The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-06-21

Wernher was the keen, quiet banker of the combination. These four men, in all they did, stood ever together
 tThe character of the combination was shown by Rhodes when, at meet ing of the Director to face payment of f4,000.0OO debenture bonds. he said: When the payment of large sum of money is necessary and It is not a legal but only moral obliga- tion, such sums are rarely paid. Not withstanding that. this is only ver- bal agreement, MT. Belt ana my as- sociates will see that the payments are made and have assumed complete responsibility to pay the sum in ten installments.'
 "The master stroke of the com bina- tion was the great unification. of the diamond mines in 1889, when, with wonderful foresight, they obtained practically all the good mines of South Africa and bound them into one great system. They took over thousands of diamond claims which were unprO- ductive because they were only 31 feet square, and each man had to confine his work to his own tiny plot. with the result that only the smallest yield was possible in each case. They took options on these many small claims and gave the small claim stalk CTS stock in the new company they formed of all the claims in the neigh borhood, tied these together into, one great diamond dragnet, installed the best machinery and presently had a. gigantic yield of diamonds. Their organization, too, was unique. They started with certain life governors and Directors with permanent life posi- tions, each governor having moreover an alternate with full powers to act in the governors absence.
 Early in their organization, and at the suggestion of Gardner F. Will Hams, the American who was general manager of the company, they check ed the enormous waste heretofore suffered in diamond mining through theft. They began by hiring natives for from three to nine months, dur ing which time they locked the na- tives in an inclosure, there feeding, housing, and caring for them. This cut off a leakage of from 30 to 40 per cent, which had formerly gone to the '. D., B. as the illicit diamond buyers were called. The result was was ever anxious to keep the price of diamonds steady, while formerly it had been possible for the illicit dia- mond buyers to flood the market with their ,cheaply gotten stones and sell lower than the, company that mined thanas 4tks
 Next, they organized a wonderful
 
 their detective service persons of every walk of 1ife-bartenders, barmaids, clerks, young girls, and women. This put Q final quietus to thieving, and, in fact, it presently was worked out so finely that there were only forty-sev- en men iss all South Africa who could buy a diamond or own a rough dia- mond of any; kind. All others in possession of such stones were liable to arrest This narrowed down all diamond selling for the entire. diaL mond output to the syndicate itself. m Diamonds by the Bucketful.
 Although they stood together con stantly, they sometimes traded with each other. One interesting incident of the sort occurred inssf1880, when Rhodes offered to sell :Barnato a.tre- mendous mass Of diamonds, provided he would buy them in a bucket.
 ".Oh; just that you can say you've bought a bucketful of diamonds re- piled Rhodes smiling.
 "Barnato agreed and bought the bucketful Of diamonds. It took him no less than three months to separate the stones in that bucketful of pre- cious confusion and in the meantime Rhodes was able to throw upon the market and sell at a higher price than those in the bucket brought, a great flood of new diamonds from the mines.
 Since the unifcation of the dia- mond mines in 1e8e the price Of dia- monds has advanced steadily. but no more so than other commodities where the difficulty of obtainink them has increased Originally the fnin- ing was carried on at depth of from 50 to 1000 feet Now it is car- ried to depth of from 1000 to 5000 feet. The yield, moreover, formerly