A SPELLBOUND CITY

New Zealand Mail, 22 January 1902, Page 63

A SPELLBOUND CITY

JOHANNESBURG AND THE WAR, AWAITING THE DAWN. • (“Daily Chronicle’s” Correspondent.) JOHANNESBURG, Oct, 2G. Johannesburg still presents the aspect of a great and well-built city held in a state of suspended animation. The palace of the Sleeping Beauty was awakened by the sudden snapping of the spell. Johannesburg is awaking very leisurely. Here a wheel and there a wheel begins to revolve, another shop takes down the shutters, and makes a bravo display of its wares, and people hasten about the streets trying co -persuade themselves that- they are busy, and that the new order has begun. I

must say, however, that I was wofuliy ; , disappointed at the advance already j achieved. Such business activity as is ! | novr visible in Johannesburg is neariy j ■ all artificial. The mines are forbidden j to deal with the shops and stores of the ' ; town, lest supplies should run too iow. J Workers of the mines may not earn ! more than five shillings per day, which I their brothers in arms are still earning in the field. Happily the last rule, which was devised in order to prevent the jealousy and discontent of the excellent irregular forces supplied hv the Rand, will soon be relaxed. The five ! shilling rule, which was to have lasted duly three months, has now lasted six. and the workers, by threatening to leave the mines permanently for the work and wages which they can easily command elsewhere, have secured its j abrogation, which, I believe, will dare ! from the -first day of November. We j may then expect a large increase in the • numbers -returning to the Rand. The problem of the supply of native labour arid remains, but no doubt an arrangement will soon be concluded with the Portuguese Government by which thatproblem will be satisfactorily solved. Mean while Johannesburg and Pre- ] toria are existing on what is little bet- i ter than siege diet. But the order is i that present supplies, of whatever qual- 1 I ity. must be exhausted before the rail- j j ways are burdened with the task of fur- ! | ther importations. The reason for these j ! restrictions on importation is hard to j find. The lines cf communication both > I from Natal and Cape Colony are secure- j ly held. If they are safe for one store train per day they are equally safe for twenty. Men who have been in Ameri«ca will relate what is, done there by means of the single line. The military authorities complain that they have not sufficient rolling stock. The civilian critic, who at- Johannesburg is frequently a man of clear common-sense, asks why not, considering the present conditions must long ago have been foreseen. He possibly proceeds to comment upon the manner in which such rolling stock as is at present available is allowed to congest and fall out of circulation. It is an amusing thing to stand at a street ! corner with one cf those keen-witted, | clean-shaven, well-groomed young 1 usij ness men of Johannesburg and hear him [ comment on the principles of military | administration. For certain phases and < incidents of this administration he has j long ago given up as hopeless the atI tempt to discover any consistent and 1 recognisable rationale, lie has almost j given up swearing, but not quite. He i accepts the- British officer frankly and ■ heartily as a “gallant fellow,” but the 1 business principles of the “gallant fel- [ lew” break his heart and poison his I language. His simple request at the j present- moment is that the railways j should be transferred from military to ! civil hands, and to civilian hands which i have some practice in that species of j administration. This wil 1 have to be : done, and in the interests cf everybody : the sooner it is done the better.

I have noticed among my friends in Johannesburg an endless surmise and perplexity as to the actual cause of this protracted stagnation. What is the nature and the exact- locus of the obstruction? A good deal cf careful thought is given to this mystery, but no solution is ever reached. Johannesburg. they will argue, is now defended almost entirely by its own citizens. It is practically self-defensive. The most nervous inhabitant scarcely anticipates that the town will be besieged. The Boer lias no longer any terrors. On September lath, in the morning, the alarm was given in Johannesburg, the mines sounding the three repeated “hoots” which were the prearranged signal. The streets were at once cleared, and an attack was every moment expected, but not a single pulse beat quicker. So far as Johannesburg is eonccriTed. the Boer has long ago been vanquished. Then the lines of communication seem to he almost as safe as railway lines can be. The chart lines of disaster hanging in the offices of the Director of Imperial Railways, which a few months ago displayed such sensational zigzags, are now straight and undeviatmg, eloquent of almost absolute security. It is hardly conceivable that, what with blockhouses, columns and armoured trains, the Boers will ever be able to seriously interrupt the supplies of Johannesburg. Why, then, should Johannesburg starve? Why are permits still so niggardly permitted? Why these restrictions on importations? Why this continued arrest of the returning of population and prosperity? Men ask one another these questions in the street, and pass on unanswered. For my part, I believe the reason I have already suggested is not wholly inapplicable. I believe the military are even now afraid of indefinitely increasing the up-coun-try population lest, by a sudden outburst of train wrecking and line destroying, it should be left “ip the air.” In moments of irritation other reasons may be suggested, but I believe-the fear I have mentioned has much to do with the continuance of the impasse at Johannesburg. But the Johannesburg business man is quite right in his remedy for the disease. His policy is to get the soldier out of many positions which he is now occupying where the civilian ought rightly to be. Set the soldier free for his own proper work of fighting and watching. Above all, get the railways under a thoroughly _ expert and efficient civilian administration. If martial law be still necessary, let it be worked largely by the civilian authorities. The

Johannesburg miner has a right to- his impatience. He is the severest sufferer from the continuance of the war. Many will, or course, easily outride the storm ; but others not so easily, and many financial reconstructions will be necessary. I*- must he remembered, however, that the revival of Johannesburg and its vast industries is urgently needed, not only m itself, but for the moral effect itwould exert upon the whole of South Africa. The Eoers in the field could not fail to bo inline need by the gradual re-gathering of a population which, tmlixe the British soldier, has come to take hold cf the new order and to stay. The prospect of lucrative employment there when the war is over would cer- 1 Hi By detach many burghers from the | Boer commandoes. This revival is indeed one of the two great weapons with which wo may bring the struggle to an eiul; and tiie other is the efficient prosecution of the war on methods nicely | adapted to the guerilla stage upon 1 which it has now long ago entered. { Neither of these weapons, it seems to | many, is being used with the fullest j possible effect. On the other band, we are not, as we should be, meeting | the guerilla with the contra-guerilla-j beating the Boer at- his own game, the i only principle which can possibly suc--1 coed: and on the other hand, tlie be- ' gilinings of industrial revival have rej ceived an inexplicable but effectual arj rest. It appears to many that the j military authorities are not only failing i to do their own work as they should, j but are seriously checking and thwartI ing that return to civil and industrial ! life which there ought to be nothing • in the existing military situation to prej vent.