FINANCIAL POLICY OF THE BOERS[14]
1.--_Receipt of the Boer Exchequer._
Like every true aristocrat, the Boer has always had a horror of paying
taxes; he only approves of taxes paid by others.
At the time of the annexation of the Transvaal by England in 1877, the
Government was being crushed by debt, the burghers resolutely refusing
to pay their taxes.
Some order was brought into the finances by England; but the Boer revolt
in December, 1880, was caused by the determination of Colonel Owen
Lanyon, the English Resident, to seize the bullocks and wagons of
recalcitrant tax-payers.
The Transvaal Government obtained the Convention of 1881. In 1883, the
budget showed £143,000 revenue, and £184,000 expenditure. From April
1st, 1884, to March 31st, 1885, the revenue rose to £161,000, the
expenditure remained at £184,000.
In 1886, the gold mines were discovered, and in 1889, the revenue rose
to £1,577,000. The crisis of 1890 caused it to drop below the million;
in 1892 it rose again, reaching in:--
1894 £2,247,728
1895 2,923,648
1896 3,912,095
1897 3,956,402
1898 3,329,958
In 1899, it was estimated at £4,087,000. These figures do not include
the sale of explosives from 1895 to 1898; the share of licences of
claims from 1895 to 1899; nor the Delagoa Bay customs dues paid to the
Netherlands Railway for 1898 and 1899.
[Footnote 14: _Le Siècle_, April 4th, 1900.]
2.--_Budget Assessment of the Burghers._
According to the _Staats Almanak_, the white population numbers 300,000,
of whom 175,000 are males. The number of burghers aged between sixteen
and sixty, entitled to vote, is 29,447; that of Uitlanders, between the
same ages, 81,000.
These 30,000 Boers who represent the electoral portion of the community,
do not pay one-tenth of the revenue of the state. They represent,
however, a budget of over four millions of pounds; or, £133 per head. If
our 10,800,000 electors in France had a proportionate budget at their
disposal, it would amount annually to £1,436,400,000; or considerably
more than our whole National Debt.
The burghers are thus fund-holders in receipt, per head, of a yearly
income of £133 from the Uitlanders. Never has there been an oligarchy so
favoured. It is true that all do not profit in the same proportion. "The
Transvaal Republic" says a Dutchman, Mr. C. Hutten, "is administered in
the interests of a clique of some three dozen families."[15]
[Footnote 15: _The Doom of the Boer Oligarchies_. (_North American
Review_, March, 1900.)]
3.--_Salaries of Boer Officials._
The salaries of the Transvaal officials amounted, in 1886, to £51,831;
in 1898, to £1,080,382; and in 1899, they were estimated at £1,216,394.
Salaries amounting to £1,216,394 for 30,000 electors! Such are the
figures of the Transvaal Budget.
Here we find undoubtedly a great superiority over other countries; and
the officials in receipt of such salaries would look down with
profoundest contempt on the much more modest pay of their European
colleagues if they knew anything about them. Each elector represents
more than £40 of official salaries. At the same rate the pay of the
French Government officials would amount annually to about four hundred
and thirty-two millions pounds sterling (£432,000,000)! This is not all.
In 1897, a member of the Volksraad asked what had become of some
£2,400,000 which had been paid over to Transvaal officials, in the form
of advances of salary. He received no reply.
4.--_The Debit Side of the Boer Budget._
In a pamphlet, by M. Edouard Naville, _La Question du Transvaal_, and
also in the _Revue Sud-Africaine_ of October 22nd, 1899, we find a list
showing the expenditure of the Pretoria Government, from which may be
gathered the extraordinarily rapid rate of increase: In the fourteen
years--1886-99--the budget expenditure amounted to £37,031,000, of which
nine-tenths have been defrayed by the gold industry. From information
supplied by the Government of Pretoria itself, we find that five sources
have absorbed more than half:--
Salaries, &c. £7,003,898
Military expenditure 2,236,942
Special expenditure 2,287,559
Sundry services 1,581,042
Public works 5,809,996
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£18,919,437
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Leaving a surplus of £18,111,601
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Under the headings of "special," and "sundry services," are concealed
the secret service expenditure, remuneration to influential electors,
and the various political expedients by which Mr. Krüger has proved "his
intellectual and moral" superiority.
