"Biggest Boom"

Joyous Johannesburghers reveled last week in "the biggest boom since 1895." While South Africa's currency, recently detached from the gold standard (TIME, Jan. 9), slowly declined, South Africa's gold mining shares doubled & tripled on Johannesburg's big board, carried other common stocks up with them in a gaudy "inflation boom."

Rumors of the downfall of the Cabinet of General James Barry Munnik Hertzog, who wants to return to the gold standard as soon as possible, gave wild speculation another fillip. Both Judge Tielman Roos, who is trying to split the Hertzog Party, and Opposition Leader General Jan Christiaan Smuts, a personal friend of George V, were mentioned as the coming "Boom Premier."

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