are other cases too which have never been brought into court having been either compromised or abandoned because of the hopelessness of the position, for it is obvious that there would be great reluctance on the part of business men to make a fight merely for the purpose of showing that they suffered under a disability when the result of such a fight would inevitably be to antagonize the only tribunal to which they could appeal.

The case of the Pretoria Waterworks Company is rather a bad one.  The Government in 1889 gave a contract for the water supply of Pretoria.  It was a permission, but not an exclusive right, to supply the town from springs on Government ground.  The President, finding that the contractor was not in a position to undertake the work, requested certain business houses to form a company to acquire this right and to supply the town with water.  After inquiry into the local conditions and the probable costs, these people represented that unless they received the exclusive right they would be unable to undertake the work, as the cost of importing pipes and machinery transported from Natal by bullock waggon and the then expensive conditions of working would make the work so costly that at a later period, after the introduction of railways, it would be possible for competitors, such for instance as the projected Municipality of Pretoria, to establish a system of water supply at probably half the cost of the first one and thus compete to their disadvantage.  For these reasons the contractor and his friends declined to proceed with the formation of the company.  The President, however, was very desirous of having a good water supply, and after some months of negotiations the original contract was supplemented by a grant from the Executive Council, who then held plenary powers from the Volksraad, giving the proposed company the exclusive right.  Immediately after the receipt of this grant the company was formed, the capital subscribed and the machinery and other material purchased.  In 1898, after nine years of work, during which shareholders had received dividends averaging 2-2/3 per cent. per annum, some differences occurred between the Company and the consumers, and the latter combined and subscribed the necessary funds to take action in the High Court, the object being to challenge the exclusive right and to enable the town through its Municipality to provide its own supply.  At the same time the Government at the instance of the townspeople opened negotiations with the Company with a view to expropriation in accordance with the terms stipulated in the original contract.  While matters were in this position, however, certain members of the Volksraad prominently concerned in the action against the Company, introduced a measure in the Volksraad cancelling the second or exclusive grant made by the Government nine years before and recommending that the Government should either buy out the Waterworks Company upon suitable terms or should give the necessary