The Selection Trust board was composed, to the extent of two-thirds, of American nationals—six out of nine.
It
was a situation which Ernest Oppenheimer heartily disliked. 'The
anxieties of the diamond industry', he wrote shortly after the
formation of Rhodesian Anglo American, 'have convinced me of the
necessity of a leadership in the Rhodesian copper world, that can not
only assert authoritatively our position with regard to producers
outside the Empire, but that can also bring pressure on individual
producers within our own area, the control of which may have passed
into other hands.'26 What he wished for was the amalgamation
of all copper interests in Northern Rhodesia, thereby following the
precedent of the diamond industry; but he was well aware of the
practical difficulties. Neither of the two groups was willing to accept
union under the leadership of the other, and, in any case, it would be
necessary to reach finality in the negotiations between Chester Beatty
and Ernest Oppenheimer in the matter of diamonds if agreement were ever
to be arrived at in the field of Northern Rhodesian organization. Such
an agreement, Ernest Oppenheimer thought, could only take the form of
equal rights for the two main groups under the control of a third
party— possibly the British South Africa Company.
This
aspiration proved impossible of achievement: the two groups remain. But
Ernest Oppenheimer had been successful in maintaining the Copperbelt as
primarily an 'imperial' interest. The first occasion on which a
critical situation arose was in 1928 in connexion with the proposed
sale of part of the assets27 of the Bwana M'Kubwa to the
American Metals Company. The London representatives of Anglo American
Corporation were so opposed that they intimated to Sir Edmund Davis
that, rather than accept, they would prefer to get out of Rhodesia
altogether.28 The matter was put to Ernest Oppenheimer, who
on 28 November 1928 refused to offer for 'imperial and financial
reasons'. This attitude had other and important consequences: there had
been negotiations for participation with American Metals—these
negotiations were stopped, and their stoppage was the proximate reason
for the entry of Newmont Corporation into the Rhodesian ventures of
Anglo American Corporation.
26 In
the same letter he had also said that 'I viewed the question not only
from the point of view of our company, but also from the imperial
aspect, i.e. the desire of all those connected with the new company of
keeping the Northern Rhodesian copper field an imperial copper field'.
27 The major part of the holdings of Bwana M'Kubwa in Rhodesian Selection Trust.
28 See below, p. 415.
