end of the period, amount to from £687,500 to £825,000. The Transvaal
Government in its reply of March 9th, 1899, did not dispute these
figures, but stated simply that, "the government had the right to judge
what was most advantageous to itself."

The complaints of the British Government on behalf of the mining
industry of the Transvaal, were founded solely upon the statement of the
Volksraad Commission itself. This mania of the Government for a monopoly
by which the shareholders profit greatly and the State hardly at all,
proves that there are other interests at stake than those of the public.

At its meeting on February 3rd, 1899, the Witwatersrand Chamber of Mines
decided to guarantee a Government loan of £600,000 at 5 per cent., to be
applied in buying-out the concessionaires of the dynamite monopoly.


3.--_Railways._

A concession for all the State railways was granted on April 16th, 1884,
to a group of Hollander and German capitalists, and confirmed by the
Volksraad on August 23rd following. In 1887 the shares, to the number
of 2,000, representing a capital of £166,666, were held as follows:--

By Germans 819 shares carrying 30 votes.
" Hollanders 581 " " 76 "
" The Republic 600 " " 6 "

This astonishing division of votes which gave to the Transvaal
Government 6 out of 112, although it subscribed one-third of the
capital, and assured to the Hollanders twice as many votes as the other