§ [SECOND READING.]
§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
§ * SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT (Monmouthshire, W.)I need hardly say that I do not rise to oppose the Second Reading of this Bill. Bills of this kind have now become a matter of course. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave us very little information. We assume that from time to time, at intervals of a few weeks or months, there will be a Supplementary Estimate and that money will be borrowed. We cannot help ourselves in this situation. If I may borrow an old saying,—needs must when war drives. There is no option when you cry havock and let loose the dogs of war; we have no control. When blood continues to flow, treasure continues to be poured out, and therefore whatever money is asked for the House have to give. I am bound to say that the announcement that has been made in this session has, in spite of the contradiction that has been given to that statement, caused great discouragement and a good deal of disappointment in the public mind as well as in the House of Commons. I see the Member for the Ecclesall Division 715 of Sheffield shaking his head. Well, he is never discouraged and he is never disappointed. If the proposal had been for £100,000,000 he would have given it with equal cheerfulness. An Estimate generally is supposed to be a thing which is adequate to the purpose for which it is proposed, but the proper title of this Vote would be a Vote on Account—a Vote on account of a war which has not been brought to a conclusion. It is a war not only which is not concluded, but of which the Secretary of State says that he has no idea when it will be concluded. There is a supplementary guerilla war. I say that this state of things has caused discouragement and caused disappointment. There is no doubt that in this country there are thousands of families which were expecting this Christmas that at least the Imperial Yeomanry, the Militia, and the Volunteers would return. But we are told that they certainly will not, as far as the Government know, return before March, and it is very uncertain whether they will return even then. Therefore we have ceased to have any estimate given us with reference to the cost of the war. Last July I complained of the difficulty in understanding the Treasury document. I have found the same difficulty again. We have had a document laid upon the Table with reference to this Supplementary Estimate. It has no relation to the cost of the war at all. It only relates to the money that has been voted or is to be voted for this financial year, without any application to the cost of the war. I requested the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year to give us an intelligible document on the subject, which he was kind enough to do, and then on August 3 last we did have a paper which professed to give the cost of the war, which then amounted to £69,000,000. We have no paper to show what is the cost of the war now. The war in China and other items which do not appertain to the war in Africa are included. I hope we shall have a paper which will let us know what the idea of the Government is as to the cost up to the end of the present financial year, of the war in South Africa alone. Under the circumstances I wish to point out that this Estimate differs in principle altogether from that given to us in July last. This is in fact what may be called a carrying-over Estimate, and not 716 a winding up Estimate, like the Estimate of last July. At last we have got a pretty frank declaration of the present condition of things. We had a frank declaration in this House from the Secretary of State for War, who, in a manner not too cheerful, has described the present condition of things and the future prospects. We also have had a frank declaration from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, not in this House, but at one of those banquets which annually recur at Bristol, where he informed his constituents that they were not to expect any diminution of taxation, but probably higher taxation. Those are very striking statements, and, as has already been observed, the Government are to be congratulated that these statements were made after and not before the elections. It was fortunate for them that they found themselves in the condition—under the necessity, as they said—of hurrying on the elections before it was necessary to make admissions of that character, and we have nothing to complain of as regards the frankness of their present declarations. Now we are going to vote £16,000,000.
§ * THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,) Bristol, W.This is a Bill to borrow £11,000,000.
§ * SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTThe Estimates are for £16,000,000, and we are going to borrow £11,000,000! I remember the time when a demand on the House of Commons to borrow £11,000,000 was considered a matter of some importance, but now we think nothing of it at all. We borrow £11,000,000 one month and a month or two afterwards we borrow another £11,000,000, and nobody thinks anything about it at all. I presume it will not be many weeks or months before we borrow I another odd sum of £11,000,000, for eleven million pounds seems to be a favourite sum of the Government; they asked for £11,000,000 in July and August, and they ask for £11,000,000 now. I confess I possessed my soul in patience—moderate patience—because I relied upon the assurance that was given us last July by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a man of firm character and of very direct and reliable mind. I would just like to read in order that I 717 may again put on record what that assurance was, because it was a very important one, and I am very glad, if the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to say so, that he is in his place to fulfil it. I had not regarded him as a sanguine man, and, therefore, I was surprised when he said he expected the war to be over in September. I do not know whether he expects the war will be over in March next, or whether he has completed his studies in guerilla warfare, and is now competent to give the period when the war will be absolutely over. The fact is that the Government in this matter are like favourite actors—they want the beneficence of the House of Commons. They advertise a benefit "positively for the last time," but the last time does not arrive, and they appear again for another benefit. However, the assurance of the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave me great satisfaction. The right hon. Gentleman said—
I do not propose to ask for any permanent borrowing powers. We should, as far as possible, earmark our borrowing for the war as temporary borrowing, and it should, automatically almost, point out to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether I occupy the post or anybody else, that it is his duty at the earliest possible time to make provision for the redemption of the loan. The mode in which that provision is made must form part of the financial statement after the war is over, and when we can see how much we can secure from the Transvaal.Therefore the right hon. Gentleman has undertaken that the next Budget shall provide for the redemption of the loan.
§ * SIR M. HICKS BEACHUnless, in accordance with the supposition of the right hon. Gentleman, the war goes on longer.
§ * SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTI was making no supposition at all, and it will be interesting to hear what your estimate will be as to the war being over. The Chancellor of the Exchequer promised that if the war was over by September the next Budget would provide for the redemption of the debt. That is a very important statement, and I desire to recall it, and I ask the indulgence of the House to call attention to it. Last night he repeated the statement as to getting a part of the cost of the war from the Transvaal in equally emphatic terms. He said that he himself, and the Colonial Secretary, and all his colleagues would 718 redeem the expectation he had held out to the House of Commons and the country that a considerable portion of the cost of the war should be obtained from the wealth of the Transvaal. That is a most important statement which we, as the representatives of the taxpayers of England, ought to examine. I can confidently say that the right hon. Gentleman and the Colonial Secretary, and all his colleagues will have the strenuous support of both sides of the House of Commons in their endeavours. The Colonial Secretary misinterpreted me when I cheered him the other night, for he thought I was differing from him; but on the contrary I was applauding him. Now I should like to see what are the resources of the Transvaal from which the burden laid on the English taxpayer is to be relieved There is a notion that there is going to be, under the British administration of the new colonies, a surplus available for payment of part of the cost of the war. That is to say, the revenue will be more or the expenditure will be less; or that at all events there will be moneys in hand from that administration which will be available for the payment of part of the cost of the war. The right hon. Gentleman knows that I have always been sceptical on this subject, not because I did not wish the thing should be done, but because I did not see how it could be done; and I should like very much to invite the right hon. Gentleman to-night to give us a little more light upon the point. I will endeavour to lay before the House the reasons why I think such an explanation is necessary, and why I think the accomplishment of that pledge will not be easy. You have to consider first of all the revenue, and then the expenditure. Where is your revenue to come from in the new English colonies? What is the present condition of the colonies which you have added to your Empire? The land is devastated and the people are ruined; you cannot get revenue out of them. When the Boers return from St. Helena you will not be able to raise revenue from them, because they possess nothing. What you will have to do then is not to collect money from them, but to support them. The other night the Colonial Secretary uttered the terrible word famine. This war is to be succeeded by famine. That is not a favourable condition for the collection of revenue. 719 The hon. Member for the Ecclesall Division said, "Oh, as soon as you have got the railways you can get as much food j as you like into the country." Who is going to pay for it? It is quite obvious that in the first instance you will have to pay for it. You cannot get your revenue at once, and you must either feed these people or exterminate them. That is the situation in which you stand in relation to the country which you have conquered. Then there remain only the capitalists and the Uitlanders. They, I suppose, are to return to Johannesburg and the Rand; they are the gold-mining population, and are the sole taxable source of wealth in that district. What else is there? I will ask the indulgence of the House while I call attention to a proposal made by Mr. Rhodes and his allies that the natives should be taxed. That is so serious a matter that it ought to receive the attention of the House, because if we are going to add to famine an insurrection of the natives that will not be an additional encouragement in the situation in which we find ourselves. But I ask the attention of the House to the expectation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he is going to derive a considerable revenue towards the cost of the war from the wealth of the Transvaal. They are the only resources from which you can expect revenue; and let us now examine what is the probability of obtaining a revenue from them. How will I you get it, and how much will you get? What is the assistance the Chancellor of the Exchequer is likely to receive from the proprietors of that wealth? Of course, I need not say that these men, who have I amassed incredible fortunes under the tyranny of President Kruger, are loyalists of the first water, that their patriotism is beyond suspicion, that they pre Imperialists of the highest class, and you would suppose that they were ready to pour their gifts of gold and diamonds into the public exchequer. I have endeavoured to ascertain what is their disposition in this respect. I desire to assist in this matter the Chancellor of the Exchequer as much as I can. He expressed, and properly expressed, his gratitude to my right hon. friend the Member for the Forest of Dean for the valuable information he gave to the House on the subject of the assets of the Transvaal. What I would ask him to inquire into now is not the capital assets, which may be difficult 720 or easy to realise—I do not know—but into the annual income for the administration of our new colonies. Now what is the attitude taken up with reference to these matters by the persons who have the control of this wealth of the Transvaal? There is a gentleman, I believe of very high authority in this matter—Mr. Robinson—who is chairman of the South African Banking Company, who have an interest in the control of a great number of these gold properties in the Transvaal. I believe no one is better informed of the condition of things than Mr. Robinson. I remember that in that admirable poem of Mr. Lowell's in the "Biglow Papers" there was a gentleman of the same name, and when somebody propounded to him the example of the Apostles as worthy to be followed, the verse goes on—
