, as a whole, is therefore a difficult problem,
for it involves the question whether many pieces of reef, which are now
little worked or not worked at all, will in future be found worth
working, owing to cheapened appliances and to a larger yield of gold per
ton of rock, in which case the number of mines may be largely increased,
and reefs now neglected be opened up when the present ones have been
exhausted. The view of the most competent specialists seems to be that,
though many of what are now the best properties will probably be worked
out in twenty or thirty years, the district, as a whole, may not be
exhausted for at least fifty, and possibly even for seventy or eighty,
years to come. And the value of the gold to be extracted within those
fifty years has been roughly estimated at about L700,000,000, of which
at least L200,000,000 will be clear profit, the balance going to pay the
cost of extraction. In 1896 the value of the Witwatersrand gold output
was L7,864,341.[60] In 1898 it was L15,141,376; and in the first eight
months of 1899 L12,485,032. Assuming a production of L15,000,000 a year,
this would exhaust the field in about forty-six years; but it is, of
course, quite impossible to predict what the future rate of production
will be, for that must depend not only on the progress of mechanical and
chemical science, but (as we shall presently see) to some extent also
upon administrative and even political conditions. In the five years
preceding 1896 the production had increased so fast (at the rate of
about a million sterling per annum) that, even under the conditions
which existed in 1895, every one expected a further increase, and (as
already noted), the product of 1898 exceeded L15,000,000. With more
favourable economic and administrative conditions it will doubtless for
a time go still higher. The South African Republic now stands first
among the gold-producing countries, having passed the United States,
which stands a little behind her, Australasia being a good third, and
the Russian Empire a bad fourth. The total annual output of gold for the
whole world was in 1898 about L59,617,955.

Among the economic conditions I have referred to, none is more
important than the supply and the wages of labour. On the Rand, as in
all South African mines of every kind, unskilled manual labour is
performed by Kafirs, whites--together with a few half-breeds and Indian
coolies--being employed for all operations, whether within