CHAPTER XIII

THE INCURSION OF OUTLANDERS

AMONGST the inevitable consequences of the discovery of gold in the Transvaal and the Government's decision to allow it to be worked, was the speedy development of a railway policy. A new political departure dates from the close relations into which this was bound to bring the South African Republic with its neighbours. We have already seen that the construction of railways and the consequent development of commerce had fomed part of the advanced policy of the unfortunate President Burgers. The march of events now compelled President Krüger unwillingly to take up his predecessor's half-formed plan. It was the Delagoa Bay Railway, as being remote from English territory, which appealed most strongly to his anti-English policy.

The treaty with Portugal, which had been concluded in 1875 and reaffirmed in 1882, had provided specially for the construction of this line. In 1883

Portugal granted a concession, and in 1887 a Company was formed by an American, Colonel McMurdo, to construct the line from Delagoa Bay to the Transvaal border. The work was hurried on, and the line (52 miles in length) was opened in November, 1888. In the meantime it had been seized by the Portuguese Government, on a colourable pretext. Colonel McMurdo offered to carry the work on to Pretoria, but the President, who had already decided to grant the railway monopoly in the Transvaal to the Netherlands Railway Company, would not hear of this. Public feeling among the Boers was divided on the subject. A petition was presented to the Volksraad by the more enlightened section, asking that the monopoly granted to the Netherlands Company should be withdrawn, as being detrimental to the best interests of the country. General Joubert, who was in favour of free trade in railway enterprise, said that "he would be prepared at any time to prove in argument that railways were necessary, and that more harm would be done to the country by a railway from Delagoa Bay to Pretoria than by a railway from the Colony to this place." He was prepared to support railways in general, and not wait for the Delagoa Bay line.

In the same discussion, held during the session of 1888 on the construction of a steam tramway between the Rand Rand and the coal-fields, the President said that "if a tramway was not soon constructed for the transport of coal, the goldfields would be done for,' and with the gold-fields the country; coal was then at 17s. a bag." Other members said that the Raad was starving the cow and yet expecting milk, and there was a general agreement that the interests of the gold-fields were the interests of the country.

The "steam tramway" in question was therefore proceeded with, and was the first railway actually opened in the Transvaal. For two years the Delagoa Bay scheme hung fire. Meantime the President was carrying on negotiations with the Orange Free State, to prevent the extension of the Cape railways through its territories. In this plan he was not successful, although the Free State was prepared to show itself friendly in every other way. The possibility of famine among the crowded population of the Rand, and the great disadvantages caused to the gold-mining industry by the absence of speedy means of communication, finally roused the Government to

action, and by the beginning of 1890 the Delagoa Bay line had entered the Transvaal. Its construction went steadily on, and on January 1, 1895, it was opened as far as Pretoria. In the meantime the Natal Railway and the Cape Town Railway through the Free State had been pushed on. In September, 1892, the Bloemfontein line reached the Rand, which was thus at last put in regular and swift communication with the sea and the markets of the world. This line was before long extended to Pretoria, whilst it united at Germiston with the line that ran east and west along the Rand, and through Johannesburg, which is now (1896) in direct communication with Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, Durban, and Delagoa Bay.

The general railway policy of the Transvaal Government has been simple and consistent. Railways were only admitted to the Republic as a necessary evil. Everything has since been done to encourage the one which goes to Delagoa Bay, because it lies outside of English territory. The famous Drifts Question affords a proof of this. In the course of 1895 the Netherlands Railway Company tried to block the Cape lines to the

Rand by refusing to take goods waggons, which accumulated until they caused a complete block on the lines. An enterprising person then organised an ox-waggon service, which was to carry goods across the Vaal River and on, forty-five miles, to Johannesburg in competition with the railway. President Krüger at once issued a Proclamation closing the drifts, or ferries, to all traffic; and as there are no bridges across the Vaal, except those of the railway, the Netherlands Company would have been completely successful if the English Government had not insisted on the drifts being opened again, on the ground that their closing was a distinct breach of the London Convention.

Mr. Krüger's policy, in short, is to send all the traffic of the Transvaal by the Portuguese port, and so to deprive the English colonies of the customs dues and the railway rates on the commerce of Johannesburg, which is at present by far the most important commercial centre in South Africa. From the Boer point of view, it cannot be denied that he is perfectly within his right in pursuing such a policy. The high Protective tariff adopted in 1892 against the Cape Colony and Natal, no less than the differential rates of the