A MATABELE RAID IN MASHONALAND.
Drawn by W. Small, from Sketches by A. R. Colquhoun, First Administrator of Mashonaland.
The other fields which yield gold are the Transvaal, Lydenberg, and De Kaap fields, and the Klerksdorp and Potchefstrom fields. The output of these fields continues to grow apace, but how much longer the growth will be maintained is uncertain. The opinion of Mr. Hamilton Smith, who wrote to the Times on the subject in 1895, is worth consideration. He says, "In 1894 the value of the Randt gold bullion was £7,000,000, and this without any increase from the new deep-level mines; these latter will become fairly productive in 1897, so for that year a produce of fully £10,000,000 can be fairly expected. Judging from present appearances, the maximum product of the Randt will be reached about the end of the present century, when it will probably exceed £12,500,000 per annum."
It is interesting to find that Mr. Smith's maximum figure was already exceeded in the year 1898, when the total yield of gold was 4,295,602 oz., valued at £15,250,000!
The following table, based on Mr. H. Smith's and Dr. Soetbeer's estimates, affords us an opportunity for comparing the South African output with that of other countries, and the world's present supply with that of former years:—
| Gold Output for 1894. | World's Output. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Value. | From | Average annual value. | |
| United States | £9,000,000 | 1700 to 1859 | £ 2,000,000 |
| Australasia | 8,000,000 | 1850 to 1975 | 25,000,000 |
| South Africa | 7,000,000 | 1875 to 1890 | 20,000,000 |
| Russia (1892) | 4,000,000 | 1894 (one year only) | 36,000,000 |
Of the stimulus given to railway construction by the establishment of the gold industry Mr. Worsfold speaks with authority. He says, "To-day, Johannesburg—built on land which in 1886 was part of an absolutely barren waste—is approached by three distinct lines, which connect it directly with the four chief ports of South Africa—Delagoa Bay, Durban, Port Elizabeth, and Cape Town. Of these lines the earliest, which traverses the Free State from end to end, and links the Randt with the Cape Colony, was not opened until July 1892. The Pretoria-Delagoa Bay line was completed in the autumn of 1894; and the extension of the Randt railway to Charlestown, the connecting-point with the Natal line, was not effected until the following year. These, together with some subsidiary lines, represent a total of 1000 miles of railway constructed mainly under the stimulus of the gold industry in the Transvaal. To this total two considerable pieces of railway construction, accomplished in the interest of the gold industry in the Chartered Company's territories, must be added. Of these, the first extended the main trunk line of Africa from Kimberley successively to Vryburg and Mafeking, in 1890 and 1894, and then finally to Buluwayo in 1897, and the second, the Beira line, by securing a rapid passage through the 'fly country,' brought Salisbury into easy communication with the East Coast of Africa at the port so named. Taken together, they measure 930 miles. It should be added also that arrangements are already in progress for the extension of the trunk line from Buluwayo to Tanganyika—a distance of about 750 miles. This will form a new and important link in Mr. Rhodes' great scheme of connecting Cape Town with Cairo."
The telegraph advanced more speedily even than railroads, and the population has kept pace with wire and rail. Johannesburg has a population of 120,800 souls, and Buluwayo, a savage desert not long ago, has now an European society of over 5000 persons. It is therefore somewhat questionable if Mr. Froude is justified in his opinion that diamonds and gold are not the stuff of which nations are made. Nations, if they are to expand, must be fed, and while diamond and gold mines give up of their wealth, we are assured of sufficient food to foster expansion. That done, it remains merely with the Government of the flourishing nation to decide whether its work shall be little or large.
It is curious to note that in spite of the disturbance in the Transvaal the mines continued to maintain their position, with the result that the gold output from the Randt for July shows a considerable increase upon previous months. According to the official figures received from the Chamber of Mines, the returns were as follows:—
| 456,474 ozs. | for the Witwatersrandt district |
| 22,019 ozs. | for the outside district |
| ———— | |
| 478,493 ozs. |