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ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR 217
African Republic, in order to keep 50,000 to 60,000
men in the field, must be spending at least £100 per
man, or say at the rate of £5,000,000 to £6,000,000
sterling per annum. This cannot be done out of the
actual revenue of the State, because the gross produce
of the one-fifth or one-sixth of the gold mining industry
which has been carried on cannot exceed £4,000,000
sterling, and not more than half of this sum would be
net profit. Practically th@re is no other source of re-
venue available for the Government. And as the
Transvaal Government has been unable to borrow,
clearly the money which it is spending must be derived
in part from the accumulations of previous years and
in part from the funds which it has commandeered at
and since the outbreak of the war, commandeering
being really only another name for forced loans. As
the money commandeered at the beginning of the war
was not much more than about £ 1,000,000 sterling,
and the net sum gained from working the mines since
cannot be much more than another million, it would
seem that the money resources of the South Atrican
Republics must be approaching exhaustion. It does
not follow that these Governments are unable to carry
on war, as long at least as they have reserves of
ammunition and other stores accumulated before the
outbreak i but the approach of exhaustion is certainly
a point to be considered. The industrial equipment-
of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State Re-
publics is not adapted for the maintenance of armies
during a long war, and they have not the means with
which they can make purchases abroad, even if the
things purchased could be readiJy introduced into the
country.
Comparatively little attention has been paid to the
financial arrangements of Cape Colony, Natal, and
Rhodesia, although these must all be affected by the
war. As far as may be necessary these States will of
course be financed from home, and an adjustment of
liabilities made at the end of the war. The chief change