The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1900-02-04
THE WORLDS
RICHEST MAN

The only man In the world ever rees,rted
to be worth 100000, OOO-oa,.sx xnousand mil
lion dollars-is the AngEcized German. Al
fred Belt. whose address, If you care to
know, is simply Cape Town, or Kimberley,
or johannesburg, South Africa, or Park
Lane London.
Mr.. Belt is yet on the foolish side of so.
having been born in Hamburg In 1853 and
has made his fabulous fortune in the last
twenty-four years.
Ut is all very like fairy-book story to
read of a ma: worth a thousand millions.
and Ito know that what has made him so
rich is not land or railroads or factories or
shops or wheat corners or oil fields, but
just gold and diamonds.
The very things that stand for riches
came to him in uI1e first instance not as
result of riches but their cause.
Alfred Belt was we'll educated mer-
chants son in Hamburg, destined TO go in
to the office, where he would learn to check
and supervise accounts relating to ship
ments and receipts of goods to and from
the ports of the earth; to Inherit a con-
siderable income from staid old shipping
business; to cultivate family, taste in
music, proper regard for beer, and go to
his fathers, respected but very little
known German merchant.
But about the time he was going into
business and giving up the duels and other
delights of student days. there was q sud
den commerce with THE young South Afri-
can town of imberley which promised sucl
development that his firm considered 1t
wise to send a representative into this new
marvel land TO examine and see Of tn re-
sources of the country justified the big
credits the traders in all sorts of stores
and machinery were demanding from Ham
burg merchants.
Diamonds wealth in dts most concen-
trated form, had been found in the Orange
River country in 1867, and in 1870, or posi-
bly, a year earlier, reports came OF even
greater diamond mines found in Kimber-
ley to the northwest
There was rush to the country from
all over South Africa, and soon from all
over the world, but 1t was not until 1879
that the slow moving conservative Ham
burg firm of which the elder Belt was
member felt the tremendous impetus OF
the new trade strongly enough to induce
them to send out and investigate.
That sort of work required the vigor and
health and activity, and. perhaps. the en-
thustasm of a youngster, and so Alfred
Belt, then % years of age, was QUILTED
with credit with arms. with letters OF IN
PRODUCTION, with careful instruction and
paternal blessing and set safl for Cape
Town, thence by bullock team-for the
railroad was not yet built--across Cape
Colony the Free State, Transvaal and SO
into Kimberley.
He founded a city of madmen
Thousands had rushed in, taken up or
bought land. worked the wonderful blue or
yellow clay. filled. as in a pudding with
fruit, with the duh stones which could be
cut and polished into the jewels for which
the world would give fortunes.
He was cool-headed. man of orderly
business methods by inheritance and he
saw that there could very easily be too
IL. Il fnf Rn6=
He undertook then a work which is
usually attributed wholly to Cecil Rhodes,
who did not go into the district until some
years afterward, the work of first com
bining and then systematiZing the diamond
mining industry.
This is not to say that Rhodes did not
have a large hand in the ultimate close
corporation result He did; but young Belt
was first in the field, first to realize that
diamonds might become so cheap as to
be proitless to mine; first to begin the
quiet buying up of scattered and conflict
ing claims: first to see that there was
wealth beyond the dreams of avarice only
if the production of diamonds should be
kept down to the point where they would
be freely absorbed by the nations at the
old Standard price.
The result was a combination which is a
model of its kind The great De Beers mine
has for years paid five and a half per cent.
on its bonds and twenty per cent dividends
ON it's stock, and 1T lis capitalized at $40 ,O0O,-
OO0
Rhodes, .dashing. sensational came along
and became the chief figure in the public
eye when that eye was turned toward
South Africa. but always there was the
firm of Wernher, Belt & Co. at work for the
greatest profit and the smallest amount of
notorfety.
'sHow much is he worth?' some one ask
ed a friend of his once. HE probably
could not get out more than thousand
millions now" was the response. but IL he
would let the price of rough diamonds go
below from twenty eight to thirty-two shil-
aings per carat no one knows how much he
would realize"