oday South Africa is attracting world wide attention to its vast potentialities for agricultural and industrial development. Vereeniging possesses unique advantages in both directions; therefore it has been thought opportune to issue this Brochure to the Shareholders of the Vereeniging Estates Limited, and others who may be interested, to bring to their notice the resources and activities of the Company and the various works being undertaken to develop its properties.
The recent industrial growth at Vereeniging is very marked, and the opinion that Vereeniging promises to become one of the most important industrial centres in South Africa is confirmed by the evidence given before the Select Committee on the Rand Mines Power Bill on the 13th February 1919, by the Government Mining Engineer, who said: "In my opinion the site at Vereeniging is, if not the finest, one of the finest in South Africa for industrial purposes, largely on account of the combination of water - if reasonable facilities are granted for the use of that water for industrial purposes - with coal and in further combination with a healthy climate on the highveld. The three form an admirable combination for the establishment of industries in the neighbourhood of Vereeniging."
To these advantages must be added cheap electric power generated at the Vereeniging Power Station.
Photographs are set out in this Brochure of several of the industrial works already established at Vereeniging, and also of some of the Agricultural operations on the 200 square miles of freehold land which the Company owns.
The properties of the Vereeniging Estates Limited are situated North and South of the Vaal River, partly in the Transvaal and partly in the Orange Free State and comprise:
675 Stands in the town of Vereeniging.
23 Freehold Farms, in extent 127,277 acres, including all Mineral Rights (except as to 1,100 acres); equivalent to 200 square miles.
The town of Vereeniging is situated on the banks of the Vaal River, in the Province of the Transvaal, 45 miles south of Johannesburg by road and rail. It is served by two separate lines of railway and there are two important railway stations on the Estates.
Vereeniging is of some historic interest as it was here in 1892 that President Kruger of the Transvaal, and President Reitz of the Orange Free State, met at the official opening of the first line of railway to cross the Vaal River into the Transvaal. Again at Vereeniging in 1902, President Steyn and Generals Botha, Hertzog, Smuts, De la Rey and De Wet, of the Boer Forces met Lord Milner and General Kitchener and signed the Treaty of Peace with Great Britain after the Boer War.