take
alluvial deposits seriously enough to include them in their controlled
areas: the old-timers, however, worried though they were by
developments, refused to budge. Alluvials had never bothered them much
in the early days; alluvials were just alluvials; no doubt this
emergency would pass and all would be as it had been before, without
any action on their part. While they sat quiet and shook their heads
over the expense of buying up the new stones, and possessed themselves
in patience, and waited for the flood to subside, that flood rose
higher and higher. Oppenheimer was in London during the worst of it. He
cabled a strong warning to De Beers, and got a reply that he still
recollects in scorn, "stating that Rhodes had said in 1893 that
alluvial diamonds did not interest him. . . . Can you imagine such an
attitude? At the time when alluvial production was increasing and the
market was flooded with alluvial diamonds, De Beers refused to
recognize the danger from this source to the whole industry. I
suggested that De Beers immediately incorporate all the alluvial mines,
but my proposal was turned down."
Sir
Ernest decided to act without the lethargic directors, and bypass them.
He roused friends who were able and willing to help, and in combination
they hurried to buy for themselves as much land as possible in the
Lichtenburg and Namaqualand areas.
Gradually
the old guard at De Beers began to listen to Op-penheimer. In 1926,
yielding to pressure from a powerful group of shareholders, it had
appointed him to the company's board of directors, and from then on he
was able to wage his battle from the inside. Then, in 1929, just before
the stock-market crash in New York, a fresh crisis overtook the diamond
trade.
