the country. Apart from 102 engines and
984 trucks, the Boers had destroyed many pumping-stations and station
buildings, 385 spans of bridges and culverts, and 25 miles of line.
These injuries to the "plant" of the railways were repaired "in an
absolutely permanent manner," and orders had been placed in August for
60 engines and 1,200 trucks over and above those required to replace
the rolling-stock destroyed by the enemy.[316] As the staff employed
in the time of the Republics had been "actively engaged on the side of
the enemy, and were animated by an exceedingly anti-British
spirit,"[317] they had to be almost entirely replaced.

[Footnote 315: December 14th, 1901. Cd. 903.]

[Footnote 316: The new rolling-stock was paid for out of the
grant-in-aid voted in August, 1901. The first of the new
lines constructed was that from Bloemfontein to Basutoland,
opening up the rich agricultural land known as the "conquered
territory" on the Basuto border in the Orange River Colony,
where many of the new British settlers had been established.]

[Footnote 317: The completeness with which the Netherlands
Railway Company had identified itself with the Government of
the South African Republic is well expressed in the reply of
Mr. Van Kretchmar, the General Manager of the N.Z.A.S.M., to
a question put to him by the Transvaal Concessions
Commissioners: "We considered that the interests of the
Republic were our interests" (Q. 612). Many of these railway
employees were, of course, imported Hollanders.]

[Sidenote: Reorganisation of railways.]

"But," Lord Milner continues, "the many difficulties incidental
to the organisation of a large new staff, unaccustomed to work
with one another, are being successfully overcome, and business
is carried on with a smoothness which gives no indication of the
internal revolution so recently effected. The new railway staff
comprises some 4,000 men of British race, including 1,500
Reservists or Irregulars who had fought in the war, and who, with
other newcomers, form a permanent addition to the British
population of South Africa."

Thanks to the blockhouse system, supplemented where necessary by
armoured trains, the mail trains from the ports to Johannesburg were
running almost as rapidly and as safely as in time of peace