colonies were separate units, each jealous of its own industrial
prosperity. Each had the right to make its own tariff, and yet the
division of the country, with four different tariff areas, was
obviously to its general disadvantage. Since 1903 the provinces had
been held together under the Customs Union of South Africa--made by the
governments of the Cape and Natal and the Crown Colony governments of
the conquered provinces. This was but a makeshift arrangement, with a
common tariff made by treaty, and hence rigidly unalterable, and with a
pro-rata division of the proceeds.

Worse still was the railroad problem, which has been in South Africa a
bone of contention ever since the opening of the mines of the Rand
offered a rich prize to any port and railway that could capture the
transit trade.

The essence of the situation is simple. The center of the wealth of
South Africa is the Johannesburg mines. This may not be forever the
case, but in the present undeveloped state of agriculture and
industrial life, Johannesburg is the dominating factor of the country.

Now, Johannesburg can not feed and supply itself. It is too busy. Its
one export is gold. Its quarter of a million people must be supplied
from the outside. But the Transvaal is an inland country dependent on
the seaports of other communities. In position Johannesburg is like the
hub of a wheel from which the railways radiate as spokes to the
seaports along the rim. The line from Cape Town to Johannesburg, a
distance of over 700 miles, was the first completed, and until 1894 the
Cape enjoyed a monopoly of carrying the whole trade of Johannesburg.
But with the completion of the tunnel through the mountains at Laing's
Nek the Natal government railway was able to connect with Johannesburg