SOUTH AFRICA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 3783, 28 January 1908, Page 4

SOUTH AFRICA.

A New Zealander who has lately | returned to Auckland from the Transvaal gives a doleful account of the state of affairs in that country. “The existing depression in South Africa is infinitely worse than even the newspapers report it, bad as that is,” he said when interviewed on this point. “At the present time in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg there are thousands of offices and houses tenantless ; business houses of long ■ standing and the highest repute are being liquidated weekly; but apart Irora this altogether the actual poverty is simply appalling, and everyone wno can possibly manage it is getting out of the country. The cause is due to the after-effects of the war, which caused an abnormal boom in values. The depreciation of South African stocks since then within the last two years has been eighty' millions,” As to the future of the country he is decidedly optimistic, thus: —“I think that in ten or fifteen years, notwithstanding that South Africa is smitten with all the plagues of Egypt and every disease that stock is heir to, her troubles will be at an end, and there will ensue an era of prosperity that will be hard to beat in any country. She has wouderlul resources, and tobacco, cotton, sugar, mealies, and rubber can be produced for export to every port of the world. Irrigation is going to be the main factor in assisting the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony in taking a foremost position amongst the agricultural and pastoral countries in the world.”