(4). That stringent measures ought to be adopted in order to prevent gold thefts, and that the law for the total prohibition of drink to native labourers ought to be more strictly enforced, and that there ought to be a more stringent application of the Pass Law (under which the traffic of the native labourers was regulated).
(5). With the object of carrying out the measures specified in Section 4, the Commission recommended that an Advisory Board should be nominated for the Witwatersrand gold fields for the purpose of advising the Government as to the enforcement of the said regulations.
To what extent was effect given to these recommendations?
1. As far as dynamite is concerned, it appeared that there was no chance of contesting the concession in the law courts with any success. Nor did the Volksraad or the Government feel justified in cancelling, without the consent of the owners, a contract which had been solemnly entered into, and upon which enormous sums of money had been expended. The Mining Industry was naturally eager for cancellation, even without adequate compensation; but the public were not at that time aware of a fact which was made public some months later, namely, that the De Beers Corporation intended to erect a dynamite manufactory, and that this agitation of the Capitalists was intended to obtain for themselves the control of this great source of income. People, however, knew that the Messrs. Chamberlain were interested in the English ammunition and dynamite house of Kynoch, but they hesitate to assume that the Colonial Secretary was actuated in his Transvaal policy by considerations of private financial interest.
The Government and Volksraad of the South African Republic adopted the wiser plan of lowering the price of dynamite to such an extent as to make it about equal to the local European price plus a protective tariff of 20s. per case.
It may here be remarked that Mr. Chamberlain, knowing how unpopular the Dynamite Concession was in the South African Republic, intimated to the Government of the South African Republic, in a very threatening manner, that the Concession was in conflict with the London Convention.
The answer of the Government to this communication was so crushing that Mr. Chamberlain did not again return to the subject. In this he was, no doubt, also actuated by the fact that the most renowned English and European jurists had advised that the concession was in no sense a breach of the Convention. This, however, only became known later, and it is merely referred to now so as to show that no stone was left unturned in order to find a means of humiliating the South African Republic.