The mines had only imported direct to the amount of £369,000, paid for
machinery, which could only be constructed in Europe, and for Cyanide,
to avoid having to buy the latter from a local trust, which raised the
price 100 per cent.

Through local firms they had imported machinery and certain products to
the amount of £324,438. From local merchants they had bought machinery,
&c., to the amount of £2,487,660. They had paid £767,600 to the Dynamite
Monopoly. They had distributed £3,329,000 in salaries to their employés,
native or European. If we take it that the expenditure of the sixty
other Mining Companies, gold or coal, in the vicinity of Johannesburg,
was similar to the above, we have a total of something like nine million
pounds sterling put in circulation, _plus_ purchases of dynamite, _plus_
merchandise bought through the medium of local tradespeople. Thus we see
that the bulk of the cost of production actually remained in the
Transvaal.


7.--_What the "Vultures" brought._

Before Dr. Kuyper's "vultures" came to despoil it, the Transvaal was in
a very shaky condition. It was heavily in debt and the Exchequer was
empty; the Boer having always had a horror of paying his taxes. In 1884
when Messrs. Krüger and Smits came to London to sign the famous
Convention, and stayed at the Albemarle Hotel, they found themselves,
after the first few weeks unable to pay their bill, and Baron Grant had
to come to their assistance. Now the "vultures" have been pouring some
millions annually into the coffers of the Transvaal; a certain
proportion of which has stuck to the fingers of Mr. Krüger, his family