ed into
competition with traders who have paid their licences and rents and
who keep staffs. Recently grain became scarce. The Government
were petitioned to suspend the duties, which are cruelly high, in
order to assist the mining industry to feed its labourers. The
Government refused this request on the plea that it was not in a
position to suspend duties without the permission of the Volksraad,
and yet within a few days we find that the Government has granted a
concession to one of its friends to import grain free of duty and to
sell it in competition with the merchants who have had to pay duties.
I do not attempt to deal with this important question adequately, but
give this example to show how the Government regards the rights of
traders.

MONOPOLIES.

It has been the steady policy of the Government to grant concessions.
No sooner does any commodity become absolutely essential to the
community than some harpy endeavours to get a concession for its
supply. There is scarcely a commodity or a right which has not been
made the subject of an application for the grant of a concession. We
all remember the bread and jam concession, the water concession, the
electric lighting concession, and many others, but I need only point
to the dynamite concession to show how these monopolies tend to
paralyse our industries. There may be some of you who have not yet
heard and some who have forgotten the facts connected with this
outrage upon public rights.

STORY OF THE DYNAMITE CONCESSION.

Some years ago, Mr. Lippert got a concession for the sole right to
manufacture and sell dynamite and all other explosives. He was to
manufacture the dynamite in this country. For years he imported
dynamite under the name of Guhr Impregne duty free. He never
manufactured dynamite in the country, and upon public exposure, the
Government was compelled to cancel the concession, the President
himself denouncing the action of the concessionnaire as fraudulent.
For a time we breathed freely, thinking we were rid of this incubus,
but within a few months the Government granted virtually to the same
people another concession, under which they are now taking from the
pockets of the public L600,000 per annum, and this is a charge which
will go on growing should the mining industry survive the persistent
attempts to strangle it. How a body charged with the public interests
could be parties to this scandalous fleecing of the public passes
comprehension. Th