The Transvaal From Within.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 9300, 30 July 1901, Page 5

The Transvaal From Within.

Concession Commission's Report. A Tale of Corruption and Bribery. (Dunedin Star's London correspondent.) Reading the report of the Transvaal Concessions Commission is almost like reading Fitzpatrick's " Transvaal From Within " once more, so closely do the two tales of corruption, bribery, and scandalous monopoly tally. The Commission (the Hon. Alfred Lyttelton and Meesrs Ashmore and Loveday) have accomplished their complicated tack in an admirably judical spirit and with an evident sense of British fair play. Their report points out that while a conquering State is not legally bound by any contracts made by a State- which it has annexed, modern usage of nations tends to the acknowledgment of such contracts and to the protection of duly acquired rights. PRINCIPLES OF CANCELLATION. The Commission advise cancellation of concessions (1) the grant of which was not legal, (2) which were a breach of treaty with this country, (3) obtained by fraud, (4) the essential conditions of which have not been fulfilled, and (5) the maiiilenance of which is injurious to the public interest. In the. lasc case the concessionaire who has carried out lii 3 contract should receive compensation, regard being had to the known precarious nature of the concession when acquired. The value of his interest should be taken as it was before the war, and consideration should be Ishown in cases where new and hazardous enterprises have been pioneered into stability in an unsettled and undeveloped country, where profit was uncertain and total loss a possible contingency. "tapping concessions at their source." The Commission observe that when the idea of a new industry, supply of water os; light or means of locomotion, was mooted in the South African Republic it was not unusual for the President and Executive to grant the right of working it to some weighty burgher, to be followed sometimes, but sometimes not, by confirmation by the Volksraad, The possessor of the right then Bold it— usually very aooti—for a sum bearing some proportion to its prospective value to someone of Hollander, German, British, or other nationality, who in turn dealt with it or formed a company to put it into effect. After examining the Constitution very carefully the Commission came to the conclusion that under it the legislative authority of the Volksraad was absolute, and that the President and Executive had no legislative authority whatever. With the exception, .therefore, ot grants by the President and Executive (to which general sanction was given by the Volksraad) of exclusive rights to construct and work tramways along roads by animal poyrer only, the Commission hold that every conce-ision

not confirmed by the Volksraad was invalid. Examining the concessions individually the Commission decide that the Netherlands South Afriran Railway concession was legally granted in the first instance, but that it is injurious to the public interest ; that the construction and working of trunk lines should not be a monopoly in the hands of a private and foreign company the seat of whose, administration is in a foreign country. In any case, the attempt of the company to secure the advantages of neutrality while behaving as an aggressive belligerent deprived it of all claim to consideration. -S T EUTRAL EBUG-BESTS. Perhaps th e liveliest reading in'the report is con lamed iv the dlai 7 and letters of the managing director of the Netherlands - Sou th African Beilway Company (Mr VaV^ et! l c . m ar). He and his directors in Holland we.. equally confident that the Tr anßvaal had "got a cinch." Mr Van Kre tscnr " ar in August, 1899, suggested that lf me British invaded the country in aD ar m ored train a large bridge should be destroyed. The Company's officials were accordingly sent to blow up the line, and artillery officers selected a blocking-place at Paardekop, " so beautiful that Trichardt said that not a single man could come out of it alive." At first the directors were proud of the "Z.AS.M." deeds of heroism in the destruction of bridges, and wished for special data in order to mention in their yearly report the active part which the company took in the defence of the country. But when the tide turned all of a sudden the directors became "anxiously neutral," and besought Mr Van Kretschmar for proofs of strict neutrality. But he wasn't inclined to blow hot and cold. The company had been almost plus royalinte gui le roi, and in his letter of April 28, 1900, he upset the "Z.A.S.M.V apple-cart completely and " gave away tjhe whole show." "If it should come to the worst," he wrote, " and the Engli h become masters here, I am afraid that we have hopelessly compromised ourselves in deed, word, and writing. We have made cannon and ammunition ; we have sold material to the Republic : we have blown up bridges on English territory, and have not discharged our staff on commando. And we hare assisted the Orange Free State with advice, and, indeed, with persons and material, and there are in existence letters, telegrams, and living witnesses that we have strongly supported the Government in their' defence." The conclusion ot the Commissioners was inevitable: "The concession should be cancelled, and the company deprived of the possession and management of the railway." As many shareholders held the company's shares as an ordinary investment, some consideration should be shown as an act of grace to those who held bona fi-de shares before the war, but " this consideration should be postponed till his Majesty's Government are satisfied that such shareholders have exhausted the remedied open to them against their own directors, and till the damage done by the wrongful acts of the company has been made good." The debenture-holders are held entitled to full recognition, account being taken of the depreciation which their security has suffered by the action of the company. The Selati railway swindle, its bribes and its wholesale falsification of books, are described at length. The bondholders are recommended to favorable consideration, but the shareholders declared to hold shares whose only value was derived from the Government guarantee (of a 4 per cent dividend), which was rendered worthless by the company's breaches of the contract under which the guarantee was found, BANG COE3 DYNAMITE. The Dynamite Concession, too, is at last exploded. By unblushing and wholesale bribery " this company, working under a contract, committed a breach of the regulations of the Raid, broke that contract, amassed and consumed vast profits, of which the State obtained in comparison a beggarly share, and yet induced the Government to condone their default, and the Raad to adopt that condonation. . . . The eorrpany have no legal title to the monopoly, and his Majesty's Government should decline to recognise this concession. The company should have no advantages in the competition for the manufacture for the trade in explosives in the Transvaal other than those which they have secured by the establishment there oi their factories and their first occupation of the field of industry. Other minor and municipal .conceßsiotss are dealt with in the same careful and fair manner. Now that the two leeches, the Netherlands and Dynamite Companies, which sucked the country's lifeblood so extensively, have been squelched, there seems no reason why the gold mines should not with ease and equity pay a very substantial proportion of the cost "of the war.