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94
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DIAMOND
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Central companies, so that
they could be controlled from one center. As Chilvers, the historian of
De Beers, put it: "Rhodes always wanted diamond production equated with
demand. New producers make this difficult." Barnato, too, wanted
production equated with demand, but as he saw it, it was
Rhodes who made this difficult. His own was the better mine, he said,
and was on its way to being even better, since it was undergoing
reorganization and would soon be worked by new, underground methods. He
needed no outside control. Production would soar, he said happily. This
was so true that it scared Rhodes to death. Both mines would be
producing hand over fist, and before they knew it the world would be
flooded with diamonds and they would be ruined.
"We
had to choose between the ruin of the diamond industry and the control
of the Kimberley Mine," said Rhodes in a later recapitulation of
events, with the beautiful simplicity that always characterized his
reasoning. "We saw this, that you could never deal with obstinate
people until you got the whip hand of them, and that the only thing we
had to do to secure the success of our industry was to get the control
of the Kimberley Mine."
With
Beit and Rothschild money to back him up he began buying Kimberley
Central shares. Barney was sure of his own holdings and those of his
friends: added up, he thought, they would retain control, no matter how
many shares De Beers might acquire outside. He took a long time to get
worried, but after a while he discovered that even his trusted friends,
tempted beyond fidelity by the prices that were being offered, were
selling out. Barnato's reaction was born of desperation: he bought
Kimberley Central shares from his former friends, in
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