er words, it
is safe to assume that henceforth German South-West Africa will be a
permanent part of the Union.

The Colony's chief asset is comprised in the so-called German South-West
African Diamond Fields, which, with the Congo Diamond Fields, provide a
considerable portion of the small stones now on the market. These two
fields are alike in that they are alluvial which means that the diamonds
are easily gathered by a washing process. No shafts are sunk. It is
precisely like gold washing.

The German South-West mines have an American interest. In the
reorganization following the conquest of German South-West Africa by the
South African Army under General Botha the control had to become
Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-American Corporation which has extensive
interests in South Africa and which is financed by London and New York
capitalists, the latter including J. P. Morgan, Charles H. Sabin and W.
B. Thompson, acquired these fields. It is an interesting commentary on
post-war business readjustment to discover that there is still a German
interest in these mines. It makes one wonder if the German will ever be
eradicated from his world-wide contact with every point of commercial
activity.

It is not surprising, therefore, that South Africa, in the light of all
the facts that I have enumerated, should be prosperous. Take the money,
always a test of national economic health. At Capetown I used the first
golden sovereign that I had seen since early in 1914. This was not only
because the Union happens to be a great gold-producing country but
because she has an excess of exports over imports. Her money, despite
its intimate relation with that of Great Britain, which has so sadly
depreciated, is at a premium.

I got expensive evidence of this when I went to the bank at Capetown to
get some cash. I had a letter of credit in terms of English pounds. To
my surprise, I only got seventeen shillings and sixpence in African
money for every English pound, which is nominally worth twenty
shillings. Six months after I left, this penalty had increased to three
shillings. To such an extent has the proud English pound sterling
declined and in a British dominion too!

South Africa has put an embargo on the export of sovereigns. One reason
was that during the first three years of the war a steady stream of
these golden coins went surreptitiously to East India, where an
unusually high premium for gold rules, especially in the bazaars. The
gol