EXPLOITING WEALTH OF S.W. AFRICA

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 156, 22 September 1927, Page 10

EXPLOITING WEALTH OF S.W. AFRICA

WHARF AT WALVIS BAY (From Our Own Coi~respon<Zent) CAPETOWN, August 19. The opening of a wharf for oceangoing ships at Walvis Bay, in the South-West African Protectorate, formerly German South-West Africa, by the Governor-General of the Union, the Earl of Athlone, has focussed attention on a territory which has long been regarded merely as a sandy desert but is now believed to have a great future as a ranching and mining country. Walvis Bay is the safest natural harbour in South Africa. The new

wharf was begun three years ago and can accommodate three liners, being 1,500 ft. long, with a channel of two and a-quarter miles in length, and has cost £470,000.

A big export trade in frozen beef is being built up in the South-West. Ranching is regarded as the most suitable form of farming. Last year 48,000 cattle, 174,000 sheep and 860 tons of butter-fat were exported. It is, however, mining that is likely to he the most rapidly expanding industry, for the mineral potentialities seem unlimited. The revenue of the country, £700,000, is almost entirely derived from taxation of the diamond mines which have yielded £18,000,000 worth of stones since 1907. The country is wonderfully rich, too, in base metals, the .Tsumeb copper mines alone paying £200,000 a year toward running the railways. Yet prospecting has only touched the fringe of the mineral possibilities of the country.