Netherlands Company cost nearly ^9,000,000, or £13,500 per mile. This gives a total of £38,000,000
for the construction of 3500 miles of railway, not including lines
owned and operated on private account. With all lines included, it is
estimated that there is a total outlay of £56 per head of the white population of the country, which does not average more than 163 to the mile of railway opened.
In 1896 the earnings of the Cape Government railways came to something over £4,000,000, of the Natal railways £1,000,000, and of the Netherlands Company nearly £3,000,000.
The net profit after paying interest on capital in the Cape was
.£1,221,675 ; in Natal £464,762; and in the Transvaal ,£1,328,424,
making a total of over ,£3,000,000, not including the Free State share
of profit, which for 1896 was .£289,553. _
Five extensions were authorized by the Volksraad resolution of the Free State in October, 1896. One line through
Fauresmith was to serve the diamond mines of Jagers-fontein and
Koffyfontein and place them in direct communication with the coast
ports. In 1898 the Free State decided to build a railway by concession
from Bloemfontein to Kimberley, and to extend the
Springfontein-Fauresmith line to join the Bloemfon-tein-Kimberley line
at a point near Petrusburg. The Springfontein-Fauresmith line forms a
direct route between East London and Kimberley, shortening the present
route by 100 miles, making East London 40 miles nearer to Kimberley
than Port Elizabeth. The Bloemfontein-Kimberley line will reduce the
present
