Page:George McCall Theal, History of South Africa from 1873 to 1884, Volume 1 (1919).djvu/25

1873] the reverend Thomas E. Fuller (later Sir Thomas) was sent as emigration agent to England. It was intended to employ Bantu to do the roughest of the work with the pick and wheelbarrow, but even for this European navvies were largely needed. It was also intended to assist private individuals who would guarantee fixed employment at stated wages, by engaging and sending out the men applied for, upon their depositing with the commissioner for crown lands and public works £7 towards the cost of passage of each statute adult. On the 3rd of November 1873 the first party of mechanics engaged by Mr. Fuller in England arrived. It consisted of thirty-seven men and twenty-eight women and children. This disproportion of the sexes was even more marked in parties that arrived at a later date, and it cannot be said that these immigrants added materially to the permanent European population of South Africa.

Within two years, or before the close of 1875, Mr. Fuller sent out 2,629 men, 230 women, and 260 children. A sufficient number of navvies could not be obtained in Great Britain, so several hundreds were engaged in Belgium and Germany. The proceeds of land sales in the colony were set apart to cover the cost of sending these people out. Most of them gave satisfaction by working well and behaving in an orderly manner, but a few caused much trouble by riotous conduct and going on strike. They had been accustomed to work in countries where house accommodation could always be had and where beer was obtainable without difficulty, and they objected to living in tents far away from the nearest habitations and having only coffee or tea to drink. These men managed to obtain Cape brandy, which they used to excess, so that it was often a relief when they absconded. But one of the grievances they put forward would certainly be regarded as well founded to-day: it was that they were required to work longer than