THE CHINA MAIL, FEBRUARY 12, 1938.
OIL QUEST IN ETHIOPIA: FIRST YEAR'S
DISAPPOINTING RESULTS
Professor Angelo Bianchi, an lbs. a month, it is claimed. Italian mining expert, has gone to It is pointed out, however, that Abyssinia with a mission from the the country is being developed ac A. G. I. P., the Italian General Pe-cording to a six-year plan, which troleum Board, to speed up the has now only run for one year, So search for oil in Italy's new African far much of the work has consisted Empire.
of the inevitable preliminary task of surveying and mapping the land.
Intensive searches for oil and me- tals in Abyssinia since the conquest. of the country in the spring of 1936 have so far yielded nothing...
BURDEN ON TREASURY
It is realised that vast amount of capital will be required to develop Despite hopes held out to Italians the country and it will be years be- that Abyssinia would prove to be a fore "Italian East Africa” ceases land flowing with milk and honey to be a burden on the Italian all that has been found has been 2 Treasury.
seam of lignite (brown coal) near Meanwhile emphasis is laid on the Addis Ababa.
agricultural importance of the coun- Early this year four State-con-try. Plans are being worked out for trolled companies sent out missions the extensive cultivation of cotton, for prospect for the legendary wheat, coffee and timber. There is buried treasures of Ethiopia. They talk, too, of growing rubber, hoped to find coal, iron, copper, lead, platinum, oil and gold.
The livestock industry, principal în source, of the country's wealth One of the companies was the the past, is to be expanded. Alco- £2,000,000 Societa Anonima hol-fuel is to be extracted from Minerania A. O. I., whose mission bananas and palm-nuts. Italian pea- was headed by the German mining sants were to have been settled on expert, Professor Leo von Und Zur the soil, from the beginning of last Muehlen, of the Geological institute autumn, but their dispatch from of the higher technical school of Italy has been delayed. Berlin.
Lake Tana, the source of the Blue German participation in this com- Nile, has been charted and Me- pany was agreed upon when Count, teorological conditions have been Ciano, Italian Foreign Minister, vi- studied. sited Herr Hitler at Berchtesgaden in November 1936 to set the seal to the Rome-Berlin axis. The Berlin firm of Bernhard Berghaus put up. 49 per cent. of the capital, and is to take 25 per cent. of the eventual finds.
BRITISH CAPITAL
Spies Watch
Bodyguard
One of the other companies, the Frasso group, is financed in part by
Warsaw, Jan. 26. British and French capital. It is Thirty-Seven young officers of the concentrating on Platinum, of "Proletarian Division" of the Mos- which one mine was already working cow garrison were arrested yester- before the Italian conquest.
day by Ogpu secret police and ac-
The search for oil in the districts [cused of conspiring against the life of Diredawa and Harrar are stated of Stalin.
to be "promising." There are also The Ogpu claim that the officers stated to be "hopeful possibilities" plotted to murder Stalin when they of copper, iron and lead in Amhara served as the dictator's bodyguard and Kaffa, of petroleum in the in the Kremlin. Two weeks ago Danakil country, and of mercury in they aroused suspicion by talking Harrar. There are "possibilities" together too often.
Spies were set to watch them. One of these agents gained their confidence and actually
of petroleum at Lugh and Dolo, in the old colony of Italian Somaliland, and gold production in the colony of Eritrea has been expanded to 200 member of the "ringleaders' circle.”
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