Despite her advantage the prices remain astonishingly low, when you compare them with those prevailing elsewhere. English coal, which in 1912 cost about nine shillings a ton at pithead, costs considerably more than thirty shillings today. The average pithead price of South African coal in 1915 was five shillings twopence a ton and at the time of my visit to South Africa in 1919 was still under seven shillings a ton. Capetown and Durban, the two principal harbours of the Union, are coaling stations of Empire importance. There you can see the flags of a dozen nations flying from ships that have put in for fuel. Thanks to the war these ports are in the center of the world's great trade routes and thus, geographically and economically their position is unique for bunkering and for export.
The price of bunker coal is a key to the increased overhead cost of world trade, as a result of the war. The Belgian boat on which I travelled from the shores of the Congo to Antwerp coaled at Teneriffe, where the price per ton was seven pounds. It is interesting to compare this with the bunker price at Capetown of a little more than two pounds per ton, or at Durban where the rate is one pound ten shillings a ton. In the face of these figures you can readily see what an economic advantage is accruing to the Union of South Africa with reference to the whole vexing question of coal supply.
We can now go into the larger matter of South Africa's business situation in the light of peace and world reconstruction. I have already shown how the war, and the social and industrial upheaval that followed in its wake have enlarged and fortified the coal situation in the Union. Practically all other interests are similarly affected. The outstanding factor in the prosperity of the Union has been the development of war-born self-sufficiency. I used to think during the conflict that shook the world, that this gospel of self-containment would be one of the compensations that Britain would gain for the years of blood and slaughter. So far as Britain is concerned this hope has not been realized. When I was last in England huge quantities of German dyes were being dumped on her shores to the loss and dismay of a new coal-tar industry that had been developed during the war. German wares like toys and novelties were now pouring in. And yet England wondered why her exchange was down!
In South Africa the situation has been entirely different. She alone of all the British dominions is asserting an almost pugnacious self-sufficiency. Cut off from outside supplies for over four years by the relentless submarine warfare, and the additional fact that nearly all the ships to and from the Cape had to carry war supplies or essential products, she was forced to develop her internal resources. The consequence is an expansion of agriculture, industry and manufactures. Instead of being as she was often called, "a country of samples," she has become a domain of active production, as is attested by an industrial output valued at £62,000,000 in 1918. Before the war the British and American manufacturer,—and there is a considerable market for American goods in the Cape Colony,—could undersell the South African article. That condition is changed and the home-made article produced with much cheaper labour than obtains either in Europe or the United States, has the field.
Let me emphasize another striking fact in connection with this South African prosperity. During the war I had occasion to observe at first-hand the economic conditions in every neutral country in Europe. I was deeply impressed with the prosperity of Sweden, Spain and Switzerland, and to a lesser extent Holland, who made hay while their neighbors reaped the tares of war. Japan did likewise. These nations were largely profiteers who capitalized a colossal misfortune. They got much of the benefit and little of the horror of the upheaval.
Not so with South Africa. She played an active part in the war and at the same time brought about a legitimate expansion of her resources. One point in her favor is that while she sent tens of thousands of her sons to fight, her own territory escaped the scar and ravage of battle. All the fighting in Africa, so far as the Union was concerned, was in German South-West Africa and German East Africa. After my years in tempest-tossed Europe it was a pleasant change to catch the buoyant, confident, unwearied spirit of South Africa.
I have dwelt upon coal because it happens to be a significant economic asset. Coal is merely a phase of the South African resources. In 1919 the Union produced £35,000,000 in gold and £7,200,000 in diamonds. The total mining production was, roughly, £50,000,000. This mining treasure is surpassed by the agricultural output, of which nearly one-third is exported. Land is the real measure of permanent wealth. The hoard of gold and diamonds in time becomes exhausted but the soil and its fruits go on forever.
The moment you touch South African agriculture you reach a real romance. Nowhere, not even in the winning of the American West by the Mormons, do you get a more dramatic spectacle of the triumph of the pioneer over combative conditions. The Mormons made the Utah desert bloom, and the Boers and their British colleagues wrested riches from the bare veldt. The Mormons fought Indians and wrestled with drought, while the Dutch in Africa and their English comrades battled with Kaffirs, Hottentots and Zulus and endured a no less grilling exposure to sun.
The crops are diversified. One of the staples of South Africa, for example, is the mealie, which is nothing more or less than our own American corn, but not quite so good. It provides the principal food of the natives and is eaten extensively by the European as well. On a dish of mealie porridge the Kaffir can keep the human machine going for twenty-four hours. Its prototype in the Congo is manice flour. In the Union nearly five million acres are under maize cultivation, which is exactly double the area in 1911. The value of the maize crop last year was approximately a million six hundred thousand pounds. Similar expansion has been the order in tobacco, wheat, fruit, sugar and half a dozen other products.
South Africa is a huge cattle country. The Boers have always excelled in the care of live stock and it is particularly due to their efforts that the Union today has more than seven million head of cattle, which represents another hundred per cent increase in less than ten years.