represented
either by De Beers directors who are also directors of those companies
or by selling agents directors. In these views we arc strongly
supported by Paris Rothschilds. . . .
The
response was immediate. On 6 December 1928 Ernest Oppen-heimer and Joel
sent the following cable to Lord Bessborough:
Your
telegram conveys only mistrust and is a direct insult to our honour and
integrity. To refuse to recognize S. B. Joel, Sir E. Oppenheimer and
Sir David Harris as De Beers directors is quite incomprehensible
considering the first two hold a quarter of the company; besides which,
you go out ot your way to designate as 'agents working partners who are
finding the business and 50 per cent of the cash and represent the
majority of the balance. Under conditions laid down your telegram, it
is useless proceeding further: therefore consider matter at an end.
With
this protest the Kimberley directorate associated itself in a cable of
the same date. It was in vain that Lord Bessborough and Viallate argued
in reply that there was a 'misunderstanding'.
The
proof that there is no personal mistrust is our attitude concerning
chairmanship De Beers company after proposed company is formed. In view
of the fact that the members of existing Syndicate and their heirs are
to have half the capital in the proposed new company, which is to be
permanent, we consider it only reasonable that the interest of De Beers
company should be protected for the present and tor the future.
This
line of argument overlooked the patent facts that Anglo American
Corporation, Barnato Brothers and Dunkelsbuhler and Company were very
large shareholders, that, historically, the Syndicate and De Beers had
been inextricably connected with one another; and that the whole
diamond situation was undergoing a fundamental change through the
alluvial discoveries, and it had been only through Ernest Oppenheimer's
endeavours that a collapse of the entire diamond market had been
prevented, a collapse which De Beers alone would have been entirely
unable to prevent. It may be that behind the immediate issues at
stake, important as they were, there was in London a tradition that the
interests of the Syndicate and of De Beers were at variance. Ernest
Oppenheimer said as much in the long memorandum, dated 14 December
1928, in which he summed up, at considerable length, the issues at
stake. He had already, on 10 December, cabled to Lord Bessborough:
'Regret very much that negotiations in which I took so much pride have
failed, but the claims put forward by London are complete reversal of
the basis on which negotiations were com-
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