DIAMOND WORKERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 November 1943, Page 4

DIAMOND WORKERS

MANY BELGIAN REFUGEES IN BRITAIN. — PRODUCTS USED MOSTLY IN ARMAMENT INDUSTRY. The establishment of the “Belgian Training Centre of the Diamond Industry” in a small industrial town in Britain benefits many workers, men and women, refugees from Belgium and Holland, and disabled soldiers, also the armaments, industry, the Belgian Government in London, and even the British Board of Trade, a “Christian Science Monitor” correspondent in London wrote recently. Though preparations had been made for evacuation from Belgium at short notice of the equipment of diamond cutting workshops, the invasion came so suddenly that the only baggage brought by fleeing diamond merchants and workers to this country was" knowledge, experience, and skill. With the help of the British Board of Trade, the British Diamond Corporation and Belgian and Dutch experts set up the first diamond cutting workshop in 1940, employing skilled refugee workers on fifty mills, The equipment had been ordered from the United States. But only a few months later it-became necessary to move the diamond cutting workshops to larger premises. Facilities for the training of' a number of new workers were added; The rough stones come from British South Africa and the Belgian Congo. The cut gems are not on sale in Britian, 85 per cent, of them being exported, providing a regular income of foreign exchange. The. production of industrial diamonds is absorbed by armaments factories. High grade industrial stones are needed for the tools which turn out aircraft and tanks with all their accessories. A PECULIAR TRADE. In Belgium and Holland the trade habitually passed from father to son. Where twenty polishers work, only one cutter and one sawer are needed, but it takes one polisher about two years to train another, and he can only train one man at a time. The men trained in one of the three processes are not interchangeable. These perculiarities of the trade, the comparatively high wages which diamond workers earn, and the booms and slumps on the diamond market which frequently follow one another made it necessary to regulate the influx of new workers for the protection of the workers themselves and the whole trade. It is proposed that while London will remain the post-war marketing place foi' diamonds, the industry is to return as soon as possible to its traditional European centres. Therefore, as a rule, only those of Belgian and Dutch nationality are being accepted for training. _• No women have, so far, been adm.it->"-ted to the training for gem cutting. In the workshop where industrial diamonds are being manufactured, however, six young Belgian refugee women undergo training. The manager of the Cerere, humself a refuge diamond dealer from Holland, put into his work all his expert knowledge, resourcefulness and energy. When interviewed he was playing with a handful of stones, which if looked like small pieces of thick glass, > ■ dull and shapeless. “A few of these stones,” he said, “will make precious gems, but the rest are going to ,bo turned into tools for our Spitfires. There is no stone too good for this purpose now.” There were about 20,000 diamond workers in Belgium before the outbreak of war. It is estifated that only about one third will have survived the occupation.