256
SIR ERNEST OPPENHEIMER
My chief worry is Dicorp in London and our price policy. I am sure these problems will also be solved.
♦ VII ♦
His
next task was to deal with the 'outside producers' and to persuade them
to fall into line; in October he was in Brussels and on 22 October the
Diamond Corporation in London was able to cable the Diamond Corporation
at Kimberley to the effect that agreement had been reached on the
following:
(1)
All parties accepted principle not forcing diamond deliveries on
[Diamond] Corporation and making any payments deliveries 1932 as easy
as possible to enable Dicorp adopt firm policy in selling, thus
establishing industry and improving prices.
(2)
Understanding is that none of the companies will ask for more
money than is required for absolute minimum working expenditure.
.
. . Foregoing arrangements result, apart from direct, in a considerable
indirect reduction deliveries and consequent relief financial
obligations. Absence sales this week is direct result of now
established policy maintaining and if possible raising price levels.
The
agreements with Angola, Forminiere and B.C.K. had already been renewed
to run to 1934, but the Congo companies agreed to suspend, in line with
the Union companies, deliveries during the period July-December 1931,
and payments due during 1932 were to be 'staggered' over a
fifteen-month period. As regards the Angola company 'while for
political reasons' the new contract embodied the same terms as the then
current ones, payments were also to be 'staggered'. In an elaborate
memorandum summing up the results of the Brussels conference, the
preamble stated that, while 'arrangements for deliveries and payments
have been made in such a manner as to ensure that the Syndicate and/or
the Diamond Corporation, so long as the diamond market remains
inactive, shall not be called upon to provide any payments except such
as represent the minimum requirements of the Congo companies for
covering present financial commitments of the Congo companies and
carrying on operations in the Congo', nevertheless 'it is . . .
understood that if there should be an improvement in the diamond
market, resulting in substantially increased sales . . . the payments
will be accelerated and it is not the intention that the Syndicate
and/or the Diamond Corporation should utilize facilities which are not
necessitated by the state of the diamond market'.
