Summary
The Diamond Trading Company (DTC) in London, established in 1934 as the sole selling agency for all diamonds mined by De Beers and its subsidiary companies, and the single authorized source of rough diamonds for Palestine from late April 1940 (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.55).
Details
- At the DTC rough stones were allocated, through a traditional distribution ritual, to sightholders, who passed them to middlemen and on to cleavers, sawyers, cutters and polishers (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.20).
- The cartel persisted in its mid-1938 decision to sell small stones only to those who also worked Melees, against Palestine’s focus on Sand (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.46).
- High Commissioner Harold MacMichael’s late April 1940 order allowed rough imports into Palestine only from the DTC and through Hennig & Co. (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.55).