the process started in the winter of 1902. Refugees from the concentration camps and prisoners of war were returned to their districts in a system of drafts. At the depots, they would receive farm equipment, tents and rations to start again and transport to their destinations. Food rations were provided for almost a year. Families would receive a token grant irrespective of their ability to pay it back and additional material and equipment required were obtained via interest-free loans with small cash loans also attracting no interest, with larger loans attracting four percent interest by a mortgage. The loan scheme was never going to compensate a person for the actual loss experienced by the war. Damage and the reconstruction required varied from district to district. In the larger towns, municipal or health boards were "appointed" to manage them under the Resident Magistrate. They had limited functions and the only rates they levied were for sanitary functions. Within fifteen months of the end of the war, the municipal government was introduced with preparations made for fair elections based on property valuation and the creation of voters' rolls with the registration process explained in English and Dutch. Economic issues The British administrators set out to place most Boer farmers back on their land by March 1903 with nineteen million pounds spent on war damages, grants and loans. The administrators reformed the state agricultural departments to modernise farming in the colony which resulted in a maize and beef surplus by 1908. They also attempted to solve the poor white problem by settling them as tenant farmers on state land, but the lack of capital and labour caused the scheme to fail. An attempt was made to place English settlers on farmland so as to anglicise the Transvaal and increase the English-speaking population but this failed, too, as the policy attracted too few settlers. By the end of 1901, gold mining finally resumed on the Rand around Johannesburg, having virtually stopped since 1899. Backed by the mining magnates and the British administrators, there was a need to restart the industry but labour was required. Just prior to the war, white miners wages were high and magnates weren't keen to increase the wages and since black miners wages had been reduced before the war and not increased, so black labourers weren't interested in working the mines. Unskilled white labour was ruled out as their wages