ABSTRACT
The extraction of diamonds and gold necessitated the investment of capital, the application of technology and the mobilization of labour on an entirely unprecedented scale. Moreover, previous capitalist economic activity, agricultural and commercial, was not as advanced as in other settler dominions of the British empire which witnessed similar mining booms in the late nineteenth century. In addition, most of South Africa’s inhabitants were still dependent on pre-capitalist modes of production. But with the production of diamonds starting in 1867, and of massive amounts of payable gold in 1886, an economic backwater began to be transformed. By the turn of the century diamonds worth some £89 million and gold valued at £86 million had been exported. In the interim wool, the most important commercial agricultural product, accounted for only £14 million in exports. By the time the Union was established, the diamond industry’s wage bill was £2.8 million, the gold mines’ £14.4 million (38, No.3, p.560). Wages in manufacturing did not catch up to mining until late in the First World War period. Mineral development had integrated a previously marginal region into the world economy and had restructured South Africa’s export and domestic economies.
