might
be worked under independent management. But in 1904 an infant giant
appeared on the scene. The new Premier of the Transvaal, a company
organized by T. M. Cullinan with a capital stock of f 80,000, began to
show that it was a power of no mean order. Nearly 750,000 carats were
taken from its surface workings that year, and the diamond-bearing pipe
was found to be nearly as large as the four Kimberley mines combined.
In 1905 its output increased to nearly 850,000 carats; in 1906 to
nearly 900,000 and in 1907 it was only a few carats short of 1,890,000.
In this year also another new mine, the Voorspoed, began with 46,340
carats for 6 months. All told, the African mines produced in 1907,
5,002,968 carats, of which not much over half was from the De Beers
group. In 1899 the output was 3,025,039 and in 1903, before the Premier
came in, it was only 2,607,024.
Five
million carats proved to be more than the world could absorb in one
year, and besides, with the prospect of uncontrollable production, more
than the proud syndicate dare hold for future uses, especially as in
the fall of that year, the United States, by far the largest buyer of
diamonds, after passing through a panic, ceased buying.
The
next contract between the Diamond Syndicate and the De Beers expired
June 30, 1906. It had been in force five years. The De Beers
management, in their annual report of the same date, stated that a new
contract had been signed for a similar period on conditions still more
advantageous. The exact terms of these contracts appear never to have
transpired, and the stockholders of the De Beers Mines did not know
just what
