other
interests in Africa, predominantly mining interests but not necessarily
so—copper, gold, coal, the secondary industries arising from these
interests, and whatever else seems to him promising. And whatever seems
promising to Sir Ernest usually fulfills its promise.
"It is argued," said The Economist, referring
to the latest Oppenheimer venture in gold, "that shareholders might
have been allowed to decide for themselves whether to invest their
money in the speculative ventures of the Orange Free State, but Sir
Ernest would have none of it." He had his way and invested their money
in West Reef, and the shareholders profited, and people talked more
than ever of Sir Ernest's similarity to Rhodes, who also made money for
his shareholders without asking their blessing. Most British newspapers
mention the matter from time to time.
Considering
all this comparison with the empire builder, it is not surprising that
the few members of the British public who saw Oppenheimer at last when
he came to England in 1954 should have thought at first that they were
looking at the wrong man. It was unusual that he should have come, and
it was even less usual that he should have granted an interview, as he
did, to the press; in fact he has never before done such a thing in
Britain. The reporters, who were all fairly well up on the contemporary
affairs of finance, had been thinking of him as a biggish type—a
captain of industry, or better still a generalissimo. Rhodes was a big
man. Rhodes looked rather like Nietzsche's superman, and Hitler would
certainly have used him as a model. He was tall, broad, and blond. The
only way he failed to maintain the Nordic ideal was in his voice, which
was squeaky and apt to rise to falsetto pitch. Rhodes
