THE LATE MR BEIT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8236, 14 September 1906, Page 3

THE LATE MR BEIT.

It was a remarkable career, that of the late Mr Alfred tieit, who, bora in Hamburg, in 1853, rose from a humble position in a shipper's office to enormous wealth and power His schooling was very irregular owing to delicate health, and to the day he died he would deulare that there was not. a clerk in hia employment that oculd not write a better hand than himself, or dictate a more grammatical letter. He arrived in South Africa in-1875, when THE DIAMOND FEVER at Khnberley was at its height. To all outward appearance b'eifc took not tho slightest interest >in what weut on about him. lie kept studiously to his office, built up an ever increasing business for the firm he'represented, and for the rest lived entirely aloof from his neighbours. All tnis lime however, he WAS CAREFULLY WATCHING What took place. Be had already reasoned out to himself that unless some strong noutndliug naud seized the industry it would be ruined by its own expansion. In oilier words, if diamouds wore to bo thrown on the market as rupidiy as THE!'COULD BE TORN from the famous "blue earth," their price would be so greatly reduced that they could no longer be sold. He resolved to use that controlling influence hiaaself. When his plans were i.ipe he out himself adrift from his old Arm and bnughtfa junior share in a smell house—Porges and Co. Here ho kept welt in the background, leaving to his partners the active work of the firm. Steadily, but sorely, however, he was getting

A GRIP ON THE MARKET, and he permitted nothing to tarn bim from the course he had mapped oat for himself. Gradually his influence~ocmmenced to be felt, and nia advice and nssist'iuce iu getting the industry out of the obaos iu whiob it was born ami into something approaching order began to be sought. It was about this time that he met Mr Cecil Rhodes, who became hia partner, and the two men were soon able to carry all before them —Rhodes by HIS BOLDNESS AND DARING, Beit by his tireless energy and bulldog . tenacity of purpose. Rhodes mopped out huge schemes, the ultimate extent of which he could not see himself, and it was jtjeifc who worked tbom out and made them take praotioal shape. All these years his wealth had been steadily accumulating, until no one could say exactly what his fortune was—himself least of all—and he treated with AN AMUSED CONTEMPT all ."efforts to appraise the extend of his wealth. ''What matters ii?" he would say, with a characteristic ahrug of hia shoulder; "10 millions or 50 millions—it is all the same." His financial interests* were enormous, and extended all over the world. Rumour has it that ho invested of his personal foitune fully a million sterling in the Japanese war loans, while his holding of Treasury bills at the day of his death was probably greatly in excess of that of v any other private individual, socially Mr Beit was almost entirely unknown to Loudon. Though he built himself A MAGNIFICENT HOUSK in Park Lane, he never entertained, and steadfastly resisted all attempts to draw him from his retirement. Society had no attractions for him. Incapacitated by nature from all active sports, he took hia pleasures sadly. His nature was shy and quiet, almost to the point of melancholy. Anyone more unlike the traditional "KING OF FINANCE" i it would be impossible to imagine. Like bis great friend and fellowworker, he never married—the opposite sex was outside the scheme of his life, and he was well content to let it remain so. Many years ago, at the request of Cecil Rhodeß, he became a naturalised Englishman.