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THE MOVING MEN 291
Boards
for the amalgamation of the De Beers Mining Company with De Beers
Consolidated Mines Limited, Mr. Rhodes gave his reasons for the
necessity of acquiring either the control of the Kimberley mine or of
entering into some arrangement with the directors of the Central
Company, who controlled the mine, by which the output of both De Beers
and Kimberley mines could be regulated. He saw that by skilful and
systematic mining on the underground system, the output of the mines
could be increased far beyond the world's requirements. It was clear,
too, if these two mines were run in opposition to one another, it would
result in the flooding of the market with diamonds, and a consequent
depreciation of their value, with a fall in market prices almost
ruinous to both companies. He saw that the output of diamond-bearing
ground could be made almost unlimited, and in referring to this he
said: "We had to face either an arrangement with the Kimberley Central
Company, or obtain control of the Kimberley mine. We approached the
Kimberley mine management in every possible way we could conceive. I
valued the De Beers mine higher than they did, but I was willing to
give way in order to obtain control. I was met simply with smiles and
obdurate statements. I was met with the arguments of the gentleman at '
the corner,' who said the Kimberley mine was worth three times as much
as De Beers. We had to choose between the ruin of the diamond industry
or the control of the Kimberley mine. We saw this, that you could never
deal with obstinate people until you got the whip hand of them, and
that the only thing we had to do to secure the success of our industry
was to get the control of the Kimberley mine."
As
soon as Rhodes had bought the French Company and amalgamated his
interests with the Kimberley Central Company, he found that the
management of that Company was headstrong in its determination to run
the Kimberley mine in rivalry with De Beers. This was diametrically
opposed to his conviction that monopoly was the essence of success
in diamond mining; for, as he said, " Our engineers had long ago shown
us that, by underground working, Kimberley and De Beers mines could
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