was 310 million.9 The 1927 report slightly modified these figures, but the general impression remained the same.9 In the earlier of these two reports, Sir Robert Kotze summed up as follows (paragraphs 53 and 54) :10
The
above figures show that, unless new mines are opened up, there will be
a progressive shrinkage of gold production on the Witwatersrand. What
such a shrinkage means is perhaps best realized by a reference to one
of the results of the 1922 strike. This entailed a decrease in the
output of gold for the year to the extent of 11 million pounds, most of
which would have been distributed in South Africa in the form of wages
and stores and have circulated in ever widening circles far beyond the
mining community directly engaged in the winning of the gold. The
excision of these 11 million from our production was the main cause of
the severe depression which was felt in South Africa for at least a
couple of years thereafter. A curtailment of gold output owing to the
exhaustion of old mines without new ones taking their place will have
the same effect. The depression will approach and come into being more
slowly, but it will not be the less certain. If in ten or fifteen years
the present gold output is curtailed by a half, that means a reduction
of nearly 20 millions of pounds per annum. Even though we have other
and expanding sources of wrealth, such a substantial reduction in the gold output must have serious effects.
Prudence
therefore demands that efforts should be made to encourage the opening
up of new mines, or, what is equivalent to it, the enlargement of
existing companies by the acquisition of adjoining ground so that they
can prolong their lives or carry on their operations on a larger scale.
This latter policy has already been adopted to some extent. . . . The
policy should be extended. Areas that are large enough for separate
mines, but are not so promising as to justify the sinking of deep level
shafts to prove payability, can with advantage be explored by extending
the drives and tunnels of adjacent mines into them. In some instances
also the exploitation of such ground by an adjoining company is the
best way of dealing with it, since the capital expenditure for the
reduction works and other plant of a separate mine may not be justified.
♦ III ♦
For
the first one and a half decades of its existence, the gold-mining
interests of the Anglo American Corporation were concentrated on the
Far East Rand. Thereafter, a new period began—one of vigorous expansion
of interests both on the Far East Rand and into new regions
3 Vide 12 Official Year Book of the Union of South Africa (1929-30), p. 477. 10 Report on the Far East Rand, U.G. 49 of 1925.
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