t of duties between 1897 and the end of
1898 shows that they were increased on twenty-eight products, and
decreased on four.
Coal travelling a distance of 25-1/2 miles, the charge made by the
Netherlands Railway Co. is 4s. 5d., which is 8-1/2d. per ton per mile;
while the Free State Railway only charges 5-3/4d. and the Natal line
3d.
The Company collects the customs dues for account of the State, as
security for the payment of interest on their shares and debentures.
Dr. Kuyper is quite willing to admit that the "financial administration
leaves something to be desired," but he adds that, "while at the Cape
the taxes on produce are at the rate of 15 per cent., in the Transvaal
they are only 10 per cent." But it is easy to see how, by means of
railway tariffs and various combinations, due to the cunning of Mr.
Krueger and his Hollander friends, it has been possible to enhance prices
of every description.
CHAPTER XII.
"CAPITALIST INTRIGUES" AND THE WAR.[17]
1.--_A War of Capitalists._
"It is a war of capitalists against a set of poor Boers who have no sort
of interest in the dispute!" Such is the general cry.
Let us look at the facts.
The other day, anent the attempt upon the Prince of Wales, I referred to
the anarchist and socialistic attacks of certain Pro-Boer and Anglophobe
journals on capitalists, financiers, and the wealthy "metal-hearted
mine-owners," as Dr. Kuyper calls them. I reminded my readers that
Professor Bryce himself treats as absurd the tale that the aim of the
Jameson Raid, as stated by those papers, was the conquest of the
Transvaal for Rhodesia. I shall now show by documentary evidence that
the war did not break out through any action on the part of gold-mine
proprietors. In the first place, the greater number of these proprietors
reside in Europe; and as much in France, Germany and Belgium, as in
England. Their representatives in the Transvaal may hold more or less
important interests in those mines, but they are imbued with a full
sense of their responsibilities.
Now, commercial men never seek to bring about a political crisis
unnecessarily; they invariably endeavour to avoid one. If they resign
themselves to such a course, it is only as a last resource.
The truth of these general assertions is verified in the case in point
by two documents which have not been fabricated after the events.
They are the reports of the Chamber of Mines, published by Mr. Rouliot,
in Ja
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