g appetite, and
nothing shows the headlong policy of 'squaring'--nothing better
illustrates the Uitlanders' grievance of reckless extravagance in
administration--than the list of fixed salaries as it has grown year
by year since the goldfields became a factor.

TRANSVAAL FIXED SALARIES.

L s. d.
1886 51,831 3 7
1887 99,083 12 8
1888 164,466 4 10
1889 249,641 10 10
1890 324,520 8 10
1891 332,888 13 9
1892 323,608 0 0
1893 361,275 6 11
1894 419,775 13 10
1895 570,047 12 7
1896 813,029 7 5
1897 996,959 19 11
1898 1,080,382 3 0
1899 (Budget) 1,216,394 5 0

That is to say, the Salary List is now twenty-four times as great as
it was when the Uitlanders began to come in in numbers. It amounts to
nearly five times as much as the total revenue amounted to then. It
is now sufficient if equally distributed to pay L40 per head per
annum to the total male Boer population.

The liquor curse has grown to such dimensions and the illicit liquor
organization has secured such a firm hold that even the stoutest
champions of law and order doubt at times whether it will ever be
possible to combat the evil. The facts of the case reflect more
unfavourably upon the President than perhaps any other single thing.
These are the facts: The law prohibits the sale of liquor to natives;
yet from a fifth to a third of the natives on the Rand are habitually
drunk. The fault rests with a corrupt and incompetent administration.
That administration is in the hands of the President's relations and
personal following. The remedy urged by the State Secretary, State
Attorney, some members of the Executive, the general public, and the
united petition of all the ministers of religion in the country, is
to entrust the administration to the State Attorney's department and
to maintain the existing law. In the face of this President Kruger
has fought hard to have the total prohibition law abolished and has
successfully maintained his nepotism--to apply no worse construction!
In replying to a deputation of liquor dealers he denounced the
existing law as an 'immoral' one, because by restricting the
sale of liquor it deprived a number of honest people of