Embarkation and Passage, 1904–1907

In the previous three chapters it has been stressed that the successful initiation of recruiting, and the centralisation of financial and administrative control over importation, were vital if the investment which the mine companies made in the Chinese labour market was to bear fruit in the form of a suitable labour force. The initial integration of these criteria was effected through the financial and administrative arrangements that the industry made with the various recruiting companies and their agents between January 1904 and January 1906. Nevertheless, vital as these measures were, they were but part of the operation of providing the mining industry with its supply of Chinese labour in the Transvaal. It was of equal importance, if the scheme was to succeed within the limits established by the demands of the Rand cost structure, that similar measures were initiated to control and direct the passage of labourers from China to the Rand. For without effective integration of the qualitative, quantitative and cost elements of importation at this stage, all the advantages of the arrangements so laboriously constructed to control these factors prior to embarkation would have been wasted.