THINGS DIAMONDS HELP TO MAKE

Evening Star, Issue 22541, 8 January 1937, Page 6

THINGS DIAMONDS HELP TO MAKE

CARS, SHIPS, GUNS. BREAD VITAL TO MACHINE AGE The world’s diamonds are becoming more expensive, more popular, and more useful, says the ‘ Sunday Express.’ They are all mined and sold, practically speaking, by one gigantic concern, the Diamond Corporation. During the slump the sales of uncut diamonds of this, corporation were about £2,000,000 By 1934 they had reached £3,700,000. For 1936 they will probably be more than £8,000,000. A truly wonderful increase. And a striking index of world prosperity. Take a look at the world diamond situation. Tho Diamond Corporation can get four times as much for diamonds from the cutter? of Holland, Belgium, and America as it did a few years ago. The average price of diamond? has gone up 60 per cent, since the world slump. It will go higher yet. Diamonds of large size (10 carat? and over) are actually fetching higher prices than they have ever done .before. There were 40 per cent, more cut stones imported into the United States in the first six months of 1986 than for a corresponding period a year earlier. Americans are at the moment the world’s greatest buyers of diamonds. They regard them as gilt-edged security. After the Americans come the French. The British are buying more diamonds than they formerly did, but we are still very small buyers comparatively. There is a great shortage of diamonds in Germany. Only money which ha? been paid out to buy “essential ” (not luxury) articles is permitted by the German Government to leave the country. Therefore, if diamonds are sold openly in Germany the seller cannot take his money out of the country. The trade is not worth while. It is stated that if a buyer went into Germany with half a million pounds’ worth of diamonds he could sell them in a single day. Practically the only stones sold in Germany are those which are smuggled in and the money for them smuggled out. These are not small in quantity, though. Diamonds are gradually becoming rare. Fewer and fewer of the larger' stones are being found. They, are gradually becoming more and more valuable. In the 20 years between 1910 and 1930 the yield per ton of ore from the great Jagersfontein mine dropped almost 50 per cent. ' Amongst those favoured by fate in the diamond situation are the Spanish grandees, whose jewels are now pouring into the London and Paris markets. But by far the most interesting part of tho world situation to-day is the fact that the diamond is being put to work. Only half tho diamonos mined are fitted for jewellery. The rest, though just as hard, are discoloured. They are brownish or yellowish. A certain proportion, but not a large one, of these have always been used in industry. But of recent years the demand for industrial diamonds has increased by leaps'and bounds. The truth of the matter is that industry cannot do without them. If the supply of the cheap discoloured ones failed, manufacturers would have to buy the brilliant diamonds omt of jewelllers’ shops.'This.situation actually arose during the war on a limited scale. Germany could get no industrial diamonds, and they had to take the stones out of women’s' rings to make their guns. To-day diamonds are used everywhere to true up the very hard carborundum wheels which grind into shape every part of modern machinery. Nothing else will cut the carborundum wheels. Without these wheels—no modern machinery. Hardly anyone yet realises the extent to which the industry in this country is’coming to centre: round the diamond. V, The motor car industry could not go on for a minute without diamonds. The tool which grinds the aluminium piston to make a perfect fit with the cylinder is pointed with a diamond. The Ford Motor Company in America has a thousand of them'-in constant use. The precision cutting of steel, a vital factor in every machine of this machine: age, can now be done at _ about a tenth of the former cost. This has come about because.very hard alloys have been discovered to make .the cutting tools. But these cutting tools have come into existence only because of the .use of industrial diamonds, which alone are, hard enough to cut the cutting tool and give it its keen edge. Diamonds have decreased- manufacturing costs. Once steel for machines had to be cut into shape when the steel was soft, and then steel was case-hardened. This meant great loss of accuracy. Now a piece of steel can be taken as hard as it is possible to make steel and it can be out into shape as it is. The hair-like wire which is coiled into electric light filaments can only be made with the aid of a diamond. It is drawn by passing the metal through a diamond with a tiny hole in it, like a bead. A piece of tungsten the size of half a thick pencil makes 58 miles of lamp wire. Nor is that the limit. Wire can be drawn through a diamond so fine that it cannot be seen at all except with _ a magnifying glass. Neither guns nor airplanes could bo made without diamonds. AH the wonderful accuracy and efficiency of machinery of which the modern world boasts is achieved only through these stones. Even bread depends on them. The rollers which roll out the flour are ground into shape with a wheel trued up by a diamond. As' a result of all this the price of the best class of industrial diamonds has doubled. A few years ago, tho safes of the Diamond Corporation were, crammed with useless discoloured “ industrial diamonds.” They were looked upon in the light of a white elephant. Since then the whole situation has changed. The “ valueless ” stones have been sold off gradually for millions of pounds. Sold off to such an extent that there is a world shortage. That is one of the strokes of luck the Corporation has had. One of the biggest British firms of industrial diamond distributors sold 3,000,000 stones last year. And who dominates the world’s supply? The name of the man is Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, the head of the Diamond Corporation, who lives in Johannesburg.