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COMMISSION
  
OF
  
INQUIRY
  
INTO
  
SAFETY
  
AND
  
HEALTH
  
IN
  
THE
  
MINING
  
INDUSTRY 
 
 
6
 
The recommendations which the Commission made concerning the holding of 
inquiries were not incorporated into the 1911 Act.  That Commission proposed the 
appointment of a special prosecutor for all mining cases, and the appointment of a 
single magistrate to try all such cases. 
 
Later in this report we shall consider whether there is merit in re-establishing a 
Mining Court. 
 
1.7.2  Other Early Commissions 
 
A Commission was appointed in 1911 to inquire into and report upon the most 
practical means to be adopted for the prevention of explosions of gas and coal dust 
in Natal collieries.  In its conclusions the Commission referred, inter alia, to the 
inadequacy of mining law, the importance of good relationships between the 
inspectorate and mine officials, the general administration of a mine and the 
importance of the relationship between the mine officials and the workforce. 
 
A Mining Regulation Commission reported in 1925.  It had been empowered to 
inquire into the effect of regulations dealing with the supervision of underground 
working places, on the accident rate, the safety and health conditions in the mines, 
and the extent to which mining regulations affected good relations between 
employers and employees.  This Commission agrees with the submission of the 
NUM that some of the recommendations and comments of the 1925 Commission 
remain apposite to the present debate. 
 
The 1925 Commission commented on the vagueness of the language of a number of 
regulations.  It inquired into the causes of contravention of regulations, and its main 
conclusions can be summarised as follows: 
 
-a major factor was “the growing practice of assigning to European miners too large 
a measure of responsibility”; 
 
-the inspectorate was understaffed, making it impossible to carry out an adequate 
system of inspections to assess compliance with regulations.  The inspectorate relied 
on reports of managers and records of accidents.  This resulted in disregard of 
regulations where observance was irksome or costly and there was little risk of 
contraventions being detected; 
 
Today, seventy years later, the problems of an understaffed, underpaid inspectorate 
remain.  We will deal with this problem in Chapter 11 where we will propose a 
restructuring of the inspectorate. 
 
-the report criticised inspectors for not keeping management at arms length, and for 
failure to prosecute managers; 
 
It is of interest to record that in the evidence heard by that Commission there was 
reference to the inspectorate being perceived by the workers of the day as being 
allied to management. 
 
-the vague wording of the regulations was also considered by the 1925 Commission 
as a factor preventing enforcement and observance. 
 

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COMMISSION
  
OF
  
INQUIRY
  
INTO
  
SAFETY
  
AND
  
HEALTH
  
IN
  
THE
  
MINING
  
INDUSTRY 
 
 
7
 
1.7.3  The Marais Commission 
 
On January 21 1960 a disaster occurred at Coalbrook Colliery in which 437 persons 
lost their lives when a general failure of support pillars allowed a large area of the 
mine to collapse.  Following the disaster the then Governor General of the Union of 
South Africa appointed a Commission of Inquiry under the Chairmanship of the 
Honourable Mr Justice J F Marias. 
 
The commission was given five terms of reference but only one of them, the fourth, 
was dealt with in the Interim Report of the Commission produced on December 20 
1960.  No other report was published by the Marias Commission for reasons that are 
not known.  The term of reference on which it reported reads: 
 
“(4) Whether the supervision of mines exercised by the Department of Mines in 
terms of the said Act and regulations is adequate; if not, in what respects it should be 
improved in the interests of safety”. 
 
The Department of Mines was the predecessor of the present Department of Mineral 
and Energy Affairs.  We consider it to be important to make reference to the main 
recommendations of the Marais Commission, as some of them are in line with 
proposals which appears in this report.  All of them refer to the problems involving 
the enforcement agency, to which we refer to as the Inspectorate of Mines and the 
vital role which it must play in health and safety in the mining industry.  The 
principal recommendations of the Marais Commission on its fourth term of 
reference were that: 
 
-the status of the Government Mining Engineer should be restored to its pre-1937 
level; 
 
-the salary of the GME and of all the technical officers of the Division should be 
adapted to the restored status level; and 
 
-the Department of Mines should be re-organised so that: 
 
-the posts of GME and Secretary for Mines are combined in one person, assisted by 
a Deputy Secretary; 
 
-the Division of Geological Survey forms an integral part of the GME’s Division; 
 
-the Inspectors of Explosives should come under the direction of the GME; 
 
-the GME’s Division should move to Pretoria; 
 
-there should be four Assistant GME’s; 
 
-every effort should be made to restore the confidence of mineworkers in the 
competency and integrity of inspectors; 
 
-special Commissions should have a worker’s representative as a fifth member.  
They should have prescribed procedures.  Appeals to the GME should be abolished; 
 
 

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