nnesburg. On May 4th, 1901, Sir H. Gould-Adams
was able to report that the chief departments of the administration
of the Orange River Colony had been transferred from military to
civil officials, and reorganised on a permanent basis. In the
Transvaal the departments of finance, law, mines, and that of the
Secretary to the Administration, had been organised, and were
gradually taking over an increasing volume of administrative work from
the military officials. Even more significant was the establishment by
proclamation (May 8th), of a nominated Town Council for the management
of the municipal affairs of Johannesburg, and the consequent abolition
of the office of Military Governor, with the transfer of the
departments hitherto controlled by him to a Government Commissioner
and other officials of the civil administration. This step was
rendered possible by the circumstance that a certain number of the
principal residents, of whom twelve were nominated for service on the
Council, had now returned to their homes. It marked the recommencement
of the industrial life of the Rand, which had followed the permission,
given by Lord Kitchener in April, for three mines to resume work. From
this time forward the Uitlander refugees began to return; although, as
we have seen,[288] it was not possible to allow the general mass of
the inhabitants to leave the coast towns until the following November.
And, in addition to this, Lord Milner had obtained statements of the
views of the Cape and Natal Governments on the question of the
settlement of the new colonies. Mr. Chamberlain had attached great
importance to this interchange of opinions; rightly holding that, in
determining the conditions and methods of the settlement of the
conquered territories, the British South African colonies should be
taken into the counsels of the Imperial Government. Lord Milner had,
therefore, submitted to the colonial Governments the draft of the
Letters Patent, under which the system of Crown Colony government was
to be established in the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, before
they were issued.[289] As the result of these consultations the terms
of surrender granted to the Boers at Vereeniging, and the consequent
administrative arrangements arising out of them, embodied decisions
based not merely on the judgment of the Imperial Government, but on
what was virtually the unanimous opinion of the loyal population of
South Africa. In this, as in the crisis