On January 8, my friend Ron Manners will celebrate the achievement of reaching 90 years. A hero of liberty, it’s been my honor to know him for 40 of them. One of the three titles I carry proudly with FEE is “Ron Manners Global Ambassador for Liberty.”
No list of Australian champions for freedom and free markets would be respectable if it didn’t place Ron at the top. He is an example of something all too rare: a successful entrepreneur (in the mining business) who has spent as much of his life and resources advocating freedom and free markets as he spent earning the wherewithal to do so in the first place. He recently authored a new book, The Impatient Libertarian, which I reviewed here.
Ron befriended Leonard Read, FEE’s founder, more than six decades ago. He’s been a reader of FEE publications and a supporter of FEE ever since. He founded the Mannkal Economic Education Foundation in Perth in 1997. Its website states that “our modus operandi draws on the economic insights from” FEE.
Ron Manners with Leonard Read | FEE, Irvington, New York, c. 1980
I know that Ron enjoys history. When first published, he told me he enjoyed the articles I reference below. In his honor, I thought I would check to see what notable events occurred on January 8 in Australian history.
Australia’s popular Prime Minister during the World War II years, John Curtin, was born on January 8, 1885. And on January 8, 1958, the last of Australia’s servicemen who served alongside American forces during the Korean War returned to their homeland.
Two events on January 8, however, should be of keen interest to Ron because they relate to the industry he knows best, mining. They occurred only a year apart—the discovery of Queensland’s Mount Morgan gold deposit in 1882 and the discovery in 1883 of silver, zinc, and lead at New South Wales’s Broken Hill Mine. Fortunes were made in both places as the mines helped solidify Australia as a metal Mecca.
The Mount Morgan site produced lots of gold as well as silver and copper. Broken Hill, some with authority argue, may be the world’s richest and largest zinc and lead ore deposit.
The US Geological Survey reports that in 2019, Australia was the world’s largest producer of iron ore and bauxite; the second largest of gold, manganese, and lead; the third largest of zinc, cobalt, and uranium; the fifth largest of salt; the sixth largest of copper and nickel; the eighth largest producer of silver and tin; the fourteenth largest of phosphate; and the fifteenth largest of sulfur. Rich in precious stones as well, Australia is the world’s biggest producer of opals and one of the largest producers of diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and jade.
Ron Manners was born into mining, the son and grandson of a gold prospector and mining engineer. He made a significant contribution himself, for which he was inducted into Australia’s Mining Hall of Fame in 2011, and made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2020. Decades ago, he founded Croesus Mining; it rose to become at one point the country’s third largest gold producer.
Later this month (on January 26), Australians will celebrate Australia Day. As I wrote previously, many a glass of rum will be raised from Perth to Sydney to note the occasion. As Aussies raise a glass to their country, I respectfully suggest they raise a second one to Ron Manners, their most illustrious advocate of freedom and free markets.
Happy 90th Birthday, Ron!
Additional Reading
Australia, Gold, and Liberty by Lawrence W. Reed
A Hero of Australian Aviation by Lawrence W. Reed
Australia’s Gold Standard Blunder by Lawrence W. Reed
Why Australia Day Is a Day to Raise a Glass of Rum To by Lawrence W. Reed
The post Ron Manners at 90 was first published by the Foundation for Economic Education, and is republished here with permission. Please support their efforts.
