The History of the Amsterdam Diamond Cutters

The trade of diamond-cutting presents many points of interest, beginning with the high intrinsic value of the raw material entrusted to these workmen, upon whom their employers must rely for absolute honesty, rare skill, and the best of judgment. The diamond cutters in North America are not a great power numerically in the world of labour, but their labour union is in some respects one of the strongest of such organisations.

Peter Goos, the first diamond polisher to settle in the city of Amsterdam, Holland, arrived there in 1588. In time the mere bruting or polishing of diamonds in Holland was succeeded by scientific cutting on geometrical lines and the artisans employed in the work and their processes were evolved into a distinct and recognised industry. In the year 1815 the leading diamond cutters of Holland convened, declared themselves "masters," decided to employ, to begin with, a score of apprentices, and organised diamond-cutting into a full-fledged trade. The foundations being thus laid, the trade flourished until the last half of the nineteenth century, when it apparently was obliterated as one of the effects of war, chiefly the Civil War in the United State and the Franco-Prussian War in Europe. When the first diamond mines were discovered in 1870 in South Africa, the demand for diamonds rose, and diamond cutters were once more enlisted in the service of the Dutch, English, and French importers, and almost any one who wished was given an opportunity to learn the trade, which had been so long asleep. The trade in diamonds then rapidly developed annually; improved steam navigation and other scientific progress provided better facilities for exporting and importing gems, and there were established many new factories for cutting and polishing diamonds in the city of Amsterdam, until the entire industry centred in Holland's capital. Amsterdam only secured the lead as the Diamond City after a keen commercial and industrial rivalry with Antwerp, a contest that was waged, with varying fortunes, for many years. The workmanship of the diamond cutters and polishers of the Amsterdam factories is first class and the standard for the trade throughout the world.

The diamond cutters' union of Amsterdam is a trade union of unique solidarity, which has been tried by the fire of many industrial disputes and trials, particularly during dull times when but a portion of the members could find employment. There are at the present time eighty-five hundred workmen, all members of the union, in Amsterdam, distributed among some eighty factories. The Amsterdam union is governed by salaried officers, who are elected by the whole body. These officers are: president, secretary, treasurer, and second treasurer; also an inspector of wages, whose function and duty it is to investigate and report upon any violation of a wage agreement he may discover. The union publishes a weekly journal, edited by the union's president; this journal is regarded by the members of the union as the foremost authority upon all matters connected with the diamond industry. The Amsterdam union was organised in November, 1894, after a simultaneous strike of all the operatives. The strike and union followed a commercial depression of the diamond trade and a consequent reduction of wages. Prior to the discovery of diamonds in South Africa in 1870, the diamond cutters of Amsterdam received an average of from sixteen to eighteen dollars per week; directly after the discovery, when diamonds were found in large quantities, a period known in the trade as "the Cape time," the demand for the skilled labour of the cutters was so great that wages were increased so that the diamond cutters were able to earn from two hundred to six hundred dollars per week; this is a conservative statement, for a diamond cutter now employed in New York City states that his father, employed in Amsterdam during that time, earned as high as eight hundred dollars in one week.