A REPLY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 294, 11 December 1900, Page 2

A REPLY.

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—-In reply to your correspondent, A.G.W., permit me to request that he. will, during a lucid interval, again read my letter re the return of our Sick and Wounded volunteers. I neither mentioned, nor intended, that the healthy and sound majority should be included.

Travelled with soldiers? Rather! With thousands of Hlem across old England, Ireland and Scotland, thrice round the Cape with them, and twice through the Canal of Suez.

But once only have I.ventured thirdclass -with civilians, going from Fleetwood to Barrow in 1. unless on a train full of navvies. At five in the morning we started, and went at a pace suggestive of funerals. Thick was the fog out^ side, and the compartment ih' which I sat, with much trepidation watching events, seemed full of the sound of strange oaths, bad smoke of tobacco, foul squirts of saliva, and redolent with pungent smell of stale sweat and dirty corduroy. To vary "the entertainment, fighting commenced—dogs first, humanity following; fists not proving hard enough, square faces came handy, innocent looking, but terrible missiles, to break like a bombshell, thus scattering beer and much blood.

"A.G.W." writes that the sum of seventy-four millions has to be found to cover the cost of the war, but he seems ignorant of the fact that a great part of this large amount has been circulated In England and that for many months past wages have never been higher. How will this war debt be raised if not from the working man's pocket? asks "A.G.W."

Fortunately, in England there is .a class—would that we had "more of it here —"the leisured class," called by some idiots "undesirable." Well, this class, having incomes, can well afford to be taxed ,even up to a shilling in the pound, if necessary, and without so much as a growl -would -they pay it. Then, ■2d ontea, a slight rise on the beer tax, cigars raised a shilling, and a good plumping duty on the wine known as phiz. If the cost of this war has been great, surely the resulting assets are. magnificent. In the Transvaal we have probably the richest mineral country in the world, larger than' France; it is seamed and veined with minerals. Few men out here have the slightest idea of the future importance of South Africa. Its resources are endless. Its population—and without population the richest country is useless—under a wise administration, will increase and multiply enormously. In wealth alone I venture to say that the Transvaal will in ten years he at the head of ail the colonies. As a customer of the Empire it will be an easy first, and it will repay in gold in standard coin that can glut no market, compete with no hardworking British farmer, ruin no pigproviding peasant. . The Vaal State will lead S. Africa, and Johannesburg will be the proud hub thereof. The dynamite and the railway concessions will be can^ celled, and the removal of these iniquities will make an immense difference to the mining industry; long closed up mines will re-open.

It-is calculated that every five millions of gold produced mean some fifteen millions of trade.

There -will be over 140,000 natives working in the mines, dteiwing some £50 a yeaeach. There will be\tß.oo6 white men bossing the Kaffirs at something over n .pound a day wages. No longer wi'i death-dealing Cape smoke be allowed to poison the body or fill the Zulu brain with murderous instincts. Depend ' upor. it the opening up of the Transvaal' will develop such a trade -with the Empire that England—the great banker for'her limbs and. branches—may well afford to be,_ for a short time only, out of pocket. Think of the revenue from imports, licenses, gold tax; besides, the new Government, as rightful heir- to the old oligarchy, will inherit large estates, gold bearing, silver producing, copper yielding, coal affording country, the royalties from which will yield revenue that should go far to meet the interest on the war debt, great as it undo.ubtedly will be.: We must all deplore the loss of life the awful sacrifices of the maimed,' the agony of mind of those parted from the beloved dead. Let us not add to the shady side of this war by refusing to our gallant sick and wounded a place\more comfortable than the sick bay of'the steerage. If 7c was "thank you, Mr Atkins," whilst the band played, let us, at least, put something substantial in the hat after the cessation of hostilities.—! am, etc., SPHINX.