the Government be taken to suggest
this.

DYNAMITE.

With the principle of granting a monopoly to individuals, agencies,
or corporations it is impossible for us to agree, and whatever
arrangement be effected, we should have to make it clear that in this
instance we are viewing the question solely as a burden--a tax which
the mines are asked to definitely accept in order that an
amelioration of the general conditions affecting the whole Uitlander
population may be secured.

The difference between the cost at which dynamite could be imported
(exclusive of Transvaal duty) and the price we are now compelled to
pay amounts to over L600,000 per annum on the present rate of
consumption, a sum which will increase steadily and largely in the
immediate future.

Whether the mining industry should voluntarily accept such an immense
burden as a set-off against terms which, whilst they would doubtless
eventually favourably affect the industry, are in their immediate
effects designed to satisfy the Uitlander population in their
personal rights as distinct from the mining industry as a business,
is a matter which would in the first place have to be submitted to
the recognized elected representatives of the mining industry, and
would in the second place depend upon whether the people in whose
interest such sacrifice is required would accept the terms which the
Government would be willing to concede as satisfying their reasonable
aspirations.

It is also a matter of grave and general concern that a sum so
enormous, when compared with the revenue requirements of the State,
should be taken annually from the mines with little, if any, benefit
to the country, when it might be utilized in part or entirely in
supplementing the State revenue, and thus afford relief in other
directions to every taxpayer in the country.

Notwithstanding the above considerations, however, we feel that a
great monetary sacrifice might be made to secure a peaceful and
permanent solution of vexed questions, and that the subject of
dynamite should be submitted to the Chamber of Mines and discussed in
that spirit.

Whilst we are willing, in order to bring about a general settlement
of all pending questions, to recommend such a heavy sacrifice to be
made, and adopt the proposal made by the Government, it would be a
condition that there shall not be any extension of the concession,
and that the terms of the contract shall be rigidly enforced; that
the Dynami