J. B.Robinson, heSez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee.Our Mr. Robinson, I am certain, knows everything about the "Judee" in the Rand, and no man is more competent to express an opinion on this subject. Now, the other day ho made a speech to his company on the subject of their dividends which they did not get. He made a long speech, which was called by an enthusiastic admirer a State paper. He began, of course, by assuring them of their great wealth, their great resources, their accumulated funds, etc. He said the profits of the company and the dividends of the shareholders would enormously increase, and he said that he had always stated that the Transvaal Boers would not destroy the mines. That is quite true. You have destroyed their farms, but they have not destroyed your mines. Therefore, although the wealth of the agriculturists is to a great degree destroyed—their farms gone, their stock taken—at all events, the wealth of the Transvaal remains in the hands of those gentlemen with undamaged mines. Now I come to what Mr. Robinson says as to their disposition to contribute towards the cost of the war. He says—It has been argued that the Government will put a tax upon gold, or that it will tax the mines. I do not believe it. We know that under the regime of the late Transvaal Government very many mines were shut down because they could not be made to pay under the taxation that then existed. It is argued in the press that it is the intention of the British Government"—721 well, it is not argued in the press, it is stated here by the Government—to impose taxation in the Transvaal for the purpose of reimbursing the Exchequer for the outlay and expenditure which has been incurred in connection with the war. I do not for one moment believe that the Imperial Government will commit so suicidal an action. If they were to do so they would find that, instead of obtaining from the country the expense incurred in connection with the war, they would simply plunge the whole country into misery, retard its development, and at the same time stir up a feeling of resentment and animosity which would prove a great danger to Imperial interests.That is the menace addressed to the Government by these Imperialist patriots, who represent the wealth of the Transvaal—In fact, I may say that a policy of this kind would exercise a most baneful influence not only in the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, but in every other South African colony.These gold gentleman are not confined to the Transvaal. They exist in Cape Colony and Natal, and this is what you are to expect if you attempt to collect revenue from them. It appears there are some gentlemen in the gold interest who have suggested that they might contribute something—not what might be asked of them, but what they thought fit—but Mr. Robinson will not have it at all. Ho says—'You would create a discontented population who would be a menace to the whole position of affairs in the country, who would endanger Imperial interests and paralyse the state of things throughout the whole of South Africa and force the British Government into a very false position.That is the account that he gives of their views of what their conduct in the Rand should be towards the new Government you are going to set up. I beg pardon for occupying the time of the House with these extracts, but it is very necessary for the country to know what is the attitude of the future wealth of the Transvaal towards this expectation, which was held out before the election, that the taxpayer of this country was not to bear the whole of this burden, and that there were means for his relief. I am quite sure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer held out that expectation in good faith. I do not doubt that for a moment, but it is one of those miscalculations, one of those delusions, with which the country has been amused. Well, why does Mr. 722 Robinson state they ought not to pay? He says—Great Britain cannot expect to acquire a property so enormous in size, possessing such rich lands, &c, as well as the future developments that will follow, for a paltry sum of £60,000,000, and then turn round and tell the inhabitants of these countries that they will have to pay the £60,000,000 or a portion of it to enable her to acquire these valuable possessions. They are of very great value. To tax the mines or impose any burden of debt on the newly-acquired States for the purpose of paying a portion of that £60,000,000 or £70,000,000 would, in my opinion, be perpetrating a very great injustice upon the whole population of South Africa.…The taxation that was in existence up to the time of the war will have to he reduced, and reduced very considerably.Their view is that you have acquired, these countries in order to get a very good, thing for yourselves, and, having got a very good thing for yourselves, they say that £60,000,000 or £70,000,000 is a trifle which nobody ought to be expected to consider, and to which they ought not to be expected to contribute. They are to pay no portion of it, and no burden of taxation is to be placed on them for the cost of the war. He adds—I need scarcely say, as you are all, no doubt, aware of it, that there are indications that matters are trending in that direction.Yes, Sir. What are those indications? The declaration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the declaration of the Secretary for the Colonies. Mr. Robinson goes on—And unless the Imperial Government uses that discretion which is so essentially necessary in the government of a country like South Africa it will indeed shake to its very foundations the Imperial dream which all lovers of freedom, justice, and progress so-much admire.There are some people who are to "Pay, pay, pay," and there are others who are not to "Pay, pay, pay" out of the wealth of the Transvaal. Mr. Robinson proceeds—I must frankly admit that there are scintillations in the air at the present time which indicate further manœuvring in that direction.Scintillations in the air! The declarations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and of the Colonial Secretary. Those are the scintillations in the air which he expresses his determination to defeat. Well, Sir, he goes on to declare that what they desire and have a right to expect is not that they should go on paying for their 723 privileges, for their gold, what they have hitherto been paying, and under which they had done so well and accumulated their fabulous wealth, but that their payments should be greatly diminished. Everybody knows that the taxation under President Kruger and the old Government in the Transvaal was incomparably lighter than that imposed by MR. Rhodes and the Chartered Company in Rhodesia. If anybody doubts that I would ask him to refer to the report of the meeting of the United Rhodesian Goldfields (Limited). The chairman at that meeting said that—It was disconcerting to find that the vast majority of experienced miners and mining men who had been expelled from the Rand had preferred to waste their time in Cape Town and the ports rather than to try their luck in Rhodesia. This was due, he believed, to the severity of the conditions imposed by the Chartered Company on prospectors being one of the largest companies in Rhodesia, they were vitally interested in securing some relief from the intolerable conditions under which all exploring undertakings worked.…If the country was to be worked on its merits fresh capital must be attracted by fair conditions being offered.Then he expresses the hope that one day he will get an alteration from Mr. Rhodes, and declares that unless an amendment is speedily made all hope of attracting fresh capital into Rhodesia will disappear. That is not very promising for your revenue if that is to be the policy pursued. That is Mr. Robinson's view of the contribution by the wealth of the Transvaal to the revenue. But there is another, and probably the greatest, gold combination or trust in South Africa—that is the Consolidated Goldfields Company. They say they have a balance in hand of £1,750,000, a reserve of £1,000,000, and they boast of their enormous wealth and great resources. They have, of course, an ornamental lord as chairman. That is necessary in this country, but the significant point is that they have as directors Mr. Cecil Rhodes and Mr. Rochfort Maguire. Therefore we may suppose that when the chairman speaks he speaks with more authority than his own. They dictate the policy and pull the strings. Now let us see what this "golden diamond" policy is. Lord Harris, as chairman, on the 27th October refers in his speech to a report by Mr. Hays Hammond, the engineer of the company, and, I believe, the greatest expert in South Africa, who in a previous report had stated that if by good 724 government 6s. a ton could be saved it would mean a profit to the Rand of £4,000,000 a year. That statement attracted the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he thought that perhaps the English taxpayer might have a fraction of that £4,000,000 a year which the Rand estimated would be their profit by this war. Yes; but those gentlemen saw that that was rather a roseate and dangerous statement on the part of their engineer, and as soon as it was known that any money might be diverted for the relief of the English taxpayer the chairman said it was necessary to correct that statement. He said it was a "clerical error"; that "it was an estimate"—there is something charming in this—"made not by a politician, but by a mining engineer." We know that estimates made by politicians and not mining engineers are estimates made to suit the period of elections, but the estimate I am now dealing with was made to suit the purposes of shareholders. But the remarkable thing is that the statement which it was thought necessary to correct in this case was made by a mining engineer of great eminence, and not by a politician. So it is necessary for politicians to correct this error, and they at once bring the estimate down to £2,000,000, so that there should be less to attack. Then the chairman goes on to say—As to the burdens to be laid on the Rand, it was comforting to remember that they would not be settled by the officials in the Transvaal or even by the Colonial Office.So that, according to this, the Secretary to the Colonies and the High Commissioner are to have nothing to do in a Crown Colony with the taxation that is to be put on the wealth of the Transvaal. He supposes that the final settlement will be Parliamentary, and he goes on to say—The line that divided politics from economics in the affairs of the company was so thin that it was scarcely distinguishable.Yes, Sir, we know that very well. We know well the line that divides the politicians and the gold men at the Cape, and their economics. The latter control the politics of the Cape. The Consolidated Goldfields Company, however, represent the high-grade ore, and they are denounced by Mr. Robinson in his speech for having intimated the possibility of contribution having to be made. These weak-kneed men, he says, are actuated by 725 the most selfish motives; they want to shut up the low-grade ores and so secure all the labour, which may be scarce, for themselves. That is the charitable view these gentlemen entertain of one another. What they want is cheap labour. One of the great complaints that they made against President Kruger was that he would not give them cheap labour by coercing the natives. That was one of the great complaints these men made, and the principal foundation, as far as they were concerned, of the agitation which was got up and which led to the war. What they think is that the British Government will do that for them when they establish their government in these colonies. There is a Mr. Rudd, who does not object to some payment by the mines, but he denied that the war was originated by the capitalists or on behalf of the mines, and afterwards remarked that, if the allegation were true, the nation owed them, or whoever caused the war, a deep debt of gratitude. But he said, the main thing is that we—must get something out of the 10,000,000 able-bodied natives in South Africa.The chairman said—the Government must take the lead in the collection, importation, and distribution of labour.That is the great aim of the greatest gold combination in South Africa—to insist upon the British Government providing them with cheap labour, It is a great difficulty unquestionably, the question of labour. How are they going to procure it? As politicians, not as mining engineers, they have a scheme of their own. The Boers cannot pay, because they have nothing to pay with; the wealth of the Transvaal will not pay, but there remains another population, and the people that are to pay are the black natives. That is the "golden diamond" policy. It was anticipated, according to the directors' report of the Consolidated Goldfields Company—that the conditions of life amongst the native labourers under a British administration will he immensely improved in various ways, amongst others by the prohibition of drink—we have not succeeded in getting that prohibition in this country yet, but it will be observed that the object of these Rhodesian gentlemen is not the improvement of the moral and social condition of the natives, but it is to cheapen their labour—by their protection on the route to and from 726 Johannesburg, by regulations as to the duration of the service, and by other means. It may lie expected that the mine labourer will, owing to these and other reforms, become