t, the Boer has always had a horror of paying
taxes; he only approves of taxes paid by others.

At the time of the annexation of the Transvaal by England in 1877, the
Government was being crushed by debt, the burghers resolutely refusing
to pay their taxes.

Some order was brought into the finances by England; but the Boer revolt
in December, 1880, was caused by the determination of Colonel Owen
Lanyon, the English Resident, to seize the bullocks and wagons of
recalcitrant tax-payers.

The Transvaal Government obtained the Convention of 1881. In 1883, the
budget showed L143,000 revenue, and L184,000 expenditure. From April
1st, 1884, to March 31st, 1885, the revenue rose to L161,000, the
expenditure remained at L184,000.

In 1886, the gold mines were discovered, and in 1889, the revenue rose
to L1,577,000. The crisis of 1890 caused it to drop below the million;
in 1892 it rose again, reaching in:--

1894 L2,247,728
1895 2,923,648
1896 3,912,095
1897 3,956,402
1898 3,329,958

In 1899, it was estimated at L4,087,000. These figures do not include
the sale of explosives from 1895 to 1898; the share of licences of
claims from 1895 to 1899; nor the Delagoa Bay customs dues paid to the
Netherlands Railway for 1898 and 1899.

[Footnote 14: _Le Siecle_, April 4th, 1900.]

2.--_Budget Assessment of the Burghers._

According to the _Staats Almanak_, the white population numbers 300,000,
of whom 175,000 are males. The number of burghers aged between sixteen
and sixty, entitled to vote, is 29,447; that of Uitlanders, between the
same ages, 81,000.

These 30,000 Boers who represent the electoral portion of the community,
do not pay one-tenth of the revenue of the state. They represent,
however, a budget of over four millions of pounds; or, L133 per head. If
our 10,800,000 electors in France had a proportionate budget at their
disposal, it would amount annually to L1,436,400,000; or considerably
more than our whole National Debt.

The burghers are thus fund-holders in receipt, per head, of a yearly
income of L133 from the Uitlanders. Never has there been an oligarchy so
favoured. It is true that all do not profit in the same proportion. "The
Transvaal Republic" says a Dutchman, Mr. C. Hutten, "is administered in
the interests of a clique of some three dozen families."[15]

[Footnote 15: _The Doom of the Boer Oligarchies_. (_North American
Review_, Ma