Africans fed what dogs can't eat.

Natal Tanning Extracts, Slater Walker's wholly owned subsidiary, pays many of its workers less than $5.00 a week. Single and married employees are fed and housed free, but "The Guardian" correspondent said conditions on the two NTE farms he visited were bad. "I saw several children suffering from open sores, distended stomachs, and weakened limbs. A Zulu interpreter and a University of Natal lecturer accompanying me said the children had kwashiorkor, a disease cause by protein and vitamin deficiency".

In one compound on Newlands Estate near Pietermaritzburg, seven women had to live, sleep, and eat in a bare room measuring 10ft by 15ft. The only washing facility was a cold tap 30 yards away. Many of the timber workers were in rags and said they could not afford to buy clothes. No sick leave or holidays are given to the lowest paid — the vast majority of the work force. If unable to work because of bad weather, which is frequent, they get paid nothing. The farm manager of Newlands Estate acknowledge that malnutrition was rife, "What can I do about it"? he asked. He dismissed the malnutrition sores as "fleabites" and said that he himself received plenty of milk. Any that was left over after he had fed the dogs was "given to the Bantu".

The managing director of Natal Tanning Extract, Mr G. de Carle, denied that wages and conditions were appalling on the company's farms but conceded that they could be improved. "I go along with you that we can afford to pay more", he told Adam Raphael of "The Guardian". "We are going to raise wages soon". Mr de Carle claimed that rations given to workers were more than adequate and that no cases of malnutrition had been brought to his attention. "I can assure you that our ration scale is superior to the firms round us. We believe that these totally illiterate labourers on our farms live humane and reasonably happy lives".