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The costs of flotation were charged at upwards of £32,000; the expenses of one gentleman's travelling, etc., £6,000. But these are 'trifles light as air. This Selati Railway Company, which being guaranteed by Government is really a Government liability, arranged with a contractor to build the line at the maximum cost allowed in the concession, £9,600 per mile.
It was, in fact, an exemplary case of 'thieves falling out' and when the case got into the law courts a point of real interest to the public came out; for the Company's lawyers filed their pleadings! The following account of the case is taken from the newspapers of the time. The plea of the Selati Railway Company states that
In order to preserve a true perspective the reader should realize that the President defended both these affairs and that the exposures took place while the recommendations of the Industrial Commission were being discussed in the Raad and fiercely combated by the President himself. The matter of the Selati Railway was again brought into prominence in 1897.
And outside and beyond all these definite wrongs imagine to a free born progressive man, an American or a Briton, the constant irritation of being absolutely ruled by a body of twenty-five men, twenty-one of whom had in the case of the Selati Railway Company been publicly and circumstantially accused of bribery, with full details of the bribes received, while to their corruption they added such crass ignorance that they argue in the published reports of the Volksraad debates that using dynamite bombs to bring down rain was firing at God, that it is impious to destroy locusts, that the word 'participate' should not be used because it is not in the Bible, and that postal pillar boxes are extravagant and effeminate.
When we come to the Administration, we find that there is the grossest extravagance, that Secret Service moneys are squandered, that votes are exceeded, that the public credit is pledged, as it was pledged in the case of the Netherlands Railway Company, and later still in the case of the Selati Railway, in a manner which is wholly inconsistent with the best interests of the people.
In an amended plea filed by the Selati Railway Company they give the names of persons to whom the Company had to pay certain sums of money or give presents in other words, bribes in order to obtain the Selati contract.
Barend Vorster, who had bribed Volksraad members with gold watches, money, and spiders, in order to secure the Selati Railway Concession, and who although denounced as a thief in the Volksraad itself declined to take action to clear himself and was defended by the President, again played a prominent part.
The President's opinion of himself may be commended as food for reflection to those who think they know everything about the inner workings of the Transvaal. Dr. Leyds' reputation, unfavourable as it had been, was not improved by the Selati Railway exposure.
On one occasion a rather highly placed official obtained a contract for repairing certain streets in Pretoria for £60,000. The work being worth £20,000 at most, the difference went to be shared by the several official participants. One of the first instances of glaring peculation occurred about fifteen years ago in relation with the Selati railway contract obtained by Baron Oppenheim.
The tariff could be reduced by one-half; that is to say, a remission of taxation to the tune of one and a half million annually could be effected without depriving the Company of a legitimate and indeed very handsome profit. The Selati Railway Scheme! 'Conceived in iniquity, delivered in shame, died in disgrace! might be its history, but for the fact that it is not quite dead yet.
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