a better and, therefore—apart from the rate of wage, which will no doubt settle itself as the various ordinary forces which affect supply and demand come into play—a cheaper workman.Just let us see what is going to be done with these natives. Their wages are to be run down by the importation of foreign labourers, which is to be undertaken and carried through by the British Government, and then, when you have run down their wages, the British Government is to determine the period of their service. I know what the miners of Monmouth would say if it was proposed to improve their position and cheapen their labour by methods of this character. But these gentlemen are sanguine—It is to be hoped that, in return for the many advantages which the native races of British South Africa will now secure, the Government will take care that in some form or other those who have not hitherto been directly taxed shall now contribute to the expenses of the war.The gold miners will not contribute, the Boers cannot contribute, but the natives shall "contribute to the expenses of the war," and also "become an industrious and useful portion of the population." These are the people who are to contribute to the expenses of the war. If there is anything certain in the world it is that a policy of that kind, if the British Government were so insane as to adopt it, would produce a native insurrection as it did in Matabeleland under the Rhodesian regime. It may be asked, Who are these men that we should attend to what they say? I will tell you who these men are. They are the masters of South Africa. It is recorded that Philip of Macedon said that wherever you could drive a mule laden with gold into a city you could capture it. There are golden convoys of this kind going all over South Africa, and I am not sure there are not convoys of that description in London; and therefore we know perfectly well that these are the men who control the politics, who control the Government, of the Cape. They are the men who will be supreme in your Government and in your new colonies. These are the men on whom you are going to rely in your new colonies. Who else is there in the population on whom you can rely? These are the men who have tarnished your reputation all over the world, who 727 have destroyed the reputation to a great degree of South Africa, and if you allow them to prevail they will ruin your now colonies. It is, therefore, of the last importance that you should know what are their intentions and what is their policy. I would say to the right hon. Gentleman that if you want to obtain anything, as you have pledged yourselves to obtain it, for the British taxpayer out of the enormous expenditure of this war, you must be prepared to face the "Kaffir Circus." If you face them in South Africa you will have to face them here, and it will require all the courage which I know is possessed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and by the Colonial Secretary, and it will require all the integrity of Parliament to deal with this matter. You will receive the most obstinate resistance and you will receive a refusal to grant a single farthing. The demand is made that the taxation of South Africa shall not be greater, but less; and, therefore, what is the hope for your revenue? The hope for your revenue, I must say, seems to me extremely ambiguous, and that it will be equal to the revenue which has been hitherto levied in South Africa I believe to be impossible, owing to the country being so impoverished that the means would not be available. I will speak very briefly on the subject of expenditure. Is your expenditure going to be less? You have been told that when the British Government comes the expenditure would not be half what it was before. The British Government is a very good Government, but it has never been a cheap Government, and it will never be. There are charges coming upon you that never came on the late Government in the Transvaal. We have heard a great deal of the moneys spent by President Kruger on armaments and other things, but they do not amount to a great sum, certainly not a million a year. The annual expenditure of the Transvaal was four millions at the highest estimate it reached, and the expenditure of the Free State was about a million, or five millions in all. Yes, Sir, but you are going to enter on a hostile country. You are going to have what was unnecessary before, a permanent army of occupation—an army of occupation, I am sorry to say, which has to be contemplated not only with reference to the Transvaal and the Free State, but with reference to the disaffected in Cape 728 Colony. I have asked questions about this new police force that is to be raised, a very proper force, but a most expensive force never raised before. I remember in the old days we always thought that for the British Army you took £100 a man. We were told yesterday that the estimate for these men is £250 each. That, I believe, is without any consideration for the barracks, and so on, that will have to be made for them. These are to be mounted men. I was rather curious to know how many men had applied in South Africa and how many men in England. In England, where the men do not know what South Africa is, 10,000 men applied, but in South Africa, where the conditions are known, there were 500 applications. It was expected to raise, with the aid of the Imperial Yeomanry and the Volunteers, a force of 15,000 men, but I think that any hopes of getting the Imperial Yeomanry and the Volunteers to undertake this job are dispelled. The Imperial Yeomanry and the Volunteers want to come home and not to remain there. That seems to be a very general sentiment. I am glad to see my hon. and learned friend opposite (Mr. A. Lyttelton), who has just been out, has not enlisted in this force. But it is-all nonsense to talk about policing this, country with 10,000 men: These men cannot be quartered alone in the condition in which the country will be when the war is over. You must have them in groups, and in a country as big as Spain, Cuba, and the Philippines, as the Secretary for War told us the other day, 10,000 men would not be visible at all. In the midst of a hostile population mounted men are needed, and the conditions require that there should be a certain number of them grouped together to protect one another. Thus, the 15,000 men originally contemplated was none too great, but what will they cost? They will cost four millions,, and the 10,000 spoken of will cost, at £250 each, two and a half millions. This single item alone will amount to the whole cost of President Kruger's Government. What becomes of your surplus? We have been told that the wealth of the Transvaal is going to pay for them. They are also, I take for granted, going to pay, as the Indian people pay, for the 30,000 men we propose to have as an army of occupation. Besides that you have all the civil administration, which, it was said, in the time of President Kruger was much below the mark. They did 729 not do much for education or public works, and there are demands made here for the Government to do a great deal for the water supply, which is so deficient in that country, and for other things. With your army of occupation, and when you have paid three or four millions for this police, where is your surplus? I have not any elements to make even such estimates as the Government make, but I have made a guess, and so far from their being a less cost of administration it will not be far from double that of the late Government in the Transvaal. If that is so, where is the money to come from? The right hon. Gentleman had indicated his wish to relieve the British taxpayer. I have no doubt the light hon. Gentleman is very anxious and willing to relieve him, but I am sceptical the more I hear about it as to the existence of any fund from which he can do it. We hope that the Government have entered upon a new policy of conciliation. We hope that you are going to instal a Government in the Transvaal which shall be a Government of reconciliation—felix faustumque sit. All I can say is that the appearances before the country are not encouraging, but it will depend altogether on the character of the Government you so establish—I mean the character of the Government as it relates to the Dutch population in that country. Upon the character of that Government will depend the future disposition of the Dutch race, not in the colonies alone, but in the whole of South Africa, in the Cape Colony as well as in these new territories. I was reading the other day a book of great knowledge written by another Robinson—Sir John Robinson, the first Premier of Natal—who knows the whole subject as well as any man in this House knows it, and I commend his views to the consideration of those have not read the book. Sir John Robinson says first of all—and it is the material fact we have to deal with—If the whole European population of South Africa he counted together the Dutch race is numerically preponderant.Therefore your policy is going to affect the preponderant white race of South Africa; and this is the advice which he gives you:—We must give the Afrikander a Government which he not only fears and obeys, hut loves, trusts, cherishes, and is proud of; a Government which represents to him no 730 sense of grievance or deprivation; a Government which is large enough and free enough to satisfy his national and patriotic aspirations and yet strong enough to make its authority felt.Even the other Robinson saw the necessity for this, because in the speech to which I have referred he recommended that Generals De Wet and Botha should be put on the Executive Council. I do not know that the Colonial Secretary got quite so far as that. But are you going to establish in these new colonies an administration of reconciliation? Are you going to establish a Government which the Afrikander may trust and love and cherish? Are you going to have a Government which represents to him no sense of grievance or deprivation; which is bound up with none of the bitter associations of this horrible war? If so, you may have a peace which deserves the name. But if your administration, in its personality and character, represents to the Afrikanders nothing but the right of conquest and the hateful memories of the past, the insatiate greed of the gamblers for gold, and the poisonous spirit of race ascendency, then the war may be over, but you will have achieved a victory without honour, and, though you will have conquered these colonies, you will have a peace which is no peace.
§ * MR. MARKHAM (Nottinghamshire, Mansfield)If with all humility I rise to address the House, I do so for the reason that during the last ten years I have travelled through all the countries in South Africa from the Zambesi to the Cape. I have been clown many of the mines on the western, eastern, and central Rand, and I have also inspected several of the goldfields of South Africa. I claim, therefore, to know something of the character and the conditions of gold-mining in South Africa. I must ask the indulgence of the House for three reasons: first, as a new Member speaking in this assembly for the first time; secondly, for the reason that I feel my utter incompetency to do justice to the cause on which I am speaking; and thirdly, because I wish to say at once that I have been a shareholder for the last ten years in the Witwatersrand mines. As soon, however, as I was adopted by the central council of Mansfield, I wired to my broker instructing him to sell every Transvaal share that I had. I am sorry to say 731 that as I held a very considerable interest I in one or two mines, I have not been able to get that instruction entirely carried through. I think I owe this explanation to the House. I have never been connected with the flotation or promotion of any gold mines, or associated with any group of capitalists. What I have done is merely to have invested my money after going down the mines and making an inspection of them. It is with deep respect and humility that I venture to criticise the remarks just made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire. In many ways I entirely dissent from the views he has put before the House, but I do not dissent from one word that ho has said with reference to the conduct of the men in South Africa connected with the Raid. I am one who for the last ten years has recognised that either President Kruger would have to grant reforms, or war or revolution would occur. The Raid rendered war inevitable, because you could not expect that the distrust engendered by that capitalist attempt to seize the Transvaal would be removed, at any rate for generations. But the Raid having taken place you had to face a most difficult condition of affairs. I believe that the honesty of purpose and the integrity of Sir Alfred Milner are above suspicion, but he was brought face to face with one of the most difficult tasks it has ever been the lot of man to face. I agree with every word of the right hon. Gentleman as to the way in which the capitalists have worked up this agitation in South Africa, but it is only on the question of the riches of the Transvaal that I venture to speak to the House to-night, and on that point I differ from the right hon. Gentleman. It will probably be said that I am a young man, an enthusiast, who is going to tell the House that the future prospects of the Transvaal are over-estimated.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTThat is not my opinion; I only said that its wealth was difficult to get at.
