uence over those whom
they employed. They had held aloof from the agitation which began in
1892, because they did not themselves care for the franchise, not
meaning to spend their lives in the Transvaal, and because they knew
that political disturbances would interfere with the mining industry.
The leading man, and certainly one of the ablest men among them,[82]
foresaw trouble as far back as June, 1894, when he wrote that the unrest
of the country came "from the open hostility of the Government to the
Uitlanders, and its hostility to all principles of sound Government; the
end will be revolution;" and a few weeks later wrote again: "The mining
companies ought to have arms. The courage of the Boers is exaggerated.
If they knew there were in Johannesburg three thousand well-armed men,
they would not talk so loud of destroying the town." Nevertheless, these
capitalists, like capitalists all over the world, disliked force, and
long refused to throw themselves into the movement. They raised a fund
for the purpose of trying "to get a better Volksraad"--whether by
influencing members or by supplying funds for election expenses has
never been made clear. However, these efforts failed, and they became at
last convinced that the loss of their industry from misgovernment was,
and would continue, greater than any loss which temporary disturbances
might involve. The vista of deep-level mining, which had now opened
itself before them, made their grievances seem heavier. Before they
entered on a new series of enterprises, which would at first be costly,
they wished to relieve mining from the intolerable burdens of a dynamite
monopoly, foolishly or corruptly granted to a firm which charged an
extortionate price for this necessity; of a high tariff both on
food-stuffs, involving large expenses in feeding the workpeople, and on
mine machinery; of extravagantly heavy railway rates for coal; and of a
system which, by making it easy for the Kafir workers to get drunk,
reduced the available amount of native labour by one-third, and
increased the number of accidents in the mines. These burdens made the
difference of one or two or three per cent, on the dividend in the best
mines, threatened the prospect of any dividend on the second best, and
made it useless to persevere with the working of a third class, where
the ore was of a still lower grade. Such were the considerations which
at last determined several of the leading mine-owners to throw