SOUTH AFRICA

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9647, 23 January 1903, Page 2

SOUTH AFRICA

♦ THE RAND LABOR DIFFICULTY. Electrio Telegraph Copyright- United Press Association LONDON, Jan. 21. The thirty-five millions lotui was a compromise between forty millions proposed py the Rand financiers and Mr Chamberlain's suggestion of a loan of thirty millions. This leaves twelve millions for new public works. In reference to the war loan a meeting of representatives of the great mining houses .except J. B. Robinson, suggested a thirty million contribution. A conference, of traders, merchants, and miners of the Rand afterwards by 74 to 4 ratified the decision. CAPETOWN, Jan. 22. Mr Chamberlain announced that the thirty million war loan was intended to relieve Great Britain's debt. The immediate relief m revenue would be slight, if any. Louis Botha, C. Vanhulstyn, Sir G. Farrur, and Sir P. Fitzpatrick will probably be nominated for the Transvaal Legislative Council, which meets m May. Ihe sittings will i be open to the public. (Received January 23, 9.40 a.m.l CAPETOWN, January 22. At a- conference between the Rand mining leaders and Mr Chamberlain a proposal was made to Mr Cliam.beria.in that the Government should impart five thousand English navvies on condition tlmt the mines engaging a similar number at four shillings a day besides their keep. The Government navvies would go to the railway works, thus releasing natives for employment m the mines. The leaders doubted the shareholders' willingness to try the experiment. Mr Oluimberlain promised to' recommend the Foreign Office to open up Uganda and all other British. African proivinces excepting Nairodi for the recruitjing of natives. ! The trustees of Mr Cecil Rhodes' esI kite, the firm of Wernheir, Beit and ! Company, and Mr Abe- Bailey, a well , known Johannesburg millionaire, ha.ye provided tliirty-tliree thousand pounds for the establishment of an agricultural college m connection with irrigation works at Colesburg. About one hundred and forty thousand acres will be acquired m the Orange colony. The idea is to bring sixteen thousand acres under cultivation, thereby providing a living for one thousand settlers and their families. All the profits above five per cent wiJl be devoted to the requirements of the settlers.

It is stated by an expert m Uganda matters that there are thousands of Baganda and other natives of the Uganda Protectorate who would travel to South Africa to work there for a year if a person m whom they had confidence invited them to do ™. There are, too, numbers — 100,000 or 200,000— 0f negroes north of the Zambesi who would go to South Africa to ' work if invited to do so. It is, however, certain they cannot be invited from the district of Lake Nyassa so long as tlie railway does not exist, as the planters and traders would lose their only means of transport.