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.
And outside and beyond all these definite wrongs imagine to a free born
progressive man, an American or a Briton, the constant irritation of
being absolutely ruled by a body of twenty-five men, twenty-one of
whom had in the case of the Selati Railway Company been publicly and
circumstantially accused of bribery, with full details of the bribes
received, while to their corruption they added such crass ignorance that
they argue in the published reports of the Volksraad debates that using
dynamite bombs to bring down rain was firing at God, that it is impious
to destroy locusts, that the word 'participate' should not be used
because it is not in the Bible, and that postal pillar boxes are
extravagant and effeminate. Such obiter dicta may be amusing at a
distance, but they are less entertaining when they come from an autocrat
who has complete power over the conditions of your life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account