INTRODUCTION
37
tion
that has grown from 10,000 to over 91,000 within a period of ten years.
It is not the only town on the gold-field, but it is the centre and it
is the most important, because it now no longer depends on gold alone,
but on a whole range of industrial and commercial activities.
By
1955, the development of the Orange Free State field as a whole had
involved the provision of some -£200,000,000. For the seven mines33
of the Anglo American Corporation Group alone over £63 million had been
found by 1954 and Anglo American Corporation also provided part of the
funds for mines under the control of other groups. Of this amount, over
.£18 rnillion had been put up by De Beers Investment Trust (out of a
total investment outside the diamond industry of over £28 million).
London and the Continent had also contributed heavily. In sum, 40 per
cent or more of the total investment was furnished by the Anglo
American Corporation Group alone, and nearly 10 per cent of this amount
came from the profits of the diamond industry. An enormous amount of
detailed work, on the organizational, engineering and financial sides,
lay behind these statistical magnitudes. Without Ernest Oppenheimer it
is doubtful whether the diamond industry's contribution would have been
possible at all, and the prestige of his name must have powerfully
contributed to the willingness of London and the Continent to put up
the very large sums actually forthcoming.
A
single sentence can sum up the contribution of the Far West Rand,
Klerksdorp and the Orange Free State fields to South African mining. In
1959 these three fields furnished 60 per cent of the total output of
the gold which contributed 79 per cent of the working profit from gold.
Out of the dividends34 paid, 75 per cent came from
companies in these areas. The Free State alone, percentagewise,
contributed 28 per cent of the total output of gold, 37 per cent of the
working profit and 36 per cent of the dividends paid from gold. In
1930, which may be said to be the year in which the developments
outlined above began, gold output was 10,716,000 fine ounces: in 1959
it was almost double that amount, some 20 million ounces, with a value
of £250 million. The wider economic and social consequences were, of
course, very great, though they are not capable of summary statement in
statistical form.
33 In addition to the five mines at Welkom, the Anglo American Corporation Group opened up the Loraine and the Jeannette Mines at Allanridge.
34 Profits were, of course, made from uranium as well as gold.
