to take action in the High Court, the object being to challenge the exclusive right and to enable the town through its Municipality to provide its own supply. At the same time the Government at the instance of the townspeople opened negotiations with the Company with a view to expropriation in accordance with the terms stipulated in the original contract. While matters were in this position, however, certain members of the Volksraad prominently concerned in the action against the Company, introduced a measure in the Volksraad cancelling the second or exclusive grant made by the Government nine years before and recommending that the Government should either buy out the Waterworks Company upon suitable terms or should give the necessary facilities to the Town Council to introduce another system of supply. The application of the Company to be allowed to state its case was ignored, and after a short discussion the resolution was passed and the measure became law. By the action of the Volksraad the Company was deprived of that principal asset upon the security of which the capital had been subscribed, and the Government were rescued from an awkward position. The Government took no steps to defend their action in granting the right or to protest against the action of the Volksraad, and became, therefore, parties to an act of piracy. The Company were thus placed entirely at the mercy of the Government, for under the provisions of Law 1 of 1897, the Volksraad resolution put them out of court both as to upholding their title and claiming damages. All doubts as to the Government's complicity in this action were removed when upon negotiations being opened for the expropriation of the Company the Government refused to follow the procedure prescribed in the contract on the ground that as the Company had now lost the exclusive right they must accept a less sum in compensation, otherwise the Government would authorise the rival Municipal scheme. Under these circumstances the shareholders having no other power to appeal to adopted the common-sense course of taking what they could get. The result can only be expressed in figures. The shares, which had been purchased at over 40s. at the time of the Volksraad's action were worth less than 28s. in liquidation. The inquiry into the Raid by the Select Committee of the House of Commons, early in 1897, was productive of a result which is not always traced to its real cause. The greatest dissatisfaction was expressed in the Transvaal and among all the Boers in South Africa with one feature of the Westminster inquiry, viz., the investigation of the causes which made the Raid possible. Mr. Kruger and his friends had enjoyed such a run of luck and so much indulgence, and had been so successful in presenting their side of the case only, that it seemed to them improper that anyone should wish to inquire into all the circumstances. It would even appear from what