§ MR. JOHN BURNS (Battersea)To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will state what steps he intends to take to enforce his pledge that white labour should not be supplanted by Chinese in the Transvaal, in view of the fact that the report of the State Mining Engineer for the year 1902–3 shows that upwards of 3,000 white men are employed on the mines in the Witwatersrand area; whose occupations are not safeguarded under the Labour Importation Ordinance.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) The hon. Member has not taken account of the fact that the white labour is not only protected by the schedule of prohibited occupations, but also by the definition of unskilled labour as "such labour as is usually performed in mines in the Witwatersrand district by persons belonging to the aboriginal races or tribes of Africa south of the Equator," which excludes the Chinese labourer from any but such labour.