tiling
to relieve the pressures caused by the financial and technical changes
in Kimberley in the eighties: on the other hand, when the first
gold-boom on the Rand collapsed there was a return flow of diggers to
Kimberley, which greatly complicated the situation arising from the
attempt to 'rush' the Premier (later the Wessclton) Mine in the early
days of De Beers Consolidated.
But
the relationship became much more organized in the course of time. The
opportunities for profitable 'outside' investment in diamond
undertakings obviously declined after the establishment of a
'quasi-monopoly' by De Beers, and the Diamond Syndicate: though it is
an exaggeration to assert that it ceased altogether, even before the
discovery of the Premier Mine near Pretoria in 1902. Gold-mining, on
the other hand, had a guaranteed and unlimited market for its product.
This fundamental point of difference between the gold-mining and
diamond industries implied that within the elastic limitation set by
the physical fact of availability of ore, there was no predetermined
limit to the amount of capital which could be invested; indeed the
availability of capital, by making it possible to improve the
technological processes of gold-mining and so work inferior ground
profitably, meant in effect, increasing scope for capital investment.
The unlimited market and the fixed price of gold meant that
competition inside the industry took the form of finding the better
properties to be exploited, the better labour, and the better expert
knowledge— and the better means of access to the sources of capital
supply.
It
is from this angle that the importance of Kimberley must be assessed.
It is not the case that Kimberley was the sole source of finance,
whether for the Barberton area or subsequently for the Rand: the
amounts required were much too large for that to be possible, once
development was well under way. An examination of the location ot the
head offices of the companies existing at the end of 1888, for
instance, will show that, in addition to Johannesburg and Barberton
themselves, there were large numbers of companies with head offices in
Cape Town, Durban, Maritzburg, Port Elizabeth and Pretoria, as well as
in Kimberley. What is true is that at Kimberley was to be found a
unique combination of factors which made for leadership: men of great
individual wealth and great ability, enjoying international prestige
and with connexions with the great finance houses of Europe: there was
experience of large-scale organization: and there was also an
appreciation of the importance of technology and of technical experts.
It was the qualitative and not merely the
