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254
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SIR ERNEST OPPENHEIMER
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The
answer was a dry 'quite'. Ernest Oppenhcimcr might well have asked why
the Minister should ever have posed the issue of whether the leaders of
the diamond industry were 'doing their best' or not. What conceivable
reason could there have been for their not 'doing their best'? Ernest
Oppenheimer was Member of Parliament for Kimberley and it can hardly be
supposed that he desired to throw his constituents out of work. Fifty
per cent of the equity in the Diamond Corporation was held by the
conference producers—why could it be imagined that they desired to see
that the corporation should be making losses? The other half of the
equity was held, together with the bulk of the debentures, by the
members of the old Syndicate—Barnato Brothers, Dunkelsbuhler and
Company, Anglo American Corporation and their friends—and, moreover,
the liabilities of the Diamond Corporation had been guaranteed by the
Syndicate firms. Over and above this, the Syndicate firms were large
shareholders in the conference producer mines. There was thus no
foundation whatever for the possible insinuation that 'you' (it was
never more clearly defined) were not 'doing your best'.
Nevertheless,
Ernest Oppenheimer let all this pass: it was obviously necessary to
work together with the Government. The upshot of the conference
discussions, and of the inevitable official correspondence with the
Department of Mines which followed,12 was summed up in a cable sent by the Diamond Corporation, Kimberley, to the Diamond Corporation, London, on 30 July 1931:
We
have had comprehensive discussion with Government on all aspects of
diamond position. Government gave our proposals very sympathetic
consideration and left to us and producers to take such steps as we
considered necessary for the time being to protect industry.
Consequently Dicorp has arranged with producers for postponement of
July-December 1931 deliveries. Government has agreed co-operate in
sales and parity prices, as during the week sales to South African
cutters have been made by Dicorp in presence Government valuer who has
supervised price fixing,
12
In the light of after events, the most important passage in the
official correspondence was contained in a letter dated 6 August 1931:
'The
Minister . . . understands that operations have been reduced in the
manner proposed. He was unable, however, to see his way to consent to
this, or to the postponement of the July-December 1931 deliveries, and
considered that if matters were as represented to him, the corporation
and the producers should act as they think best, in order to keep the
trade and the industry going and to prevent unemployment, without
obtaining the specific consent of the Government, and leaving the
Government free at any time to call upon the parties to carry out the
terms of the agreement as from that time.'
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