Without attempting to enumerate all the wrongs which embittered the Uitlanders, the more serious of them may be summed up in this way.

1.  That they were heavily taxed and provided about seven-eighths of the revenue of the country.  The revenue of the South African Republic—­which had been 154,000 pounds in 1886, when the gold fields were opened—­had grown in 1899 to four million pounds, and the country through the industry of the newcomers had changed from one of the poorest to the richest in the whole world (per head of population).

2.  That in spite of this prosperity which they had brought, they, the majority of the inhabitants of the country, were left without a vote, and could by no means influence the disposal of the great sums which they were providing.  Such a case of taxation without representation has never been known.

3.  That they had no voice in the choice or payment of officials.  Men of the worst private character might be placed with complete authority over valuable interests.  Upon one occasion the Minister of Mines attempted himself to jump a mine, having officially learned some flaw in its title.  The total official salaries had risen in 1899 to a sum sufficient to pay 40 pounds per head to the entire male Boer population.

4.  That they had no control over education.  Mr. John Robinson, the Director General of the Johannesburg Educational Council, has reckoned the sum spent on Uitlander schools as 650 pounds out of 63,000 pounds allotted for education, making one shilling and tenpence per head per annum on Uitlander children, and eight pounds six shillings per head on Boer children—­the Uitlander, as always, paying seven-eighths of the original sum.

5.  No power of municipal government.  Watercarts instead of pipes, filthy buckets instead of drains, a corrupt and violent police, a high death-rate in what should be a health resort—­all this in a city which they had built themselves.

6.  Despotic government in the matter of the press and of the right of public meeting.

7.  Disability from service upon a jury.

8.  Continual harassing of the mining interest by vexatious legislation.  Under this head came many grievances, some special to the mines and some affecting all Uitlanders.  The dynamite monopoly, by which the miners had to pay 600,000 pounds extra per annum in order to get a worse quality of dynamite; the liquor laws, by which one-third of the Kaffirs were allowed to be habitually drunk; the incompetence and extortions of the State-owned railway; the granting of concessions for numerous articles of ordinary consumption to individuals, by which high prices were maintained; the surrounding of Johannesburg by tolls from which the town had no profit—­these were among the economical grievances, some large, some petty, which ramified through every transaction of life.