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90
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SIR ERNEST OPPENHEIMER
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made
for the employment of American capital on the Rand'. In the event, this
feature of the flotation was to be of much less importance than the
fact that Ernest Oppenheimer was now about to play an independent role
in the future of South African mining. He was now 37 years of age, in
the full vigour of health, with a brilliant future before him.
♦ VI ♦
The
evolution of the Anglo American Corporation since its inception follows
a pattern: that of the mining group, a form of economic and financial
organization which, though it has analogies (for instance the 'managing
agency' houses of the Far East), is nevertheless, in some respects,
unique. It owed its origin to practical necessities: it has since
become the backbone of mining life in Southern Africa.
The
early life of the Transvaal gold-fields had been dominated, as had been
the early life of the diamond fields, by the concept of'economic
democracy': whatever rights might be reserved by law to the owner of
the soil, the discoverer (if he were a person other than the owner) and
the State, the fundamental principle was to be that mining was to be
undertaken by individuals or co-partnerships, having as a collective
legislative instrument, so far as one was required, an elected
'diggers' committee', with which the Mining Commissioner, as
representing the State, should be associated. Such a concept could
not, and did not, withstand the facts of technology or of economics or
of finance. The small digger could not compete in the acquisition of
farms suspected of being gold-bearing, could not, as soon as the
simplest forms of outcrop mining were superseded by shaft-sinking
(especially as soon as 'deep level mining' was shown to be an economic
proposition), find the necessary funds to sink such shafts and equip
the mine, or sustain the waiting period before the mine would yield a
return; could not finance the expensive metallurgical works and
processes which became inevitable if the ore was to be properly
exploited: could not have the necessary expert technical knowledge and,
equally important, did not have access to the capital markets whether
of South Africa or of Europe. Joint-stock enterprise was inevitable,
therefore; but experience very speedily showed that even joint-stock
enterprise, as such, was not enough: a further process of evolution and
rationalization proved to be necessary.
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