into
the hands of De Beers: Barnato Bros, and the Anglo American Investment
Trust disposing of 2§ million shares against a receipt of 125,000
deferred shares in the De Beers Consohdated Mines. This transaction
took place in 1938; at the same time the capital of the Diamond Trading
Company was doubled, the additional shares being taken up by Anglo
American Investment Trust and Barnatos. But these later events fall
outside the scope of this chapter. On 7 May 1937, at the 49th ordinary
general meeting of De Beers, Ernest Oppenhcimer summed up:
The
diamond trade has passed through a depression of unexampled severity,
and in order to weather the storm it was necessary to effect a complete
reorganization of the trade. This reorganization could never have been
carried out without the close collaboration of all concerned. Everybody
helped: the Government of the Union of South Africa, both as Government
and producer; and the efforts of the South African producers under the
leadership of De Beers company were wholeheartedly supported by the
producers in the Congo, Angola and West Africa. The members of the old
Syndicate made their skill and knowledge available. The diamond
merchants in Antwerp and Amsterdam and the workmen all played their
parts. Between us an organization was created which held the diamond
business together during the depression, and will enable the trade to
benefit to the full in better times. No one, least of all I, would
suggest that the future will hold no difficulties, but, so long as this
spirit of friendship and co-operation continues in the trade, they will
always be surmounted.
He
was too modest to refer to his own immense contribution. The fact
remains that but for his courage, his persistence, his endless patience
and his fertihty of mind, the story might have ended very differently.
But,
without anyone quite realizing its full implication, a new era had
already begun, not merely on the organizational, but also on the
technical, the economic and the financial side. On 7 March 1934, in the
course of a long correspondence dealing primarily with the
reorganization of the diamond industry—arising out of the sequence of
events described in this chapter—the De Beers board in Kimberley cabled
to their London friends to determine:
'How
much should be set aside for the proposed inquiry into the use of
industrial diamonds and for sending brokers to various centres. The
Government's consent to this expenditure would have to be obtained.'
Henceforward
the diamond industry was to have two strings to its bow, but it was not
until the outbreak of the Second World War that the revolution in the
position of the industry was fully realized.
