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FIRE IN THE EARTH
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them.
When the depression came, many of the American cutters went into other
lines of business and never returned, so that by 1940 there were
probably not more than 400 cutters in about 30 or more shops. Today the
figure certainly cannot possibly be much over 500, since few cutters
came from abroad.
But
let's say there are about 550 cutters here. In Belgium there are
22,000, in Amsterdam there are 3300! And that's why diamonds became
scarce soon after the German occupation of the Lowlands and why the
prices began to soar.
As
to other countries: South Africa had about 600 in 1929, according to
the diamond statistician and diamond-mining engineer, Sydney H. Ball;
this figure has dropped to less than 300. England—well, all Great
Britain—had few diamond cutters before the war. But about 200, perhaps
less, escaped from Europe and set up shops, where they were operating
them in 1941. At Tel Aviv, Palestine cutting began in May, 1938, and
by 1941 there were 200 refugee Belgian and Dutch cutters working—with
the hope of serving the Far and Near East trade. In Puerto Rico 75
cutters are employed; in Brazil there are a couple of hundred cutters,
but dealing mostly in industrial stones; and in India and Borneo there
are perhaps a couple of hundred more.
What
makes the American cutter in America so important now is that the war
resulted in the United States' becoming the only important gem
diamond-buying nation. Even the wealthy Maharajahs of India seem to
have hitched their money belts tighter and refused to buy. A
diamond-buying splurge was reported in England, as a hedge
against-inflation and the threat of invasion, but this was discouraged
for patriotic reasons.
Because the American cutter is now so important, he also
(98)
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