to be made up by the Government sacrificing its share of profits) and a possible further reduction of 5s. per case under certain conditions, the monopoly should be renewed for a period of fifteen years, all breaches in the past to be condoned, and cancellation on the ground of breach of contract in the future to be impossible.  This proposal, it was publicly notified, would be laid before the Raad during the first session of 1899.  The existence of the dynamite monopoly was at this time costing the industry L600,000 a year, and on every possible occasion it was represented to the Government that, if they really did need further revenue, in no way could it be more easily or more properly raised than by exercising their undoubted right to cancel the monopoly and by imposing a duty of such amount as might be deemed necessary upon imported dynamite.  It was also pointed out that the proposed reduction in the cost of dynamite would offer no relief whatever since it was far more than counterbalanced by the taxes upon mynpachts and profits which were then being imposed.

During this year the Volksraad instructed the Government to enforce their right to collect 2-1/2 per cent. of the gross production from mynpachts (mining leases).  All mynpachts titles granted by the Government contained a clause giving the Government this power, so that they were acting strictly within their legal rights; but the right had never before been exercised.  For twelve years investors had been allowed to frame their estimates of profit upon a certain basis, and suddenly without a day’s warning this tax was sprung upon them.  It was indisputably the right of the Government, but equally indisputably was it most unwise; both because of the manner in which it was done and because there was no necessity whatever for the doing of it, as the revenue of the country was already greatly in excess of the legitimate requirements.  Immediately following this came a resolution to impose a tax of 5 per cent. upon the profits of all companies working mining ground other than that covered by mynpacht.  The same objections applied to this tax with the additional one, that no clause existed in the titles indicating that it could be done and no warning had ever been given that it would be done.  The proposal was introduced one morning and adopted at once; the first notice to investors was the accomplished fact.  These measures were particularly keenly resented in France and Germany.

The grievance of hasty legislation was in these cases aggravated by the evidence that the taxes were quite unnecessary.  President Kruger still fought against cancellation of the Dynamite Monopoly, by which the State revenue would have benefited to the extent of L600,000 a year, if he had accepted the proposal of the Uitlanders, to allow importation of dynamite subject to a duty of L2 per case—­a tax which represented the monopolists’ profit, and would not therefore have increased the cost of the article to the mines.