Capetown, Mar. 1.
The apparently unimportant item of "2,500 for District Development" caused a first-class debate today in the House of Assembly, in the course of which interesting details were given of the romantic discovery of a fabulously rich alluvial deposit of diamonds Alexander Bay, at the mouth of the Orange River, which was first disclosed last December. Sir David Harris described the new El Dorado as the richest diamond-field ever discovered.
Questions e information that diamonds are lying on the surface and only need picking up. The Government owns 100 claims} from which experts have extracted £160,- 000 worth of diamonds in a few weeks of hand-picking. The Government propose that sixty Namagualand diggers should work in the fields on behalf of the State.
The Minister of Mines and Industries, Mr. Beyers, emphasized that the Government would contro: the output, The Opposition, led by General Smuts, deprecated the principle of State diggings.
Mr. Beyers stated that, in adi tion to the Government's 100 claims in Alexander Bay, the whole ad-joisting area, containing approxi mately 30,000 claims, was very rich The Government, he continued, intended to declare the whole State diggings." If they acted otherwise it would mean. forcing large quantities of diamonds on the market, which was most undesirable.
Replying to fears expressed by the Opposition that the overseas press would be filled with blazing headlines conveying the impression that South Africa was paved with diamonds, Mr. Beyers said that he did not mean that, one could find thousands of pounds worth simply by picking them dp. If any such idea had arisen from the debate, the wished to correct it-—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.