THE ECONOMICS OF THE CASE

class of security now dealt in by every considerable stock exchange in the world that there would hardly be a considerable business firm in Europe unaffected thereby. In England, they know of the difficulty that a relatively mild fiscal attack, delivered rather for social and moral than economic reasons, upon a class of property like the brewing trade provokes. What sort of outcry, therefore, would be raised throughout the world when every South African mining share in the world lost at one stroke half its value, and a great many of them lost all their value? Who would invest money in the Transvaal at all if property were to be subject to that sort of shock? Investors would argue that though it be mines to-day, it might be other forms of property to-morrow, and South Africa would find herself in the position of being able hardly to borrow a quarter for any purpose whatsoever, save at usurious and extortionate rates of interest. The whole of South African trade and industry would, of course, feel the effect, and South Africa as a market would immediately begin to dwindle in importance. Those businesses bound up with South African affairs would border on the brink of ruin, and many of them topple over. Is that the way efficient Germany would set about the development of her newly-acquired Empire?