TRANSVAAL MINERS STRIKE 1914

The photographic postcard of Johannesburg with a divided back (address side), has been much enhanced. The road has been made to look white, almost resembling snow, so the shadows of the armed marching men, who are led by a police officer, appear too short compared to the shadow of a tram pole in the left foreground. On many picture postcards the tram overhead cables are removed from the pictures before printing. Here they are still visible, as is the stop sign on the far tram pole which reads ‘All cars stop here’, being a designated location that all trams using this road will stop in order that passengers may board or alight. I have endeavoured to find this location, which I will add once I have documented the view.

The message on the reverse side takes up the entire card as follows:

“Dear Ted
This is a sample of the ‘Stalwart Burgher’ who came up to Jo’burg to settle the strike. You can quite see what an intelligent interest he would take in a labour dispute! He was given ‘joy’ rides on the tram but the greatest joke to my mind was when they took him to see ‘The Gondoliers’. Fancy there at Gilbert and Sullivan’. Truly ‘Gilbertian’* as the saying goes. Enclosed find portraits of Botha and Smuts. Can you do me a few ‘gawns’† with their headpieces on. You have heard the story of the deportations. Make them a bit interesting
Geo f"

At the 1913 strike, the leaders of the Union of South Africa, Botha and Smuts, together with the mine employers were ill-prepared to deal with a labour crisis. At the Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg, with thousands of armed strikers outside, who could have destroyed the city and, perhaps the mines, both Botha and Smuts were obligated to reinstate the strikers, hold a judicial committee to inquire into their problems, and recognise their trade unions.

With the 1914 General Strike the Union of South Africa government were determined not to give in. With twenty thousand men on strike, which included 9,000 miners and 6,000 railwaymen, some of the later recently retrenched, Martial law was proclaimed. Smuts had established a Union Defence Force during 1912 but according to the University of Pretoria website this force was inexperienced to subdue such a large strike in January 1914. The postcard illustrated here shows armed men marching with a policeman showing them the way, and are almost certainly those of the Citizen Force Reserve. One of the printed postcards on the previous page, is captioned ‘Commando of Burgers in the Neighbourhood of Traders Hall’. ‡

With such a large military force the strike collapsed. One of the leaders, Frederick H.P. Creswell, the radical politician and white labour theorist, was imprisoned and nine union leaders were deported and sent to England. This action was a violation of habeas corpus. In London, on the 25^th March 1914 the Prime Minister, Asquith was asked in the House of Commons by Keir Hardie, (Scottish trade unionist and politician) “whether he will invite the Law Officers of the Crown, when considering the constitutional rights that His Majesty’s Government have of intervening in the case of the nine British subjects deported without trial by the South African Government …” The Prime Minster replied “We do not think it necessary to consult the Law Officers of the Crown. The cases cited do not appear to form precedents for guidance in the South African case.”

Notes
* ‘Gilbertian’ relates to the English playwright W. S. Gilbert whose ludicrous plays are set in bizarre situations.

† ‘Gawn’ is an outdated word meaning ‘tub’ or ‘lading vessel’. It had been used by Samuel Johnson in the eighteenth century and can be found in 'obsolete words' in some English Dictionaries.

‡ The Commando laws of the South African Republic date back to the early pioneering days when there was no full time military force. Every able-bodied burgher could be called to arms and expected to provide, gun, horse and food to take part in punitive expeditions. This was to remain, and proved successful during the South African War (1899-1902) when the duty of every common citizen was to be ready with a horse, gun, ammunition and food for several days. When the British annexed the South African Republic during the South African War, on 1^st September 1900, the Volksraad Laws, Resolutions, Government Notices and Proclamations were published mostly in Dutch. Many of these laws remained enforced and were published in the 1901 The Statute Law of the Transvaal. However, some of the Republic's laws were no longer applicable, for instance the Commando and State Artillery laws, and were therefore not translated to English, thus repealed. The Union of South Africa organised a volunteer modernised system called the Union Defence Force from 1912 in country areas. However, for the strike of 1914 a Boer commando system called, Citizen Force Reserve, was briefly revived.

Acknowledgments
I thank Gail and Tony Tompkins for much advice and deducing the black ink message on the address side of this postcard.

The postcard illustrated here is, ex. Joan Matthews, Transvaal picture postcard collection.

Bibliography
University of Pretoria: https://repository.up.ac.za/items/7320950d-956c-4418-a3ce-cd269d4816d6

Atkinson, A, (2007), Something of a Novelty, Postcards of South Africa, Published by S.A. Manx Association.

Transvaal Laws of the Transvaal up to 1899, [in force 1903], Waterlow & Sons, London (1903).

Transvaal Colony Proclamations from 1900–1902, (Revised to 30th November, 1902), London.

The Statute Law of the Transvaal, (1901), Translated by Sydney Hilton Barber, W.E., Macfadyen and J.H.L., Findlay and published by Authority of His Excellency the High Commissioner for South Africa, London.

Hansard, South Africa (Deportation of Labour Leaders) Commons March 25, 1914. vol. 60 c365.