DISTRESS ON THE RAND

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6593, 19 September 1899, Page 4

DISTRESS ON THE RAND

BRITAIN MUST ASSERT HER PARAMOUNTCY. The Capetown correspondent of the " Age" writes : — One thing only seems clear, namely, that Great Britain has at last realised that unj less by some striking act — to quote Sir Alf red. Milner's famous words — she demonstrates her real paramountcy in this country, she will lose South Africa, and send a shock throughout the Empire that may end in a general disintegration. We South Africans feel that if that point only has been reached, we have not suffered in vain ; but that, seeing the fact is established, we are prepared to suffer yet more if only the striking act — I do mot mfcan necessarily war — be speedy and be effective. \ How necessary a speedy solution has become may be judged from a single statement of fact, which I have at first hand. I was talking last week to a member of the Johannesburg Relief Committee, who told me that in one week the committee had dealt with 1500 cases of real distress in the so-called golden city ; and that, in spite of denials, he had witnessed with his own eyes the great exodus from the goldfields of the class who are the mainstay of all those businesses which deal in goods beyond the bare necessaries of life. Trade on the Rand — as the ; gold-bearing district wnieli lias Johannesburg for its centre is called — is practically at a standstill, pending a settlement of the tremendous problem : Is the Uitlander, British and foreign, to continue a degraded helot, or as he to be placed upon a political equality with his fellows of white complexion who, by an accident — or, as some say, by a terrible blunder — hold the reins of government — it would be absurd to say who rule tihe South African Republic? Nor is Johannesburg alone a sufferer. The shrinkage of trade occasioned by the stagnation on the Rand affects every port in the country, from Capetown to Delagoa Bay ; it reacts upon Great Britain and the other European manufacturing centres ; it affects America; and last, though by no means least, it affects Australia, whose exports to South Africa, already of large and ever increasing volume, would' be indefinitely increased were the Transvaal once at rest. There is another way in which Australasia is affected by the existing state .of things. Your sons and daughters who ,have come over to try their fortunes in this country, and so unconsciously to demonstrate the homogeneity of the Empire, have been bitterly disappointed, and in too many cases have returned to your shores, simply and solely because they could not endure the political serfdom of the Rand, coupled with the impossibility of keeping soul and body together amid the depression which has settled down upon the city from which they had hoped such great things.