ration: Rt. Hon. CECIL JOHN RHODES, P.C.

Photo by Elliott & Fry, London.]

Perhaps the dynamite monopoly was even more aggravating than the
railway one. Mr. Fitzpatrick says it has always been "a very burning
question with the Uitlanders. This concession was granted soon after
the Barberton Fields were discovered, when the prospects of an
industry in the manufacture of explosives were not really very
great. The concessionaire himself has admitted that, had he foreseen
to what proportions this monopoly would eventually grow, he would
not have had the audacity to apply for it. Of course, this is merely
a personal question. The fact which concerned the industry was that
the right was granted to one man to manufacture explosives, and to
sell them at a price nearly 200 per cent. over that at which they
could be imported. It was found, upon investigation after some years
of agitation, that the factory at which this 'manufacture' took
place was in reality merely a depot in which the already
manufactured article was manipulated to a moderate extent, so as to
lend colour to the President's statement that a local industry was
being fostered. An investigation, held by order of the Volksraad,
exposed the imposition. The President himself stated that he found
he had been deceived, and that the terms of the concession had been
broken, and he urged the Raad to cancel it, which the Raad did. The
triumph was considerable for the mining industry, and it was the
more appreciated in that it was the solitary success to which the
Uitlanders could point in their long series of agitations for
reform. But the triumph was not destined to be a lasting one. Within
a few months the monopoly was revived in an infinitely more
obnoxious form. It was now called a Government monopoly, but 'the
agency' was bestowed upon a partner of the gentleman who had
formerly owned the concession, the President himself vigorously
defending this course, and ignoring his own judgment on the case
uttered a few months previously. _Land en Volk_, the Pretoria Dutch
newspaper, exposed the whole of this transaction, including the
system of bribery by which the concessionaires secured their
renewal, and among other things made the charge which it has
continued to repeat ever since, that Mr. J. M. A. Wolmarans, member
of the Executive, received a commission of one shilling per case on
every case sold during the continuance of the agency as a
consideration for his support