fearful and wonderful agglomeration of erratic, experimental, crude, involved, contradictory and truly incomprehensible enactments at all understandable, the Chamber had to codify it at its own expense and on its own initiative, illustrate both the indispensable character of the organization, and the ignorance and ineptitude of the Government. The records of the Volksraad for the last ten years may be searched in vain for any measure calculated constructively to advance the country, or to better the conditions of the workers in it, with the few--very few--exceptions of those proposed by the Chamber of Mines. The country has, in fact, run the Government, and the Government has been unable to ruin it. Shortly after the discovery of the Rand conglomerates, it became clear that a railway would have to be built between the coalfields and the mines--some forty miles. But it was a fixed principle of the Boers that no railways (with the exception of the Delagoa Bay line, which, as the means of diverting trade from British channels, was regarded as a necessary evil) should be built, since they could compete successfully with the ox-waggon, and thus deprive the 'poor burgher' of his legitimate trade spoil; and great difficulty was experienced in getting the consent of the Raad. As a matter of fact, the permission to build it was only obtained by subterfuge; for it was explained to the worthy law-makers that it was not a railway at all--only a _steam tram_. And the Rand Steam Tram it is called to this day. The Delagoa Railway--the darling scheme of Presidents Burgers and Kruger in turn--was taken seriously in hand as soon as it was possible to raise money on almost any terms. The concession for all railways in the State was granted on April 16, 1884, to a group of Hollander and German capitalists, and confirmed by the Volksraad on August 23 following. The President's excuse for granting and preserving this iniquitous bond on the prosperity of the State is, that when the country was poor and its credit bad, friends in Holland came forward and generously helped it, and this must not be forgotten to them. As a matter of fact, friends accepted the concession when the State was poor and its credit bad, but did nothing until the State's credit improved to such an extent as to be mortgageable. _Then_ the friends granted certain favourable terms under their concession to other friends, who built the first section of the line at preposterous rates, and repaid themselves out of moneys raised on the State's credit.