DIAMONDS,GOLD,AND BRITISHIMPERIALISM
for unskilled and semiskilled mine work at low wages. In combination, the
government, the WNLA, and the Chinese laborers made the gold-mining
industry profitable to investors and the state by undermining the bargain-
ing power of Africans.U
In white ethnic terms, Milner's grand design did not succeed. He failed
to create the conditions he had considered essential before it would b~ safe
to establish self-government in the former republics. The British popula-
tion of the coastal colonies and the Transvaal did increase considerably
during Milner's regime, and British merchants and companies bought up
significant:quantities of land. Yetthere was no mass British immigration to
the towns, and fewer than three thousand British settlers-men,
women,
and children-were
established on the land under his subsidized scheme.
Milner failed swamping the Afrikaners with people of British descent. As
before, Afrikaners formed well over 5°percent of the white population of
Southern Africa, Only in Natal was there a clear British majority among
the Whites.
Nor were the Afrikaners denationalized. Far from destroying Afrikaner
nationalism, Chamberlain and Milner, Roberts and Kitchener were the