FROM ANNEXATION TO UNION: AND AFTER The course of the war is described in detail in the article SOUTH AFRICAN WAR. On July 4, 1900, a month after the occu pation of Pretoria, a commission was issued to Lord Roberts authorizing him to annex the Transvaal. The proclamation of annexation was dated Sept. I. Lord Roberts held the post of administrator of the colony until his departure for England in the December following, when he was succeeded by Milner, the high commissioner. It was not, however, until March 1901 that Milner, who resigned his governorship of Cape Colony, arrived at Pretoria to inaugurate a civil administration. Hostilities were still pro ceeding, but in the areas under control Lord Milner (who was raised to the peerage in May) speedily set the machinery of government in motion.
Reconstruction.—Some of the gold mines were permitted to restart crushing in May 1901. In November following the main body of the uitlanders were allowed to return to the Rand and in June 1902 a tax of 10% on the profits of gold mining was im posed. The administration was equally alive to the needs of the country districts and a land board was established in Dec. 1901. Another department taken in hand was that of education; and here remarkable success was achieved.
After the signature of the articles of peace the work of re construction was accelerated. The end of the military govern ment was signalled by the assumption, June 21, 1902, by Lord Milner of the title of governor of the Transvaal and by the crea tion of an executive council. With the proceeds of a loan of £35,000,000, guaranteed by the British Government, the debt of the South African Republic was paid off, the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony railways were bought by the State, and new railways and other public works were undertaken. The £3,000,000 granted by the articles of peace, and other considerable sums, besides £7,000,000 from the loan, were expended on repatriation and compensation.
The efforts made by the administration to restore the Boers to the land, to develop the material resources of the country, and to remove all barriers to the intellectual and moral development of the people, were soon, however, hampered by severe com mercial depression.
Chinese Labour.—The commercial depression was due to many causes; of these the most apparent was the shortage of labour at the Rand mines. When work restarted after the war, the mine owners offered the native workmen little more than half the wages paid in 1898; but this effort at economy was abandoned, and the old rates of pay were restored in Jan. 1903. Nevertheless, the labour available continued to be very much below the needs of the mines. The consequent small gold output meant a serious decrease of revenue, which was not compensated for by the heavy tax levied on the output of the Premier diamond mine, where operations began in 1903. Finally, to enable them to work their
mines to their full capacity, the Rand houses asked for leave to import Chinese labourers. Milner, anxious above everything else to obtain sufficient revenue to carry on his work of reconstruc tion, gave his consent to the experiment. The home Government concurred, and during 1904-06 over 50,000 Chinese were brought to the Rand on three years' indentures. In the Transvaal all parties agreed that no new racial or economic complications should be permitted ; and these were guarded against by the re striction of the coolies to unskilled labour in the gold mines and by their compulsory repatriation. By the introduction of the Chinese the gold output from the mines was greatly increased, with the result that the Transvaal suffered less than any other part of South Africa from the restriction of commerce, which lasted for several years.
The discussions in the legislative council on the Chinese coolie question had been accompanied by a demand on the part of the Boers that such an important step should not be taken "without the constitutional approval of the white people of the Transvaal"; and after the importation of the coolies had begun, the agitation for the grant of representative institutions grew in volume. The British Government was also of opinion that the time was near for the setting up of such institutions, and the pending grant of a constitution to the Transvaal was announced in parliament in July 1904. Meantime the existing (nominated) legislative council was dealing with another and a vital phase of the Asiatic question. There were in the Transvaal some 10,00o British Indians, whose right to "enter, travel or reside" in the country was secured by the London Convention of 1884. Under republican rule these Indians—who were mainly small shopkeepers, but included some professional men of high standing—had suffered many restrictions, and their cause had been espoused by the British Government. Nevertheless, under British rule their situation was in no way improved, and a determination was shown by the European in habitants of the Transvaal, both British and Boer, further to restrict their privileges and at the same time to stop the immigra tion of other Indians. Alfred Lyttelton (who had succeeded Chamberlain as secretary of State for the colonies) endeavoured to meet the wishes of the Transvaal by sanctioning legislation which would greatly restrict the immigration of Indians, but he would allow no tampering with the rights of Indians already in the colony.