§ * MR. MARKHAMWith the indulgence of the House I will deal with some of the points put forward by the right hon. Gentleman. For the first time in the history of the world, gold-mining has passed from a speculative to a manufacturing industry. The House must recollect that Rand mining is abso- 732 lutely distinct from all other mining that has ever been known in the world. The right hon. Gentleman stated that gold was the only source from which taxation could be obtained, but I will venture to show the House that there are many other resources, without touching the gold question at all, which are valuable assets in the Transvaal. The right hon. Gentleman said that the right hon. Baronet the Member for Forest of Dean had shown no annual income. It is true the right hon. Baronet was unable to do that at present, but although, I believe, he has not been in the country, he knows where the taxation and the riches of the Transvaal come from even better than I do. It would not be right for me as a new Member, I should be presuming on the time of the House, to show whence this income could be obtained. [Cries of "Go on."] If the House wishes it I will deal with that point, but I rise in a very difficult position. I should have liked to, and if I were not a new Member I would, tell the House a good many things that have gone on in South Africa, and which have come under my own knowledge, but they are questions of a highly controversial character. I will deal in the first place with a few remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire. The right hon. Gentleman was very hard on Mr. Robinson. Mr. Robinson is a Boer who has lived in that country all his life; he has never been associated with the De Beers group; he was not associated with the Raid; he was a man who in South Africa always kept himself to himself. Both sides of the House, I think, will agree that where a man makes money honestly, whether it be one million or ten millions, he ought not to be attacked merely on that account, and it is very hard that Mr. Robinson should be singled out for a special attack when he above all others is the only man that I know of who has not mixed himself up with the Raid or the large De Beers elements in South Africa. The right hon. Gentleman said that taxation in Rhodesia was much higher than in the Transvaal. The mining licence is higher, but, as a matter of fact, mining in Mashonaland, even on a small scale, can be carried out much more cheaply than in the Transvaal. The right hon. Gentleman is somewhat sceptical as to the 733 statement of MR. Hammond. On referring to my notebook I find that the tonnage, according to the State Mining Engineer's returns, was 7,861,089 tons. If I multiply that by 6s.—the saving per ton which Mr. Hammond estimated would be made by good government—it comes out approximately at £2,300,000. The statement made by Mr. Hammond was, therefore, correct. In 1897 what is known as the Industrial Commission was appointed by the Boer Government. A great mass of figures was put before that body to prove that the mines could not be worked at a profit. I have taken the liberty of summarising and having tabulated these remarkable figures. Before the outbreak of war there were 5,910 stamps dropping on the Rand, and 68 companies0 producing. I have divided those companies into three schedules: "A," those that were paying dividends; "B," those that were working and would have paid dividends if war had not broken out; and "C," those that were working at a loss or at a very small profit. The summary of these figures is somewhat remarkable. The 42 mines which were paying dividends had a nominal capital of £19,463,740, the average for each company being £463,423. The market value of these shares represents to each company an average value of £1,313,773, and the amount of dividend distributed was £4,925,793. The average yield per stamp in July, 1899, was 79 ozs., and the dividend on the nominal capital was equal to 25 per cent., equal on the present market value to a dividend of nearly 9 per cent., the present market value of the £1 shares being £2 17 s. These are the mines I have scheduled as Class A. In Class B, the average nominal value of the companies which have never paid a dividend was £482,736, and the average market capital—that is, watered capital, most of which was never put into the mines, and which in some cases consisted of shares issued at a high premium and brought into the capital account—is £1,515,649 in these depressed times. That is to say, every £1 of capital is worth on the market an average of £3 8s. 5d. In Class C, mines working at a loss or a very small profit, the nominal capital of the nine companies was £2,162,625, and the market value is £1,405,750. They are represented by 460 stamps, and every £1 of nominal capital is worth on an average on the market 13s. The names of these com- 734 panies are—Aurora West, Crœsus, Gel-denhuis Main, Langlaagte Star, New Niufied, Paarl Central, Roodepoort Gold, West Rand Mines, and York Gold. There were only 6,000 stamps before the war, but there is no reason why in a few years, if taxation is placed on a proper basis, there should not be at least 15,000 stamps "dropping" on the Central Rand alone. There are, in addition, districts which are all highly mineralised, and if taxation is placed on a direct and not on an indirect basis so as to enable the lower grade mines to be worked at a profit, you will see a production of gold in the Transvaal that will astonish the civilised world. The wealth in that country—I do not wish to exaggerate—is untold. There is in Rand-fontein 150 miles of reefs, the property of one gold mining company alone, but the mines have not been able to be worked at a profit where seven pennyweights to the ton could not be obtained. There are also immense deposits of coal in this country. I have been down some of these coal mines, and within five miles of the Rand there are immense seams of good steam coal, sixty feet thick. The output in 1898 was 1,907,808 tons. But we have in addition to coal, ironstone copper and diamonds. The ironstone contains a large percentage of metallic iron and the copper has not been able to be worked up to the present owing to the absence of railway facilities. Diamonds have been discovered in various districts, and their estimated value has been put at fifty millions. In addition, it was stated before the Industrial Commission, and also in the report of the Boer Government, that at least £750,000 worth of amalgam was stolen yearly in the Rand. That surely can be saved to the mines. A duty of 2½per cent, on the total gold produced, held under mynpachts, was payable to the Government, but that law has never been enforced. I have asked myself why, and I leave it to the sense of the House to ascertain. Mr. Hays Hammond stated at a meeting of the Consolidated Goldfields at Johannesburg in December, 1897—
We confidently believe that we shall lie able to mine at depths of from 3,000 to 4,000 feet, at an expense not to exceed that at present obtaining upon the outcrop companies.That was to be accomplished not by cheap labour, but by reduced indirect taxation. At an extraordinary meeting of the Con- 735 solidated Gold Fields in May, 1897, Mr. C. D. Rudd stated that Johannesburg as the centre of the Transvaal would yet see the production of a thousand millions sterling, and that with moderate reforms the saving would be 7s. 6d. a ton. The House will therefore remember that there is a fair margin of profit to pay something towards the cost of this war. Mr. Eckstein at a meeting of the Rand Mines in Johannesburg in 1897 stated that the cost of production would be reduced 10s. a ton by moderate reforms. That, Sir, I think, is an undoubted fact, or again according to the Mine Managers' Return in 1897 30 per cent, of the labour was incapacitated owing to drunkenness, and for the past five or six years the greater proportion of the natives have been in a perpetual state of drunkenness. Let us look at Rhodesia and give Mr. Rhodes the credit that is due to him. I have never seen, even in the most remote parts of Rhodesia, any liquor sold to natives. I know it is not a very popular statement to make, but it is only just to say that the natives, not only in the Transvaal, but in Cape Colony, are a very secondary consideration, the profits of the Boer farmers being the first. I would wish also to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that where large blocks of shares are dealt with in London they are sent out to Johannesburg, where they can be registered for sixpence, thereby evading the duty that would be payable in this country. That is very largely done, and the revenue may lose as much as £1,000 in a single transaction. I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will take means to prevent that in future. Now I come to what is, after all, the most serious matter I wish to mention. I wish to prove to the House that every appointment of any value in the Transvaal has been given to men who were directly connected with the Raid.
§ * MR. SPEAKERI think a discussion of that sort would not be in order. The hon. Member has been speaking of the assets of the Transvaal; he is now going into the question as to the manner in which certain appointments have been distributed, and that would not be relevant.
§ * MR. MARKHAMI do not know whether I have made myself clear to you, Mr. Speaker, but what I wish to show, if I am in order, is that financial appoint- 736 ments have been made in South Africa which must react on the taxation which this House will be able to obtain from the Transvaal, and which we will lose if these appointments are persisted in.
§ * MR. SPEAKERAny observations of the hon. Member showing that a certain class of appointments would increase or decrease the revenue of the country would be in order. I interrupted the hon. Member to prevent him going into the political aspects of the question.
§ * MR. MARKHAMThat is entirely my view, Mr. Speaker. I wish to show that these appointments have been made in the capitalist interest, and not for the benefit of South Africa. Mr. Samuel Evans, the gentleman appointed Civil Commissioner of Johannesburg, is a member of the firm of Eckstein, a director of the Liquor Concession Company, a director of the company owning the South African Mining Journal, and a director of the Star. Mr. Van Hulsteyn, who has been appointed legal adviser to the Field Marshal, is solicitor to Ecksteins. Mr. Emery Evans, who has been appointed Controller of the Treasury, that is Minister of Finance, is a director of several mining companies, and has an appointment in the East Rand Debenture, with which Mr. Eckstein and Mr. Farrar were connected. Mr. J. A. Hamilton, who has been appointed financial adviser to the military governor, is interested in concessions granted by the Transvaal Government. He has the right of inspecting the books of all the banks in the Transvaal, regarding which, I believe, a protest has been sent to the Government by the Standard Bank and the Bank of South Africa. Mr. Wyberg, who has been appointed Minister of Mines, was an employee of Beit, Rhodes, and Co., in the Consolidated Gold Fields, and he was president in 1898 of the Johannesburg branch of the South African League. Mr. George Farrar, with his attorney, Mr. Solomon, solicitor to the Consolidated Gold Fields, in which, again, the Beit interest prevailed, had been sent to investigate alleged rebel cases—a man who has been convicted of high treason. Mr. E. Fraser, the late British Agent in Pretoria, who has been appointed to Goertz, as their Johannesburg representative, has no knowledge of the industry. Mr. Monypenny has an appointment in Johannesburg, and he is, as the House knows, the representative of 737 Messrs. Beit and Barnato, who hold a majority of the shares not only in the Star, but in every other financial paper except one in South Africa. I do not know what the appointment of Mr. Monypenny is, but what I do know is that he is acting in a position of trust on behalf of the Government in Johannesburg, Mr. Goldman, a director of forty-three companies, and, I believe, the representative of The Times—though I am not sure on this point—has also, I think, an appointment. Mr. Loveday, who is one of the members of the Transvaal Concessions Committee, is a director of companies holding concessions, and is co-director with Mr. Eckstein.
§ MR. LYTTELTON (Warwick and Leamington)I think I ought to intervene here. I do not know from whom the hon. Member obtained his information, but my own information comes from Mr. Loveday himself. I had the honour to have Mr. Loveday colleague on the Concessions Committee, and my information is to the effect that he is a director of the Electric Lighting Company only, and that company is not a monopoly.
