72
SIR ERNEST OPPENHEIMER
in
a diamond merchant's office. Ernest Oppenheimer in later life was to
become a member of Parliament and both in business and in the
legislature he revealed himself an admirable speaker; lucid,
persuasive, fluent, but without any trace of affectation or of playing
to the gallery merely for the sake of effect. He must have gained
greatly from his experience as mayor. That his fellow citizens
appreciated his efforts is clear not only from the fact of his
successive re-elections, but also from the circumstances that just
before the outbreak of World War I his portrait and an illuminated
address were presented to him at a meeting at the Town Hall and some
very friendly speeches were made about him and his wife (he had married
in 1906 and his elder son, Harry, is now the head of the vast
organization which he created). Speeches on such occasions are not
perhaps always free from verbal exaggeration, but the services
specially referred to—the amalgamation of the municipalities of
Kimberley and Beaconsfield, and the settlement of the tramways
question—were real enough to deserve praise, while it is clear that his
humanity and courtesy were also greatly appreciated. He was re-elected
in September 1914, just after the outbreak of war, with only one
dissentient voice—a remarkable tribute, followed, as it was to be a few
days later, by the presentation of an expression of confidence and
congratulations signed by 5,000 inhabitants. Some real problems of
readjustment had then to be faced in the economic hfe of Kimberley,
with which he necessarily had to cope in conjunction with De Beers. He
had also mentioned at the meeting referred to above that he did not
intend to seek re-election; though re-elected, he was overborne by the
events of the time. The diamond industry for the moment offered no
outlet for his energies, and the passions roused by the war would have
made it impossible for him to continue even had he desired to do so. He
resigned the mayoralty in 1915. New ambitions were stirring him and the
years of apprenticeship were over.
Meanwhile
he had shown his mastery of the problems of the diamond industry in two
documents associated with those years. At the end of the year 1910 he
had submitted to De Beers a note on 'Diamond cutting generally and in
South Africa'. He was then 30 years of age. It is only a short document
of seven typewritten pages, and was directed against the then current
Press campaign advocating an export duty on rough diamonds of between
155. and 205. per carat, to encourage a local cutting industry. Even
if the lower rate of tax were assumed that would be equivalent, he
argued, to a rate of tax of 56^ per cent on the value of the then
output.
