EMPIRE'S GOLD MINES

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 156, 30 December 1918, Page 8

EMPIRE'S GOLD MINES

DECREASE IN PRODUCTION

SUBSIDIES NOT RECOMMENDED.

(UNITID FBBBS ASSOCIATION.-AIOPIRISHT.}

(OTSTBAUAII-HBW ZBALAKD CABI.B ASSOCIATION.)

(Received December 30, 1 p.nu) LONDON; 28th./Decemjjßi ::.,< Lord Inchcape's Committee on Gold Production reports that during the period of the war, the production of gold in the Empire Blightly exceeded the production in the corresponding period immediately prior to the war.;. A deJ, dine appeared in .1917, amounting to £3,429,415, compared with 1916, and a further fall occurred in 1918, amounting to £4,652,207, as compared with 1917 The decline in ■ the Transvaal in--1917 was due to a combination of the shortage of explosives due to the war, and the shortage of labour. The former ■was the more important. The decline-in the Transvaal in 1918 was mainly owing to shortage of labour, which was not due to any large extent to the war. 33ie decline in Australasia in 1917 and 1918 was normal, and was mainly due io natural causes, but was accelerated' by the increase in costs and the decrease of efficiency of labour caused by ifche war. "From the point of view of production solely the abandonment of treatment of low grade ore in favour of higher grade will not within a measurable period reduce the total output of the Empire, and, therefore, the continuance of the working of low grade mines which are unable to work at a profit is not a matter of any great importance to national interests. We are a^ot prepared to recommend any bounty pr subsidy for the purpose of stimulating the gold oniput of the Empire. Gold ■being the standard of value, not more can properly be paid for it than its iyalue in currency "