§ * MR. MARKHAMI have not the honour of knowing the hon. Member who has just spoken, but he will, perhaps, excuse me if I say that Mr. FitzPatrick, the author of "The Transvaal from Within," is a director of four companies holding direct concessions from the Transvaal.
§ MR. LYTTELTONI was referring simply to Mr. Loveday.
§ * MR. MARKHAMI will come to Mr. Loveday presently. Mr. FitzPatrick was a director of the Cement Concession, which the Chamber of Commerce, in their protest to the Government in 1897, said was "a parasite on the industry." This is the gentleman who wrote "The Transvaal from Within." He was also a director of the Pretoria Lighting Company, which holds a concession from the Government, and Mr. Loveday was associated with him then—I do not say now, since these gentlemen had got Government appointments. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman opposite knows that the greatest number of concessions in South Africa is held by Mr. Eckstein in Swaziland.
§ MR. LYTTELTONI was not making any statement with reference to the hon. 738 Member's general argument. I simply ventured to say, on behalf of a colleague for whom I have the greatest possible respect, Mr. Loveday, that the statement that he was interested—
MR. BRYN ROBERTS (Carnarvonshire, Eifion)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask whether it is in order for an hon. Gentleman to interrupt in order to make an explanation of a matter which does not affect him personally, and I wish to know whether the rule which applies to this side of the House does not apply to all of it?
§ * MR. SPEAKERThere is no rule that an interruption should only be made in regard to an observation which affects an hon. Member personally. As I understand, the hon. Member for Warwick is making an explanation which the hon. Member in possession of the House has given him the opportunity of making.
§ MR. LYTTELTONI hope I was not treating the hon. Member with discourtesy. What I was saying was that I should blame myself, as being a colleague of Mr. Loveday for four months, and having the greatest respect for him, if I allowed this statement of the hon. Member, no doubt made in good faith, that he was a director of companies which had concessions from the Transvaal Government, to pass unchallenged, when I believe that statement to be incorrect. My information—I may be wrong—is that Mr. Loveday was a director of, I think it was, the Pretoria Electric Lighting Company, that he resigned long before I was associated with him or before he undertook this investigation. Therefore, I must confess that any charge against him of this character seems to be wholly unfounded.
§ * MR. SPEAKERThese very minute details of the history of particular directors of companies seem to me to begetting rather far away from the subject of debate.
§ * MR. MARKHAMThe hon. Member opposite admits that Mr. Loveday was a member of a concessions company.
§ MR. LYTTELTONNo. I did not admit it.
§ * MR. MARKHAMYou admitted that he was a director of the Electric Lighting Company.
§ MR. LYTTELTONThat was not a concessionaire company.
§ * MR. MARKHAMI, too, have a very high opinion of Mr. Loveday, whom I believe to be a thoroughly honourable gentleman in every respect. But what I say is that the Government have no right to appoint men who have been connected with concessions in any way or shape. I presume that in the Estimates laid on the Table of the House there is a charge made for the conveyance of railway material. I do not know whether it is in the knowledge of the House that during the past few months a railway, which will be paid for out of the Estimates laid on this Table, has been made chiefly for the benefit of Wernher, Beit, and Co.
§ * MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member's observations do not relate to the Finance Bill. If there is in the Estimates an item that relates to the railway material, the remarks of the hon. Member will be more in order on the Appropriation Bill.
§ * MR. MARKHAMI take it, Sir, that the money the House is now voting is for the railway in question?
§ * MR. SPEAKERThe House is not now voting money. It has voted the money, and that Vote will come before the House again upon the Appropriation Bill, on which the remarks of the hon. Member may be in order. At present they are not.
§ * MR. T. M. HEALY (Louth, N.)May I submit, Sir, that this loan must include some sum of money on account of the railway, and that, therefore, it is in order for the hon. Member to refer to the subject? I submit that if we are raising a loan which includes this railway being made for the benefit of Wernher, Beit and Co., it is in order to discuss this question.
§ * MR. SPEAKERI have already given my ruling on that point.
§ * MR. MARKHAMI do not wish to trespass further upon the time of the House. The Government have sanctioned these appointments, and although a protest was lodged at the Colonial Office against them by a responsible gentleman holding a high financial position in London, those appointments were persisted in. Was it in the interests of South Africa and of this country, which had to find the money, that gentlemen who had been connected directly with concessions, and with what has been the most unfortunate and un- 740 happy incident in South Africa, should be appointed to such responsible positions? Could such appointments possibly be in the public interest? I must now thank the House for the generous and kind way in which they have listened to me. When I rose to speak I had no intention of raising highly controversial disputes in the few words which I have had the honour of saying upon the first occasion I have had of addressing the House, but I have been placed by my friends sitting near me in the position of making a somewhat antagonistic speech. I trust, however, that hon. Members will believe that it was not with any wish to thrust myself forward that I ventured to bring these matters before the House.
§ * MR. T. M. HEALYThe House has just listened to probably the most remarkable and interesting speech we have had this session, and delivered as it has been by a new Member, we are all the more grateful. What is also remarkable is that it was delivered in the absence of the Colonial Secretary, and I think the House must wonder at the absence during such a speech of the right hon. Gentleman when this important question of concessions and shareholders is being discussed, and why ho does not come into the House to aid the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his arduous duty. I rise for the purpose of congratulating the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the firm attitude he has taken recently, in determining that the gold mines shall be saddled with the cost of the war. He is, of course, not popular in Ireland as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it can hardly be expected, and indeed, since the new appointment of the Financial Secretary to aid him, they have been called "the twin screws" of the Government. I think the right hon. Gentleman's courage deserves recognition. His decision in regard to the taxation of the Transvaal has been a gradually advancing one, for when we pressed him last session he absolutely declined to say that he would tax the mines.
§ * SIR M. HICKS BEACHI think the hon. Member does me an injustice.
§ * MR. T. M. HEALYTowards the end of last session I put a question to the right hon. Gentleman on the subject, and got what I consider a very unsatisfactory answer. Perhaps most questioners are of that opinion. Since then the Bill for British and Irish taxpayers has gradually 741 mounted up. The difficulty of the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the taxing of the mines seems to be that Mr. Hawksley holds a number of letters from a particular member of the Cabinet which he frequently threatens to publish.
§ * MR. SPEAKEROrder, order! The hon. Gentleman will not be in order in referring to the Hawksley letters.
§ * SIR M. HICKS BEACHThey have nothing whatever to do with the matter.
§ * MR. T. M. HEALYNot with the right hon. Gentleman, of course, and that is my point.
§ * SIR M. HICKS BEACHNor with the matter at all.
§ * MR. T. M. HEALYWe know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been keeping up what De Wet would call a rearguard fight with the Colonial Secretary on this question. I desire in every sense to respect the ruling of the Chair, but I desire also to pay a due compliment to the firmness of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I will only say that I think this promise which the right hon. Gentleman has made—I am sure against the wish of many of his colleagues—that this burden should be thrown upon the mines, has been received with a sense of gratitude in every part of the three kingdoms. It would have been monstrous had it been otherwise, because if we do not hesitate to throw burdens upon the ryots of India, why should we hesitate to tax the gold bugs of the Transvaal? The right hon. Gentleman has had great assistance from the Member for Mansfield to-night. He has not told us by what machinery and to what extent he is going to inflict this fleabite upon them. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to make a clean breast of it so that those persons who are contemplating investing in concerns in the Transvaal will know exactly what they have to face, and the sooner this is done the better. I think it would be better if the right hon. Gentleman would state at once that England, Ireland, and Scotland will be totally relieved of the cost of this war. You have given them the blood of 50,000 men, and that should be considered sufficient, without £100,000,000 expenses, and this should be placed upon the mines; whose patriotic owners will, of course, cheerfully bear it. Indeed, since you have changed 742 the name of the Orange Free State to that of the Orange River Colony, I would suggest that the name of the Transvaal should be changed to "the New Jerusalem." I must complain in reference to this question of their tax able capacity that we have entered upon this debate without that report which the hon. and learned Member for Leamington was sent out to make. I think that report would greatly have assisted us to a conclusion, because we must remember that when the Transvaal Government tried some years ago to get some idea of the wealth of the country these magnates then all declared that they were blind, like the mendicants in the street, and that they were all starving. The right hon. Gentleman sent out Sir David Barbour to investigate those assets, but I wish he had had associated with him the hon. Member for Mansfield. If the cost of this war be laid upon the mine owners, at least there will be some £15,000,000 which will be returnable to Ireland. We must get that money back, although I am aware that we cannot get back the Dublin Fusiliers, for their bones will be lying about Ladysmith. I believe that Sir David Barbour was on the Irish Financial Relations Commission, and he did not agree with his colleagues. He is now sitting to investigate the assets of the Transvaal, and I think the Irish people have reason to complain that somebody from their country has not been associated with him. What will happen? I do not know what Sir David Barbour's African experience is, but we do know that every man he will examine will be an interested party, whose business it will be to throw dust into the eyes of the hon. Baronet. I do not think you can hardly expect anyone to make a fair estimate of the assets of the Transvaal amid the crash of sabres and the explosion of bombs. I would like to make one other remark with regard to this Bill. In the case of the former Bill the right hon. Gentleman floated a great portion of the loan in America. That gave rise to a considerable number of complaints amongst that interesting body of gentlemen who form the Stock Exchange fraternity in London. It was only after the last Bill became an Act that the right hon. Gentleman, for the first time, made this new departure of floating these British bonds in America. For my part I altogether object to this 743 association of Wall Street with what I may call British international interests. It is bad enough to have the politics of this country dominated by the British Stock Exchange, but when in addition to that we have Wall Street unscrupulosity on top of it, I think we are paying very dearly for the small sum that would be saved to this country in the matter of discount by floating the loan in the United States. I think, from your English point of view, this country's boast being that it is the richest country in the world, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to think it beneath his position to have to go to a number of Yankee brokers to float British Consols. If this country has all the vast stores of wealth and enormous patriotism about which we hear so much, these gentlemen of the Stock Exchange in England ought to be able to absorb the £11,000,000 of the right hon. Gentleman. It is said the De Beers Company has made a demand for half a million or a million for compensation for injuries at Kimberley during the siege. I suggest that as we want to find the taxable assets and taxable capacity we ought to remember that Kimberley was filched from the Free State on mere pretence, and the Free Staters got only £90,000 for what was worth about £500,000,000. I would suggest a delimitation commission be sent out, and that you should re-include Kimberley in the Orange River Colony, so that they should have one good thumping asset to go to pay for this war. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire in thinking the Chancellor of the Exchequer would require unusual courage to face the Kaffir Circus. But all the gentlemen connected with the Rhodesian promotions can be satisfied by an easy process. Last year we learned how the Niger Company was bought up. Of course the Colonial Secretary was an entirely disinterested person, and he allowed that matter to be managed entirely by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. British finance is very elastic—very elastic, indeed—and why would it not be possible to square these Rhodesian gentlemen by the Government offering to buy up the Chartered Company at, say, £10 apiece? The Imperial Government bought up the East India Company, the Niger Company, and a good many other companies, and now you are embracing in your fraternal arms the whole of South Africa it would be a pity to leave 744 Rhodesia out. It would only mean a few more beggarly millions, and thus the financial souls of the promoters of this war would be completely salved. The Chancellor of the Exchequer could add the purchase money to the Transvaal debt, and I think the suggestions I have made he will find very useful later on. Lastly, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire stated that the natives were going to be taxed. I do not think that he could have been reading Lord Salisbury's speeches. The Prime Minister said when the war commenced that the keynote of the policy of the British Government would be greater kindness to the natives. Now the natives could not be taxed after such a pledge as that, nor could the Boers, for they were in the position of the Highlander who was devoid of a certain garment. And therefore there only remains as the single asset which the Transvaal possesses, its great mineral wealth; and we who are without any mineral wealth whatever, and have had to bear our share of the cost of this unhappy and unjust war, have to congratulate the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the insistence he has shown in facing his colleagues, and in determining that the people supposed to be benefited by the war shall bear the cost of it. I assure him that if he does this he will have the united support of every member of the Opposition.
