The diamond industry has become the key…

The diamond industry has become the key to the economic fortunes of the Cape Colony by providing the single largest source of export earnings, as well as by fueling development throughout the colony.

Whereas the Cape's exports in 1870 had been worth little more than £2,000,000, with wool providing the bulk of earnings, by the end of the century the value of exports has risen to more than £15,000,000, with diamonds alone accounting for £4,000,000.

There is also substantial growth in population, much of it from immigration.

As a result, there will be close to four hundred thousand resident Europeans in the Cape Colony by 1900, twice the number who had lived there in 1865.