Ogden Daily Standard | 1919-07-30 | Page 2 | Diamonds of World under Control of England, is Report

Diamonds of World Under Control of England, Is Report CHICAGO, July 30 By the conque: t of German West Africa, England now Controls practically the entire diamond output of the world. The old Indian mines, svLich in former centuries were fabulously rich, are exhausted. The Man mines, which when the In : dian mines were failing, became the principal t-ource of the world's Bupply now yield not more than 2 per cent of the world's toix.l ouipul South Africa! is now the only field of any Importance. Impor-tance. But with the great mines of Cape1 Colony and German Wesi Africa In England 5 control, there is no iinmedi-' I ate prospect that the output of diamonds dia-monds will increase to any consid -able extent or that the market demands de-mands of the world's most popular gem will be met. The reason tor this is the condition I In which the war left the South African Afri-can mines. Enlistments took away-many away-many white workers. Thousands of black laborers from an epidemic of Influenza which swept the fields with1 appalling fatalltj. In consequence, all , the mines were compelled to ciose down for fifteen months. They are Still suffering from a labor shortage.; The output of the Kimberly group aJone has fallen off 60 per cent. It is generally believed by those fa-! fa-! miliar -with the situation that it will be I several years before the mines work back to normal. In the meantime, the1 I present prices of stones. 33 1 3 per 1 cent higher than before the war. may be expected to continue. In fact with the output smaller and a greater mar-i mar-i kel than ever before in history eating j up all the diamonds the mines can turn j out, a considerable advance in prices I it looked for. There Is an acute shortage of dia-j dia-j monds in Amsterdam, London and Oth- er European centers which are the distributing points for South African j diamonds. The demand for diamonds is unprecedented all over the world. Nations like China and Japan, which j formerly cared little for the Jewels are I now e normous buyors, American jew-I jew-I elers have been unable to import any- where near the quantity of diamonds I necessary to eupply the home trade.