ehester
to Kimberley's New York as a smart residential quarter. The diamond
trade had undergone a bad depression since Ernest's arrival in South
Africa; in 1907 the mines actually closed down for a space. About the
same time something else happened that was calculated to put wrinkles
into De Beers' brows. Troubles always seemed to grow in clusters in
South Africa. This time it was the discovery of diamonds at
Liideritz-bucht on the coast of German South-West Africa. The diamond
trade shuddered in any case, at every new discovery, but this was worse
than most because it wasn't in territory that the Syndicate could
control. Although for the moment the production at Lüderitz, as the
settlement on the bay is called, was irregular, depending as it did on
diggers, and the diamonds were very small, it was probably only a
matter of time before the Germans would organize it and start mining in
earnest, and what might happen then didn't look too rosy for the South
African diamond-mining people. At least that is how the situation
appeared to Ernest Oppenheimer, and though other diamond men didn't
seem to worry as much as he did once the first shock had passed, De
Beers asked him to go and have a look at the German fields. In 1914,
early in that significant year, he did go to Lüderitz with Alpheus
Williams, a geologist, the son of Gardner Williams. In their report
they assessed the possibilities of the fields and the probable
productive life of each section. Oppenheimer's calculations based on
these observations have since turned out to be remarkably accurate.
Through the offices of the keenly interested government of South Africa
the leading diamond producers, including the Germans, held a
conference and agreed to go in all together in the matter of control.
This gratified the South Africans, as until
