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THE HOUSE IN CHARTERHOUSE STREET
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old
ventilation shaft leading to abandoned workings was opened and 470
natives and 43 white men scrambled through this opening to safety.
After
that the organization forged steadily ahead, in spite of new crises,
such as the siege of Kimberley during the Boer War, occasioned by
franchise demands of gold-seekers in the Transvaal, and when women and
children were quartered for safety deep in the shafts of the Kimberley
and De Beers mines. There were the problems of the great war
and of the depression and of the World War, 1939-------?
There
were struggles for concessions, mergers, and amalgamations which have
little place in this book, since we are not considering events with
relation to De Beers but rather De Beers only with relation to
diamonds. For those who are interested in a thorough and exhaustive
study of the organization and all its ramified enterprises, The Story
of De Beers, by Hedley A. Chilvers (Cassell & Co., Ltd., London),
is highly recommended.
Not
the least important problem facing that company, and the diamond world
in general, was the great discovery of Lichtenburg and Namaqualand,
with the resultant and spectacular diamond rushes of 1926 and 1927.
These developments provided, from the standpoint of diamond men, a
threat to the stability of the gem—the threat of a flooded market. Out
of this crisis was to come one of the most powerful organizations in
the world, the Diamond Corporation. With it the name and personality of
Sir Ernest Oppen-heimer, now chairman of De Beers Consolidated Mines,
Ltd., emerged dramatically onto the world stage.
The
moment he was elected chairman of De Beers he proved to be an
aggressive champion of the principle of production control and of the
principle of sales through a single channel. This gave rise in.some
quarters to the cry
(61)
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