FUTURE OF GOLD

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 146, 18 December 1933, Page 12

FUTURE OF GOLD

WHEN TRADE IS NORMAL

Professor J. G. Lawn, chairman of the Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Co., Johannesburg, at the annual meeting of the company, said: "The most notable event of the year, and, indeed, the most important event that has ever happened in the history of the gold industry of South Africa, was the increase in the price of gold which occurred towards the end of December last, owing to South Africa being forced to abandon the old gold standard. This has resulted in a new era of prosperity for the Rand and in benefits to the whole of the Union, which will be felt in every comer of the land. I should like to express my firm conviction that when the world's business once more becomes normal it svill be found that gold is permanently at a price substantially higher expressed in world currencies than it,has been in the past." Special reference was made to the Rand mines, but Professor Lawn's remarks on them will be read no doubt with interest by those having confidence in mining development and possibilities in New Zealand,

'.'Looking at the mines in .which the company .was more directly interested," he said, "it has been gratifying to see the older ones, which one has knosvii for over thirty years, and whose end one was beginning to anticipate with regret, given a nesv lease of life, and our newer mines placed on a sound basis of extended virility. This position, I need scarcely say, is of the greatest i importance to our company considered as a holding company. "The same position holds with all the Rand companies. * Not only are there large tonnages of known and accessible lowgrade' ore which now can be worked with a margin of profit, but the depth to which mining can be carried on the Rand svill be appreciably increased because the higher price of gold will justify expenditure on the necessary equipment and work which would not have been -justified in the past. ;' "There is another aspect of the position which is of great interest. The high price of gold has naturally proved a great stimulus to prospecting and the reopening of old mines. Jluch money is being provided for | this work, and while there are bound to be disappointments one trusts that there I wiir be many (successes.".