renee ~
Africans others o of others Agriculture £67 £1,241 5A Mining and Quarrying Eti5 £1,536 7.5% Manufacturing £184 £1,372 13.4% Construction £150 £1,348 11.1% Electricity and Water £156 £1,506 10.3% Commerce £165 £1,064 15.5% Transport & Communic. £243 £1,350 18.0% Government Admin, £163 £1,309 12.44 Education £211 £1,146 18.4% Health £176 £954 18.4% Private domestic £105 £480 22.0%
These figures are a devastating condemnation of the set-up in Rhodesia: the biggest sector, agricultural workers (over in.), get less than 25/- a week; the next biggest, private domestics (95,000) - a comment in itself get a mere £2 a week; the highest paid sector, transport, gets less than £5 per week on average; and in only one category is the average African wage more than 1/5 of the average of the Europeans, Asians and Coloureds. The figures are given for the last ten years, and during this period the average African wage has risen from 7.2% of that of the others to 9.4%. At that rate it would take 410 years for the Africans to catch up! Even this mise erly increase was not registered among agricultural workers - here there was a deterioration from 5.7% to 54%.
It seems to me that the booklet should have a sub-title: "Business-men invest in Rhodesia, the land of starvation wages for Africans without any strike problem." Labour nust act to end this disgrace - obviously the enforcement of a one-man one-vote system would help to end this state of affairs.