African policeman to his parents in England, "I captured six Chinamen who had run away from the mines. They are giving a lot of trouble—5000 of them started rioting last week, and 100 foot police and 200 South African Constabulary had to go to stop them, and a nice old job we had. They threw broken bottles and stones when we charged them. Some of our fellows were very badly cut. The Chinamen also made dynamite bombs and threw them at us, and we had to shoot into the crowd to drive them back. We aimed low and wounded a good many of them. They are nasty devils to tackle, and always show fight when there are a lot of them together. The six I captured were trekking across the veld. I chased them on horseback and they ran on top of a kopje and commenced to roll rocks down. I managed to get a shot at one with my revolver: the bullet struck him on the wrist. Then they all put up their hands and surrendered. I managed to get some niggers working in the mealie patch to escort them back to our camp. The niggers were very proud of themselves. When they passed through the other native kraals I think if I had not been there the Kaffirs would have assegaied them. They hate the Chinamen like poison."
These are the sort of incidents that occur daily. All the measures taken by the Government and the mine owners to prevent desertion have proved ineffective. The country around the Witwatersrand Mines has taken upon itself the aspect of the whole of the colony during the late war. Mounted constables with loaded revolvers organize drives. The whole district is patrolled, and every effort is made to bring back the deserters to the compounds. But as soon as one lot has returned another escapes. Every day you may see a mounted policeman riding down towards the law courts, followed by a string of Chinese deserters.
The Johannesburger lives in a daily state of terror. He rarely meets a Chinaman without immediately seeking the protection of the police and insisting on an inquiry being held then and there, as to whether the man has a permit to be at large in the Golden City.
Writing on October 2, the Johannesburg correspondent—one L. E. N.—of a London morning paper gives a graphic account of the wonderful City of Gold at that date. "Gold of the value of over £20,000,000 a year," he says, "is extracted from that stretch of dusty upland called The Reef.... But look closer. The white workers on the mines carry revolvers; the police are armed with ball cartridge and bayonet; camped yonder at Auckland Park is a mobile column of mounted men ready to move against an enemy at a moment's notice; the country folk on the other side of the swelling rise are armed to the teeth, and live at night in barricaded and fortified houses." What a beautiful commentary on life as it is lived—under the British flag—in the commercial and political hub of the great sub-continent!