£450,000, i.e. £2,700,000
in all, and this amount might be opted for by subsequent periods of six
months, up to and including the six months ending 30 June 1911. What
followed in the autumn of 1907 can best be described in the terms of a
letter addressed to the Prime Minister of the Orange River Colony,
dated 30 April 1908, drafted by Arend Brink, the chief valuator of De
Beers, with a covering note by the secretary of De Beers:
On
15 October 1907 the Diamond Syndicate arrived at an agreement with the
Premier company to purchase a fixed quantity of diamonds amounting to
.£193,000 per month, for a period of six months ended 31 March last
[1908], accompanied by further options at the expiration of that
period. It was agreed that this contract should run concurrently with
the Diamond Syndicate's contract with De Beers Consolidated Mines
Limited and that during its currency the Syndicate should take
deliveries from the two companies in respective proportions in money
value of 70 per cent from the De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited and
30 per cent from the Premier company.10
Everything
now turned on the course of events in the diamond market, and on the
ability of the Syndicate to go on exercising its option to purchase an
aggregate of £643,000. This it found itself unable to do and in the
early part of 1908 at a conference in London the Syndicate, finding
itself with a stock of £3,000,000 of diamonds on hand,
invited
the two companies to co-operate with them in restoring confidence,
which had been rudely shaken by persistent rumours of the uncertainty
of the permanency of the agreement between the three important factors
in the trade. They declared their inability to
continue purchasing fixed quantities pending a change in the diamond
market, but offered to lock up the whole of their accumulated stock and
sell only for account of the two companies up to a stated monthly
quantity, and if this amount were exceeded it was stipulated that the
Syndicate should participate in further sales in certain definite
proportions.
This
was, of course, a fundamental change. De Beers under the pressure of
circumstances, finally agreed to it: the Premier Mine refused.
Surviving
correspondence shows that even the agreement of October 1907 with the
Syndicate had only been arrived at with difficulty; Dunkelsbuhler and
Company were greatly concerned with these
10 The
contract with De Beers was for £450,000: that with the Premier was for
£193,000 —total £643,000 per month. 70 per cent of £643,000 equals
£450,000, and 30 per cent equals £193,000.