§ * MR. JOHN WILSON (Falkirk Burghs)said he had listened with great interest to the remarks of the hon. Member for Mansfield, but he should not like it to go out to the country that that Member was alone in adopting the position that the whole cost of the war should be borne by the Transvaal. He had had the honour to be the first to express that opinion as far back as at the special session in the autumn of 1899. He had visited the Transvaal; he was a practical mine owner, and had been down the mines there. He had a profound idea of the prodigious wealth of the Transvaal, which would last for a great many years on account of the particularly permanent nature of the gold deposits. Already the output of gold exceeded that of any other country in the world, but under the security of British rule it would soon be doubled. He should like to give a warning to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. They had heard a great 745 deal, some years ago, before the war broke out, as to the large savings that would be made if the country were under British rule instead of under the corruption of the Boers. But all this was now being minimised. It was formerly said that the saving to the gold mines, alone, would amount to four and a half millions per annum, but the mine owners on the Band were now attempting to minimise that to two and a half millions. He begged the Chancellor of the Exchequer to note that, because he was perfectly certain that the mines were perfectly capable of bearing the whole cost of the war. They heard of the immense fortunes that were being made on the Rand, and he had never any doubt whatever of the richness of the gold mines. The sole doubt he had ever had was as to the methods of floating those gold mines. The hon. Member for Mansfield had told the House that he had sold out his shares in the Rand. He had not sold out his shares, but still held them, and that was all the more reason why his words should be listened to, because it showed he was prepared to be taxed for the cost of the war, which could be borne to a much greater extent under British rule when all the Boer corruption had been done away with. He did not see why hon. Gentlemen opposite should object to native labour being got cheaper. The unjust liquor laws should be abolished, and strict native liquor laws enforced as has been done in Rhodesia. He had visited the compound at Kimberley where no drink was sold to the natives, and where everything was in a most excellent state, and the natives thoroughly happy. When the dynamite monopoly was abolished, and good liquor laws enforced on the Rand there would be plenty of native labour and a vast increase in the gold mining profits. He expected the Chancellor of the Exchequer would take very good care that the whole cost of the war would be put on the Transvaal, and he congratulated the right hon. Gentleman on standing to his guns in this respect. He remembered the Chancellor of the Exchequer making a speech at the beginning of the war in which he expressed his intention of putting a large proportion of the war expenditure on the Transvaal. He interrupted the right hon. Gentleman, and asked if he 746 meant the whole cost. The Chancellor turned round to him and said, "Perhaps the whole cost of the war," and that would be found recorded in Hansard.† As to the kind of officials appointed in the Transvaal, he confessed he was very much astonished to hear that many of those interested in the gold mines had been appointed to places of responsibility on the Rand. When Sir David Barbour went to these officials to get their opinion he hoped he would remember the discussion in the House that night, and take very good care not to accept their opinion I in its entirety without full investigation.
§ * MR. CHANNING (Northamptonshire, E.)said he did not intend to prolong the debate, but he wished to emphasise that the resources of the Transvaal should be drawn upon to the fullest amount which could be reasonably paid for the relief of the British taxpayers. He wanted to raise a specific point in connection with the assets of the Transvaal which he presumed had been transferred to the present Government. He wished the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his reply would state what his views were as to one of the assets of the late Transvaal Government—he meant the admitted liability of the British South Africa Company for damages for the Jameson Raid. Her Majesty's Government, in despatches of the Colonial Secretary, and the directors of the British South Africa Company themselves had admitted this liability, and the Colonial Secretary had been prepared to enforce it. The only question was as to the amount. The amount claimed by the late Transvaal Government was considered by Her Majesty's Government to be excessive. There was a million claimed for "moral and intellectual damage," the validity of which was naturally questioned by the Colonial Secretary; but with regard to the actual damages caused there was undoubtedly an irresistible and admitted claim against the British South Africa Company. He thought that a reasonable amount towards the cost of the war ought to be paid by the British South Africa Company. In fact it might be argued that a much larger proportion of the cost of the war should fall on the British South Africa Company than on the mine owners,
† See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxx., page 140.747 because that company had indirectly been the cause of the whole war.
§ MR. BECKETT (Yorkshire, N. R., Whitby)expressed the satisfaction which he was sure they all felt that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was still prepared to deal with the very awkward and delicate financial situation brought about by this unduly protracted war. Various suggestions had been made as to the means by which the revenue was to be made. He thought that the financial position in England was somewhat serious, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer next year would be face to face with the probability of having to increase the burden of taxation, which was already so heavy. He had no doubt that when the right lion. Gentleman framed his Budget he would consider the advisability of drawing revenue from some new sources. He could not help thinking that the right hon. Gentleman must now regret that two years ago he had laid hands upon the Sinking Fund. A loan might have been raised of £80,000 upon the security of the amount by which he reduced the sinking fund, and that would have relieved the taxpayers to a considerable extent. He had pointed out a year ago that the sinking fund constituted a great war fund, and ho was sure they wished now that it had been left intact. That, however, he ventured to say, was the solitary lapse of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his financial career. It was probable that the extra taxation which would be laid upon this country in consequence of the war would amount to ten millions a year; we would have to meet the interests on various loans and the increased expenditure on the Army. It therefore stood to reason that the taxpayers of the country ought not to be called upon to bear any burden which could be legitimately laid upon the Transvaal. As regards the assets of the two countries we had taken over, it would be extremely interesting if the Chancellor of the Exchequer could present next year a balance-sheet, for we ail knew that the debt account amounted to a very considerable sum, and we wanted to know what the assets were. It would have been interesting if the hon. Member for Mansfield had in his most admirable speech indicated what were the assets on which he thought we could lay our hands if we wanted more money, and he hoped that the hon. Member would give this information on another occasion. Mr. Kruger 748 raised about four and a half millions in the Transvaal. The right hon. Gentleman had shown to some extent the nature of the expenditure imposed on the Transvaal. The cost of the police, the army of occupation and administration, would amount to six and a quarter millions. In addition to that there was the interest on the loans raised in the Transvaal. It was perfectly possible to raise a loan of a hundred millions, but he did not believe the Transvaal could bear a burden of more than fifty millions, the interest on which would be one and three-quarter millions. Therefore the total amount required to be raised in the Transvaal would be eight and a half millions, or double the amount raised by the Kruger Government. He did not see how these figures could be modified in any respect. The revenue of the Orange River Colony was about a million, but the cost of the police alone would amount to more than the entire revenue, and there were no means of taxing the Orange River Colony further, although the hon. Member for Mansfield I talked of the great prospects of that colony, and dazzled us with visions of gold and diamonds. The difficulty was a very serious one. A representation had been sent to the Chancellor of the Exchequer from the foreign shareholders in the Transvaal mines. The references in that memorial were undoubtedly of a kind that deserved the attention of the right hon. Gentleman. The memorial purported to come from 300,000 shareholders, and it stated that they wished to submit respectfully that the mines of the Transvaal belonged to a great extent to French, German, Belgian, and Dutch persons, who were not subjects of Great Britain. It was said that the shareholders had held themselves neutral during the war, and had done nothing to provoke the war. They were the victims of the war, because in the course of it the mines had paid no dividends to the proprietors. There was considerable depression, they suffered from the additional burdens being laid upon them, and they were entitled to compensation. Furthermore, they pointed out that according to statements made by Ministers this war had been entirely undertaken in the interests of the British Empire, and that therefore the British Empire ought to pay for it. It seemed to him that this representation ought to have some attention paid to it—he did not say too much attention, for he could quote 749 some reassuring figures. A German computation made out that 70 per cent. of the shareholders in the mines were English, 14 per cent. German, and the remainder belonging to various other countries, so that it might be fairly said that it was the English who would be the chief sufferers if the mines were taxed. He had ventured to make these observations to the House because he felt that this question of taxation was going to be a very serious one in the coming year. The Secretary of State for War had made a speech described as pessimistic, but it seemed to him that it was the most hopeful speech which had yet been made, because for the first time a Minister had fairly looked the facts in the face. If we continued to look the facts in the face, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer were to make a wise and just provision for carrying the burden of the war, all difficulties would disappear.
