d when it is known how the
contract originated. The contractors having bargained to deliver
donkeys, approached the President with the explanation that donkeys
being live-stock, would have to be accommodated upon an upper deck
where there was ample ventilation; the result of which, they said,
would be that the ship would be top-heavy and would be obliged to
take in ballast. Surely, it was argued, it would be folly to carry
worthless ballast when good mealies, which were in any case badly
needed in the country, would serve the purpose of ballasting equally
well and would, of course, show a very large profit. A contract for
mealies was therefore entered into. When the inquiry was instituted
in the Volksraad certain awkward facts came to light, and it devolved
upon Mr. Barend Vorster to explain how it happened that the mealie
'ballast' arrived and was paid for before the donkeys were shipped.
That worthy gentleman may still be thinking out the explanation, but
as the money has been paid it cannot be a cause of great anxiety.

In order to preserve a true perspective the reader should realize
that the President defended both these affairs and that the exposures
took place while the recommendations of the Industrial Commission
were being discussed in the Raad and fiercely combated by the
President himself.

The matter of the Selati Railway was again brought into prominence in
1897. It is quite impossible as yet to get at all the facts, but it
is very generally believed that a swindle of unusual dimensions and
audacity remains to be exposed, and that a real exposure would
unpleasantly involve some very prominent people. At any rate the
facts which became public in 1898 would warrant that suspicion. The
Selati Railway Company alleged that they had been unjustly deprived
of their rights, and the Government admitting repudiation of
contract took refuge in the plea that in making the contract they
had acted _ultra vires_. It was, in fact, an exemplary case of
'thieves falling out' and when the case got into the law courts a
point of real interest to the public came out; for the Company's
lawyers filed their pleadings! The following account of the case is
taken from the newspapers of the time. The plea of the Selati Railway
Company states that--

the Government was very desirous that the railways should be built,
and that for the purpose the business should be taken in hand by
influential capitalists, and that, having full know