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| Title: | Mining, Engineers and Risk Management: British Overseas Investment, 1894-1914 |
| Authors: | Phimister, Ian Mouat, Jeremy |
| Year: | 2003 |
| Periodical: | South African Historical Journal |
| Issue: | 49 |
| Pages: | 1-26 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Ghana |
| Subjects: | foreign investments mining mining companies Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Development and Technology Economics and Trade international relations colonialism |
| External link: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02582470308671445 |
| Abstract: | In the two decades immediately preceding the outbreak of World War I, mining was a rapidly increasing part of British overseas investment. Mining, though, was a particularly risky form of investment. As arenas for the operation of professional speculation, mining markets had few equals. Moreover, the 'high risk business' of international mining was made riskier by the dealings of fraudulent promoters. When the mining market eventually did collapse, problems of risk management were all the more compelling for having been so long ignored. Now firms emerged which were 'less concerned with share speculation than with long-term exploitation of mineral deposits; production was now more important than promotion'. In this context, the present paper examines the activities of the mining companies of Bewick, Moreing and Company in Western Australia, and Tarbutt, Janson and Sons in West Africa, particularly the Gold Coast (now Ghana). It shows that, although these companies did bring a new degree of professionalism to their operations, it is equally clear that they were involved in some extremely dubious mining and marketing practices. More often than not, risk was reconfigured rather than reduced. Ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |
