608 



SOUTH AFRICA. 



ment will have to support the constabulary al- 

 7nost entirely and can never, according to this 

 report, recover any of the war expenses from the 

 Orange River Colony. The receipts of the British 

 military administration from the date of the oc- 

 cupation to June 30, 1901, were 402,925, and 

 the expenditure 386,038. The purely civil reve- 

 nue was 301,800 and the expenditure 217,974. 

 The receipts from quit rents were 11,823; from 

 customs, 151,000; from licenses and stamps, 

 28,000; from the native poll-tax, 10,100; from 

 the post-office, 43,636. A commission was ap- 

 pointed in October, 1901, to inquire into the work- 

 ing of the Free State laws with reference to the 

 leasing of Government farms upon conditions of 

 personal occupation, the burghers not being the 

 owners of the land; also to report on the condi- 

 tions under which farms are held by whites and 

 natives in the Moroka district and on prospecting, 

 developing, and working mines on Government 

 land. A royal commission which was appointed 

 to study the question of the resettlement of the 

 land in the republics after the restoration of 

 peace suggested the confiscation of the Boer 

 farms or the compulsory sale of private lands 

 for settlement. Another plan was for the Gov- 

 ernment to buy up and foreclose the mortgages 

 on the farms, which in many cases amount to 

 50 per cent, or more of the value. The object is 

 to plant loyal British settlements in the midst of 

 the hostile Dutch population which should be 

 numerous enough to give a majority of votes 

 when self-government is restored. The conditions 

 of farming are so precarious in South Africa, 

 owing to drought, locusts, rinderpest, and other 

 dangers, and the conditions of life are so wild 

 and monotonous, that practical British farmers 

 could not exist there and Canadians and Austra- 

 lians saw no inducements. A few hundred men 

 applied to the land commission, but their object 

 was to obtain grants of land to speculate with, 

 for they had no experience in farming nor desire 

 to become farmers. The commissioners suggested 

 offering 150 as a loan or gift to every British 

 settler. The British Government recognized later 

 that the resettlement of the land even by the 

 Boers would necessitate financial aid from the 

 British Government. Lord Kitchener and Sir 

 Alfred Milner, in treating with Gen. Botha for 

 peace, promised that money should be given them 

 to replace the buildings that the British troops 

 had burned and the breeding stock they had 

 driven away. Mr. Chamberlain would only agree 

 to loaning them the money, and as the Boers 

 were unwilling to become debtors of the British 

 Government, subject to eviction at any time, this 

 and the question of amnesty to the Cape rebels 

 were the points on which peace negotiations broke 

 down in the spring of 1901. An outbreak of viru- 

 lent rinderpest spread through the Orange River 

 and Transvaal colonies in the autumn of 1901. 

 The public lands of the Orange Colony were about 

 150,000 acres in extent. An experiment in settling 

 discharged soldiers as military colonists was tried 

 in the vicinity of Bloemfontein. They were pro- 

 . vided with seed, tools, and live stock, and no rent 

 was charged during the experimental period. 



The Transvaal.^After the capture of Preto- 

 ria, the capital, by the British army the South 

 African Republic was declared to be annexed to 

 the British dominions under the name of the 

 Transvaal Colony by a proclamation issued on 

 Sept. 1, 1900. Sir Alfred Milner was then ap- 

 pointed Governor of the Transvaal Colony and 

 the Orange River Colony and replaced as Gov- 

 ernor of Cape Colony by 'Sir Walter Hely-Hutch- 

 inson, previous to that Governor of Natal. A con- 



stitution for the new colony was promised as 

 early as circumstances would permit, and munici- 

 pal government was expected to mitigate military 

 rule in Johannesburg, Pretoria, and other towns. 

 President S. J. P. Kruger, who was elected in 

 1898 for the fourth consecutive term, lasting till 

 May 12, 1903, departed for Europe to seek the 

 intervention of foreign powers; yet the republic 

 still asserted its existence, Vice-President Schalk 

 Burger assuming the presidential authority and 

 acting in conjunction with Commandant-General 

 Louis Botha and other commandants in the field 

 and with President Kruger and State-Secretary 

 F. W. Reitz in Europe. 



The area of the Transvaal is 119,139 square 

 miles. The white population was officially esti- 

 mated in 1898 at 245,397, and the native popula- 

 tion at 748,759. The revenue of the republican 

 Government in 1898 was 3,983,560, and expendi- 

 ture 3,971,473. In 1899 the revenue raised with 

 the aid of war-taxes was 4,500,000. The mili- 

 tary force, comprising under the law the entire 

 adult male population, was estimated in 1899 at 

 29,279. 



The Transvaal, solely a pastoral country prior 

 to the discovery of gold in 1884, led all other 

 countries in the production of gold when war 

 broke out with Great Britain in October, 1899. 

 The production, only 10,096 in 1884 and 6,010 

 in 1885, grew to 967,416 in 1888, 5,480,498 at 

 the end of the next five years, 7,667,152 in 1894, 

 8,569,555 in 1895, 8,603,821 in 1896, 11,476,260 

 in 1897, and 16,044,135 in 1898. The total pro- 

 duction from the first opening of the mines until 

 regular operations were stopped by the war was 

 82,465,000 in value. The amount of gold ac- 

 cessible on the Witwatersrand has lately been 

 estimated at 2,871,000,000 sterling, giving a net 

 profit of 730,000,000. The only limit to the 

 exploitation of the Rand is supposed to be the 

 ultimate depth at which mining can be carried 

 on. Gold may yet be discovered in large quan- 

 tities in the eastern and western extensions of 

 the Rand and in the quartz reefs of other parts 

 of the Transvaal. The Klerksdorp, Heidelberg, 

 and Barberton mines have been profitably worked, 

 but are not so productive as those on the Rand. 

 The Transvaal Government charged a fixed an- 

 nual license fee for each claim, the claims being 

 bounded by vertical lines. No other tax was im- 

 posed save the indirect taxes paid by the mining 

 community, until in 1898 a tax of 5 per cent, 

 was levied on profits. The license tax operated 

 to the advantage of the richer mines, so that 

 Johannesburg paid 1.7 per cent, of its output and 

 Heidelberg 33 per cent. On land leased from the 

 Government 2| per cent, of the gold output was 

 paid. Sir David Barbour, who was commissioned 

 to inquire into the financial circumstances of the 

 Transvaal and Orange River colonies and to sug- 

 gest measures by which their revenue and ex- 

 penditure could be placed on a satisfactory foot- 

 ing and the extent to which they may be fairly 

 asked to contribute toward the cost of the war x 

 recommended the conversion of this into, a 7-per- 

 cent, tax on profits. He proposed a 3-per-cent. 

 tax on the profits of joint-stock companies other 

 than mining companies. Discoveries of new gold- 

 mines he would encourage by opening areas to 

 prospectors without their being required to ob- 

 tain the consent of the owners and by lightening 

 the heavy license fees. There were about 80,000 

 Kaffirs employed in the Rand mines, whose aver- 

 age wages were 3 a month, five-eighths of which 

 they spent for pleasures and ornaments and the 

 rest they carried away to buy a wife and settle 

 in their own homes unless they were robbed or 



