DIAMONDS,GOLD,AND BRITISHIMPERIALISM
Racial segregation and discrimination were nevertheless the hallmarks
of the industry. On the Rand, as in Kimberley.African men who had homes
in the rural areas left their families for several months at a time to earn
money on the mines. As in Kimberley, they lived in all-male compounds
owned and controlled by the companies, under severe discipline imposed
by African foremen responsible to white managers. They were clustered
together, as many as fifty to a room, where they slept without beds in
double-decker concrete bunks. Although, unlike their fellows in Kim-
berley, the African gold-miners were permitted to go outside their com-
pounds when off-duty during the 'day, they had neither the money nor the
leisure time to derive much benefit from that theoretical advantage. White
workers earned about eight times as much as Africans and were free from
supervision of their living arrangements. The mines even provided them
with heavily subsidized housing.
When disputes arose, the Transvaal government as well as the indus-
trialists favored the Whites. In 1889, for example, white workers struck
with some success to protect their skilled positions and their rights to
organize and to have some control over their working conditions, and in