That the whole weight of the taxation of the Transvaal should not be made to fall upon one industry is, of course, consonant with reason, policy, and equity. Pending the pronouncement of its actual intentions, and in view of the alarmist rumours which are spread about, it behoves the Government, to allay the very natural apprehensions entertained, to give an early and explicit outline of its proposals, and in this connection the projected visit of the Right Hon. J. Chamberlain to the Colonies is of the best augury. From his place in Parliament that statesman has already disclaimed, on several occasions, proposals anent the immediate imposition of heavy taxes attributed to the Imperial Government, and the probabilities are that those recently published in London are as baseless as they are vague.
The dependence, to a large extent, of the development of the mining industry on the fostering and assistance, or otherwise, accorded by the existing Government is a point too painfully brought home to the Rand mining industry by past experience to need demonstration; wherefore the sound common-sense statesmanship of those now responsible for the prosperity of the Empire is a valuable guarantee that the various problems now absorbing the attention of the industry will be treated in a fair, just, and liberal manner.
The Rand mining industry, at the moment, is undoubtedly in the throes of one of those periodic waves of depression incident to all great gold-mining fields, though to the Rand in a less degree than to the others, on account of the certain results which may be reckoned upon from the stable nature of its geological formation. Capital required for its development is in many cases being withheld, investors looking askance at its demands with obvious misgivings. This attitude is undoubtedly due to impatience, and disappointment that progress has not been more rapid since peace has been declared.
The Infancy of a Gold-Mine: Winding Quartz with a Whim
Apparently it was assumed that only a cessation of hostilities was needed for the mines to hurry up and resume their old-time rate of production and prosperity. Such an assumption ignores the real difficulties of reconstituting a country and its industries, devastated and disorganised for three years by war, and setting up an entirely new order of things. As a matter of fact, the progress actually achieved has been marvellous, and as much, or even more, than could have been expected in like cases. It has apparently been forgotten that civil government has only within a few weeks replaced the military in the main administrative channels. The railway network of the sub-continent has only been thrown open to the free transport of merchants’ goods within the past month, and the limitation of transit to the Rand, and the interior generally, is a most serious matter, by reason of the fact that the trunk railways from the coast are only single lines. For the clearance at the ports of the accumulations of mining machinery, mining stores, building materials, foodstuffs, and general merchandise, months are required, and this clearance must take place ere the railway traffic can fall back into its normal grooves. Abundance of labour, too—always a crucial question with mining operations, whether they be on the Rand, in Rhodesia, or elsewhere in the sub-continent—is, for a variety of causes, not yet available, although measures have been taken by the Government and the mining industry, acting in concert, which have placed this subject on a more satisfactory footing than it ever enjoyed. Other advances have been made in the improvement of the status of the industry, such, for instance, as the reduction of the customs duties, which enormously improve the industry’s chances of future remunerative working. Some desiderata are certainly unfulfilled, such as reduced railway rates; but the instalment of reforms made affords a fair basis on which working can be resumed with admirable chances of remuneration and profit. This being so, the unreasonableness of the show of impatience that progress has not been more rapid, and the undeservedness of the distrust with which the industry is professed to be regarded in some quarters, are obvious. A sober view of the situation of the Transvaal at the present moment must undoubtedly force the confession that the amount of solid work done in solving the many problems simultaneously surging up for solution in a new colony besides mining,—repatriation, resettlement, &c.—and in rebuilding generally the body politic, is of substantial volume, and that the progress hitherto made, in removing the difficulties which beset the mining industry, are sufficient augury that whatever remains unalleviated will receive its due and satisfactory attention in the near future.
In an old (1876) edition of “Chambers’s Encyclopædia,” under the heading of “Africa—Productions,” is the statement that “It would be hazardous to assert that Africa is deficient in mineral wealth, though, judging from our present imperfect knowledge, it does not seem to be extremely rich.” Little did the compilers of this well-known work think that, in the space of less than twenty-five years, a town of about 150,000 inhabitants would spring up as the centre of a mining country which now takes rank as the first gold-producer in the world. The gold production of the Rand to date is indeed stated to equal one-ninth of the coined gold in circulation throughout the world, while its potential reserves are probably fourfold this amount. In 1887 the United States occupied first rank among gold-producing countries, Australia being second, and Russia third, the total gold production of the world being only £18,000,000. In 1898, South Africa occupied the premier position with 28 per cent. of the aggregate world’s production, and her contribution, moreover, represented only 3½ millions less than the world’s aggregate in the first-named year. In 1899, owing to the war, it just managed to fall short of the headship. Since its start, the Rand gold-fields have produced gold to the handsome aggregate amount of £81,000,000 sterling. On the fortunes of South Africa, the influence exerted by this stupendous accretion to its wealth is past question, for the output of £20,000,000 of gold in 1898 formed 80 per cent. of the subcontinent’s aggregate exports in that year, while 68 per cent. of it was disbursed in labour, foodstuffs, mining stores, and material in the course of its winning. It is only needful to glance back at the modest proportions of South Africa’s trade movement before the discovery, first of diamonds and then of gold, to recognise how much it owes to its mineral wealth, and more particularly to that of gold, for its present-day prosperity. Its populations, its cities and ports, its railway network, its multifarious industries from agriculture upwards, and its merchant firms and commercial activity have each and all been stimulated and enlarged enormously by it. As in the case of Australia and other older gold-producing countries, the output of gold, primarily from the Witwatersrand fields, has acted like a perennial stream, fructifying and rendering teemful the arid wastes, and making the very wilderness to blossom as the rose.
The gold-bearing quartz-pebble conglomerate beds, called by the Boers “banket”—the discovery of gold in the outcrops of which in 1883 started the Witwatersrand mining industry—form a series of strata going down at an angle of about 30 degrees to hitherto unknown depths—over 8000 feet have already been plumbed—and extending over a tested lateral distance of more than 50 miles.