GOLDEN SOUTH AFRICA.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 22 October 1901, Page 3

GOLDEN SOUTH AFRICA.

Trade and farming prospects after the War.

Colonel James G. Stowe, the United States Consul-General in Capetown, who has done so much to promote American trade there, is now in London on his way to America. He has had unequalled opportunities of seeing the commercial prospects of British South Africa.

“ The wealth of South Africa,” he declares, “ has so far hardly been scratched. Immediately after the war there will be a wave of prosperity. At present a great stretch of the country is empty. The people when they come back will have to bo started again, and they will want everything new. The trade will be at first largely a credit one, but there will be an unequalled demand for all kinds of things, from agricultural instruments to pins.

‘‘Gold mining in the Transvaal is certain to ho enormously developed. Not only will fresh mines be opened in ail directions, but old mines discarded formerly will be started again. There is, I believe, a great supply of copper in Rhodena. Major Burnham, the well-known scout, told me that ho had located large and rich seams ef coal.

“I believe, too, thai it will fce found that South Africa, is a good oil country. Every natural sign seems to ohow this. I have just sent a long despatch to my Government on this very point.

“But it is up-to-date agriculture that is most wanted in Sou ! h Africa. It is an exceedingly fertile country, but the Dutch farmers have cultivated it in very primitive fashion. The lack of water, of which so much is heard, could bo easily remedied. If the country were cultivated for a few years rain would come. Witness Western America, where our deserts have been made into fertile lands. But without waiting for that much could be done by irrigation. “ The Dutch farmers as a whole refuse to grow largo crops. They prefer small quantities and high prices. There is splendid grass on the vtldt, but they will not nuke it into bay. They a'low hay to bo imported from Argentina and else where, rather than do so. They will not cater for the towns as they might, “ Coming homo I heard several English officers talk of going back to South Africa to take up land there. Numbers of them may possibly do so, and if such men will only go in for cultivating cereals and fruits they should do well. For it is plough-farming that South Africa wants, American firms are pushing trade there. In a few years our imports have increased from £1,200,000 to £3,000,000. The shipping trade, however, still remains in English hands, and the talk of American lines being started has so far come to nothing.

“The danger I see is that in the great rush of business which w.llcoine after the war the apparent prosperity may go too far. It would be better for South Africa in the long run if .there were not too great a rush of trade at first for large credits and a great purchasing trade without much capital may after four or five years cruse a serious commercial collapse.”