§ * SIR M. HICKS BEACHWe have had a debate which has had only an indirect reference to the Bill before the House, but which, all the same, has been full of interest to myself at any rate, and I think to the House at large. Practically the debate has wholly turned on the amount of the contribution towards the cost of the war which it may be possible to derive from the Transvaal, and the sources from which that contribution might come. This matter was brought before the House by the right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean yesterday, and I then ventured to say that I was not in a position to enter into any details at present, but that we had taken steps for a full and careful examination of the financial position of the Transvaal, of the possibilities of taxation, of the assets of the Government, and of the condition of the mining interest, with a view to framing such proposals as we might think would be fair, and of submitting them to the House after the termination of the war, which I hope may be—although the right hon. Gentleman opposite is not so sanguine—before the next Budget. I cannot do more than that to-night, but I would first call the attention of the House to the remarkable difference which has been exhibited during this debate in the views held by hon. Members as to the possibility of any contribution being derived from the Transvaal. The hon. Member for North Louth tells us that we may 750 expect 100 millions for the total cost of the war, and also whatever sums may be sufficient to buy up the Chartered Company at a price which, in his opinion, should be such as would induce them to acquiesce in annexation. I never held out to the House or the country any such suggestions as that. I never said that I anticipated that the whole 'cost of the war would be borne by the Transvaal. I think any such idea would be an absolute delusion. I do not think it possible, and I hope nothing I shall say to-night will give countenance to it. What I have said is that I think a considerable contribution towards the cost of the war should be made by the Transvaal. Now, the right hon. Member for West Monmouthshire has appeared to-night in his favourite character of a prophet of evil. He was rather disappointed, I think, the other night when my right hon. friend the Secretary for War anticipated him in painting in somewhat unfavourable colours the probable future of the war; and all he could do was to put the colours on with a stronger brush and suggest that, even so, the whole of the future had not been exposed to the House. But while expressing that which I am sure we all feel, his earnest desire that the war should be rapidly brought to a close, I do not think his prophecies or speech were exactly calculated to have that effect. But the right hon. Gentleman has told us to-night that it is his earnest desire that the Transvaal should make a considerable contribution towards the cost of the war. Now, was his speech to-night calculated to make that an easier task? I venture to say that it has added not a little to my difficulties. He has painted the financial position of the Transvaal in the darkest possible colours. He has said that the country is devastated, that famine is probable, that other expenditure—the cost of administration and the cost of police—will more than consume any possible revenue, and he went on to say that the mine-owners and capitalists who are the favourite objects of his detestation and abuse [Sir W. HARCOURT: Hear, hear], but who do not always deserve all he says of them, I have absolutely declined to assume any such liability. I am not over fond of capitalists, except when I have death duties to collect, but I think the right hon. Gentleman did some injustice, at any 751 rate, to Mr. Robinson in his quotations from his speech. I have read a report of that speech, and what I understood Mr. Robinson to fear was that there would be some attempt, so to speak, to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs—to impose such an extravagant burden upon the mining industry in the Transvaal that it would, if not kill that industry, at any rate materially interfere with its future development. I do not think Mr. Robinson himself would contend that there should be no contribution from the Transvaal towards the cost of the war. But the right hon. Gentleman, in the whole of his speech as far as I could see, took no account whatever of what was laid before the House in the interesting speech of the hon. Member for Mansfield—namely, the vast wealth of the Transvaal in the future, the possibilities of the country when that wealth is developed, and, therefore, the possibility of the country bearing a burden in the future which we could not exact from it now. It may be for a year or two after the close of the war impossible to obtain from the Transvaal any contribution towards the cost of the war. But I would point out that in the part of my financial policy which has been fortunate enough to meet with the assent of the right hon. Gentleman opposite I have carefully borne that in mind. I have said throughout that I would not make the borrowing for the war a permanent burden on the country. I have obtained—and this is the third occasion—power from Parliament to borrow for the cost of the war. I have borrowed partly on Treasury bills, partly on Exchequer Bonds for three years, partly on Exchequer Bonds for five years, and partly on the War Loan for ten years, and therefore I have made the falling in, so to speak, of these loans at such periods as would enable Parliament to have before it the condition of the Transvaal from time to time with a view to seeing what we could impose, as these loans fall in, upon that country. I hope Parliament will not for a moment consider that if the Transvaal at the close of the war should be in the devastated and poverty-stricken condition to which the right hon. Gentleman points that, therefore, in the future it should be free from all charge. I do not think that is a policy he would suggest for a moment. I can go no further than that to-night. But I should like to allude to one point of the right 752 hon. Gentleman's speech which, I think, he can hardly have sufficiently considered. He alluded to some utterances of directors of companies in regard to the provision by the Government of cheap native labour for the mines. But there is a way whereby the cheapening of labour in the mines can be effected without anything of that kind. The hon. Member for Mansfield, or an hon. Member on this side of the House, pointed out that in certain districts half the natives in the mines were drunk. Now, what has been suggested? That the sale of liquor to natives should be prohibited. Is that a policy which the right hon. Gentleman the author of the Local Veto Bill objects to?
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTI approved of it, and I hope you will follow it up, but I said the object of a great many directors of companies was not to improve the condition of the natives, but to cheapen labour.
§ * SIR M. HICKS BEACHDoes not the right hon. Gentleman see that if in the future natives are sober who are now drunk, their labour will be better and therefore cheaper for the mines? [A Voice: A sober man wants better wages.] Further than that, the municipal government of Johannesburg and the local government of the Rand have notoriously been incapable of preserving order, preventing abuses, and giving security to life and property, and may we not reasonably hope, that under the government which will in the future be in the Transvaal there will be rather more fairness, rather more equity, shown to the native races than has been shown to them in the past? All these reforms may tend to cheapen native labour without the introduction of anything like a system of forced labour, the idea which the right hon. Gentleman attributed to the directors of companies. I have referred to the speech of the hon. Member for Mansfield, and he made one suggestion which, I think, eminently deserves the consideration of those who will have to settle the taxation of the Transvaal. He said that, in his opinion, the fault had been that taxation had been indirect rather than direct in regard to the mines. I express no final opinion, but it does seem to me a matter that deserves most careful consideration whether direct taxation on the profits of the mines should be imposed. If, as the 753 hon. Member has suggested, such taxation was intended by the late Transvaal Government, but has not been levied owing to corruption, because those who ought to have levied it were practically bribed not to do so, all I can say is that we shall take care nothing of the sort shall go on in the future. The hon. Member has alluded to appointments made at Pretoria and elsewhere by Lord Roberts. Now, I know nothing of them, but I will venture to say I do not think the hon. Member considers fairly the position occupied by Lord Roberts. The country was in a state of war, appointments had to be made, and the choice of men was very limited indeed, so that it was practically impossible to obtain anyone for the appointments but local residents, and I dare say these were connected with the companies or undertakings to which the hon. Member has referred. But I am sure that directly Sir A. Milner establishes civil government all these appointments will be considered afresh, and probably entirely new appointments will be made in many cases to which the hon. Member has referred. We shall take very good care—we should not do our duty if we did not take care—that the action of local government shall not be biassed by any undue influence of the great companies in the Transvaal. The hon. Member for Northampton has asked a question; the assets of the Transvaal having been referred to, he wanted to know whether those assets included the claim of the late Government on the Chartered Company. Well, I think any question on that matter should be addressed to the Colonial Secretary.
§ MR. LABOUCHERE (Northampton)He is not here.
§ SIR M. HICKS BEACHBut I will tell the House frankly what occurs to my mind. The claim may have considerable justice, but what has happened since? For every pound fairly due in consequence of the Jameson Raid from the Chartered Company to the late Transvaal Government at least £5 is probably due to the company from the late Transvaal Government in consequence of the war entered into by that Government against this country. Thereupon I think on fair investigation it will be found that against the claim on one side there is a considerable set-off on the other. I do not know 754 that there is any other point to which I need refer, but this much, I trust, the House will believe. I am grateful to more than one hon. Member who has alluded to my position in these matters and will do my best to carry out the policy which I have indicated. If I do not say more than I have been able to say it is really because I cannot bind myself by any expression of opinion as to details. It would be unwise, it would be dangerous to do so; but I can assure the House that I have at heart as much as any hon. Member the desire that the Transvaal, and of course, if possible, the Orange River Colony, shall make some contribution towards the cost of this war, that the whole cost shall not be thrown on the taxpayers of this country. How this may be best carried out must be matter for careful consideration; it is a difficult and delicate subject, as I said yesterday, but in dealing with it we shall have regard to the necessity for doing nothing that will fetter the industry of the Transvaal and prevent the development of the country; and we shall take care that we are not biassed in dealing with the subject by any unreasonable demands or unfair suggestions from those who are interested in mines that they ought not to be called upon to bear such burthens as the interests of the country require.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREthought that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (whom everybody on the Liberal side of the House was most anxious to see in his present position so long as the present Government was in power, considering his unfortunate surroundings) had acted very squarely in the matter. He had only one or two points to urge upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer; the first was that the right hon. Gentleman should add to the gentleman who was to be sent out as Financial Commissioner to the Transvaal some capable geologist who should examine the country. This was all the more necessary as owing to the provisional appointments made by Lord Roberts it was not at all unlikely that those gentlemen who had been provisionally appointed, and whose interest was on the side of the capitalist, had mining engineers at their side, and that they were entirely in the hands of the millionaires. He regretted that the right hon. Gentleman had not seen fit to issue a Transvaal loan 755 guaranted by this country, because he believed that the Transvaal would not be able to pay its expenses. It could not pay for the army which we must keep there for some time, or for its police, or civil administration, and that being so we should have undertaken the repayment of it, and when the Transvaal got rich we should have come in and called upon it to pay its share of the loan. Another point to which he desired to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman, although he did not know that it concerned him especially, was the question of black labour. It was desirable, as soon as possible, to have some sort of labour bureau in the Transvaal. He did not dream for a moment that the Government would accept the view of the millionaires, that the Government should find labour for the Transvaal, but there was a sort of trades union among the mine owners themselves, and the men were employed at very inadequate wages. The actual Kaffir does not work in the mines, he follows agricultural pursuits. These men go into the back part of Africa, where they make arrangements with the chief to supply them with so many hundreds of men. The chief then orders the men to go down and work for a certain time in the Transvaal. There was an absolute trade in these men. Some one got them and sold them for a consideration to anybody who wanted them. The unfortunate men were obliged to work, because if one went back to his own country the chief would immediately have him slain in order to prevent others doing the same. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to think that the men would work better if they did not get liquor; he, on the other hand, was of opinion that the labour was forced labour, and if the men kept sober they would not work at all. It was only by keeping them half drunk that the mining engineers had succeeded in forcing them to work at a most inadequate wage. A labour bureau such as he suggested should see that there was no attempt to force anyone to do labour unless he liked himself to do it, and secure the natives against what really amounted to slavery.
