WORLD CRISIS AND WORLD LEADERSHIP 287
At
the present time Kimberlcy is in the deepest depression and one can see
no way out. There is a general feeling that, although the diamond trade
will recover, Kimberley is finished for ever, and as a consequence
shops are closing and fixed property has become almost unsaleable.
It
must be admitted that if the Government's policy of supplying its quota
made up of the qualities saleable at the moment, and not of average
production, is continued, and still more if it is adopted also by
producers such as the Consolidated Diamond Mines of South West Africa,
Cape Coast, Congo and Angola who can afford to compete, these gloomy
prophecies are amply justified.
The
board of this company appeals to the Minister to abandon a policy which
involves a sacrifice of the old-established centres which are still
capable of supplying the world's needs for many years to come, in order
to establish new sources of production in Namaqualand or elsewhere. . .
.
It
must be conceded that the Diamond Corporation itself, under the
pressure of the depression, also found itself at this time faced with
increased difficulty in maintaining orderly marketing conditions and in
avoiding practices which were not in conformity either with tradition
or with the long-term interests of the producing industry. In a letter
to De Beers Consolidated Mines dated 7 September 1932, and dealing with
the whole diamond problem, it was admitted that
the
Diamond Corporation has made supreme efforts to maintain both
assortment and prices, and it was with the greatest reluctance that
owing to severe financial stringency certain sales were made at the
beginning of June which the corporation itself considered
unsatisfactory. These transactions would never have been agreed to but
for the reason given, and now the Diamond Corporation having surmounted
its immediate difficulties, beheving, as it does, that improved market
conditions and more confidence are at hand, is determined that similar
transactions shall not be repeated.
Since
the beginning of the current year there has been no genuine
improvement in the demand for rough diamonds. . . . Sales by the
Diamond Corporation during the first half of 1932 amounted to
.£900,000 sterling, but these cannot be looked upon as normal sales,
as, owing to the critical position of the corporation's finances,
diamonds had to be placed on an unfavourable market, so that at no time
during the period mentioned have the sales been in accordance with the
normal production and deliveries of the producers.
There
was then, in the later months of 1932, a chain of connected problems
which preoccupied Ernest Oppenheimer. There was the general world
situation which was the direct cause of most of the others. The world
depression made orderly marketing conditions, as is clear from the
passage cited above, very difficult; it therefore made the
