with
its pretty grounds; he likes the space and the air. When he is at
leisure he walks and reads biography. It is the gentle simplicity of
his life that makes him a mystery.
Of
course there are other factors: for example, when the public does
become aware of Oppenheimer, as sometimes even the non-financial-page
type of public does, it usually asks that great question of
comparatives; just how rich is he? People are fond of knowing how many
times a millionaire a millionaire may be, especially in our
income-taxed world. People are especially partial to succulent bits of
information that apply to diamonds and gold. The normal mind dwells
naturally on Aladdin's cave and Golconda, on treasure chests and
towering palaces with jeweled roofs. Unfortunately the mind as far as
Oppenheimer is concerned is bound to be frustrated. Nobody in his list
of companies would risk making a guess, far less a statement, as to
just how much money he owns. It is not at all certain that even Sir
Ernest could tell, though he has a fabulous head for figures. The
difficulty that faces the average man in such a matter is that
Oppenheimer's activities are so many and so complicated. At the moment
of writing he is a director of forty-one companies and chairman of
twenty-eight of these. Four of them are in the United Kingdom: namely
the British South African Company, the Commonwealth Development Finance
Company Limited, Hambros Bank Limited, and Tanganyika Concessions
Limited. Twenty-four more are in South Africa, and they are all limited companies.
In
Northern Rhodesia he is chairman of all six of his limited
companies—Bancroft Mines, Nchanga Consolidated Copper Mines, Rhodesia
Copper Refineries, the Rhodesia Broken Hill Development Company,
Rhodesian Anglo America, and
