CITY OF GOLD

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 June 1934, Page 3

CITY OF GOLD

PROSPEROUS JOHANNESBURG. Neil Grant writes in the London “Daily Telegraph’:— Johannesburg is now the hub oi South Africa. The Union looks to the Rand, and draws from its gold far and away the greater proportion of its wealth. Ever since South Africa left the Gold Standard the city has been growing in size and prosperity. It is radiating its success across great distances into every town and dorp of the Union. Johannesburg is to-day one ot the most prosperous cities in the world. Its people are as brisk as Anieileans. Its suburbs are extending rapidly; its buildings are becoming higher and higher. I lie cue universal su,bject oi conversation is gold shares. I liaye heard young ladies lisping in a night club at three o’clock in the morning about Randfonteins and Sub Nigels. Most people are gambling, and many people are making money. Every class in the community is feverishly interested in the gold market. Typists and shop assistants study foreign politics and the influence which the French Budget, the German Rcichsbank returns, and the Roosevelt daily surprise may have on their shares. New men arc making fortunes, and, it is anticipated, will lose them as rapidly as they made them. The city is prosperous and, therefore, optimistic. The caution of London about Roosevelt’s economic policy is not shared in Johannesburg. After ail, Roosevelt is doing something, and all is well. This buoyancy is, one must confess, a relief after the canniness of Throgmorton Street, but London’s influence is healthy because it is a sobering one. Strange things, for example, are happening to the shares which are not quoted in London, and, after all, somebody is some day left with the baby.” There is no sign, however, of any such catastrophes, and everybody within three miles of the Corner House expects a wonderful live years. I asked a. Cabinet Minister what would happen to South Africa if the gold were to give out or the world were to turn from the precious metal. “Do you think either contingency possible?” he asked. “No,” I answered, “but just suppose. 1 ’ “Well.” he went on, “we would turn to something else. I am certain that the mineral potentialities of the Union are enormous, I believe, for example, that we may become one of the great radium sources of supply. Something always turns up in South Africa. First diamonds, then gold, then the discovery of the cyanide process, and now this new rise in the price of gold.”

He is right. South Africa is (he one country in the world where the Micawber policy has been justified. AFRICA’S NEW RICHES. [t. is, however, to the credit of South Africans that they are not content to rest on the riches and laurels of the Rand. They are remarkably energetic and experimenting people. They are pushing their agriculture with great assiduity, and from a race c.f semi-nomadic pastoralists they have become within a few years one

of the great fruit-producing countries of the world. With a little more patience and expert advice they may yet do tor the vine what they have already done with the peach, the nectarine, the orange, and the pear. 1 doubt if any other country within the British Empire is so committed to State interference in every branch of indusuiy as South Africa.

To some extent it is a survival and extension of the paternalism of the Kruger system of government, but it is much more due to the impatience cd the people to be up and doing semething, and to their realisation of the fact that owing to the immense distances the State alone can undertake new industries and experiments on a large scale. The South African makes mistakes rather than sit idle. He loves something new'—the latest car, the latest aeroplane, the latest electrical device. It is this passion which made General Smuts draw up the framework of the League of Nations, which made Mr Fourie plunge into the Italian subsidy, and which compels the State to take over the railways and hand' over the making and the administration of harbours to railway engineers.

The State is never at rest, and the heaven-born bureaucrat is everywhere at work, fixing maize prices, superintending medicinal baths, working out a minimum wage, producing iron and steel, teaching the young citizen to make shoes or master the Morse code in signalling in the intervals of showing him how to use a rifle. Staid old British firms are aghast at all this experimenting, and describe the South African as capricious. But he dare not sit still. The lains, the droughts, the locusts, the •mosquitoes, never give him a moment’s peace. The Englishman tolerates the weather —the South African fights it.

During my visit I had an opportunity oi seeing at first hand a specially interesting experiment in what we still call in England State interference. At Pretoria the great steel works created by the Government are nearing completion and will be working by May. Will this colossal experiment succeed?

The plant is ad'mitedly superb, the ore abundant and excellent, the demand, owing to the cost of freights from the coast, should be constant. Yet already rumours are spicading that the staff will be unable to cope cflicienly with its tasks, and already there has been at least one serious clash on the board. The whole future of State control in South Africa will hinge on the success of failure of the Pretoria experiment.

At the moment the- general economic tendency leans strongly towards State control. Farmers, youths, students, railwaymen, poor whites, are all being “spoon fed.” and the kureauci acy steadily grows in numbers and in political influence.