unknown.

Manawatu Herald, 9 June 1900, Page 3

unknown.

An ex-rr mber of the InteW«wmee Branch, South Africa, fJw»^.bes ( Mid<HoVo*g, the new canitai of the Transvaal, a town on the High Veldt, about eighty miles due east of Pretoria. The town is the principal one in the district of the same name. This district is famous for the quality and quantity of coal it contains, as well as the quantity of iron ore and limestom within its boundaries. In the busy days on the Rand, when the mining industry was actively pushed ahead, great quantities of Middleburg coal were placed on the Johannesburg market. The coal is of the bituminous age, but almost the equal of anthracity for steaming and heating purple.*, and equal to the bes f . for black°tai.th and other workers in iron. Large quantities of white lime from Middleburg were also used on the Rand by the gold mining companies in extracting fine gold from tailings by the cyanide process. The iron in the district has never been touched, owing to the fact that the Transvaal Government discouraged investors by excessive taxation, and by roles that practically prohibited industry of any form, unless it were so profitable that in spite of hostile legislation there still remained a good surplus for the stockholders. It is safe to say that hundreds of mines will be worked in the Transvaal after the war is ever, and security of invefttnents are assured that would never have been worked as long as a Boer Government reigned supreme at Pretoria. With the increased industry in the gold mining centres will come a greater demand for coal, and lime, and the industrial activity of the country will give capitalists encouragement to start blastfurnaces for the production of iron out of the deposits of ore that lie so close to the ooal fields of Middleburg. We predict lor the Middleburg district a great future as the great manufacturing centre of South Africa. ; We consider the iron and coal deposits of the district will become as great a source of wealth as the production of gold has been on the Witwatersrand. The making of Middleburg capital of the Transvaal is only a makeshift, as the town is incapable of being made into a defensive position, as it is situated on the high, bleak, and open veldt, over which the cold winds of winter sweep until it penetrates to the marrow those exposed to its blasts, and as the winter is in full s,sway in that country just now the Boers will soon seek shelter in the mountain ridges to the north, to eftape pursuit by the British on the ope hand, and for protection from the winter on the other.