584
SIR ERNEST OPPENHEIMER
the
'middle' period of the history of the Potchefstroom-Klerksdorp
gold-field, it was not until May 1957 that the company was informed
that the Minister of Mines had agreed to grant a mining lease, the
drilling programme over the areas concerned having been concluded as
early as July 1950. The lease had been applied for in December 1956;
the date of application had been postponed from time to time in
consultation with the other parties to an agreement which came to be
known as the 'West Driefontein Agreement', the co-signatories being
West Witwatersrand Areas Limited and the West Driefontein Gold Mining
Company. This was in 1946; during the same year a second
agreement—between Anglo American Corporation, West Witwatersrand
Areas, Blyvooruitzicht Gold Mining Company, and Central Mining and
Investment Company—had given Western Ultra Deep Levels certain
participating rights in any company to be floated off by Central Mining
and Investment Company. The lease having been obtained, it was ceded to
Western Deep Levels Limited, incorporated on 6 August 1957. In
connexion with the flotation agreement, Anglo American Corporation, 'in
association with certain other companies, formed a loan syndicate which
granted the company loan facilities of -£5,000,000 to finance the
company's mine in the initial stages. No interest is payable on moneys
borrowed against these facilities for the period ending 26 September
1964. . . .'104
The
pattern of financing adopted in the case of Western Deep Levels was
not, of course, unique. New Consolidated Gold Fields, through its
subsidiary, West Witwatersrand Areas Limited, took the lead in the
Potchefstroom area, and Anglo American Corporation, in founding Western
Reefs, assumed leadership in the Klerksdorp area, and financial
inter-relationships in these areas between the two mining houses
concerned have always been close. There were to be further financial
interrelationships when other mining houses began to play a role in
opening up further mines in the Klerksdorp area, especially in the
development of what became known as the 'Lucas Block'. 'It has always
been the policy of your company', said Ernest Oppenheimer to the
shareholders of West Rand Investment Trust, in his statement for 1951,
'to participate in the development of potential mining propositions on
the Far West Rand and in pursuance of this policy it has acquired a
large interest in the area known as the Lucas Block, situate south of
the Stilfontein Gold Mining Company Limited.'105
104 From the prospectus of Western Deep Levels.
105 He
reverted to the subject again next year: 'We have maintained our large
shareholdings in the producing gold-mines in the Far West
Witwatersrand and Klerksdorp
