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FIRE IN THE EARTH
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ment
and related industrial production. Owing to the manufacture of
munitions for England, as well as the American rearmament program, the
national income is believed to have increased from $70,096,000,000 in
1939 to $73,-800,000,000 in 1940. Toward the end of 1941 it became
evident that this would jump to more than eighty billions of dollars.
Let
us now go back a bit and look into the history of trading and
speculation and smuggling which preceded the present import status of
the diamond. First, take trading.
Antwerp
and Amsterdam had their markets for the sale and purchase of diamonds.
There were half a dozen markets in Antwerp, the two most important
being the Diamant Club and the Bourse aux Diamants. They dealt in rough
and cut stones, catering only to their members, who were admitted after
rigid examinations and trials. Amsterdam, on the other hand, had its
Beurs voor den Diamanthandel (Diamond Exchange), which in importance
ranked second only to the Diamond Trading Company of London itself.
Here were provided offices, a dining room, a diamond-weighing room, a
post office, and a telegraph office for the many brokers, manufacturers
from home and abroad who visited the place. Here stones were exchanged
for other stones and in the exchange the prices invariably went up.
Not
aloof, but independent of this, was the firm of I. J. Asscher, the
largest diamond-trading firm in Amsterdam. Here were bought and sold
most of the rough diamonds to be cut in Amsterdam. Polished diamonds
were classified, turned over to brokers for sale. There prices were
equalized. It was backed by a syndicate which, in turn, was backed by
the Netherlands government, the city of Amsterdam, and the
Amsterdamsche Bank, with a fund of more than
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