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SIR ERNEST OPPENHEIMER
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Government,
serious difficulties were experienced over the renewal of the contract
with the Consolidated African Selection Trust. He came into conflict,
not only with the C.A.S.T. organization, but also with his brothers and
the London directors of De Beers.
The dispute was summarized in a letter written by Ernest Oppenheimer to the Minister of Mines on 3 February 1942:
The
Selection Group has definitely refused our offer to renew the existing
contract for the year 1942. When perusing the cable correspondence you
will find that our London colleagues on the De Beers board, Sir John du
Cane, Mr. Taylor and Professor Lawn, were not in sympathy with us and
consider our attitude inimical to the interest of the trade, in that it
did away with 'sale through one channel'.
Our
direct negotiators, Messrs. Louis and Otto Oppenheimer, felt so
convinced that we were wrong and that our attitude endangered the whole
trade that Mr. Otto Oppenheimer was prepared to run the increased risk
himself, delivering to us only such diamonds as we would have had to
take had our offer been accepted.
My
colleagues in South Africa by unanimous decision refused to consider
this offer, because we felt that if we adopted this course it would
make the conclusion of satisfactory arrangements with Selection and
other producers in the future quite impossible.
Though
the Minister was pleased with Ernest Oppenheimer for taking a firm
stand, nevertheless the latter felt that the opposition of the London
board had put him in a false position and was making the conclusion of
a new contract more difficult. In the end, his brother Otto did buy
the diamonds and though this complicated matters still further, Ernest
Oppenheimer's profound fraternal affection did not allow him to bear
malice for, as he wrote to Harry Oppenheimer (9 March 1942):
For
all that, what am I to do? Louis and he mean too much to me, so I
cabled him that if he did find himself in financial difficulties I
would, against the security of the diamonds in South Africa, loan him
-£100,000.1 am sure you approve my action. There is no risk, he may
never want it, but I wanted to show him my affection had not changed.
Somehow things will come right. . . .u
11 An
earlier incident reflects the same affectionate solicitude. In November
1939 Otto Oppenheimer wanted (with Louis Oppenheimer's approval) to sell a
million carats of bort, and desired to take over 300,000 carats from
the Diamond Trading Company's stock. Ernest Oppenheimer cabled to
Louis: 'I have no objection to Trading Company selling 300,000 carats
of bort but want to make sure that Otto is not arranging this deal in
his anxiety to help Diamond Corporation and thereby injuring himself
(Cable dated 27 December 1939.)
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