company
was on the five hundred feet level, the opposing companies could go
and eat into each other's boundary walls and pillars to such a
dangerous extent that the entire mine was in a condition which
threatened collapse at any moment."
This
was so patently true, and more particularly in Kimber-ley mine, that it
may seem surprising that the disastrous conflict was so long
maintained. But it must be borne in mind that the average shareholder
was not as quick to see and prompt to move for a remedy as Rhodes, and
comparatively few had his intimate and comprehensive knowledge of the
condition of all the mines in the Fields. A very large proportion of
the investors in these mines were men who had never been on the Fields
at all, or whose acquaintance was limited to a sightseer's visit. Many,
too, had bought shares simply as a gamble in the stock market, and only
welcomed such information or reports as were calculated to boom their
speculations.
It
was obviously labor lost to attempt to interest such men in any
far-reaching plan for the union and systematic development of all the
mining claims in the craters, and most of them would have sneered it
away as a mere chimera if it had been laid before them. This was indeed
a project which might well have appalled an ordinary man, even if he
had the clear sight and comprehension of the position essential to a
true judgment. Anybody might dream of such a gigantic combination, and
some day-dreamer might babble about it to his gossips, but what man, or
association of men, would have the foresight and patience, the
perseverance and tact, the integrity and fulness of talent, to push
forward toward it for years, to thrust aside or crush blocks in the
way, to harmonize discordant and jealous interests, to open the eyes of
narrow-sighted selfishness, to win the confidence of the distrustful,
to design a scheme of union that would make all holders of good working
claims common shareholders on a basis of equity and assured profit to
all, and finally to provide the enormous capital necessary for the
consummation of the scheme, and the development of the great diamond
mines in a really great way ?
