WORLD CRISIS AND WORLD LEADERSHIP 285
(3)
That during 1933 Congo company will not put to us more diamonds
than actually required to meet cash working expenses.
(4) That payments due between September and March next will be spread during that period in equal monthly payments.
Going
Lisbon and hope arrive at similar arrangements Angola. Will be back end
of July [in London] when anticipate come to satisfactory arrangement
Selection Trust. In addition to foregoing, I am making every effort to
steady market by not showing any goods for some time. Therefore
consider if efforts Angola and Selection Trust successful, ground
prepared for revival, but think this will only come about if we can
arrive at some arrangement with Government which will result in all
diamonds being handled in one office in South Africa. It would,
therefore, help considerably if you could arrange to have some informal
discussions with Pirow or any other person you think suitable with a
view to arriving at some workable arrangement such as above. In my
opinion failure to arrive at some satisfactory scheme with Government
will disappoint market and delay revival.
Sales
through a common office implied, of course, something much more
far-reaching than a mere technical device: it implied, also, an
understanding as to what the basis of sales should be. The real
grievance of the conference producers and of the Diamond Corporation
lay in the fact that the Government, in pursuing its sales
policy, had refused to adhere to the principle which the Syndicate had
for decades been trying to enforce—namely, that sales should be made in
'series' and that cutters should not be allowed to pick out particular
stones, thus leaving the producers with broken series on their hands.
This had been explained to the Government time after time by Ernest
Oppenheimer himself: it was to continue to plague the relationships
between the Government and the producers for many months to come, even
while renewed efforts were being made to come to an understanding. The
points involved could not be more clearly set out than they were in a
letter addressed to the Minister of Mines eight months later. On 27
February 1933 the secretary of De Beers wrote:
...
It is not from any desire to find fault, but in order to clarify a
position that is still perhaps obscure and in the confident hope of
arriving by a frank interchange of views at a permanent and mutually
satisfactory settlement of the trade, that certain comments will now be
made on the policy of the Government as a producer and distributor of
diamonds.
The
Government has always approved of those two fundamental principles of
the diamond trade—control of output and sales through one channel— and
has even gone so far as to pass legislation taking power, if necessary,
