Page 56 - Afrika Must Unite

SOCIETY UNDER COLONIALISM 41

for an undertaking by the Portuguese Government that the
South African Cham ber of Mines shall be the sole recruiting
agency in M ozambique for mines labour, the South African
Government formally undertakes that 47.5 per cent of the sea­
borne im port traffic to the mining areas of South Africa shall go
through the Portuguese harbour of Lourengo M arques.
Originally, the maximum figure for labour recruits under the
Convention was 90,000 a year. In 1940, however, the Portuguese
Government agreed to raise the total to 100,000 a year in return
for an Agreement by the South African Government to export
340,000 cases of citrus fruit a year through Lourengo M arques.
The mines where this contract African labour from the
Portuguese territories works may be situated in South Africa or
in the Rhodesias, but the main shareholders are large financial
and commercial groups in the United States, in the United
Kingdom, in France and in Belgium. There are, therefore,
powerful forces in these and in other countries who are deter­
mined to use their political influence to ensure that their
countries support Portugal in m aintaining its forced labour
system and all the tragedies that flow from it.
W hat happens in regard to labour for the mines so far as South
Africa is concerned is merely, of course, an example. The exist­
ence of the Portuguese colonies makes cheap labour possible,
not only in South Africa, but in all the neighbouring colonial
territories and is an im portant element in the profits not only of
mining, but of many other industries, including plantation
farming. All those with a financial interest in such enterprises
cannot therefore allow Portugal to lose her colonial possessions.
M uch of the investment in the Portuguese colonies is not
Portuguese at all, but international. The Benguela railway was
built largely by British interests to bring out ores from the mines
of Katanga. Traversing the great Angola plateau, it passes to a
point above Elizabethville in the Congo, and then links up with
the Rhodesian railway system, after which it passes on to Beira.
Ninety per cent of the stock of the Benguela railway is held by the
British holding company of Tanganyika Concessions, domiciled
since 1952 in Southern Rhodesia.
Tanganyika Concessions is linked up with the copper interests
of N orthern Rhodesia and with Union Miniere and other