An Observer in the Near East

by William Le Queux

The State, in order to encourage industry, favours the importation of all machinery and material for use in mines, as well as the exportation of the ore obtained, and gives many other advantages to the concessionaire.

Of late, Belgrade has been overrun with foreign concession-hunters, most of them of the adventurer type. I met several of them in Belgrade. In my conversation with the Ministers I quickly learnt that the Government, fully alive to the great mineral resources of their country, and confident in the great wealth that must in a few years accrue, will have absolutely nothing to do with any person who comes to them without introduction.

In Belgrade, I repeat, the doors are closed to the irresponsible concession-hunter, but at once open to anyone who on being introduced can show his bona fides and that he has capital behind him.

In the course of my inquiries into the mineral wealth I had a number of conversations with Mr. J. R. Finney, Ass. I. M. & M., an English mining engineer who has spent seventeen years in prospecting and working mines in Servia.

No one knows more about mines and traces of minerals in the country than he.

He pointed out to me that the mineral deposits of Servia have been worked to a very great extent from very early times, as the remains of Roman and Venetian works prove and the enormous slag-heaps found in various parts of the country. He himself has on many occasions found, while prospecting, rude ancient implements, bones, etc. Of the ancient Roman workings, copper, galena, and silver were obtained at Kopaonik; at Rudnik, lead, silver, and zinc were mined; at Kucajna, gold, silver, zinc, and coal, while alluvial gold is to be found all along the Pek River, and especially where it joins the Danube. This gold has, he said, evidently been worked down in course of time from a rich quartz reef which is known by certain persons, including himself, to exist.

At the Rebel copper mine, which Mr. Finney himself discovered, he found ancient workings that had been shored up with timber, but so long ago that the wood was petrified! Again, the wood was pine, which does not now exist in the forests. The latter are all beeches, and it is known that in course of long ages beeches kill the pines. At the mine in question is an extensive copper-smelting works, and a very large percentage of metal is obtained. All over this same district Mr. Finney has prospected, and declares that in the mountains of Medvednick and Povlen there are large deposits of lead, copper, silver, and antimony all awaiting exploitation.

Some very important copper mines and smelting works are at Maydan Pek, and have been worked at a good profit for years, while at Bor there has been erected a large smelting works, which are capable of producing ten tons of copper daily. Large deposits of antimony exist, to Mr. Finney’s knowledge, at Zajitchar and Krupanj.

“I quite admit,” said Mr. Finney, as we were chatting, “that some mines in Servia have not been successful. The bulk of them have been over-capitalised. Take, as an instance, one company with £300,000 capital, which left £20,000 for working. The consequence is that the sum at disposal has not been sufficient to develop the mine or to work sufficient to pay interest on £280,000.

“Again, in many cases men unacquainted with any foreign language, or with the customs of the country, have been sent out here to manage, and with instructions from a board in London utterly ignorant of the requirements of the case. As an instance of this, a certain company that I could name sent out to Servia six managers in three years. In such a case, with a manager dependent upon interpreters and ignorant of the people, the price of labour and materials rises from 200 to 300 per cent. I have known these prices to be paid. Again, there is some little reform needed in the mining laws, and the Government would be well advised if they compelled the communes to put the roads in better repair. Transport is at present somewhat difficult, and if the communes put the roads in order they would, in the long-run, greatly benefit by the opening up of the country. Such,” Mr. Finney added, “are some of the reasons why foreign mining undertakings in Servia have not been altogether successful in the past. But for the future there is great hope, and English capitalists will do well to regard Servia as a field where good profits may easily be made.”