NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13279, 11 September 1906, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

ABOUT DIAMOND MINING

Mb. James Sherwood Hamilton* gives. in the August World's Work some particulars of four years' observation in the diamond fields ofKimberley. He tells us that in spite of all safeguards at the mines Illicit diamonds are sold every year in Europe to the value of £750.000. At the Kimberley mine there are 1500 Kaffirs who work underground, the De Beers mine has 3000, the Bultiontein mine has 3000, the Du Toit's Tan mine has 3000, and the Wesselton mine has 4000. In addition to these there are several shifts of white men, some of them miners, some of them engineers, some drillers, and some in charge of moving the ore out of the mines. The work never ceases. It goes on all night and all day Sunday, The following figures given by Mr: Hamilton show the average output of the mines for a single day : —

Carats. Value. Kimberley mine ' ... 1.500 £3,450 De Beers mine ... ... .3,000 > 6,900 l)u Toit's Pan mine ... 1,830 8,405 Bultfontein mine ~, 2,000 4.000 Wesselton mine ... k „ 2,500 3,870 Total .. .- .. 10,330 . £26,630 The De Beers Consolidated Mines, Limited, pays in a single year dividends to the amount of £2,175,000 . It contributes insurance money for the benefit of its employees amounting to £100,000. It lays aside annually £2,175,000 for further investment, and, after all this, it has a balance of £746,000. GODS ENGLISHMEN. In a recent address to men. Bishop Welldon, the newly-appointed Dean-of Manchester, took for his subject "God's Englishmen." After explaining how that expression arose from Milton's words, the Bishop went on to say that the British race had been elected to a special mission among the nations of men, and Ave. were bound by a supreme obligation to prove ourselves not unworthy of our imperial citizenship. England was marked by a continuity second to none. When standing at the High Altar of Westmister Abbey he remembered that every King and Queen (except Edward V., who did not live to be crowned) had been crowned there, so that in a degree unexampled England had preserved her continuity. The nearest to it were the Kings of France, but that Coronation had ceased to be! There was no part of the British Empire in which he had not preached, and he had travelled all over the world, and he was struck by the majesty of the Empire! But what was the guarantee that England should be exempt from the apparently universal law of the rising and falling of Empire? It depended upon them. It was they who should live not only as citizens and governors, but as good men. England stood for liberty. Any compromise of liberty was a, thing to be avoided. The spirit of the British Empire went beyond mere justice, there was a spirit of'beneficence and mercy which was recognised.. The enemies of the Empire did not come from without. They came from within.! There were signs that the British character was losing its nobility and stability and even its piety, but he did not believe that this falling off was. going to continue ; if it did he feared for the Empire. They might well ask themselves what prevents my doing what I might have done, or being what I might have been?" They might not individually be able to do much, but there was not one living soul who could not ! endow the State by his own honest, virtuous, godly life. Let them reform them- ; selves, and it would be well for us allwell, too, for the State, and the Empire which they all loved.