and borrowed money
on it. It was offered to many of the big capitalists here, but they
would not touch it. The Sanitary Board are told that a building is to
be put up, in which fifty rooms will be set aside for them, but they
are not satisfied that the authorities should do good by stealth and
blush to find it fame.

I cannot understand how mere applications can shake
confidence?--Well, they do, because they are only made when there is
a chance of their being granted. But, if you want facts, I will tell
you what shook the investor's confidence as much as anything that has
happened for years--that was the Ferreira claim-jumping raid, which
it was sworn to in Court had been suggested by you yourself, Mr.
Joubert.

Not 'suggested' by me--

The Chairman said the witness was straying away from the original
question.

Witness said that the Minister of Mines had wanted examples of what
shook confidence, so he was obliged to give them.

The report of the Commission created a very favourable impression.
The majority of people believed that although it might not be
entirely acted upon, yet it would be quite impossible for the
President and the Volksraad to disregard suggestions made by so
influential a group of officials as those forming the Commission, and
that at any rate most of the recommendations would be accepted. The
unbelieving few who knew their President Kruger, however, waited for
something to be _done_. Presently ominous rumours went round about
differences in the Executive. Then came the scenes in the Volksraad,
when the President revealed himself and charged Mr. Schalk Burger
with being a traitor to his country for having signed such a report,
followed by the usual fight and the usual victory for the President,
and the usual Committee constituted mainly of extreme Conservatives
appointed to report upon the other Commission's report; and then the
usual result: Something for nothing. The Netherlands Railway made an
inconsiderable reduction in rates, which it appears was designed to
buy off, and did succeed in buying off, further scrutiny of its
affairs. With regard to the two big monopolies, Dynamite and Railway,
it appears that the Volksraad Commission accepted the private
assurances of the monopolists as sufficient warrant for reversing the
conclusions of the Industrial Commission. The proposed Local Board
for the goldfields was promptly ruled out as an unthinkable
proposition, a government within a governm