immediately seen that the main--one might
almost say sole--object of the negotiations was to safeguard the
dynamite monopoly. The Government had, in fact, been placed in a very
awkward position. One of the excuses for not expropriating the
monopoly had been that the State had not been successful in raising a
loan. In order to deal with this objection the Chamber of Mines had,
in the month of February, 1899, made an offer, guaranteed by all the
principal firms on the Rand, to provide the sum of L600,000 to
compensate the monopolists for their actual expenditure up to date
upon buildings, plant, machinery, &c., so that there should be no
semblance of injustice in the treatment meted out to them. The
conditions of the offer were that the dynamite monopoly should be
cancelled and importation of explosives permitted under an import
duty which would give the State a very large revenue at once and
which in the course of a few years would provide a sinking fund
sufficient to extinguish the loan of L600,000. The offer was so
favourable to the State that it placed the Government in a
quandary.{50} The attitude of the Volksraad, too, was distinctly
hostile to the dynamite monopoly; and on top of all came the
representations of the Imperial Government upon the subject. It
became necessary to do something to save the threatened
'cornerstone'; hence the Peace negotiations between the Government
and the capitalists.

This was another and one of the clearest examples of the 'something
for nothing' policy, for it will be observed that of all the things
mentioned dynamite alone was the matter to be definitely settled--and
that to the satisfaction of Mr. Kruger. Long years of experience
had taught the Uitlanders to examine any proposals coming from the
Government with the utmost care; and the representatives of the
mining industry were soon of one mind in regarding these negotiations
as nothing but a trap.

Of the five men who represented the Government, viz., the President,
the State Secretary (Mr. Reitz), the State Attorney (Mr. Smuts), the
Foreign Plenipotentiary (Dr. Leyds), and the 'disinterested
intermediary,' Mr. Lippert, it was easy enough to account for three.
The President had frequently pledged himself to maintain the
monopoly, and always referred to it as the corner-stone of the
independence. Dr. Leyds had chosen to associate himself with the
defence of the concessionaires upon all occasions, and had even gone
so far, as e