Dr.
Merensky made a million pounds out of his Namaqua-land discovery, for
the government could not afford to let this new cache remain outside
their control, and he was bought out. Dr. Merensky was happy, but it
would be false to say that the Syndicate was. Things were not humming
just then in the diamond industry, though the war had made it possible
at last to apply control in South-West Africa, where before 1914 the
"Diamond Régie," Germany's counterpart of the Syndicate, had sold the
diamonds produced throughout South-West Africa at whatever price
offered. Fortunately for traders everywhere, the flush of Lüderitz
production had coincided with a period of world affluence when nothing,
not even this policy of underselling, could have spoiled the diamond
market. Since the war and the opening up of South-West Africa the
German mining companies had been amalgamated, on the urgent advice of
the Syndicate, into the "Consolidated Diamond Mines of South-West
Africa," financed by Sir Ernest Oppenheimer's Anglo American
Corporation, and Anglo American acquired a controlling interest.
C.D.M., as people call it when they are in a hurry, reigned over the
large area which the Germans had declared Sperrgebiet, or
forbidden ground; about sixty by two hundred and twenty miles, from
Oranjemund to a point north of Lüderitz. Alexander Bay where Merensky
made his find was thus just south of the area. Unfortunately 1920, when
the amalgamation was completed, was also the time of a world
depression, and C.D.M. didn't get around to starting things going until
1926. Just as they were getting under way the Lichtenburg discoveries
were made, and while the Syndicate was still wondering how to cope with
this new and unwelcome flood of wealth, Merensky made his strike. It
is straining
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