The yearly aggregate for eleven years was:
Ounces. Ounces.
1888 .......... 208,122 1894 .......... 2,024,162
1889 .......... 369,577 1895 .......... 2,277,685
1890 .......... 494,819 1896 .......... 2,279,827
1891 .......... 729,238 1897 .......... 3,034,678
1892 .......... 1,210,869 1898 .......... 3,700,908
1893 .......... 1,478,477
The price of gold is a few cents less than $18.50 per ounce. The figures $18.42 often occur. Consul Macrum sent from Pretoria December 31, 1898, a report of the gold production of the South African Republic—the Transvaal—saying:
"It must be remembered that this has been a remarkably dull year, so far as ordinary business is concerned, and the mining companies, it is freely said, are not working up to their full capacity; but, nevertheless, the production and profit have been greater this year than ever before. When the differences that are said to exist between the Government and capital have been removed or adjusted, the Transvaal, it is predicted, will see a most wonderful boom."
But it must be taken into account that the Boer has a soul above booms.
A Clear and Impartial Statement
Mr. O. P. Austin, Chief of the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department of the United States, gives an admirable, impartial and clear statement of the matters of A clear and first importance in the Transvaal. A few official, Impartial indisputable figures and simple facts put the Statement question of the right and wrong of the bloody war in South Africa in the right way and yield the correct answer unmistakably. He says:
"The laws of the State are enacted by a Parliament of two chambers, the first or higher chamber enacting a large share of the laws independent of the lower house, which only originates measures relating to certain subjects of administration, and which cannot become laws without the approval of the upper house. Members of the first chamber are elected from and by the first-class burghers, who comprise only the male whites resident in the Republic before May, 1876, or who took an active part in the war of independence in 1881 or subsequent wars, and the children of such persons over the age of sixteen. This condition would deprive persons natives of other countries of becoming "first-class burghers," and thus obtaining the privilege of participating in the election of the President or the house which enacts the most important of the laws and has a veto power upon all measures originating in the lower house. The second-class burghers may become members of and participate in the election of the second chamber, the second-class comprising the naturalized male alien population and their children over the age of sixteen. Naturalization may, according to the Statesman's Year Book, 1899, "be obtained after two years' residence and registration on the books of the field cornet, oath of allegiance and payment of £2, and naturalized burghers may by special resolution of the first or higher chamber become first-class burghers twelve years after naturalization."
Boss and Caste Government
This is the rarest combination known of Boss and Caste Government. It is an unrestrained despotism designed to perpetuate itself by favor and force, regardless of everybody not of the ruling race and condition, and the Englishman who would give up his rights in the Transvaal as a British subject for the privilege of ultimate participation in the government, even of his own town, if that town contained ten Englishmen to the people of all other nationalities, would have to be "a man without a country" for seven years. It was at this point that Mr. President Kruger stood fast, peremptorily refusing the reduction of the period of probation even two years—leaving it five, and yet the probability is a very large number of the naturalized citizens of the United States who would regard such a restriction in this country as a bitter and remorseless discrimination against the foreign born, are sympathizing with the unrelenting attitude of the Boers upon this subject. Apply to this condition of things in the Transvaal the facts and figures following: