SOUTH AFRICAN TROUBLES

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24899, 12 June 1946, Page 9

SOUTH AFRICAN TROUBLES

The gold-mining industry in South Africa seems to be reasonably free of worries, according to the recent news from that part of the Empire; but farming there apparently cannot claim the same happy state. A Canterbury farmer recently received a somewhat gloomy picture of things in the Union from a correspondent there. “We have had a two years’ drought, and it was terrible,” the correspondent writes. “Even this year we got only late rains, but they have helped the farmers a great deal, and in several parts they are expecting good crops. In the meantime, the country has run out of grain of all sorts, and consequently they have to import from the Argentine. Bread, or rather meal, is strictly rationed, and no cakes or confectionary of any sort are to be got. We are rationed in many other commodities; but we still have enough to eat, thank God. It is the poor natives in the reserves I am sorry for. Lots of them ate starving. There is a disease among the cattle here all through the country called lumpy sickness. The cattle get lumps under the skin which turn to sores. Some of the cattle recover, but the worst is that they get it again.”