Samuel Florman - The Aftermath

Then Gordon Chan spoke. “How about glass?” he asked. “That is another material which our ancestors wrested from the earth with the aid of fiery furnaces, and I suggest that we will be needing some of it in the very near future.”

Surprisingly, this sensible-sounding suggestion met with resis tance. The group had seemingly had its fill of agreement and consensus and was ready for a fight. Put thirty strong-willed individuals together in prolonged, intense discussions and the time comes when they need to blow off some steam. Among several members of the subcommittee there was a growing undercurrent of uncertainty. Aren’t we being cavalier in simply checking off these technologies one after the other? they wondered. Could we really—all at once—grow food, tend livestock, harvest fish from the ocean and timber from the forests, make bricks and other clay products and cement, and plan for the use of metals; in other words, make progress in all conceivable directions simultaneously? Didn’t something have to be postponed, and wasn’t glassmaking a likely place to begin?

Simon Kambule, the leader from the Zulu community who had greeted Gustafsson’s expedition—and had subsequently been asked to serve on the subcommittee—contributed to the chorus of misgivings: “We can get along without glass, for the present, I believe. The immediate needs of the people must be met. And, yes, we must also plan for a return to high technology. But glass does not fit into either category. Glass windows, drinking goblets, and the like are superfluous—mere luxuries. And glassmaking is not such a sophisticated technology that it cannot be readily developed further down the road. In the meantime, since we are not able to do everything at once, why waste any of our limited resources?”

This argument was favorably received by several members of the subcommittee, including Millie Fox. “I don’t recall my Peace Corps people ever mentioning glass as a basic human requirement,” she said.

Alf Richards shrugged and conceded: “Maybe you’re right. We can do a lot of reconstruction work without a ready supply of glass. And, as Mr. Kambule has stated, we must not go off in too many different directions at once.”

There were several more speeches along the same lines, and Kambule’s argument seemed about to carry the day, when Dr. Chan rose to respond.

“Please, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, quietly but commanding attention, “let us not be shortsighted. Although we may not need glass windows right away, or glass insulators until we get electricity, or fiber-optic cables until we near the final stages of our technical journey, we do not want to lose our touch in dealing with these crucial materials.” Then, as his usual pleasant expression turned to a troubled frown, he added, “But there is another factor that is even more important and more immediate. Have you ever seen a science laboratory without glassware? Surely, before we’re done with our preliminary planning, we’ll be providing for research laboratories. They are key to our recovery and future well-being. And, believe me, they will not be of much use without basic equipment, particularly apparatus made of glass.”

There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Simon Kambule, with a rueful smile, withdrew his objection. The subcommittee voted to proceed with the manufacture of glass, and to allocate one hundred workers to the undertaking.

Before leaving the topic of glass, the subcommittee considered the availability of the raw materials needed to make it—silica, soda, and lime. Silica was no problem. Surely there was more sand than anyone knew what to do with. Soda, in the form of potash, they had considered the previous day in discussing the need for potassium in fertilizers. If they did not find suitable natural deposits, they could make the stuff the old-fashioned way, by burning vegetable wastes and boiling the ashes in a pot. As for lime, the third basic ingredient—needed to make glass durable—one simply burns, or calcines, limestone.

“It is worth noting,” Gordon Chan added, “that lime is a basic industrial chemical with many important applications. For example, it is used in manufacturing paper, as a flux in making steel, and—Mr. Richards, as a builder you probably know this—it is a key material in the manufacture of cement and mortar.”

“That is very true,” said Eric Steenkamp, the mining engineer from Pretoria, “but as far as I know, limestone doesn’t just emerge from the ground in convenient containers, and we seem not to have made any provision for acquiring it.”

So, after brief discussion, the One Hundred Strategy was applied once again. One hundred workers were allocated to quarrying this utilitarian rock.

While speaking of quarries, Alf Richards pointed out that a supply of granite would be very useful as a building stone, as well as for paving roads and providing aggregate material for concrete. So yet another one hundred were assigned to this task.

“We’re on a roll,” Richards roared with delight, “and while we’re talking about quarrying, we might as well get into mining.” With this he turned to Peter Mavimbela, the head of the miners’ union. “What do you think, Peter?” he asked. “To get our industrial revolution underway, what we need is iron and coal, coal and iron, preferably close together and preferably not too far out in the boondocks. No matter what processes we decide to use in making steel—and, Ichiro, with your guidance we’ll be talking about that in due course—we know what the basic raw materials must be, and we can’t have them too far apart from each other. Transporting these materials is going to be a big problem when we first get started. It’s not like the good old days when long freight trains rumbled into Richards Bay bringing tons of coal and ore for shipment overseas.”

“You don’t need to remind me about what it pleases you to call the good old days,” Peter Mavimbela said dourly. He was a tall man, but stooped and gaunt, with dark, dreamy eyes that belied his practical, political approach to life and to the issue under debate. He seemed about to launch into a discourse on mining under the apartheid government, but then thought better of it and spoke to the technical point at hand. “I think I can find you a place—or possibly two places—that will be suitable. But there are a couple of things that we ought to get straight at the outset.”

Alf Richards could tell that in Mavimbela he was dealing with a rugged individual, almost belligerent, a very different sort from the diplomatic Simon Kambule. There was a sudden feeling of suspense among the group, as if a serious confrontation might be brewing.

“Okay,” Alf said. “What is it that we have to get straight?”

“First,” Peter replied, “understand that this is not going be an efficient operation. We—like the farmers and timber workers and everybody else—have practically no tools. And when we finally get some, I am certain that they will be of relatively poor, or primitive quality. So we cannot go digging down into the depths of the earth. We’ll have to begin by getting what we can from the surface. Where this is not possible, we will cut parallel tunnels into the hills and leave large pillars of material in place as supports for the tunnel roof. That way we won’t have to install timbers, which are not available in any case. So, we’ll be leaving lots of material in the ground; but that will have to do for a beginning.”

“What’s your other concern?” Alf Richards asked.

“My men,” Mavimbela said, with barely concealed emotion. “In those ‘good old days,’ as you call them, the miners of South Africa were obliged to travel far from their families and live in prison-like dormitories. Now, I expect that decent housing will be provided for them—and their families—within a reasonable distance from the mines.”