erate formation soon
helped to swell the flowing tide of prosperity. In the middle of
1887 the regular output of gold commenced, and the fields have never
'looked back' since. Johannesburg--named after Mr. Johannes Rissik,
the Surveyor-General of the Transvaal--was soon a far greater problem
than Barberton had been. The shareholders in the mines soon found it
necessary to have some organization to protect their interests and
give unison to their policy, and to preserve the records and collect
information for the industry. The Witwatersrand Chamber of Mines was
then formed, a voluntary business association of unique interest and
efficiency. The organization includes all the representative and
influential men, and every company of any consequence connected with
the mining industry; and it has, through its committee and officials,
for eight years represented to the Volksraad the existence of abuses
and grievances, the remedies that are required, and the measures
which are felt to be necessary or conducive to the progress of the
industry in particular, or the welfare of the State in general. The
President, Executive and Volksraad, by neglect of their obvious
duties, by their ignorance of ordinary public affairs, by their
wilful disregard of the requirements of the Uitlanders, have given
cohesion to a people about as heterogeneous as any community under
the sun, and have trained them to act and to care for themselves. The
refusal year after year to give a charter of incorporation to the
Chamber, on the grounds that it would be creating an _imperium in
imperio_, and the comments of Volksraad members on the petition, have
made it clear that the Government view the Chamber with no friendly
eye. The facts that in order to get a workable pass law at all the
Chamber had to prepare it in every detail, together with plans for
the creation and working of a Government department; and that in
order to diminish the litigation under the gold law, and to make that
fearful and wonderful agglomeration of erratic, experimental, crude,
involved, contradictory and truly incomprehensible enactments at all
understandable, the Chamber had to codify it at its own expense and
on its own initiative, illustrate both the indispensable character of
the organization, and the ignorance and ineptitude of the Government.

The records of the Volksraad for the last ten years may be searched
in vain for any measure calculated constructively to advance the
co