work, 7,439 oz. of gold were won. Up to
November, when, as we have seen, the military situation for the first
time permitted any considerable body of refugees to return, progress
was slow; but in this month the output amounted to 32,000 oz. in round
numbers. In December the number of stamps working had risen to 953,
and the output to 52,897 oz. Henceforward the advance was rapid and
sustained. In the remaining five months of the war (January to May,
1902), the number of stamps at work rose to 2,095, the monthly output
to 138,600 oz., of the value of L600,000, and 30,000 additional
British refugees had been brought back to their homes on the Rand, in
view of the increasing certainty of employment afforded by the
expanding gold industry. Thus, before the surrender of the Boer forces
in the field, half of the British population had been restored to the
Transvaal, and the gold industry had been so far re-established that
its production had reached one-third of the highest annual rate
attained before the war broke out. Nor must it be forgotten that
during these last months the conditions of the refugee camps were
being steadily improved, until, as already noted, the death-rate was
ultimately reduced below the normal.

The Home Government had been unprepared for the military struggle
precipitated by the ultimatum; Lord Milner was determined that, so far
as his efforts could avail, it should not be unprepared for the
economic conflict for which peace would be the signal. In a despatch
of January 25th, 1902, he urged once more upon Mr. Chamberlain the
importance of settling British colonists upon the land, and pressed
for a "decision on the main issues" raised by this question.

[Sidenote: Land settlement.]

"This subject has for long occupied my attention," he wrote,
"and, in a tentative way, a good deal has been done. But we have
reached a point where little more progress can be made without a
decision on the main issues. The question is, whether British
colonisation is to be undertaken on a large and effective scale,
under Government control and with Government assistance, or to be
left to take care of itself, with whatever little help and
sympathy an Administration, devoid of any general plan, and with
no special funds devoted to the particular purpose, can give
it.... The principal consideration is the necessity of avoiding a
sharp contrast and antagonism in the ch