The Timaru Herald MONDAY, APRIL 16, 1934. WHERE GOLD IS KING!

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19774, 16 April 1934, Page 8

The Timaru Herald MONDAY, APRIL 16, 1934. WHERE GOLD IS KING!

Nearly one hundred and fifty years ago William van Keenan, one of the early Dutch settlers in Cape Colony, went out in search of gold. He penetrated into the then unexplored desert near Walfish Bay and the natives brought him a yellow stone which he thought was what he went for, hut it turned out to be copper; and he trekked back to the Castle at the Cape a sad and tired man. Yet could van Keenan return to the scene of his unprofitable adventure, he would see how well justified was his belief that South Africa was a veritable mine of wealth, containing the most expansive deposits of gold of any country in the world. Moreover, gold plays such an important part in the financial and economic structure of the Union of South Africa, that the budgetary position of the country is determined by the price of the precious metal. To-day South Africa is feeling comfortable in the knowledge that a handsome budget surplus justifies reduction of taxation and substantial repayment of national indebtedness. From all the news sources of the youngest overseas Dominion, ‘comes substantial evidence that Gold is King in South Africa to-day, and Johannesburg is its throne, before which all the sub-continent bends a supliant knee. With agriculture stricken by the worst drought for a generation, the sovereignty of King Gold is challenged no more. Some days ago the Capetown correspondent of an English journal wrote: Everywhere gold! Everybody talks gold. Everybody buys shares. Everybody floats new companies or tries to “get on the ground floor” of those launched by others. Longer lines of new shining motor cars roll into the cities of the Union of South Africa, in the morning and out again in the evening, testifying to the foresight of those who rushed in the moment the gold boom began. A seat on the Stock Exchange that could have been had for £l5O a few years ago is now hardly obtainable for £ISOO. Only a few years ago the royal prestige of King Gold was diminishing. At the old selling-price of £4 4s an ounce, the slow contraction of the output had begun, because it did not pay to take the lower grade ore out of the ground. But with bullion at anything between £6 and £7 an ounce (fine gold is quoted on the London markets this morning at £6 14s 9d per ounce, and seems likely to remain there), gold has acquired a higher status than ever it enjoyed. Few people outside Africa realise the importance of the price of gold in relation to the fortunes of South Africa. Calculated at its present market value, the wonderful auriferous reef of AVitwatersrand has already yielded £1,000,000,000 of gold; and it has been estimated that another £2,000,000,000 worth still lies beneath the surface: In the history of the world no such store of precious metal has ever before been found in one area. The reef runs in thin streaks through a curious rock conglomerate called “banket,” which was the Dutch name for an almond sweetmeat that the early prospectors thought looked like ore-bearing strata. The assays per ton of ore are not high, but the immense size of the deposits and the regularity of their contents have enabled a lasting industry to be established very different from that which forms the basis of the ordinary mining camp. Ten towns have sprung up on the Rand where dwell threequarters of a million people of various races and colours. The great white dumps of crushed rock which mark the line of the reef are estimated to weigh 600,000,000 tons—the one at Randfontein is 40,000,000 tons, or more than the tonnage of the entire shipping of Great Britain—but they will be twice as big before their growth ceases. Competent experts declare that the life of the Band lias probably been doubled by the increase in the price of gold, and Johannesburg, wli ieh a few years ago sometimes shivered at the thought of its fate as the mines closed because the remaining ore could not be extracted at a profit, now looks ahead with fresh courage and infinite confidence: Everybody is going to make a fortune. Every amusement is crowded. Business flourishes, unemployment is decreasing. Still more old buildings are being tom down in order to put up 120 ft. skyscrapers. The City of Johannesburg is convinced that two generations hence it will still be the centre of a large gold-mining industry. Five million native labourers have been recruited since the beginning of the mining industry to serve King Gold, and confident South African opinion 'suggests that before the reign is over another ten million recruited labourers will have passed through tlie mines. Manifestly, the higher price of gold lias literally wrought a miracle in South Africa, just as the restoration of commodity prices would lift every other producing country out of the doldrums of economic difficulties into the vitalising sunshine of restored prosperity.

