50 years ago – December, 1940

DEMAND FULLY MET

Robert Stanley, president of International Nickel Co. of Canada, reports that all war and ordinary demands are being fully supplied. He adds that none of the company’s products is being sold outside the Empire without the sanction of the Canadian and British governments.

SECOND-GUESSING THE FUHRER

Hitler’s speech this week carried a hint of worry in it. He must be wondering what he’s going to do next spring to keep his troops occupied and his people pepped up. He can’t go north. He can’t go south, for events of recent weeks deny the Mediterranean to him. Going westward, he would take terrible chances on still further heavy losses in prestige and material. Eastward seems the only way open, and that direction is pointed to by the German military textbook, Mein Kampf. That way lies food and oil. He just may try it, and if his mechanized army bogs down before it reaches the Ukraine, he could bleat that Germany stood between the rest of the world and the Russians and we’d all better make peace before the awful Reds overrun Europe. What he’d like is a period of rest in order to rebuild his striking forces and oil supplies for an overwhelming blow at Great Britain.

HOW ESSENTIAL IS GOLD?

It is not yet clear just how mines will be affected by the new order of the labor minister at Ottawa providing for the release from the army of key men, as the term “key men” has not been defined. Men are to be given temporary army leave without allowances or pay during the winter months. Base metal mining was always considered in the essential category, and gold mining has lately been added.

COCKSHUTT MAY EXPAND MILL

The ore reserve potential stated in the MacLeod-Cockshutt annual report suggests a major mill capacity increase. The West zone, indicated by drilling in the past year and now being opened on the third level for formal development, has provided, on the drilling data, basis for an ore estimate of 2,500 tons per vertical foot. Added to the North and South zones, the figures make a total of 4,000 tons to the vertical foot.

DIAMOND INDUSTRY HIGHLY UNCERTAIN

The diamond cutting industry has been severly disorganized by the overthrow of Belgium and Holland and by the failure of trained personnel in Antwerp and Amsterdam to escape. The supply of diamonds to these Nazi-occupied stttes has been cut off and the organization and training of new men must result in a steady decline in the output of cut stones and possibly even of industrial material. Now, with the prospect that the U.S. may be drawn into war, further uncertainties portend for the diamond industry.

MALARTIC GOLD UPS PRODUCTION

By the end of the year or earlier, Malartic Gold Fields will have completed its expansion program, raising mill capacity to 600 tons per day and increasing gold production 50% from the present rate of slightly more than $1,000 monthly to something in excess of than $150,000 per month. Of that amount, close to half should represent operating profit.

HIGH-GRADERS GET 15 MONTHS

Three Timmins miners, who were found with capsules containing gold concealed in their bodies, have been convicted and sentenced to 15 months imprisonment for high-grading. They were arrested earlier in the year as they were coming off shift at the Preston East Dome mine. The gold was discovered by means of an X-ray examination of their entire bodies.