Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/327

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GOETHALS—GOLD
293

be commander-in-chief information of her whereabouts. All hat day he was searching for her in the Aegean. At 5 P.M. the " Goeben " was off Cape Helles, and at 16 minutes past 5 entered the Dardanelles, starting a train of events which exer- cised a momentous influence on the war. Adml. Milne received the news at noon on Aug. 1 1 and was ordered to watch the exit. At the beginning of the chapter of accidents lay the unhappy telegram ordering him to protect French transports which did not need protection. (A. C. D.)

GOETHALS, GEORGE WASHINGTON (1858- ), American army engineer, was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., June 29 1858. He entered the College of the City of New York in 1876, but at the end of three years went to West Point, where he graduated in 1880, receiving a commission as second lieutenant of engineers. In 1882 he became first lieutenant and was stationed at Cin- cinnati, where he was engaged in improving the channel of the Ohio river. Later he taught engineering at West Point for several years, but returned to Cincinnati in 1889. Afterwards he was in charge of the construction of the Muscle Shoals Canal on the Tennessee river and of another canal near Chattanooga, Tenn. In 1891 he was made captain. On the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898 he was commissioned lieutenant- colonel of volunteers and appointed chief engineer of the First Army Corps. In 1900 he was commissioned major in the regular army and three years later was engaged in planning fortifica- tions in the neighbourhood of Newport, R.I. He was then made a member of the General Staff in Washington, and in 1905 graduated from the Army War College. In 1907 he was ap- pointed by President Roosevelt a member of the Isthmian Canal Commission, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and soon afterwards was made its chairman and chief engineer. Two years later he was promoted colonel. His arrival in Panama marked a new era in the construction of the canal. Hitherto the work had been in charge of high-salaried civilian engineers who dwelt at a distance. The work, as reorganized, was directed by army engineers subject to the control of the President of the United States. Several changes of plan, such as widening the canal, were now inaugurated. Col. Goethals favoured the lock form of canal, chosen by Congress in 1906, instead of the sea- level type. There was considerable opposition to his view but a special commission after inspection gave him support. He took up his abode on the spot, came into close contact with the labourers, won their admiration and confidence, and after seven years' labour brought his task to a successful issue. On May 15 1914 the canal was officially opened to barges, and on Aug. 15 following was declared open to world commerce. Col. Goethals was appointed the first civil governor of the Canal Zone by President Wilson in 1914 and the following year was made major-general. He favoured complete sovereignty of the United States over the Canal Zone. He resigned the governor- ship in 1916 and was appointed chairman of the board con- stituted to report on the Adamson Eight-Hour law. In 1917 he was appointed state engineer of New Jersey, but after America's entrance into the World War he was released to serve as manager of the Emergency Fleet Corporation. He had little faith in the plan for a wooden fleet and after three months resigned. Toward the close of 1917 he was appointed acting quartermaster-general, U.S. Army, and his " especially meri- torious and conspicuous service " brought him the D.S.M. the following year. In 1918 he was appointed chief of the division of purchase, storage and traffic, and he was also a member of the War Industries Board. At his request he was relieved from active service in March 1919. He subsequently became the head of a business organization engaged in engineer- ing and construction work.

