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FIRE IN THE EARTH
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limiting
sales. De Beers was one of those to agree and, since Alfred Beit and
Barnato, who were stockholders in De Beers, dominated the syndicate,
you can see how the syndicate and De Beers interpenetrated. But the
dictator, so to speak, of this syndicate was Solly Joel. He had been
working for Barnato Brothers, finally was taken into the firm. When
Barney Barnato died he left his interest in De Beers and the syndicate
to a brother and to Solly Joel and his brothers, Jack and Woolf Joel.
That enabled Solly, especially after the death of Rhodes, to assume
full command of the situation.
Under
his hand, as under the hand of no man before or since, with the
possible exception of Tavernier, the glamor and romance of the diamond
spread about the world. Its imperishable beauty was exploited, the
desire for it touching almost every adult human heart. And his
right-hand man in solidifying the power of the syndicate was Sir Ernest
Oppenheimer.
Solidify
he did, in spite of overwhelming obstacles and opposition from other
nations. He saw rival diamond fields springing up in the Belgian Congo,
in Angola, in German South-West Africa. Earlier, Rhodes had sought to
explore the rich Congo fields, but in his way was the determination of
King Leopold II of Belgium to exploit the Congo diamonds for his own
country.
One
hundred miles north of Angola, along the Kasai River, a tributary of
the Congo, Belgian emissaries, financed in part by American capital,
had discovered diamonds. The fields were known as the Forminiere.
Thomas Fortune Ryan was a partner of the king in this venture.
Sir
Ernest and the syndicate and De Beers countered by getting the backing
nf the House, of Morgan and thus formed the Anglo-American Corporation.
In turn Anglo-(66)
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