Ernest
Oppenheimer's task to rationalize these relations. In the end, the
charge of research was transferred to the Diamond Trading Company, both
in London and in South Africa. Speaking to the Dc Beers shareholders at
the 57th annual general meeting on 22 June 1945, he said:
In
my speech last year, I referred to a research department established in
London by the Diamond Trading Company Limited, and to research into the
properties ol industrial diamonds conducted in South Africa. I told you
wc had decided to carry out the work in this country on a much more
comprehensive scale and co-ordinate it with the work done in London. In
furtherance of this decision, and as a preliminary measure, we have
agreed to the expenditure of .£12,000 per annum for a period of three
years, to be shared by this company, associated companies and
producers, and have set up an organization styled 'The Diamond
Producers Industrial Diamond Research Organization' under the direction
of a committee comprising two directors of the company and three of our
technical officials.
Arrangements
have been made for the Government Metallurgical Laboratory to undertake
diamond research work while the work we have been doing for some years
is being continued. At the same time, we are considering establishing,
as soon as practicable, our own research department, with proper
laboratory facilities and full-time technical personnel. It is very
mportant to gain the most precise knowledge of the properties of
industrial diamonds and how they can best be utilized in the
requirements of industry, for it is certain that there is a big future
for this side of our business if it is properly and scientifically
handled.
The
research laboratory was duly established in 1947: by this time the
Diamond Trading Company had handed over the trade in industrials to
Industrial Distributors Ltd., of which more must be said in a
subsequent section, and it was this latter company which built the
can
be no doubt that the company, in collaboration with the . . .
authorities in Johannesburg, did useful research work and actually
discovered an improvement to the Neven process . . . and what is more,
the company succeeded in interesting the New Consolidated Gold Fields
and the Anglo American Corporation in the problem of utilizing crushed
bort with various metal binders for certain drilling activities on the
mines of the Rand.
'The
research work of Bort Products has now quite rightly come to an end,
because the New Consolidated Gold Fields and the Anglo American
Corporation are willing to carry on research work combined with actual
work on their mines, and they are much better equipped to carry on this
development work than the Bort Products company could ever have been.
Research into the use of drilling diamonds set into crowns is being
carried on the world over, and expense on additional research in this
direction is neither justified on behalf of the producers of diamonds
nor the Diamond Trading Company' (i.e. the company which was selling
diamonds, both gem and industrials, on behalf of the Diamond Producers'
Association, of which the Diamond Corporation was a member).
