"DIAMOND KING" IS SHYEST RICH MAN

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5285, 23 December 1946, Page 3

"DIAMOND KING" IS SHYEST RICH MAN

O6,000 EMPLOYEES . UNAPPROAGHABLtE OWtNER OP FABULOUS MINE dar-es-saLaa-m Thc potentially riehest man in tho world io rapidly qaalifying for the title of the shyest nian as well. In spite of every effort, no one from the outside world has heen able to •contaet himAn his remote Tanganyika valley since it was revealed a few days ag'o that he had discovered a fabulous diamond mine. But I can now tell you sometliing* about him, writes a "Sunday Expre^s" eorrespondent. John Thorburn Williamson will walk into his offlce to-morrow morning, | switch on the radio softly, then sit down at his deslc to work another day at being the riehest man in the world. He has been doing* the same thing* for years now: switehing' on that radio which plays softly in the back-g-round all 'day, sitting there at his deslc for 12 long hours every day, never leaving even for meals, which are bi-ought in to him. E:ven now, when as ehief owner of the newly discovered Mwadui diamond mine in the Shinyanga valley of Tanganyika, he finds •himself pro'bably the riehest man in the world (indiea- \ tions are that the diamond "pipe" he j discovered is eig'ht times greater than j any other knovvn to man), it seems as j it* this HO-year-old Canadian will eon- ; , tinue t his routine as If nothing had j s ever happened. 1 Today, centre of a whirlpool of j speculation and activity on the Stoek | Exehange and newspaper offiees of j the world, Williamson sits in his j offiee, miles up country from the near- { est eivilised settlement, with not even | a telephone connection tu the outer | ivorld. j He is wrapped up in his mine. II is 1 sole reereation: Classieal literature, : geologieal and inirieralogical works. J To all inquirers -he is not at home. "No Comment" i ! Politely eouehed netvspaper eahle- j | grams receive an equally polite an- ' swer, but always the tenor is the \ same: "Iiegret must decline to make i any comments or statements." He will not go near Dar-es-Salaam. j Government oflheials who needed to i tallc vith him about his diseoveries j that dwarfeJ those of the great Ivim- j berloy field have had to make the tortuons, dlfficult journey to his valley of fortune. To-day hundveds of natives are clamouring for work outside his mine gates. In:ide G,000 are already at work. ; Hundreds more are re'ported on tlieir way from all East Africa. Williamson has the reputation of heing a good employer who provides his workers with good food, hospitals and cinemas. Even when he himself liv-cd in a shaek at the workings, he insisted on good housing for his American workers, Xow while he waits for the machinery that will enable him to boi-c down thorsands of feet to the main diamond "pipe," his main seheme is j to rid the aroa of malarial mosj quitoes. ' i | He has always battled against nature — and won — in this great : light to unloek the wreath that lies hitklen under the soil in Africa. In 1 P.di, this "most brilliant geologist in ihe world" — as Profes- j snr Bancroft, geologist of the .le i Beers Hines, describes him — pegged j claims at various points v/ithin a j radius of 20 to G0 miles in a diamond- i iferous area. i Investigations led him to believe i that these points ra^liated from a central pipe — which Jie discovered in 1941 after painstaking work. During the vvar these diamonds were of great aid to the British war effort. Ahvays Lone Wolf But to discover this pipe in the arid desert (not swamps as previous- i ly reported ) he had to battle against 1 lieat, malaria, the Tsetse fly (sleepy | sickness), lack of commnnications, i and lack of water. That was his war — and the dividends of victory have | bcen enormous. He owns 299 of the 4C0 shares in J the mine. His brother Percy who lives in Canada owns another 100, and the other share is held locally. Williamson, always the lone wolf, is playing- very much a lone hand in the marketing of his gems. Ile has tura.ed down an offer of £5,000,000 to join the Diamond Tra:Iing Coinpany, the big diamond-selling Combine, which last year marketed £25,000,009 of gems. This means that he intends to go into competition with the combine (outpnt of his mines at the moment is roughly equivalent to £2,000,000 a year) although at the moment there is no indication that he is likely to undereut them.