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VISIT TO SOUTH AFRICA. 
Then the system under which the Chartered Company help to develop 
the country is favorable ; if a man wants anything he simply goes over 
to the Administrators’ office, points out what he wants, and the proba¬ 
bility is that he will get help. 
The government is accessible to all. 
Prospectors, instead of having to pay taxes on claims, as in the 
Transvaal, need only a mining licence. They have no monopolies to 
contend with. 
The Chartered Company reserve to themselves the right to take half 
the shares on flotation of a mine, and half the profits. 
This then is their policy—help in development with taxation of 
success and not of failure. 
I remember Mr. Rhodes telling a story in one of his speeches as to 
how Rhodesia was “ born.” He said that the money had to be got from 
somewhere to form this new country, and then he continued after this 
fashion : “ After we had arranged the amalgamation of the He Beers’ 
mines, each of us who had been in that amalgamation was allowed to 
run his own little show; my little show was the extension of the British 
power up to and north of the Zambesi, and that is how the money was 
found for it,” (Applause.) 
Inter alia in return for that money which was lent by the De Beers 
Company, it is perhaps not generally known that if diamonds should 
be found anywhere in Rhodesia the De Beers Company get the benefit. 
The climate on the higher ground is very good, and quite suitable for 
white men, but there is a good deal of fever on the low ground. 
The African sun is very different from the Indian sun ; it is known 
that one has to take considerable precautions against the Indian sun and 
one ‘lies low’ in the middle of the day : whereas in Africa, even in the 
middle of the hot weather one works in the hot sun, and really takes no 
particular precautions, merely wearing a large felt hat. 
It is claimed that many parts of Matabeleland are good for agriculture ; 
some term it ‘ the future granary of Africa ; ’ cattle and sheep can be 
raised ; indiarubber, tobacco, fruit, etc., will be grown, particularly in 
parts of Mashonaland. There are some magnificent forests to the north¬ 
west of Buluwayo, which ought to be a source of wealth, as they contain 
good teak and mahogany. 
South African farms are of enormous size and must not be compared 
to English farms. It would be useless for an English farmer to attempt 
farming there. Farms are merely enormous tracts of what is to-day 
wilderness, or at any rate wildness, which probably none but a man of 
colonial experience, like a Dutchman, would be able to make pay. 
But the question is not whether the agriculture will pay ; it is whether 
the gold will pay. 
Mr. Rhodes in another speech said “the people who went up, expect¬ 
ing to find gold growing on trees, came back disappointed and abused 
the place.” Well, I believe there is gold in many parts, and in some 
parts it is a good deal easier to find than the trees. That is certainly so 
round Buluwayo, where it is as bare as this table. 
Mr. Rhodes has characteristically ordered a million, however, to be 
grown. 
Will the gold pay or not ? The opinion of Rhodesians is that undoubt¬ 
edly it will pay in many cases. 
Some careful and disinterested persons estimate that two to three per 
cent, of the mines will pay on a good commercial basis. 