BROADCASTING POLICY. Not even the Broadcasting Board with its experience of the vagaries of human ideas and human convictions, could have anticipated the dilemma into which it

lias landed itself, in permitting Mr Bernard Shaw to have his final say. Only a few days previously the Christchurch officials of the Broadcasting Board found themselves involved in a sharp clash * with the disciples of Shavian philosophy because the responsible controllers of broadcast programmes rejected the prologue of one of Mr Shaw’s plays, which was put on the air by the members of the Christchurch Repertory Society. The Broadcasting Board attempted to justify its decision by insisting that the prologue might be regarded as propaganda. Mr Shaw’s admirers boldly challenged tlie Broadcasting Board’s decision, and a lively controversy developed in which Mr Shaw himself became involved. Manifestly, an endeavour to make amends for the slap in the face it was alleged the Board had administered to Mr Shaw and his apostles, the Broadcasting authorities made arrangements for Mr Shaw to close his New Zealand visit with a broadcast of Bis observations—pertinent and impertinent! And now the “fat is in the fire,” as the critics are saying. Mr Shaw’s observations were almost wholly propaganda; so much so that “G. 8.5.” concluded by making tlie open confession that be is an avowed Communist and that he was a believer in Marxian philosophy before Lenin found his way into Russia. Now tlie friends of Mr Shaw are demanding an explanation from tlie Broadcasting Board for its obvious inconsistency. Indeed, it is conceded that but for tlie first two or three pleasantries at the opening of Mr Sliaw’s broadcast speech, and IBe friendly farewell words spoken at the close of the speech, the Shavian observations—pertinent and impertinent—were unadulterated propaganda. The authorities who control broadcasting in New Zealand have yet another poser to answer in the very general criticism which demands to know why publication was prohibited of tlie King’s Christmas Speech, containing words of goodwill and hope, which was broadcast to the Empire, while a speecli by the talkative Mr Shaw which narrowly approached the soap-box style of oratory, was freed from all broadcasting restrictions, as far as publication in the Press was concerned.

EMPIRE AIR SERVICES. Charles TJlm’s arresting flight across the Tasman Sea in the giant monoplane “Faith in Australia” in the record time of a few minutes under twelve hours, marks another advance in the annihilation of the distance separating the metropolis of the Empire from its distant outposts. Moreover, the success of the aerial experimentation carried out by Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and Mr C. T. P. Ulm, has served to demonstrate the practicability, under modern conditions, which furnish reliable weather forecasts, of the trans-Tasman mail service. Before Mr Ulm made his return flight on Saturday, in which he traversed the airway above the turbulent Tasman Sea, nearly as fast as the steamer service carries its passengers between Lyttelton and Wellington, the immense possibilities of the trans-Tasman air mail services had been demonstrated by the delivery of Sydney correspondence to Christchurch in twentyfive hours. The record flight made by Mr Ulm in his well-equipped monoplane clipped four hours off the flying time, and brought New Zealand for the first time in history within twelve hours’ mail service of Australia. The importance of the trans-Tasman experiments in inaugurating an unofficial mail service between Australia and New Zealand is enormously enhanced, when it is remembered that the Imperial Airways lias not only completed arrangements for speeding up the air mail service between England and India, but has also fully explored the practicability of extending the Imperial Airway services to Australia. The demonstrated practicability of air mail services between Australia and New Zealand, will no doubt impress the Imperial Airways, and inevitably lead to the most careful investigations being made into the possibilities of linking up New Zealand with the regular mail services connecting the heart of the British Commonwealth of Nations with all the peoples touched by the “well-worn” airway between England and New Zealand, via India and Australia.