GOKHALE, GOPAL KRISHNA (1866-1915), Indian con- stitutional leader, was born at Kolhapur in 1866 of a humble Chitpavan Brahman family. Graduating in arts at the Elphin- stone College, Bombay, in 1884, he joined as professor of history and political economy the group of teachers at the Fergusson College, Poona, pledged to serve for 20 years on a merely nominal salary. He remained on the staff, finally as principal, until 1902. Becoming actively identified with the National Congress movement, he was for -some years the joint secretary and in 1905 president at the Benares session. After two years on the Bombay Legislature, he was elected in 1902 to represent the non-official members thereof in the Viceregal Legislature. His persuasive eloquence, close reasoning, accurate knowledge of the subjects discussed, and instincts of statesmanship won him the Indian leadership, and Lord Curzon recognized his earnest patriotism by nominating him for the C.I.E. (1904). A few months before his death he declined promotion to knighthood of the order. Consulting him freely in reference to his projected constitutional reforms, Lord Morley wrote of him to the Viceroy as appreciating executive responsibil- ity and having an eye for the tactics of common sense (Recol- lections, vol. ii., p. 181). He was fiercely assailed by the ex- tremist section, which never succeeded in his lifetime in captur- ing the Congress machinery. In 1905 he founded his Servants of India Society, whose members take vows of poverty and lifelong service of their country in a religious spirit. Under the leadership of his successor, Mr. Srinivasa Sastri, the society is exerting a powerful influence in social and economic amelioration. In the enlarged Viceregal Legislature elected in 1910 Gokhale promoted measures for compulsory education on a basis of local option, but did not survive to see this principle introduced from 1918 onwards in most of the provinces. Though his last years were clouded by illness, he was a powerful member of the Indian Public Services Commission 1912-5. His death at Poona Feb. 19 1915 was a severe blow to the constitutional party at a critical moment in India's political history. His last political testament, entrusted on his deathbed to the Aga Khan, was published in Aug. 1917 and outlined plans of reform based on the principle of provincial autonomy, so substantially recognized in the Government of India Act 1919.

Gokhale's speeches down to 1908 were published in Madras and there are many small memoirs, but no authoritative life has been written. (F. H. BR.)

GOLD (see 12.192). The world's production of gold increasdd rapidly as a result of the Californian and Australian discoveries of 1848 and 1851 from the 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 per annum of 1845-7 to 30,700,000 in 1853, and as these fields showed the decline natural to alluvial gold, the total dropped until it reached 19,600,000 in 1883. From then, and largely as a result of the discovery of the Witwatersrand district of the Transvaal, the output advanced almost annually (except for the Boer War period, 1899-1902) to 96,400,000 in 1915. Sub- sequently there was a marked decline.

TABLE I. Gold Production 1909-20 (in fine oz.). (Estimates of the Bureau of the U.S. Mint.)

Year

Africa

Austral- asia

Canada

India

United States

World

1909

8,271,575

3,435,007

453,865

501,097

4,821,701

21,965,111

1910

8,474,809

3,167,140

493,707

518,502

4,657,017

22,022,180

1911

9,265,672

2,911,410

472,241

534,744

4,687,053

22,348,313

1912

10,248,276

2,636,894

611,885

534,822

4,520,719

22,549,335

1913

10,024,816

2,569,3"

802,973

589,109

4,299,784

22,249,596

1914

9,771,597

2,301,162

773,178

550,432

4,572,976

21,240,416

1915

10,538,588

2,369,800

918,056

557,399

4,887,604

22,674,568

1916

10,785,153

1,958,017

930.495

542,H5

4,479,051

21,970,788

1917

10,366,972

1,664,011

738,831

523,069

4,051,440

20,289,546

1918

9.532,243

1,490,554

699,681

485,236

3,320,784

18,556,520

1919

9,374,140

1,263,177

767,167

507,260

2,918,628

17,664,910

From Table I it will be seen that Africa and Canada reached their highest in 1916, the United States in 1915, and India in 1913, while Australasia steadily declined during the entire period.

In the period 1848-75 nine-tenths of the output was won from alluvial and one-tenth from quartz reefs or lodes, but by the end of that period the proportion had already changed to two-thirds and one-third. Taking the 1919 output of 75,000,000, about 10,000,000, or 13 %, was obtained from alluvial ; about 30,000,000, or 40 %, from lodes; and about 35,000,000, or 47 %, from the quartz conglomerate called " banket," found as a gold producer almost exclusively in the Witwatersrand district. In totals per annum the production from alluvial is about one-third of what it was at its best, and the production from lodes about two-thirds, while the banket' output is still only one-eighth below its highest.