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GROWTH OF THE DIAMOND TRADE 61
the
mines of $750,000,000. Add to this the cost of cutting, the profits of
the Syndicate, cutters, importers, jobbers, and retail jewelers, and by
the time the diamond product of the world since the opening of the
mines in Africa to the end of 1908 is in the hands of the consumer, the
world will have paid not less than $2,000,000,000 to possess them.
These are conservative figures, in which the output from sources
outside the African mines are reckoned at much less than is generally
estimated.
During
this period the United States has become the largest buyer of diamonds
in the world. With an importation of about one million dollars in
1867, it imported about forty million dollars in 1907, a forty fold
increase in forty years. So great has been the consumption in this
country, that numerous cutting shops have been established here.
Beginning with small shops for repairing and re-cutting stones, the
demand for fine work encouraged cutters to cut from the crystal, and
the importations of rough at the time of the panic had reached an
average of nearly one million dollars per month.
Notwithstanding
the depression felt at present in the business world, the importations
of diamonds into the United States during the year ending June 30,
1910, exceeded that of any previous year, and the importations of
August, 1910, exceed that of any August prior.
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