page 072 - Long Walk Original Manuscript [LWOM_072.jpg]

dominate in every field. Eighty seven per cent of the land is still owned by the minority of the whites whilst the black majority is squeezed into the remaining 13%. Wages for blacks are far less than those paid to whites for the same job. In 1944 the average male cash wage in the mining industry £3.11.1d for Africans £35.6.4d for the whites per month. In the other sectors of manufacturing industry the average annual pay £81 for Africans £129 for Asians £136 for Coloureds £322 for whites.

A substantial percentage of South Africa's labour force is made up of migrant labourers. The movement from the country to the towns is world wide and in our country it effects all population groups, having been stimulated by the growth of towns, commerce and industry. Shortage of land, poverty absence of employment and population pressure inevitably drive people from the land to the urban areas. But a peculiarity of the system in South Africa is that, whereas in the case of other froups migration has resulted in permanent urban populations, the African worker who comes from the rural areas and seeks work on white farms or mines is treated as a temporary resident in his area of employment, and there are no facilities for him to live with his family there. The circumstances force him to become a worker and peasant at one and the same time. His place of work is miles away from his home and family to which he returns periodically. For a year or so he is a townsman working for a wage and the following year when he returns to his home he becomes a peasant and lives ploughing his land. When he goes back to his village he loses his employment in the urban area and on his return has to start as a newcomer. The system has disastrous social effects and has been condemned by commerce and industry, economists, church men, social workers and other