Recruiting Operations in South China, 1903–1905

The traditional focus of Chinese indentured emigration prior to the inauguration of the Transvaal experiment had been south China. In particular the two maritime provinces of Kuangtung and Fukhien had, for close on seventy years, provided the majority of overseas Chinese emigrants. By contrast an overwhelming proportion of Chinese who worked in the Rand gold mines were from the northern parts of China, particularly the provinces of Chihli and Shantung. As Table A.2 shows, of 63, 695 labourers embarked for the mines by the CMLIA or the Committee of Agents, only 1,689 were from the traditional emigration grounds of south-east China. All these southern Chinese imported into the Transvaal worked on the East Rand Proprietary Mines of the Farrar/Anglo-French group of companies and were imported in the first year of the experiment.1 This regional imbalance was intensified in the course of importation by the susceptibility of these southerners to beri-beri. Thus of the 1,006 who came by the SS Tweeddale (1st shipment) and the 449 who came by the SS Lothian (7th shipment) only 724 remained at work on 31 December 1906, largely as a result of repatriations necessitated by the disease.2