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FIRE IN THE EARTH
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We
already have discussed some of the subterfuges used in stealing
diamonds—placing them in the lead of a bullet, in the square recesses
of the middle pages of books, even in the human body. We know, too,
about the Alsatian dogs who bring down their men. And, of course, the
most effective of all, the company compound.
The
compound was the idea of Cecil Rhodes and other leaders of the diamond
industry. It was conceived with the purpose of preventing natives from
getting in contact with "I.D.B's." From the time it was instituted the
diamond companies found their yields greatly increased. The natives, it
seems, willingly contracted to be confined in these compounds like
prisoners for a certain stated time. But even though they were hardly
more than peons, it is only fair to point out that the diamond-mine
owners laid down a law that wages were to be paid in cash in full, and
not partly in goods, although from all the reports one gathers the
miners were required to buy from company-owned stores. But whereas most
of our company-owned stores in the United States have overcharged for
their goods, the mine stores charged the natives so little that the
near-by townspeople protested, claiming that when the labor contracts
of the natives in the compound expired, these natives were inclined to
accuse the traders in town of overcharging, having become accustomed to
the lower prices.
Now
in a book like this it is hardly up to me to go into the economic
aspects of Kaffir labor in diamond mines thousands of miles away—we
have enough such problems at home. But to complete the picture, it
would seem that the final decision was to charge the Kaffir boys the
same as the townspeople charged for goods. As to labor conditions, a De
Beers historian puts it this way:
(44)
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