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WORLD CRISIS AND WORLD LEADERSHIP
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up by Ernest Oppenheimer in a letter to Lord Bessborough dated two days later:
.
. . the conference of producers took place here on the 19th instant.
The Minister of Mines and Industries presided and, among others, there
were present the members of the Diamond Control Board Advisory
Committee. . . .
The
proceedings only lasted the morning, and the Minister, in the course of
his remarks, stated that the Government was fully alive to the fact
that die industry was passing through a critical stage. At his
invitation I outlined the present position of the trade. ...
I submitted proposals for the allotment of quotas to the existing
conference producers and also the Cape Coast Company on the lines of
our previous discussions by cable, but I stressed the point that our
efforts in the direction of attempting to place the industry upon a
sound basis would be rendered nugatory unless the Government was
prepared to fall into line and agree to a limitation of its sales of
diamonds. I proposed the figure of £1,000,000 per annum, as this figure
had been repeatedly used in the House by the former Minister of Mines
(Mr. Beyers) as the potential productive capacity of the State alluvial
fields. I was strongly supported by the Administrator of South West
Africa who went so far as to say that his administration was not
prepared to enter into any agreement providing for the control of
output and the limitation of sales unless the Union Government was
prepared to follow suit. He instanced the fact that the revenue derived
by the mandated territory from diamonds (its main source of revenue)
had dwindled from £430,000 in the year 1923-4 to £25,000 in the year
1927-8. This he attributed to the fact that the control in the past had
not been effective owing to the policy followed by the Government, not
only in respect to the Lichtenburg alluvial fields, but also in respect
to the sales of diamonds produced from the State alluvial diggings. ...
With
regard to the supply of diamonds to South African diamond cutters, I
submitted an analysis of the world production in order to show that the
whole of die Union production, based on £8,300,000 per annum, would be
barely sufficient to provide diamonds from four carats upwards equal in
quantity to the diamonds which the Government has sold to South African
cutters in one year. For that reason I pointed out that it is quite
impossible to establish a cutting industry in South Africa on
Namaqualand diamonds only. I then submitted proposals whereby diamonds
could be obtained by cutters from the Syndicate at reasonable prices. .
. .
I
also suggested that the Government should appoint an independent
valuator in order to ensure that the assortment and prices of diamonds
offered to cutters were satisfactory. I proposed that, as the diamonds
would have to be purchased in series, the Government should be more
liberal in the issue of permits to cutters to enable them to resell
diamonds which they
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