On the time arriving when dividends were expected to be declared, in but very few instances were the directors able to do so. Ground which had yielded well in the hands of private owners often proved entirely unremunerative under the joint-stock system, and the reason of this was evident; the digger when working on his own account required no office with a highly paid staff; he was his own manager and secretary, he looked keenly after his own interests, and would never have dreamed of trusting the most vital matters in his business to a possibly incompetent servant.
In spite of the fact that, generally speaking, the company system had proved a failure, but little attempt was made to mend matters. Things drifted from bad to worse, until at last Kimberley entered on the worst financial crisis that it had ever experienced. The companies with few exceptions were more or less in difficulties. Pressed for their liabilities by the banks, they had in turn to put the greatest pressure on such shareholders as had not paid all the instalments on their shares, and in very many cases their action was useless, as the shareholders were unable to meet the demands made on them. The consequence was that the companies had to go into liquidation and work in the mines came to a partial stand-still. Kimberley was no longer the Kimberley of the past.
It may be safely said that in its rash and reckless speculation Kimberley was almost guilty of financial suicide, for not only was an all but fatal blow given to the industry which supported the place, but all confidence in its resources was for a time destroyed in the minds of its colonial neighbors and the home investing public. The good, sound investments, yielding large returns, to be made here, would startle the quiet folk who are satisfied with the “three per cents.” As an instance of the dividend paying capacity of some companies some months ago, I cannot help mentioning the Elma at Old De Beers; in November, 1883, the market value of its £10 paid-up shares was from 16 shillings to 20 shillings, when with good management in less than eight months it paid a monthly dividend averaging from two to three per cent., or for the investor who was lucky enough to buy in at the low prices, at the rate of 360 per cent. per annum.
The fact of Griqualand with its incalculable mineral wealth being now united to the colony by the line of railway opened at the end of 1885,[[55]] the knowledge that owing to this the cost of the production of diamonds must be vastly diminished, together with the lessening of theft, which the extension of the Diamond Trade Act to the colony and the re-enactment of a similar ordinance by the government of the Free State must produce, will tend to give a spurt to digging operations.
I shall next treat of the political stages through which the Diamond Fields have passed from their discovery to the present time.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE DIAMOND FIELDS UNDER ADAM KOK, CORNELIUS KOK, “DAM KOK,” ANDREAS AND NICHOLAS WATERBOER.—THE DIAMOND FIELDS AND THEIR GOVERNMENTS.—THE HOISTING OF THE BRITISH FLAG.—THE KEATE AWARD.—RUSH FROM THE RIVER TO THE DRY DIGGINGS.—PNIEL DESERTED.—THE COMMENCEMENT OF DIAMOND STEALING.—JUDGE LYNCH PUTS IN AN APPEARANCE.—DISCOVERY OF THE KIMBERLEY MINE.—BRITISH RULE PROCLAIMED.—FREE STATE COURTS CLOSED.
After writing so far about the Diamond Fields, their past and present condition, the climate, the geology, and the peculiar crime and legislation there existing, I will now turn to the early history of a region which, if it had not been for the wonderful discovery of diamonds, would yet have been the home of the half-caste Griqua, the indolent Batlapin, the marauding Koranna, the pigmy Bushman or the pioneer Boer.
Griqualand West, the official name of this part of South Africa, is bounded N. E. by the Cape Colony, S. by the Orange River, N. by Bechuana Land, E. by the Orange Free State, and W. by the Kalahari Desert.
The chief inhabitants, the Griquas, are a mixed race, many of them half-castes, who came from the Cape Colony and settled near the Orange River under Adam Kok (himself a half-caste, his father being a Dutch Boer and his mother a Hottentot slave) in 1795, who in course of time resigned his chieftainship to his son Cornelius. Cornelius Kok, being absent from his people for some time, during which he visited Lord Caledon in Capetown, found, on his return in 1816, the Griquas settled down and his son, “Dam Kok,” reigning in his stead. Dam Kok, becoming restless about this time, left Griqua Town in 1819, dying subsequently at Philippolis in 1837. Andreas Waterboer, formerly a schoolmaster and preacher under the London missionaries at Griqua Town was, after “Dam Kok” left the district, unanimously chosen chief, and his appointment was confirmed in 1822 by Lord Charles Somerset, governor of the Cape. Andreas Waterboer then set about redressing wrongs, was both well-intentioned and useful to the British government, being a “friendly and sincere ally,” as well as hospitable and open-hearted to all visitors, and by these means so consolidated his power that he received a special recognition in the shape of a silver medal, which was sent him by Lord Charles Somerset. Notwithstanding this, although backed up by the English government and Sir George Cathcart, he was continually worried by land disputes with Cornelius Kok (whom, in 1838, he had deposed from his office of provisional captain) until his death on Dec. 13th, 1852, relieved him from further trouble. His son, Nicholas, who was then quite a boy, succeeded him. Troubles increased, the English abandoned the sovereignty (now the Orange Free State) in February 1854, and Nicholas Waterboer hemmed in, on the one side by the Transvaal and on the other by the Orange Free State, formally appointed David Arnott, on Sept. 1st, 1863, to act as his agent, which he had in reality been for some years. Long before even diamonds were discovered, the Orange Free State had insisted that there could be no question as to their right to all the country between the Orange and the Vaal Rivers, but as the district was of little value, no special steps had been taken by that government to insist on their so-called rights.