dings intended to balance conditions in favour of their burghers,
as the process was described. I will adduce a few instances. As is well
known, it is only burghers and some privileged Hollanders who are
employed in Government service, from President down to policeman. There
are very few exceptions to this rule, which also applies to the
nominations of jurymen, who are well paid too. The salaries of all,
especially in the higher grades, had been largely augmented; the
President receiving L8,000 per year, and so on downwards.

For Government supplies and public works the tenders of burghers only,
and perhaps of some privileged persons, are accepted. In many instances
the tenderers are without any pretence of ability for the performance of
the contract, but are nevertheless accepted, performing only a _sub rosa
role_. One such instance occurred some years ago when a burgher who did
not possess L100--a simple farmer and a kind of "slim"
speculator--received by Volksraad vote the contract for building a
certain railway.[3] The price included a very large margin to be
distributed in places of interest--as douceurs of L1,000 to L5,000 each,
and L10,000 for the _pro forma_ contractor and his Volksraad
confederates; all those sums were paid out by the firm for whom the
contract was actually taken up.

Similarly in contracts for road making, repairing, and making streets,
etc., etc. On one occasion a rather highly placed official obtained a
contract for repairing certain streets in Pretoria for L60,000. The work
being worth L20,000 at most, the difference went to be shared by the
several official participants.

One of the first instances of glaring peculation occurred about fifteen
years ago in relation with the Selati railway contract obtained by Baron
Oppenheim.[4] The procedure was publicly stigmatized as bribery. It had
transpired that nearly all the Volksraad's members had received gifts in
cash and values ranging each from L50 to L1,000 prior to voting the
contract, but what was paid after voting did not become public at the
time of exposure.

The acceptance of those gifts was ultimately admitted, in the face of
evidence adduced in a certain law case; denial became, in fact,
impossible. The plea of exoneration was that those gifts had been freely
accepted without pledging the vote. The President publicly exculpated
the honourable members, expressing his conviction that none of them
could have meant to prejudice the Sta