What Kruger’s Policy will Lead to.

Mr Kruger professes to seek the prosperity and progress of the State, but I will simply mention the dynamite and other monopolies, of which we have heard so much lately, and point out that it is only a Boer audience that could be persuaded to believe in him. The resources of the State are forbidden to be exploited, the Minister of Mines refuses to proclaim new gold fields; the taxation on those in operation is so heavy that only a few of the richest mines on the main reef can be profitably worked. The expenditure of the State is extravagant—quite 40 per cent, could be saved, I am told. The reforms lately mentioned by the Industrial Commission, if granted, would reduce the cost of working expenses by 4 shillings per ton, and be the means of re-opening mines which were closed as being unprofitable, as well as bringing several miles of the reef into the payable degree. But Mr Kruger’s idea of increasing the prosperity of the State is by raising the taxes on the mines that continue to pay dividends, in order to compensate the Treasury for the loss of revenue incurred from the collapse of the poorer mines. If, as one mine after another succumbs to the burden of taxation, he increases the taxes on the richer mines, every mine must become closed, because no gold mine was ever discovered that did not cost much money and high-priced labour to extract the gold from it.