GOLD!

Evening Star, Issue 20312, 22 October 1929, Page 11

GOLD!

PHILIPPINE STRIKE 200-MILE GOLD VEIN When gold claims are being registered by the hundred, and when among the claimants are university presidents, legislators, manicure girls, restaurant waiters, and plain adventurers, it is obvious that there is a gold rush, at least in its early stage, writes a correspondent in the San Francisco ‘ Chronicle.’ Such is the case in the Philippines to-day, and there is no telling how near the local movement will approach the romance and the glamour ol the California and Alaska gold rushes. As is probably true with all gold strikes, this in the Philippines was a pure accident. Up in the district of mountainous Benguet. some 200 miles north of Manila, are the most productive gold mines in the archipelago. They have been worked for years, and their combined annual production is approaching the 5,000,000d0l (£1,000,000) mark. But the Benguet mines have all been cornered by several corporations, and the people did not have any reason to go rushing there. GOLD STRUCK BY CHANCE. In August an American construction company was drilling in Angat, Bulacan, a place about twenty miles northeast of Manila, for the foundation of one of the largest Government irrigation projects. And, accidentally, the drillers struck gold. The ore was assayed quietly, and found rich and promising. Wherefore the construction company turned into a mining concern, and laid claims to the area for several miles around its diggings. News of the strike leaked out. And while startled citizens were still trying to recover from their daze, the story circulated that a rich gold vein or veins extended between the Angat claims and the Benguet gold mines some 200 miles farther north. Proof —there was gold at both ends of the vein. _ Then the fun began. . Claims for areas along the 200 mile stretch began to pour into the mines office. Americans who have the necessary capital formed corporations, one of these being capitalised at 1,000,000 pesos. University professors, led in many cases by a professor of mineralogy, prospected and likewise staked out a claim The president of the University of tho Philippines, a man who was once regarded as the third most powerful man in Philippine politics, but who so scorned wealth that he emerged from public iife practically a ruined man financially, registered his own claim the other day. 2i50 mile gold ledge. Lumber companies, at least two, have closed up in order to get their shares of the reported 200 in He gold vein. Even Government officials, including legislators, have thrown aside the cares of State and gone prospecting, with tho inevitable denouement—claims for certain areas supposedly containing part of the long, rich gold vein were filed in the proper office. A prominent American restaurantenr, together with his entire staff of waiters, bu« boys, chefs, and dishwashers, laid claim to a stake somewhere along the rumoured gold . vein. The newspapers wrote them up and almost unanimously titled their stories ‘From Waiters to Millionaires.’ Parties after parties are visiting the supposed route of the 200 mile yellow streak, and most of them return to file their respective claims. Diggings ranging from surface scratches to veritable mine shafts now dot most of the entire stretch between Angat and Benguet. A gold rush, the greatest ever known in th Philippines, is in the making.

The rush still lacks the glamour of the Californian and Alaska gold rushes. Instead of boom towns aro settlements of four or five shacks. The prices of commodities have not yet gone skyrocketing. No vice dens, where the clay’s diggings pass into the hands of those who don’t dig, have yet been put up. The fields and plantations, the schools, and the Government offices have not yet been deserted. Only a slight increase in the cost of shovels and picks has been registered. The accompanying banditry, which shipments of the yellow metal usually induce, is yet unknown. In short, the gold fever lias not yet affected the masses. But tliere are indications pointing to this eventuality The announcement the other day of the result of an analysis by the Bureau of Science of the assays of the construction company that made the first strike not only seemed to justify the rush so far, but heralded further developments approaching the days of the Klondikes. Several million peso gold developing and raining conipanics are now in process of formation. DEVELOPMENTS WATCHED CLOSELY. The strike came just at a time when the Filipinos were beginning to think in terms of gold. Until lately they have been so hopelessly conservative in money matters that they never went out of their way to acquire it, or make it produce for 'them once they had acquired it. For years, the Igorots inhabiting the mountains of Benguet and its vicinity had been coming down the valleys sporting beads, bracelets, and trinkets crudely fashioned in pure gold, but the Christian Filipinos looked upon all these signs of hidden riches passively. When a senator died last month," his safe disclosed nearly 1,000,000 pesos in cold cash, which, deposited in a bank, would have produced an annual fortune for its owner. Now, however, the Filipinos arc gold minded enough, and they will ho susceptible to the influences of the impending gold rush. Stories coming from the _ mining camps are beginning to seep into the imagination of the people. They are watching developments closely. Like the sprinter, they are crouched on the track digging in their toe holes, read?/ to dash off with the sound of the starter’s gun.