s to mechanical forces, there are no rivers
to give water-power; and though Natal, Zululand, and the Transvaal
provide coal, the quality of the mineral is inferior to that obtainable
in South Wales or Belgium or Pennsylvania. But the most important
conditions for success are those connected with labour. In South Africa
skilled labour is dear because scarce, and unskilled labour is dear
because bad. As was explained in a preceding chapter, all rough, hard
work is done by natives; not that white men could not, in the more
temperate regions, perfectly well do it, but because white men think it
beneath them and only fit for blacks. Now black labour is seldom
effective labour. The mixed race called "Cape boys" are good drivers,
and quite fit for many kinds of railway work. They are employed in the
building trades and in sawmills, and to some extent in such trades as
bootmaking. The Kafirs of the eastern province and of Natal are more raw
than the "Cape boys." They make good platelayers on railways, and having
plenty of physical strength, will do any sort of rough work they are set
to. But they have no aptitude for trades requiring skill, and it will
take a generation or two to fit them for the finer kinds of carpentry or
metal-work, or for the handling of delicate machinery. Besides, they are
often changeable and unstable, apt to forsake their employment for some
trifling cause. Their wages are certainly not high, ranging from ten to
twenty shillings a month, besides food, for any kind of rough outdoor
work. Miners are paid higher, and a Malay mason will get from thirty to
forty shillings a week; but a white labourer at twice the price would,
for most kinds of work, be cheaper. Nor is it easy to get the amount of
native labour that may be needed, for the Kafir prefers to till his own
patch of ground or turn out his cattle on the veldt. The scale for white
workmen is, of course, far higher, ranging from L2 10_s._ to L8 a week,
according to the nature of the work and the competence of the artisan.
Such wages are nearly double those paid in England, treble those paid in
some manufacturing districts of Germany or Belgium, higher even than
those paid in the United States. It is therefore evident that, what with
the badness of the cheaper labour and the dearness of the better, a
manufacturer would, in South Africa, be severely handicapped in
competing with either Europe or the United States. Protectionists may
think that a high tari