They are owned by the De Beers
Company, a consolidation of diamond properties arranged by Mr. Rhodes
twelve or fourteen years ago. The De Beers owns other craters; they are
under the grass, but the De Beers knows where they are, and will open
them some day, if the market should require it.
Originally, the diamond deposits were the property of the Orange Free
State; but a judicious "rectification" of the boundary line shifted them
over into the British territory of Cape Colony. A high official of the
Free State told me that the sum of $4,00,000 was handed to his
commonwealth as a compromise, or indemnity, or something of the sort, and
that he thought his commonwealth did wisely to take the money and keep
out of a dispute, since the power was all on the one side and the
weakness all on the other. The De Beers Company dig out $400,000 worth
of diamonds per week, now. The Cape got the territory, but no profit;
for Mr. Rhodes and the Rothschilds and the other De Beers people own the
mines, and they pay no taxes.
In our day the mines are worked upon scientific principles, under the
guidance of the ablest mining-engineering talent procurable in America.
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