industries. Yet Afrikaners still controlled less than one
percent of the £1 000 million’s worth of mining and industrial shares on the stock exchange.
Recalling Ds Kestell’s words to students (‘I don’t dwell on the past or the present but look to the future’), Rupert expressed his own future-oriented thinking with a plea for the upliftment of black people. He based his argument on economic realities. Partly through Afrikaner endeavour, South Africa had been transformed into an industrial country that provided urban employment for thousands of Afrikaners. It was doing the same for hundreds of thousands of black workers. More than 30 000 Africans − both local and from beyond the national borders − were pouring into the major cities annually, leading to a preponderance of blacks in urban demographics. He advocated the ‘civilising mission’ as a solution to these developments that had brought about ‘one of our most vital questions’.
His proposed solution amounted to white mastership in white areas and white trusteeship in black territories, with the proviso that it should be mastership that is earned and based on achievement. He was farsighted enough to envision a day when mining would no longer be able to sustain the economy – South Africa’s industries had to developed further to ensure financial strength in the future. The steel and petrol industries had to be developed to make South Africa self-sufficient in the event of international crises. Blacks must know that South African courts would protect their basic human rights. This would make them sceptical of the professed freedom propagated by foreign powers.
He put two specific proposals to his audience. The first was that Afrikaner industrialists should provide a starting capital of £5 000 to launch a non-profit company (he suggested the name ‘Bantu Development Corporation’) with a view to establishing ‘modest local industries in black territories as proof of our bona fides and sincere intentions’. The second proposal was for the establishment of a corporation for European immigration to help meet the need for skilled labour. But he emphasised that the two initiatives should go hand in hand – ‘the one must supplement the other’.1
Rupert was given a standing ovation by the congress audience, which included his father John Rupert and his former headmaster Dr G von W Eybers. In retrospect his plea for the development of blacks could be regarded as paternalistically couched in the terminology that was current at the time, nonetheless it already expressed the idea of partnership he would proclaim with such conviction in the years ahead. At the congress, his notion of the desirability of economic rapprochement to other population groups was endorsed by both Dr Nic Diederichs and Prof.Wicus du Plessis, who declared that ‘we need to start building bridges to the other population groups to strengthen our influence on and our service to the country’s economy as a whole’.2
Rupert’s speech was in many important respects a prelude to the debate about the development of black homelands and the role of urban blacks that would rage in Afrikaner circles in later years. For a long time, however, nothing came of his proposals. As Rupert himself commented laconically, ‘There was applause but no action.’
Rupert’s innovative thinking on socioeconomic questions was matched by his pursuit of innovation with regard to products. From the outset, the Rembrandt Group concentrated on producing both new and better products in the tobacco industry through research and hard work. Quite early on he introduced the new Golden Throat filter and the All Seal packet, a paper packet lined with aluminium – this innovation came about because Rembrandt had no machines to make cardboard packages. Then, in 1952, fully a year ahead of any other tobacco company in the world, came his biggest innovation yet, which was to change smoking fashions around the globe.
He was never happy about ordinary filter-tipped cigarettes, sensing that smokers subconsciously felt they were being short-changed, since the filter replaced some of the tobacco. So he came up with a brand-new idea: a king-size filter-tipped cigarette. He summoned his chief technician and gave him an ultimatum: within 30 days − not 90! − he had to modify the machines to produce the new format. This was another typical quality of the entrepreneurial Rupert: he demanded much of his employees because of his belief that speed, timing and quality were crucial competitive advantages. With this sense of urgency, he would often remind his associates: ‘We are cats on a hot tin roof.’
The chief technician did not hesitate to do what had been asked by ‘Mr AE’ (as he was called by older employees, to distinguish him from his brothers Mr JP – Jan – and Mr JA – Koos). It was with reason that some of the employees also whispered that ‘AE’ stood for ‘All and Everything’. By the end of 1951 the modified machines were in operation. In 1952, a whole year before their counterparts in the USA and elsewhere, they had succeeded in putting 85mm cigarettes on the market. And not just one brand: alongside Rembrandt van Rijn Filter de Luxe there was a Rothmans King Size Filter as the company’s own internal competition, a typical procedure of Rupert’s to awaken creative ingenuity and motivate people. ‘Because’, he observed, ‘you don’t run the race on your own.’
Other cigarette manufacturers were sceptical about the new, unproved product. Even Sydney Rothman, his technical advisor, refused to market Rothmans King Size or Rothmans King Size Filter (which Rembrandt manufactured under licence in South Africa) in Britain. Not until the eventual takeover of Rothmans of Pall Mall did this Rothmans ‘baby’, as Rupert called the new cigarette, hit the London market.
Another sceptic was the biggest cigarette manufacturer in Europe, the German Philipp Reemtsma, who had met Jan Rupert in Hamburg in 1950 and was impressed with everything he saw and heard about Rembrandt. When he eventually met Rupert, the two men became firm friends despite initial language difficulties. A World War I pilot himself, Reemtsma had lost three of his sons during World War II. While he suspected that the enterprising young South African would become his main competitor, he asked himself: ‘What would you do for your own son?’ He decided to take Rupert under his wing and helped him in crucial ways.
In later years the roles changed, with Reemtsma asking advice from Rupert at least once a month. And he insisted on paying Rupert. The depth of their friendship was such that Reemtsma wanted to appoint Rupert as trustee for the interests of his surviving son, Jan Philipp, a child of his second marriage, but Rupert did not see his way open to take on this responsibility as it would have meant moving to Europe.
Reemtsma had grave doubts about the concept of king-size filter-tipped cigarettes. By 1954 this innovation had swept the American market, but America was not Europe. At Reemtsma’s home at Bad Gastein in Austria he and Rupert argued throughout one whole night. Round four in the morning they reached a compromise: if filter cigarettes could seize six percent of the market, Reemtsma would concede the point. Never pusillanimous, Rupert predicted it would be 80%.
He was right. By 2000, according to Filtrona International, 93% of all the 5,7 trillion cigarettes smoked in the world were filter tipped. The most widely used filters (69%) were made of cellulose acetate, with Estron as the leading manufacturer. Second came polypropylene filters with 21%, mainly in China.
The episode with Reemtsma reveals much about Rupert’s nature. He is a refined and cultivated person, invariably courteous. But he is also someone with firm convictions, who could persevere when others threw in the towel. If he wanted something done, it had to be done. If he was convinced that an innovation was the right thing at the right time, nothing could stand in his way. For this reason some of his close friends have described him as a man of steel.
Rembrandt led the field with other innovations as well. It produced the first mentholated filter-tipped cigarettes in the world; the first ‘Multifilter’ king-size cigarettes; the first cigarettes with ‘Multivent’ super-porous paper; the first ultramodern, gold-banded filter; and the world’s first luxury-length cigarette.
Five years after its humble start in the old mill in Paarl Rembrandt controlled a substantial part of the South African cigarette market. But this did not satisfy Rupert.
