After looking back a while ill quote what Dlorak said when it was disabled-
The Llirrem mole-people who are appearing under your feet to take your gold and carry it (thought an intricate series of underground tunnels) to the desired receiver of the gold recently made claims of "slave labour"... And they really resented us asking them what was up with some missed deliveries (aka "bugs")... In their resentment, they said "fine then, if you want to complain about it, we'll just keep all the gold to ourselves!"... Obviously no one wants that, so we sealed the mole-holes until they are willing to negotiate.
I think we pissed em off pretty bad... I dont think they'd take less than a 20% cut to provide their services anymore... but we'll see if they are even willing to negotiate over the coming weeks... Until then we're all going to have to do it like we did in the old days and meet face to face.