The official salaries of 1899, estimated at £1,216,000, included a sum
of £326,640 for the police. We have seen what kind of police it is.
The legislature is composed of two Volksraads, each consisting of
twenty-nine members; or fifty-eight in all. Now the estimate of salaries
for the legislature is £43,960, or about £758 each, more than double the
allowances of the French senators and deputies.
It is somewhat imprudent of Dr. Kuyper to refer to the educational
expenditure. The expenditure amount allocated for the education of the
children of Uitlanders in 1896, was £650, or at the rate 1s. 10d. per
head, while the gross estimate for education in the budget for that year
amounted to £63,000, which works thus out at a cost of £8 6s. 1d. per
head for the Boer children. Dr. Mansveldt, Head of the Education
Department of the Transvaal, a Hollander, seems to have but one aim: to
enforce the use of the _taal_, the Boer patois--a language spoken by no
one else--the use of which keeps them in isolated ignorance. The English
language is banned.
5.--_New Taxes._
This revenue, employed almost exclusively for the benefit of the Boers,
did not suffice for the insatiable government in Pretoria. At a meeting
of the Chamber of Mines, on November 21st, 1898, Mr. Rouliot summarized
a statement by Mr. Krüger in the Raad, as follows:--
"But recently, Mr. Krüger had said he would give the mines the
chance of establishing themselves before a percentage should be
imposed upon their returns; and that no tax would be levied till
the diggings had been completed, and the machinery set up. It
appeared to him, however, that the government intended to
appropriate some of their profits, although it had given no
facilities for the preparatory works on the mines, during which it
should be remembered that their capital had been burdened by
exceptionally heavy indirect taxation. The moment that capital
began to be productive, it was to be taxed." (_Blue Book_, No.
9345, p. 48.)
In four-and-twenty hours, Mr. Krüger had unexpectedly managed to pass a
law levying a new tax of 2-1/2 per cent. of the gross production from
mynpachts (mining leases), and 5 per cent. from the gross production of
other mines. In his report of January 26th, 1899, Mr. Rouliot says: "Had
this new tax formed part of a general scheme for the readjustment of
taxation, it might have been defended, but those who are considered best
qualified to express the views of the government, content themselves by
saying that it has the right to take a share of the profits realised by
the mines and add that this tax is only a beginning."
6.--_Attempt to Raise a Loan._
Not content with increasing taxation, the government now wished to raise
a loan. The attempt failed. The Government of Pretoria blamed the mining
companies for the failure. Mr. Rouliot said, on January 26th: "It is
true that the companies did not actually support the government in its
efforts;" but he added:--
"Neither the Chamber of Mines, nor, to my knowledge, anyone
directly, or indirectly, connected with mining interests did
anything to embarass the government in its financial negotiations.
It is useless to abstain from plain speaking; on the contrary, I
hold it to be my duty to be frank and to state to the government
that if it failed in its negotiations, it is due to its bad
financial policy; to its want of an efficient system of audit; to
its costly and terribly wasteful administration; to the want of
precise information as to the object of the loan, and the manner in
which it was to be expended."
In fine, Law I. of 1897, and the fantastic method of legislation adopted
by the Volksraad, show that the Government of Pretoria offers no better
guarantee to people dealing with it than did the Grand Turk, some fifty
years ago.
7.--_Fleecing the Uitlanders!_
Taxation, to the Boer, means getting all he can out of the Uitlander,
the old characteristic of all oligarchies. The Boer may cheerfully
augment both the taxes and his expenditure. It is not he who will
suffer.
I admire the Frenchmen, Belgians, Swiss, &c., who pretend that the
Uitlanders are a bad lot for not being delighted with such a
government.