and a party of would-be concessionaires—­one might say ’pirates’—­on the other.  The judges made no secret of their intention to tender their resignations should the measure pass; the President made no secret of his desire that it should pass.  His party voted as one man in favour of it, and the coffee meetings on the Presidential stoep were unanimously for it.  The Raad was exactly divided on the measure, and it was eventually lost by the casting-vote of the chairman.  No absolute harm was done, but the revelation of the shameful conditions of affairs in a Raad of which so much good was expected did as much as anything could do to destroy all hope.  It was a painful exhibition, and the sordid details which came to light, the unblushing attempts to levy blackmail on those who were threatened with pillage by would-be concessionaires, the shameless conduct of Raad members fighting as hirelings to impose a fresh burden on their own country, sickened the overburdened community.

The Bewaarplaatsen question also excited much discussion, but was not a subject of such close interest to the Uitlander community as others, for the reason that but few companies were directly concerned.  Bewaarplaatsen is a name given to areas granted for the purpose of conservation of water, for depositing residues of crushed ore, etc.—­in fact, they are grants of the surface rights of certain areas at a lower rate of license than that paid upon claim or mineral areas.  This variation in the licensed areas was a wholly unnecessary complication of the gold law, the difference in cost being inconsiderable, and the difference in title affording untold possibilities of lawsuits.  In some cases companies had taken out originally the more expensive claim-licenses for ground the surface only of which it was intended to use.  They had been compelled, by order of the Government, to convert these claims at a later period into bewaarplaatsen.  They were almost invariably situated on the south side of the Witwatersrand Main Reef, for the reason that, as the ground sloped to the south, the water was found there, the mills would naturally be erected there, and the inclination of the ground offered tempting facilities for the disposal of residues.  After some years of development on the Main Reef it became clear that the banket beds, which were known to dip towards the south, became gradually flatter at the lower levels, and, consequently, it was clear that bodies of reef would be accessible vertically from areas south of the reef which had formerly been regarded as quite worthless as gold-bearing claims.  The companies which owned these bewaarplaatsen now contended that they should be allowed to convert them into claims, as, by their enterprise, they had exploited the upper levels and revealed the conditions which made the bewaarplaatsen valuable.  The companies had endeavoured to convert these bewaarplaatsen into claims when they first discovered that there was a possibility of their becoming valuable, and that at