gold and diamonds but vast quantities of iron, coal and many other minerals. Agriculture diminished in importance as mining and then industry grew. While English-speaking South Africans dominated industrial and commercial life Afrikaners banded together in mutual financial organisations that in due course were to become major players in that sector of the economy. Apartheid In 1948, a government was elected that introduced the policy of apartheid (segregation) that was aimed to allow different racial groups to progress in their own separate areas. In the two decades following the rise to power of the National Party, whites (particularly Afrikaners) rose above all other ethnic groups in South Africa through their dominant and tactful performance in the labour market. Throughout the 1960s, South Africa had economic dominance over the rest of Africa and was considered the only developed country in Africa by the United Nations economic criteria. White South Africans enjoyed standards of living comparable with or higher than the West. Throughout this period South Africa produced twice as much electricity and six times as much steel as the rest of the African continent combined while at the same time, accounting for 43% of Africa's entire mineral production output. Economic dominance during this period was made possible by Black South Africans and migratory labour from Malawi, Lesotho and Portuguese Mozambique who all experienced poor working conditions and relativity low wages. Real wages for nonwhite South African miners declined between the passage of the Mines and Works Act in 1911 and 1971, while nonwhite workers in the manufacturing industry earned 18 percent of the wages of white workers. The government at the time even admitted that Black labour was crucial to their economic success and hence talks of territorial and political separation along racial lines at the time was deemed a threat to economic expansion for South Africa. By the beginning of the 1980's South Africa had the highest wealth inequality in the world, with 40 percent of the population earning just 6 percent of the national income. Infant mortality rates for blacks and Coloureds reached 13 times the rates of whites, with one-quarter of newborns dying within a year. As noted by one historian, "Full employment, in combination with labour controls, limitations on the free movement and employment of non-whites, and the use of colour bars at company level, contributed to high levels of disposable income for the white population". Many