§ MR. LOUGH (Islington, W.)said the right hon. Gentleman could not have made a more popular statement than that which he had made, that the influence of the British Government would be exercised against any form of forced labour. 756 He did not, however, quite follow the argument adduced from that statement, which appeared to be that, as the natives became more sober, virtuous, and industrious they would work for a less wage.
§ * SIR M. HICKS BEACHNo, I did not say that, but that they would do more work.
§ MR. LOUGHEven if they did more work they would require more money. The argument was, he believed, that they would then do more work for the same wage. But their wage would not necessarily get lower; the tendency would be in the direction of exacting a fairer compensation for their work. The right hon. Gentleman had not been so candid in dealing with this matter as the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, and he had not given them much ground for the hopeful view he took. With regard to the economic view of the situation he would point out that at present there was no revenue whatever from the Transvaal. The year 1900 would be a blank year, and probably 1901 would be so too. If these terrible operations were brought to a conclusion, and if the revenue were as it was before, they must remember that the best revenue ever seen before the war was some four millions. The expenditure, it could be clearly seen, would be on a larger scale than ever before. They would have to provide for civil government, for the police, and for the troops kept there, to say nothing of all the repairs and reconstruction of destroyed property that would be necessitated. The right hon. Gentleman said nothing about that, and apparently had not taken it into account. But, setting the latter necessity on one side, it seemed that seven or eight millions a year would be required immediately, for Transvaal purposes alone, before a single penny could come towards war contribution. Where were they to get such a revenue as this? All that they could get from these gold mines, he thought, should be secured as a contribution towards the expenditure in connection with the war, but taking the practical view, he thought the country ought to receive the fullest information and be told the truth. They were not accustomed to a Chancellor of the Exchequer basing his requirements on such a shadowy foundation. The right hon. Gentleman had disclaimed making any definite statements, which was perhaps the wisest thing he said, for 757 he did not see where they would get any revenue at all to meet such an expenditure as would arise. To obtain the war contribution the best step would be to restore peace.
§ * MR. KEIR HARDIE (Merthyr Tydvil)said that having stolen Naboth's vineyard they were now bent on discovering what share of the spoil they were to secure. He frankly confessed that finance was not his strong point. He desired, however, to offer a suggestion to the Chancellor of the Exchequer which he ventured to think would be useful to him. There seemed to be some difficulty in determining what amount of taxation the gold mines of the Transvaal should bear when they resumed full working order. In South Africa it happened that they had something to guide the Chancellor of the Exchequer in making up his mind on this point. In addition to the gold mines of the Transvaal there were the gold mines of Rhodesia, worked under the administration of the Chartered Company. Reference had been made that night by one speaker at least to the fact that in Rhodesia the taxes imposed on mining—the licence payments—were less than those paid in the Transvaal. That was part of the truth, but only part of it. The mining licences cost a few shillings per month less than in the Transvaal, but the Chartered Company took it out of the mine owners in another way. When a claim had been prospected and gold discovered, and when the prospector proceeded to develop his claim and form a company he was under obligation by his charter to issue double the amount of shares required to capitalise the concern and hand over half the number to the Chartered Company. Thus it happened when gold began to be produced from the mines in Rhodesia 50 per cent, of the profit belonged to the Chartered Company. If the poor mines in Rhodesia, struggling to pay, were able to bear this load of 50 per cent, to the Chartered Company, it would not, in his opinion, be going too far to ask, if necessary, that a like proportion of the profits in the Transvaal should be claimed to meet the cost of the war. There was another point to which the attention of the right hon. Gentleman might profitably be directed in this connection. The diamond mines of Kimberley paid no taxes. These mines were in Free State 758 territory. By some sharp practice, after diamonds were discovered, the land on which they were discovered was held to be the property of one Waterboer, a half-bred chief, but subsequent legal proceedings showed that such was not the case. The diamond mines of Kimberley were in Orange Free State territory, and now that the Orange Free State was under British dominion what was to hinder the Government from including the diamond mines of Kimberley in Free State territory and taxing them also to help to bear the cost of the war? He rose to refer more particularly to a subject in which naturally he had a more direct interest. He referred to the native labour question. He had listened with some interest to what had been said with regard to this subject. He had read the reports of the mining companies to which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire referred. He desired to call the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the fact that the gold mining companies of the Transvaal had come to a joint agreement whereby—he was speaking on the authority of Mr. Rudd—the British Government would be asked to collect native labour for them, and part of the contract was that no native was to be allowed to sign on for less than three months. If that was not forced labour then language had lost its meaning. They also favoured the compound system in the Transvaal. The compound system as it existed in Kimberley was slavery in the most absolute sense of the term. The natives were brought there chiefly by force, and when they arrived at Kimberley they were housed in compounds, so well described by the Member for South Aberdeen in his interesting book on South Africa. They were housed in great compounds there, and they were not allowed to escape during the whole period of the engagement. A subterranean passage led from the compound to the mines. The natives were supplied with groceries from truck stores established within the compounds, and white people were not allowed to get inside. The whole system was one of forced labour and slavery in the worst degree. In regard to the sobriety of the natives, the Government would remember that the question had two sides. In Kimberley the natives were made sober. He remembered reading many years ago in a temperance news- 759 paper that one reason for the prohibition of the liquor traffic was that whereas a drunken native required a dollar a day to live upon, a sober native would live as well on half a dollar, and wages were reduced actually from 4s. to 2s. per day. He desired to see the natives sober both at home and abroad, but he did not desire, and he hoped the Government did not desire, to see the sobriety of the natives used as an instrument for compelling them to work for half the ordinary rate of wages. There were two other matters on which ho trusted the Government would insist strongly. He was advised that under the Transvaal Government native labour was restricted by law to eight hours per day in the mines. He trusted that the Government would see to it that that law at least was not abrogated. The Transvaal Government prohibited Sunday labour in connection with the gold mines. So far as he knew the Transvaal was the only mining camp in the world in which Sunday labour was prohibited. He did not say that the prohibition was always obeyed, but the law was there, and mine owners were fined for breaches of it. Under British rule the prohibition would, he trusted, be maintained. He looked forward with serious doubt to the future of labour, black and white, in the Transvaal. If the mine owners who paid to bring about this war, who paid for the Jameson Raid, who dictated the policy of the Government with regard to the war, were to be allowed to govern the Transvaal in the future, then for a certainty labour would be worse off than under the Transvaal Government rule. He would like to say one word with regard to the liquor laws of the Transvaal. The laws were good, but they were not well administered.
§ * MR. SPEAKEROrder, order! The discussion of the liquor laws is not in order.
§ * SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT (Sheffield, Ecclesall)said the hon. Member for the Mansfield Division had made an attack upon certain persons who, he alleged, had been improperly appointed to certain offices in the Transvaal, and he gave as his reason for the attack that they were connected with various well-known firms in the Transvaal. He did not know these gentlemen, with one exception. They had been referred to with a great deal of unnecessary odium. It was almost 760 impossible to find anyone capable of holding office, legal or otherwise, in the Transvaal, who had not been connected in some way or another with some of the great mining companies. He was sorry to hear the cheers with which the attacks were received. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had pointed out that these appointments were really only temporary, and that the whole arrangements would have to be very carefully looked over. It seemed to him that regard must be had to the personal fitness, knowledge, and integrity of the persons employed, and the mere fact that they had been previously engaged with one of the great gold mining firms in the Transvaal was not a sufficient reason to allege against their appointment. There were two names mentioned, and he thought the references to them were very unfortunate. He did not think they were fair references, and he was sorry the hon. Member who made them was not present. He had attacked Mr. Loveday, and perhaps the public did not know who that gentleman was. He was an old member of the Transvaal Volksraad; and he had always upheld the legitimate lights of the Uitlanders. He was a burgher of the Transvaal, and was greatly respected by everyone. He could not conceive of a man more suitable to be appointed to such a commission than Mr. Loveday. The hon. Member did not state any of these facts, but simply tried to prove that he was connected with some electric company in Pretoria, as if that should prevent him holding the position he now held. Mr. Loveday was by character and antecedents qualified to hold the position he now filled, and he challenged the hon. Member for the Mansfield Division to dispute what he was now saying. With regard to Mr. George Farrar, the hon. Member accused him of being convicted of high treason, but he was careful not to tell the House that Mr. Farrar was one of the principal leaders of the great movement in the Transvaal in favour of reform. Everyone admitted the necessity of these reforms. The hon. Member, himself, spoke again and again of the terrible corruption of the Boer Government. Mr. George Farrar was one of the men who faced the music. He put himself at the head of the movement, was tried, and sentenced to death. That gentleman deserved to be praised. He felt bound to make these observations, because these were subjects on which he 761 had reliable information. He did not like to hear persons attacked in that House, where they could not defend themselves, and lose the opportunity of saying what he had to say from real knowledge.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Bill read a second time, and committed for To-morrow.