FROM CRISIS TO CHAIRMANSHIP OF DE BEERS 175
bill
was drafted would suffer from the decreased ability to get credit which
followed from the restriction on partnerships; he objected to the
retrospective nature of some of the sections of the bill and the bias
shown against joint stock companies:
People
have their legal rights as owners of claims, and why should such rights
be denied a corporation because of the supposed iniquities of certain
companies? My experience oi companies hardly justifies the adoption of
such stringent steps. Take platinum, wliich is a very speculative
business. First they have to prove the deposit, and then to secure
extraction, and it is a very good thing for South Africa that, when
platinum was discovered, there were in existence limited companies
which were prepared to undertake the risk of mining under such
uncertain conditions. How would it be possible to raise £2,000,000 to
mine gold 4,000 feet underground, or the necessary capital to work
platinum which had yet to be proved, if the stock exchange did not
exist? For the development of a country which depends on mining the
stock exchange is very essential. So long as mining is a speculative
undertaking we must rely on the man who is an optimist: 'gambler' and
'speculator' are terms too strong to apply to this class of man. Now
the people who have acquired claims are ordinary members of the public.
The Minister would be surprised if he knew the number of people who are
shareholders in claims. They acquired the claims genuinely and
honestly, and I am sure the public will resent the retrospective
clauses of the bill.
Finally, he objected to the
line of argument intended to justify the bill, which consisted of
stressing the superior value of the diggings as against the mines from
the standpoint of the national interest:
It
is said: Is it not much better that diamonds should be produced on the
alluvial diggings, where they are produced at a small profit and the
money is spent in the country—is it not much better than that they
should be produced by De Beers and the money go out of the country?
If
that is really the argument, if that is really what we are aiming at,
then no one would invest money in this country again. Let me put it
this way, is a man who invests money in this country, is a man who has
De Beers shares, not entitled to have interest on his money? Those
shares were not stolen. Good money was paid for them. Are we right in
saying that that was a bad thing? No, there is no argument in that at
all. It is very much better to produce diamonds in the cheapest and
most efficient manner, so that the people who invest money in them may
make profits which they use again in the development of the country.
He
was to spend a good deal of time in committee trying to change what he
regarded as objectionable in the measure, on balance unavail-ingly. The
final passage of the bill did contribute to restoring
