escaped the scar and ravage of battle. All
the fighting in Africa, so far as the Union was concerned, was in German
South-West Africa and German East Africa. After my years in
tempest-tossed Europe it was a pleasant change to catch the buoyant,
confident, unwearied spirit of South Africa.

I have dwelt upon coal because it happens to be a significant economic
asset. Coal is merely a phase of the South African resources. In 1919
the Union produced L35,000,000 in gold and L7,200,000 in
diamonds. The total mining production was, roughly, L50,000,000.
This mining treasure is surpassed by the agricultural output, of which
nearly one-third is exported. Land is the real measure of permanent
wealth. The hoard of gold and diamonds in time becomes exhausted but the
soil and its fruits go on forever.

The moment you touch South African agriculture you reach a real romance.
Nowhere, not even in the winning of the American West by the Mormons, do
you get a more dramatic spectacle of the triumph of the pioneer over
combative conditions. The Mormons made the Utah desert bloom, and the
Boers and their British colleagues wrested riches from the bare veldt.
The Mormons fought Indians and wrestled with drought, while the Dutch in
Africa and their English comrades battled with Kaffirs, Hottentots and
Zulus and endured a no less grilling exposure to sun.

The crops are diversified. One of the staples of South Africa, for
example, is the mealie, which is nothing more or less than our own
American corn, but not quite so good. It provides the principal food of
the natives and is eaten extensively by the European as well. On a dish
of mealie porridge the Kaffir can keep the human machine going for
twenty-four hours. Its prototype in the Congo is manice flour. In the
Union nearly five million acres are under maize cultivation, which is
exactly double the area in 1911. The value of the maize crop last year
was approximately a million six hundred thousand pounds. Similar
expansion has been the order in tobacco, wheat, fruit, sugar and half a
dozen other products.

South Africa is a huge cattle country. The Boers have always excelled in
the care of live stock and it is particularly due to their efforts that
the Union today has more than seven million head of cattle, which
represents another hundred per cent increase in less than ten years.

This matter of live stock leads me to one of the really picturesque
industries of the Union which is th