NEW ZEALAND.

Waikato Argus, Volume IX, Issue 765, 27 September 1900, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND.

(BY TELEGRAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATION). Wellington, Last Night. The balance-sheet of the Wellington More Men Fund shows that the public contributed £6325, and men themselves £319, for passages and equipment of 84 men and horses. The committee paid the Government £3,99!), for the expenses of the camp , £1326 ; for the purchase of horses, £75, leaving a balance in the bank of £5/1. The contingent themselves found 43 horses, valued at £645. making; Wellington's total contribution £7286. LETTER PROM THE FRONT. The following letter has been received from Farrier Hope, dated Mafeking, 17th August, 1900 :- Just a few lines to let you know that I have arrived in Mafeking. The company has had three days fighting to far and uobody hurt. I wasu't in it, worse luck, as I'was left in Buluwayo to look after some sick horses, and when I got down here four of our guna had goue out again. Thit is four days ago, and we haven't heard anything about them since. Two liuns are left here till further orders. Mafeluug is a good dual knocked about by Boer shells. The Boers could not have

had much pluck whcu they couldn't take this place. If they had only marched iu from different sides they could easily have taken if, as it is in the middle of the veldt, and there are no hills where Baden-Powell could place his guns. I have seen the women's laager where they lived underground, and most of the saudbag forts. It is all a lot of rot about the armoured train running all round here, as tb#re was uo such thing. It only used to ruu on theordiuary main line. When I came clown the armoured train came out to meet us about 50 miles from here, and came in before us. We stopped at most of the places where any fighting was done coming down. I saw where Plumer h at the Boers at Gaberones and Lobatsi. The former was knocked about a good deal, one house especially had the roof riddled with bullet holes, but Lobatsi was a perfect wreck, as the Boers had burnt most of the place, but both of them are very poky places. Arthur and Alf are away with the guns. I believe they had a real good time, and the General, thought it was marvellous the way they got out, as the enemy had them pretty well surrouuded ; but they fought their WHy out and dispersed the Boers, and only one man got touched, and he was only bruised. I hear to-night our boys were fighting all day yesterday, but can't find out if any are hurt. We are expecting to be called out at any minute now, as the enemy are reported to be advancing towards Mafeking. 1 have just received the Argus papers you eent me, aud I was very pleased to read some Waikato news. I saw where Rowley put up a great scoie at the range. I see he means to go in for the thing, but tell him from me not to join the reserves if Mr Seddon intends to form them. Most of my letter* have gone on with the column, so Ido not know when I will get them. It does make me wild being in the tent writing, aud all the fellows talking about the war and crowing over us fe'lows that are left behind, and so could not get into the scrap. The fighting took place round Zeerust and towards Elands River, and 1 believe our guns did real good work aud scattered the Boers. 'lhe Majoi was very well pleased with the shootiug our boys did, especially as they had only had two practices before they went iuto action. I hope our boys con,e back here soon, as I don't like the idea of being left hero, f ir I don't think much of the place. I am Bending yov a copy of the Mateking Mail, just to show you what sort of paper they have here, and they charge 3d for it.

COST OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR. Inanarticle on the coat of the Transvaal War the Saturday Review says During the last year of its existence iu 1899 the Boer Government took from the mining industry in round figures, some £4,000,000 by taxation. Of this sum quite £2,500,000 was wasted in corruption and ammunition, while the dynamite monopoly stood for another £500.000. Wc hardly st« how the new taxation can be as much as the old. The cost of the war has been put at £60,000,000, and as the estimate was for the end of September, there ought to be a margin over the compensation claims. It would,, in our judgment, be impossible to ask the Transvaal to pay more than £80,000,000. If it be the fact, as all Imperialists maintain, that it was a question whether the British or the Dutch were to rule South Africa, and that in suppressing the Orange and Transvaal Republics we have been in reality reconquering our South African Empire, then it would be inequitable to throw more than half the cost of the business upon the Transvaal mines, The interest on £30,000,000 at 3| per cent., which allows per cent, for sinking fund, would be £975,000, as a first charge on the revenues of the new Transvaal colony. We think it very likely that the cost of administration, for the first five years at all events, whilst there are military in the country, will not be less than £2,000,000 per annum. Then there is the expropriation of the Netherlands Railway Company, which it will be absolutely necessary for the British Government to undertake. There is a scale of expropriation provided in the concession, which is the repayment of the loans or debentures and twenty years’ purchase of the average profits for the three previovs years, plus 1 per cent, on the share capital for every unexpired year of the concession, which has fifteen years to run. We need not trouble our readers with the sum iu arithmetic, but the total cost of expropriation, including a reserve fund of £500,000, works out at close on £11,000,000, the interest on which at 4 per cent (the money might be' raised at \ per cent, more or less) is £363,000. If we add these the interest on proportion of war loan, the cost of government, and the interest on railway loan, the annual taxation of the new colony should be, roughly speaking,£3,33B,ooo, to which another £125,000 must probably be added for the existing Transvaal Fives, known as the Rothschild loan, which will possibly be converted. Against this has to be set the largo receipts from the Netherlands railway, . which last year amounted to £669,000, and this would be increased as soon as the railway was in our-hands. The influx of new settlers and the establishment of new industries will in time relieve the mining companies, though perhaps not to a large extent, of the burthen of taxation. We do not see how that burthen can amount to more than about £3,000,000 a year when allowance is made for new sources of revenue, which h nearly 25 per cent, less than before, while the advantages to be gained are too obvious to require enumeration. Most of the mines that were crashing *re ready to resume work as soon as they can get their supply of labour. Little or no injury has been done to the machinery ; pumping out the water is soon accomplished. It may not be superfluous to poiut out to the general reader that the process of gold-mining on the Witwatersland is, if freed from political anxiety, as steady and solid an industry as coalmining in Staffordshire or Durham. Some of the mines turn out richer oie than others, and one of the many advantages uf a fair system of taxation is that the poorer mines will be able to work at a profit. Rut all the estimates of the life of the mines have been exceeded by the results, and il is now practically certain that the Rand industry will flourish for another 50 years.