GOLD IN MANCHUKUO

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 17, 15 October 1934, Page 8

GOLD IN MANCHUKUO

Japan represents to the world that Manchukuo is an independent State, but she does not seek to cover the extent there of Japanese commercial activity, and her people have long known enough about the mineral wealth of Manchuria to justify their speaking of it as the “valuable vault of the Far East.” The reported discovery of gold reefs in Manchukuo —one of them said to be “fabulously rich” is therefore bound to create a stir. . . Japan herself is poor in mineral resources, and.it is principally to Manchuria that she looks to make up the deficiency. The coal deposits of Manchukuo are estimated by the Japanese themselves to amount to 3,000.000,000,000 tons. The quantity of iron available is estimated at over 700,000,000 tons. Magnesium is, next. to coal, the most important mineral deposit, and the supplies are considered practically inexhaustible. For her oil supplies Japan has been almost entirely dependent on outside sources, and it has not yet been found possible to turn to Manchukuo for the means of attaining independence of these. But thousands of tons of crude oil and ammonia of sulphate are being obtained annually from large deposits of shale; and, inasmuch as the gold discovery seems to have been the outcome of a more or less organised geological survey, it is probable that. Japanese scientists are looking for oil streams also. At any rate it. is too early to say that there is no petroleum in Manchukuo. Gold is already mined (to the extent of some 400,000 ounces annually) as also are silver, coppe< and lead. The value of the new reef appears to lie in its exteiv rather than its richness: the assay given is far from being fabulous.