er, first special Judicial Commissioner, Johannesburg. Mr. Thos.
Hugo, the General Manager of the National Bank, was appointed
financial adviser, and certain advisory members were arbitrarily
selected by the Government. The complete exclusion of all those who
had had any direct or indirect association with the late Reform
movement or with those in any way connected with it strengthened the
conviction that the Government designed the Commission to be a
whitewashing one; but whatever the design may have been it would be
doing an injustice both to the Government officials and to the
advisory members to have it supposed that they were parties to such
an idea. They were not; they did their work admirably, and no inquiry
could have been conducted in a better spirit. This, however, was not
foreseen, and it was with the greatest difficulty that the Uitlanders
were induced to view the thing seriously and to realize that, no
matter how it had occurred, this was a supreme opportunity for
proving to the world the soundness of their case. The report and
proceedings are published by the Witwatersrand Chamber of Mines in a
volume containing over 700 pages of printed matter and a number of
diagrams. The whole constitutes a damning indictment of the
Government, as the following extracts from the report of the
Commission testify:--

Your Commission are pleased to state that at present there exist all
the indications of an honest administration, and the State, as well
as the Mining Industry, must be congratulated upon the fact that most
of the mines are controlled and directed by financial and practical
men who devote their time, energy, and knowledge to the mining
industry, and who have not only introduced the most up-to-date
machinery and mining appliances, but also the greatest perfection of
method and process known to science. But for these a good many of the
mines now producing gold would not have reached that stage....

To avoid such a calamity (viz., the closing down of the mines) your
Commission are of opinion that it is the duty of the Government to
co-operate with the mining industry, and to devise means in order to
make it possible for lower-grade mines to work at a profit, and
generally to lighten the burdens of the mining industry. This and the
development and equipment of the new mines are a few examples among
others where it is desirable that the Government shall take an active
part, especially when the fact is taken into