50 YEARS AGO (August 02, 1991)

PAYMASTER MAKING

STEADY ADVANCE

Paymaster Consolidated has closed another fiscal year with a record output of bullion and unimpaired ore reserves. Visiting the property, in South Porcupine, Ont. this week, The Northern Miner found that tonnage of ore reserves remains virtually unchanged from the 708,943 tons averaging 0.228 oz. gold reported in June, 1940. Profits, however, are not likely to show much of an increase either, owing to higher taxes and the fact that the company has been involved in a heavy development program.

CIMM RESPONDS

TO WAR DEMANDS

Coming as it does in the midst of a war in which Canada and the Empire are fighting for their very lives, the recent annual meeting of the Canadian Institute of Mining & Metallurgy, held in Montreal, was one of the most significant in its history. The Canadian mining industry is straining every nerve and muscle to keep the stream of metals pouring into the crucible of war. The Dominion is supplying vital metals to her own industries and, more importantly, to British industries. These include the nickel, copper, lead and zinc which are vitally essential to the conduct of modern war. Canada is supplying not only raw materials but finished products which, like motor vehicles, require vast quantities of metals.

IS HANSARD

AIDING THE ENEMY?

The Northern Miner is alarmed to learn that much information regarding Canada’s industrial production — information that should remain secret in wartime — is being broadspread through the world in Hansard (five cents, King’s Printer, Ottawa). A recent issue contains all the information any enemy agent would wish to know about the war effort of Canada on the industrial side. The names of factories making tanks, shells, trucks, machine guns and all the hundred and one other things used in the war are published, along with addresses. Why a map was not included for the greater convenience of the enemy, we cannot understand.

At the same time, it is forbidden Canadians to publish any information on raw products such as base metals, although everybody knows the producing mines and the kind and quantity of the metals they produce. Strange.

CANADA CALLS

Canada has reason to count her blessings in these days of trial. Canada is 3,000 miles away from the sound of the guns that are now devastating Europe. The broad Atlantic Ocean rolls between us and the ruthless savagery of the German armies. The strongest fleets in the world — British, American and Canadian — patrol the sea between us and the enemy. We have a great nation, the most powerful in the world, at our side. This war is a mechanized war. We have the nickel, copper, lead, zinc and other metals the war industries need. We have access to the iron. We can make the steel. We have the organized industries to fabricate these metals and make the trucks, the tanks, the guns, and planes, and the ships. We have skilled workers and the plants for mass production. Canada has the wheat and the food supplies. Let us count our blessings and tighten our belts. Let us lend our strength to the utmost of our power. Our national future depends upon Victory. We must live to win. This is the most critical hour in our history. Let the future historians say of Canada as they will say of our Mother Country: “This was their finest hour.”