gulf which existed between oppressor and oppressed. As the constant dropping of water will wear away stone, so the constant fret of Boer treatment wore out the patience of their victims!
It soon became very difficult for even sons of Uitlanders born in the country to obtain the franchise. The naturalised subject resigned his own nationality, and acquired the duties of the citizen and the liability to be called on for military service, only to find out that he could not even then enjoy the rights of the citizen. He felt much as the dog in the fable, which let drop his piece of meat for the sake of a reflection in the water. New laws and regulations continually came into force for the ostensible purpose of improving the state of the Uitlander—laws which in reality were created to bamboozle him still further. What chicanery failed to accomplish the remissness of officials successfully brought about, and the discomfort of the foreign inhabitants was complete. Beside domestic there were economic grievances. The position in a nutshell is given by one of the unfortunates:—
"The one thing which we must have—not for its own sake, but for the security it offers for obtaining and retaining other reforms—is the franchise. No promise of reform, no reform itself will be worth an hour's purchase unless we have the status of voters to make our influence felt. But, if you want the chief economic grievances, they are—the Netherland Railway concession, the dynamite monopoly, the liquor traffic, and native labour, which, together, constitute an unwarrantable burden of indirect taxation on the industry of over two and a half millions sterling annually. We petitioned until we were jeered at; we agitated until we—well—came here (Pretoria Gaol); and we know that we shall get no remedy until we have the vote to enforce it. We are not a political but a working community, and if we were honestly and capably governed, the majority of us would be content to wait for the franchise for a considerable time yet in recognition of the peculiar circumstances and of the feelings of the older inhabitants."
Mrs. Lionel Phillips, as the wife of an Uitlander, has also written her plaint. She says:—
"To show that the grievances of the Uitlanders are indeed real, let me call your attention to a few facts. What would women residing in peaceful England say to the fact that one cannot take a walk out of sight of one's own house in the suburbs of Johannesburg with safety? The Kaffirs, who in other parts of South Africa treat a white woman with almost servile respect, there make it a most unpleasant ordeal to pass them, and in a lonely part absolutely dangerous.
"Even little girls of the tenderest age are not safe from these monsters. This is, of course, owing to the utterly inadequate police protection afforded by the Government, the ridiculously lenient sentences passed on horrible crimes, and to the adulterated drink sold by licensed publicans to the Kaffirs on all sides. What would be said if, when insulted by a cab-driver, it was found that the nearest policeman was the owner of the cab in question, and refused to render any assistance or listen to any complaint?
"The educational grievance has been so widely circulated that it is needless to mention it now; but what is to be expected of a Government composed of men barely able to write their own names?
"Of course I, as a woman, do not wish to enter into the larger questions of franchise, monopolies, taxation, &c., but being myself an Africander, and well able to recognise the many good qualities of the Boers, you will quite understand that I do not take a prejudiced view of the situation, and I am in a position better than that of most people to understand the grave reality of the Uitlanders' grievances."
MONOPOLIES AND ABUSES
Of the scandals leading out of the Netherlands Railway concession and the dynamite monopoly it is needless to speak. These monopolies were little more than schemes having for object the diversion of money from the pockets of the British into those either of the Boers or their trusty satellites in the Hollander-German clique. As an instance of the modus operandi, an article relative to the railway monopoly in the Johannesburg Mining Journal may be quoted:
"Railway Monopoly
"This is another carefully designed burden upon the mines and country. The issued capital and loans of the Netherlands Company now total about £7,000,000, upon which an average interest of about 51⁄3 per cent.—guaranteed by the State—is paid, equal to £370,000 per annum. Naturally the bonds are at a high premium. The company and its liabilities can be taken over by the State at a year's notice, and the necessary funds for this purpose can be raised at three per cent. An offer was recently made to the Government to consolidate this and other liabilities, but the National Bank, which is another concession, has the monopoly of all State loan business, and this circumstance effectually disposed of the proposal. At three per cent. a saving of £160,000 per annum would be made in this monopoly in interest alone. The value represented by the custom dues on the Portuguese border we are not in a position to estimate, but roughly these collections and the fifteen per cent. of the profits paid to the management and shareholders must, with other leakages, represent at least another £100,000 per annum which should be saved the country. As the revenue of the corporation now exceeds £2,000,000 a year, of which only half is expended in working costs, the estimate we have taken does not err upon the side of extravagance. By its neglect of its duties towards the commercial and mining community enormous losses are involved. Thus in the coal traffic the rate, which is now to be somewhat reduced, has been 3d. per ton per mile. According to the returns of the Chamber of Mines, the coal production of the Transvaal for 1895 was 1,045,121 tons. This is carried an average distance of nearly thirty miles, but taking the distance at twenty-four miles the charges are 6s. per ton. At 1½d. per ton per mile—three times as much as the Cape railways charge—a saving upon the coal rates of 3s. per ton would follow, equal to £150,000 per annum. Again, by the 'bagging' system an additional cost of 2s. 3d. per ton is incurred—details of this item have been recently published in this paper—and if this monopoly were run upon ordinary business lines, a further saving of £110,000 would be made by carrying coal in bulk. The interest upon the amount required to construct the necessary sidings for handling the coal, and the tram-lines required to transport it to the mines, would be a mere fraction upon the amount; and as the coal trade in the course of a short time is likely to see a fifty per cent. increase, the estimate may be allowed to stand at this figure without deduction. No data are available to fix the amount of the tax laid upon the people generally by the vexatious delays and losses following upon inefficient railway administration, but the monthly meetings of the local Chamber of Commerce throw some light upon these phases of a monopolistic management. The savings to be made in dealing with the coal traffic must not be taken as exhausting all possible reforms: the particulars given as to this traffic only indicate and suggest the wide area covered by this monopoly, which hitherto has made but halting and feeble efforts to keep pace with the requirements of the public. Dealing as it does with the imports of the whole country, which now amount in value to £10,000,000, the figures we have given must serve merely to illustrate its invertebrate methods of handling traffic, as well as its grasping greed in enforcing the rates fixed by the terms of its concession. Its forty miles of Rand steam tram-line and thirty-five miles of railway from the Vaal River, with some little assistance from the Delagoa line and customs, brought in a revenue of about £1,250,000 in 1895. Now that the Natal line is opened the receipts will probably amount to nearly £3,000,000 per annum, all of which should swell the ordinary revenue of the country instead of remaining in the hands of foreigners as a reservoir of wealth for indigent Hollanders to exploit. The total railway earnings at the Cape and Natal together over all their lines amounted to £3,916,566 in 1895, and the capital expenditure on railways by these colonies amounts to £26,000,000. The greater portion of these receipts come from the Rand trade, which is compelled to pay an additional £2,500,000 carrying charges to the Netherlands Company, which has £7,000,000 of capital. Thus, railway receipts in South Africa amount now to £7,000,000 per annum, of which the Rand contributes at least £5,000,000.
"The revenue of the company is now considerably over £3,000,000 per annum. The management claim that their expenses amount to but forty per cent. of revenue, and this is regarded by them as a matter for general congratulation. The Uitlanders contend that the concern is