1945,
purchased 'almost all of the share capital of Lewis and Marks Limited
(since renamed Free State Mines Selection Limited), whose principal
asset was a large shareholding in the African and European Investment
Company Limited' (Ernest Oppenheimer to his shareÂholders on 26 April
1946), in effect African and European, with its large coal and gold
interests, became a part of the Anglo American Corporation complex.
African and European Investment Company owned 'Block No. 7' in the
Orange Free State and its prospecting work there was of great
importance, since it had proved a payable gold deposit large enough to
form three mines.
It
must, moreover, be remembered that there were negotiations and
understandings not only with such a concern as the British South Africa
Company, but also with other mining houses, specially in connexion with
the opening up of the Far West Rand and the Orange Free State
gold-fields.
The
fact is that Ernest Oppenheimer's range of activities in the course of
time became enormous: they comprehended not only the Union and the
Rhodesias but the other diamond-producing areas of Africa and, through
this fact, he was brought into contact with important interests in
Belgium and Portugal. Finance generally, apart from diamonds, had
brought him into close contact with the City of London and with New
York. He became a director of Hambros Bank, of the British South Africa
Company and, an honour he greatly appreciated, of the Commonwealth
Development Company.
To
these multifarious interests must be added the burdens imposed by his
political career. He had been knighted in 1921: the citation as
recorded in the London Times of 1 January 1921 being 'Honorary
Secretary to the South African War Memorial Fund. Took a leading part
in recruiting of both combatants and labourers for various fronts
during the war.' In 1924 he was invited to stand for Kimberley as a
supporter of General Smuts's South African Party. In his speech,
accepting nomination, he naturally stressed the fact that he was a
'Kimberley man' and that Dunkelsbuhler and Company had been established
on the diamond fields since diamonds were first discovered there. He
was duly elected and held this seat until 1938. He was followed by his
son, Harry, in 1948, the present head of Anglo American
Corporation—though no longer a member of Parliament.
A
series of distinguished South African parliamentarians have had close
connexions with the diamond and mining industries. Rhodes and Starr
Jameson themselves; Drummond Chaplin and Percy Fitzpatrick;
