of the net profits were still payable to it, it is true; but there are no public accounts.
By way of compensation new taxes were imposed by the Government.

Mr.
Rouliot, President of the Chamber of Mines, in his speech, January 26th, 1899, put it thus:-- "It is a burden borne by us on another shoulder, not a lightening of the burden." Allowing for the increased consumption of dynamite, it has been estimated that, even with a further reduction of 5s.

per case, the annual burden imposed upon the industry by the monopoly would, at the end of the period, amount to from L687,500 to L825,000.

The Transvaal Government in its reply of March 9th, 1899, did not dispute these figures, but stated simply that, "the government had the right to judge what was most advantageous to itself." The complaints of the British Government on behalf of the mining industry of the Transvaal, were founded solely upon the statement of the Volksraad Commission itself.

This mania of the Government for a monopoly by which the shareholders profit greatly and the State hardly at all, proves that there are other interests at stake than those of the public.
At its meeting on February 3rd, 1899, the Witwatersrand Chamber of Mines decided to guarantee a Government loan of L600,000 at 5 per cent., to be applied in buying-out the concessionaires of the dynamite monopoly.
3 .-- _Railways._ A concession for all the State railways was granted on April 16th, 1884, to a group of Hollander and German capitalists, and confirmed by the Volksraad on August 23rd following.