which naturalized male citizens could vote two years after arrival, but that
body had limited powers and the Volksraad remained the sole sovereign
legislature.
The rulers of the Transvaal could not possibly satisfy the expectations of
the immigrants
from developed industrial
countries.
Uitlanders
com-
plained of high living costs, bureaucratic inefficiency and corruption, and
the effects of the government's granting monopolies to friendly companies
for the supply of dynamite, water, and railroad transport
to the Wit-
watersrand. But they were not an oppressed community. Few Uitlanders
identified with the Transvaal by becoming citizens, and fewer still were
really concerned about the franchise.
The magnates who dominated the mining industry were of varied na-
tional and class origins and sympathies, and were responsible to boards
located in different European cities. Some made quick profits at minimal
cost from the surface deposits; others, when it became known that the gold-
bearing reefs extended deep below the surface, made heavy investments for
the long term. In spite of these differences, by 1895 the managements of
most of the companies-French,
German, and British-had
come to the
conclusion that the republican government was an obstruction. Similarly,