een Boksburg and Krugersdorp is paying
more than the interest on the cost of the construction of the whole
line of railway to Delagoa Bay. To add these to its general revenue,
of which 10 per cent, is set aside as a sinking fund, and then to
take for itself 15 per cent. of the balance, the Company reports
annually to the Raad from Amsterdam in a language which is
practically foreign to it, and makes up its accounts in guelders, a
coinage which our legislators I venture to say know nothing of; and
this is independence. We are liable as guarantors for the whole of
the debt. Lines have been built entirely on our credit, and yet we
have no say and no control over these important public works beyond
the show of control which is supposed to be exercised by the present
Railway Commissioner. The Company in conjunction with the Executive
Government is in a position to control our destinies to an enormous
extent, to influence our relations internally and externally, to
bring about such friction with the neighbouring States as to set the
whole of South Africa in tumult. Petitions have been presented to the
Raad, but the President has constantly brushed these aside with the
well-worn argument that the independence of the State is involved in
the matter. It is involved in the matter, as all who remember the
recent Drifts question will admit. I have been told that it is
dangerous for the country to take over the railway, because it would
afford such an immense field for corruption. Surely this is the
strongest condemnation of the Government by its friends, for if it is
not fit to run a railway, how can it be fit to manage a whole State?
The powers controlling this railway are flooding the public service
with Hollanders to the exclusion of our own people, and I may here
say that in the most important departments of the State we are being
controlled by the gentlemen from the Low Country. While the innocent
Boer hugs to himself the delusion that he is preserving his
independence, they control us politically through Dr. Leyds,
financially through the Netherlands Railway, educationally through
Dr. Mansvelt, and in the Department of Justice through Dr. Coster.

CUSTOMS AND TRADE.

The policy of the Government in regard to taxation may be practically
described as protection without production. The most monstrous
hardships result to consumers, and merchants can scarcely say from
day to day where they are. Twice now has the Government enter