Роберт Фиш - Rough Diamond

“Can y’?” Barney asked quietly, but his voice was on the verge of trembling. “The last block I heard o’ sold fer one hundred bleedin’ quid a share!”

Solly’s eyes widened. “What! Why would they sell for that? I know what comes out of the mine; I take it out!” He nodded as comprehension came to him. “I see. You mean I sold too cheap—”

“No, I don’t mean y’sold too bleedin’ cheap!” Barney said bitingly. “I mean, why did y’sell at all? Didn’t y’stop to think y’might be sellin’ control o’ the whole bleedin’ company?”

Solly stared. “How could I have anything to do with the control of the company? I know you’ve got twenty thousand shares above and beyond control, so how could my five thousand shares have anything to do with anything?”

Barney sighed. When he spoke his Cockney accent was gone, as was his anger, replaced with profound disgust with himself.

“What you didn’t know was that your Uncle Barney is a horse’s arse. That block that sold for one hundred pounds each was for my twenty thousand.” He shrugged. “Well! So old horse-faced Rhodes finally managed to buy me out!” There was almost a touch of admiration in his voice. “Still, whether he knows it or not, there have been a few new laws passed since he went away to England, and they aren’t going to do him all the good he thinks.”

“What do you mean?” Solly asked, puzzled.

“Rhodes’ll find out,” Barney said enigmatically, and turned to leave. He turned back. “You’d better come over to the hotel this evening. This raid will be over by sundown, and Rhodes’ll have the Kimberley Mines to add to De Beers. He’ll undoubtedly want a meeting and if he doesn’t, I will. I figure it might be good instruction for you to sit in on it.”

“I’ll be there,” Solly promised, and watched his uncle walk back through the piles of blue ground scattered throughout the yard. The man’s pace was slower, more hesitant than Solly could ever remember; normally Barney Barnato seemed to trot rather than merely walk. Solly made a calculation as he watched his uncle. Barney Barnato had been in Africa just twelve years; that made him just thirty years old. And whatever Rhodes’ successful raid on the Kimberley Mines Company had done to the Barnato pride, it would make Barney the richest man in all Africa. To Solly Loeb that was ample compensation for anything; one couldn’t eat pride, or drink it, nor did pride buy women or fine clothes. After all, money was what it was all about, wasn’t it? Money and power? Certainly not pride…

The meeting was held in the home of Dr. Leander Starr Jameson as being the most neutral of places on which both of the major antagonists could agree, especially since Dr. Jameson had absented himself for the night. They sat around a table; Alfred Beit and Rhodes on one side, Barney and Solly on the other. A full bottle of whiskey and a glass was before each man, while a sideboard on one side of the room contained extra full bottles should they be required. For the first time since he had begun the long fight for total control of the diamond industry, Cecil Rhodes felt a small touch of pity for Barney Barnato; he knew how he would have felt had Barnato succeeded in taking control of the De Beers mining properties — which Rhodes was convinced would eventually have happened had he not managed the huge loan from the Rothschilds and acted first. Besides, it was essential to Rhodes’ plans to work with Barnato. Contrary to Barney’s opinion, Rhodes was well aware of the laws that had been passed in his absence, and the power they still gave Barnato despite his having lost control of Kimberley Mines.

Rhodes waited until everyone had opened his whiskey bottle and poured himself a drink, and then opened the meeting.

“I suggest, to begin with,” he said quietly, “that we forget the past. Let us start with the situation that exists today. As I am sure you all know, I did not make every effort to combine all the diamond mining interests for any reason of personal gain. I have more than enough money to allow me to live in any style of comfort I might wish for the rest of my days. Nor did I do it for what many would think of as power. I did it for England.”

There was nothing melodramatic in the manner in which he spoke, and Barney, listening quietly, knew that the man was sincere. Mistaken, Barney believed, but obviously sincere.

“As you know,” Rhodes went on, “I have believed for a long time that only when Great Britain rules Africa will there be total peace and prosperity here for all inhabitants, be they natives, Boers, or English. I have always wished to contribute my share toward this goal, a goal I sincerely and wholeheartedly believe essential for the well-being of all. To do so, however, requires money, huge sums of money, and the best means of obtaining such vast sums, as I have always seen it, is through the exploitation of the wealth this great continent contains; through its diamonds or whatever other mineral wealth may be found beneath its soil. To this end I have tried for years, and have finally succeeded, in getting control of the Kimberley properties to add to the other mining properties, since I have felt it vital there be an end to the — you will pardon me, but I must use the word — the anarchy that previously prevailed in the mining and the sale of diamonds. May I repeat, there is nothing personal in this. I will freely admit that I have had differences in the past with Mr. Barnato” — he smiled briefly — “you will note I said Mr. Barnato, not Barnato — as I am sure he will admit he has had with me — but I truly believe the time for all such animosities has come to an end. There is too much at stake.”

He paused, waiting for Barney to speak. Barney had been staring into his whiskey glass as he listened; now he looked up.

“Exactly what do you want, Mr. Rhodes?”

“I want the articles of association of the new company that is to be formed to allow it to do anything it wishes,” Rhodes said plainly. He held up his hand. “I am fully aware of the new laws that have been passed recently, and I know that I would need to control the votes of three quarters of the shares in order to make those articles as I wish to make them. I am also aware, Mr. Barnato, that you control more than enough shares to prevent me from so doing. It is my intention — and I am exercising it now — to ask you to vote your shares in such manner as to allow me to write the articles as I wish.”

He looked at Barney. Barney took a drink of whiskey and then removed his pince-nez, polished them carefully, and returned them to his nose. He looked at Rhodes with no expression at all on his face.

“Well,” he said at last, “you’re honest, Mr. Rhodes, I have to give you that, regardless. But I’d still like to know what you mean when you say, ‘whatever they wish.’ That’s a bit wide for me. A bit loose. A man could fall a long way through those chairs, it seems to me. Could you please explain?”

“Certainly,” Rhodes said, and was pleased that at least so far it appeared that Barnato intended to maintain the meeting on a gentlemanly level. Rhodes had not been so sure of it when he had first suggested the meeting. “What I mean, Mr. Barnato, is that I want the articles of association to quite clearly permit the company to do what it wants, to go far beyond the search for and the distribution of diamonds. I want the articles to permit the new company to look for minerals anywhere it wishes, in the north or anywhere else. I want it to be able to occupy territory, if need be; to build and maintain a railway from Cape Town to Cairo, if required. In short, I want the company to be able to do anything and everything it wishes to further the ambition of bringing Africa under British rule!”