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SIR ERNEST OPPENHEIMER
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production. It will perhaps interest Mr. Passmore [Kimbcrley manager oi Standard Bank] to know that we have buyers in British Guiana, and handle quite a proportion of the trade.
A
little later on—in June 1925—contacts were established with British
Guiana producers in London. From the correspondence, it appears that
Breitmeyer and Company had first been approached and had refused to do
business. These contacts were to lead, in October 1926, to a five-year
agreement between the United Diamond Fields of British Guiana Limited,
and the firms of Barnato Brothers and Dunkelsbuhler. According to the
records of Anglo American Corporation, the Diamond Syndicate took over
this contract in December 1926.
• VIII •
Though
the Anglo American Corporation had duly become a member of the London
Syndicate in 1923 (to take effect on 1 January 1924) this result was
not in fact achieved without a struggle behind the scenes. It is not
possible to understand the final breakdown of the 'old' Syndicate and
the creation of a new one under Ernest Oppen-heimer's leadership
without reference to events and to difficulties, some of a personal and
others of a technical nature.
It
was not in the 'nature of things' to expect that the rise of a new
house under a dynamic leader should not rouse a certain degree of
resentment on the part of the older established concerns. It is not
possible in business, any more than it is in other walks of life,
always to prevent the clash of personalities, or the emergence of
personal jealousies; economic and business history cannot be portrayed
truthfully without taking account of such factors. It is clear from
surviving correspondence that elements such as these were present:
there was friction of a personal kind between certain figures and firms
in the Diamond Syndicate, and there were also personal difficulties
with regard to the chairmanship of De Beers, though this matter was not
to become acute until after the reorganization of the Diamond
Syndicate in 1925.
The
technical situation of the diamond trade after the collapse of the
post-war boom was far from easy. The trade found itself with large
stocks on hand, which were for the moment almost unsaleable; and there
was a new and altogether uncontrollable source of supply coming into
the market, in the shape of sales of cut stones by the Russian
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