VALUE OF GOLD MINES

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1931, Page 7

VALUE OF GOLD MINES

SOUTH AFRICA’S YIELD. TOTAL OF £l/500,000,000. (New Zealand Herald Correspondent!* i Capetown, Nori, 12In the South African War, revealed Colonel Denysa Reitz, M.P., speaking aS Johannesbury, there-had been a strong movement in favour of blowing up thq Rand goldmines because of the suspicion with which the mine owners. were regarded. It was. argued then that thai gold mines had;proved to be South Africa’s curse, and that but for them. t3ier4 would have been no influx of "foreign adventurers” into-South Africa, and thei country would have been able to carry on in the good old patriarchal way. “I think,” said Colonel Reitz, *'wd have to a large extent to thank Da (now Mr. Justice.) Krause for having prevented the calamity of the gold mines being blown up. We realise the value of the work those “foreign adventurers” have done. We have learned from them that the worth of a man’s citizenship, especially in a country like ours, does not/ depend on. the race he belongs to, or the language he speaks, or. his political. convictions, .but. on the value of the work he is doing in building up and developing this country.” The Minister of Mines and Industries, Mr. A. P. J. Fourie, said that the Union, had produced minerals worth £1,500,000,000. Of this total, gold returned 71 per cent, and diamonds 20 per cent. For the last ten years the Union had : produced more than half the gold recovered in the whole world each year, and from 1884, when South Africa -had begun to contribute to the world’s output, its production had formed 35 per cent.

“So long as gold is ’ regarded as a measurement of wealth,” added Air. Fourie, “the importance of the Witwatersrand to the whole world can hardly be exaggerated. Of the £45,000,000 obtained each year from -' the mines, £30,000,000 is distributed in wages and stores, besides the money accruing to the State in direct taxation and shaw of profits, etc.”