UNOSTENTATIOUS MILLIONAIRE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81857, 4 October 1906, Page 4

UNOSTENTATIOUS MILLIONAIRE.

The late Mr Alfred 1. is said to have been the antithesis 'e typical self-made millionaire. • .itle, nervou>, self effacing man. *ho took no put in general conversation, was never known to make a public speech, and scarcely ever offered an opinion unless asked for it; he dressed unobstnisivelv, came and went quietly. noticed everything, and said nothing." Unlike many of the \mencan millionaires, be did not s.ait with empty pockets. He was the 1 to a shipping business when he went to Kimberley in the'early days of diamond seeking, and his business gem oqs at once made bim realise the danget of making business too cheap and the urgent necessity of buying up the scattered claims to obtain control of the market. The foundations of his huge wealth (Ms firm was reputed to be worth a few years ago) was laid when Rhodes, Barnato, Joel and he founded the De Beers Companv. Rhodes told »nce how he caW toknow Beit, He found him working late one night at the office of his firm in Kimberley. ''D°> ou never take a rest?" I a'ked. "Not Often,'he replied. "Well., what s your game?" said I. "I am going to control the whole diamond output before I am much older," he answered as he got off his stool. That s funny," I said. "I have made up my mind to do v the same; we had better join hands." Beit found in Rhodes a master mind and a hero, and to the end of his life furthered to the utmost in his power the ideal of the man he loved. But while the idea of the great diamond monopoly was Rhodes' it was Beit who worked out the details and prevented the great Englishman from abandoning the scneme m his impatience "And this was true all through all their long connection, ■ays one biographer. "Rhodes mapped out huge schemes, the ultimate extent of which he could not see him •elf and it was Beit who worked them out and made them take practical shape" Mr Beit had to undergo much obloquy, but his friends declare that there were few more patriotic British subjects than he. His charily is said to have been very large-hearted and unostentatious. Mr Abe Bailey describes his generosity as boundless, and another friend says he was almost a father to dozens of people. A great deal of money was •pent on his London house, but everything was in the best of taste, the house being full of art treasures, selected and arranged in the manner of a connoisseur and not a self-made vulgarian. Mr Beit never married—perhaps it was the example of , his hero that kept him a bachelor.