STARTS 'GOLD' RUSH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 55, 20 May 1942, Page 6

STARTS 'GOLD' RUSH

CHEMICAL WO3 BOOM TOWNS IjN" PORTUGAL Boom towns with saloons and dancing halls, reminiscent of America's goltl-rush days, are springing up in Portugal. But gold; is not the attraction. It is - walfram—chemical Wo3—a mineral from which is obtained tungsten, used in making" high-speed stoel, electric filaments, munitions. Before the war Avalfram. Avas £150 a ton. New it fetches £5000 a ton. and a round 50-cigarette tin of this coal-black mineral—a daA~'s Avork—■ will keep a poor Portuguese man. his wife, mother-in-laAv, and four children comfortable for a Aveek. Quantities of this Adtal Avar material are being smuggled out of Portugal despite police A'igilance. Workers are leaving agriculture and industry to prospect for Avalfram. £14 a Week Men Avho never earned more than 14s a Aveek before iioav find it eas3 r , to earn £14 a Aveek. Some of the lucky ones have bank balances running into thousands of pounds. And these once-poor villagers do not know Avhat to do Avitli their wealth. Ihe saloons and dance halls take some of it.. An old man Avho came to the toAvn from the lulls for the iirst time for years bought himself a frizzy permanent AvaA*e at n women's hairdressing establishment because he did not know how else to spend the money bulging his pockets. Another man told a taxi-driver. "I Avant a£2 ride." He Avas, asked, "Where to?" "That doesn't matter," he replied, "I Avant a £2 ride." A brewery company Avhieh normally does an infinitesimal trade in one of the boom centrcs near Oporto— beer being luxury-priced compared with red Avine—has done £90,000 worth of business in the past five months.