1.  Traffic in Diamonds is as old as history, as our exhibition on communications, depicting the Silk Road across Northern India in December 1999, tried to suggest.

  2.  As with Communications Technology, traffic in diamonds has recently enormously increased for the reason of industrial use. Diamond drilling of all kinds, not least for the extension of roads throughout the whole of the "Third World" is increasing.

  3.  At the same time, inside old iron curtain countries, small windows in back streets or gypsy-like pedlars, still carry little displays of diamonds for sale, a practice winked at under 70 long years of communism—why? Under repressive regimes, most people, however ideologically committed, find themselves entangled in an alternative world of illicit private enterprise.

  4.  Small wonder that today, international enterprise, licit or illicit, threatens the stability and power of national governments and makes a mockery of aid and charitable institutions. So what to do?

  Starting in on small working projects, there are studies encouraged by the Commonwealth, as yet relatively free from smuggling and corruption. There are far-reaching institutions in Britain, eg the University of London with its established practice of extra-mural degrees abroad, and there is also the BBC World Service with a reputation for impartiality. There is also the Foreign & Commonwealth Office with highly trained, select personnel all over the world, but perhaps under-used and under-appreciated among the great Leviathans of public life in Britain.

  People from abroad often say that the people of this country do not appreciate enough the freedoms they enjoy. To many in countries which have unstable, repressive regimes, traffic in diamonds is morally respectable for the sake of safety of family and friends. Diplomats and their families, for example, who would rather not go home, see nothing wrong in picking up property, while abroad, which is easy to acquire and to transport, easy to conceal. Unlike British diplomats, they can often travel freely under diplomat privilege and have been encouraged to do so during the 70 long years of communism behind the old iron curtain.

  Diamond dealing is an area of life with which indigenous British people are not particularly familiar. Nevertheless it is one of which we are likely to hear more. It is linked to the same geographical areas where the materials for weapons of mass destruction are produced. So we must hope that such organisations as we have, private and public, that are noting what is happening on small islands and in far-flung regions across the Commonwealth, will be able to appeal to the common fear of mass destruction.

  First and foremost, we feel that the ramifications of diamond smuggling could be officially and internationally recognised, its links and dangers to stability exposed.