Mr. Chamberlain's great speech delivered at Joh annesburg a week
ago differed little from the proposals for the settle- ment of the Transvaal problems with which we dealt last Saturday. The only difference of importance is that the loan for internal development is to be £35,000,000, and that this loan only, and not the loan of £30,000,000 to repay a por- tion of the cost of the war, is to be guaranteed by Britain. This is, we think, a subject for regret, as a 4 per cent. loan will make the burden on the Transvaal unnecessarily heavy. In ordinary circumstances it would not, of course, do to guarantee Colonial loans, but considering that we are going to absorb the capital, we see no reason why the two loans should not have been lumped together under one joint Imperial and Colonial guarantee. The exact method for levying the interest on the £30,000,000 loan has not been explained. It is vaguely said that it will fall on the capitalists or the mines, but as they do not constitute an imperium in imperio, this is obviously a figure of speech. The burden must, of course, fall on the Colony, though the Colony may, and no doubt will, decide on extra taxation on the mines to meet it.
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