Diamond Cut Diamond

To Britain's diamond cartel, a most disturbing thing had happened in 1941. A fabulously rich diamond bed was discovered in Tanganyika, Africa. It was eight times larger than South Africa's famed Premier Mine, previously the world's largest, and thus big enough to break the cartel's tight control of the diamond market. Even more worrisome to the cartel were signs that the new bed's discoverer, a bearded, scholarly Canadian named John Thorburn Williamson, 40, did not intend to join the cartel.

The son of a retired Canadian lumber dealer, Williamson was used to playing a lone hand. After acquiring a Ph.D. in geology at McGill University, he went to South Africa to work for a copper mine in 1934. He quit to roam the veldt in search of diamonds. After he found them (according to one story, a native found a diamond and took him to the site), he settled down to mining his bed.

He built up a working force of 6,000 native miners, provided them with movies, hospitals, and excellent working conditions. He seldom left his remote house in Tanganyika and he amused himself by listening to the radio and reading. Last year the annual output of his mine reached an estimated value of $8,000,000.

This prompted renewed efforts by the vulnerable cartel to woo Williamson. But he cold-shouldered them as he had all outside society, turned down offers to sell reportedly ranging from $20 to $80 million.

Last week, after months of iron-curtained negotiations, the cartel finally won out. Britain's Colonial Secretary, Arthur Creech Jones, announced in the House of Commons that Williamson Diamond Corp., Ltd. and two smaller Tanganyika producers had agreed to market their output only through the Diamond Trading Co., Ltd., selling agent for the syndicate.

What prompted Williamson to change his mind was not mentioned. But the drop in the diamond market--from sales of some $30 million last year to an estimated $15 million this year--undoubtedly had much to do with it.

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