Cecil Rhodes | Page 2

comforts of the easy and pleasant existence which one enjoys in Merrie
England, and only there. It is not the country Squires, whose homes are
such a definite feature of English life; nor the aristocratic members of
the Peerage, with their influence and their wealth; nor even the political
men who sit in St. Stephen's, who have spread abroad the fame and
might and power of England. But it is these modest pioneers of
"nations yet to be" who, in the wilds and deserts of South Africa,

Australia and Asia, have demonstrated the realities of English
civilisation and the English spirit of freedom.
In the hour of danger we have seen all these members of the great
Mother Country rush to its help. The spectacle has been an inspiring
one, and in the case of South Africa especially it has been unique,
inasmuch as it has been predicted far and wide that the memory of the
Boer War would never die out, and that loyalty to Great Britain would
never be found in the vast African veldt. Facts have belied this rash
assertion, and the world has seldom witnessed a more impressive
vindication of the triumph of true Imperialism than that presented by
Generals Botha and Smuts. As the leader of a whole nation, General
Botha defended its independence against aggression, yet became the
faithful, devoted servant and the true adherent of the people whom he
had fought a few years before, putting at their disposal the weight of his
powerful personality and the strength of his influence over his partisans
and countrymen. CATHERINE RADZIWILL. _December, 1917._

CECIL RHODES
CHAPTER I.
CECIL RHODES AND SIR ALFRED MILNER
The conquest of South Africa is one of the most curious episodes in
English history. Begun through purely mercenary motives, it yet
acquired a character of grandeur which, as time went on, divested it of
all sordid and unworthy suspicions. South Africa has certainly been the
land of adventurers, and many of them found there either fame or
disgrace, unheard-of riches or the most abject poverty, power or
humiliation. At the same time the Colony has had amongst its rulers
statesmen of unblemished reputation and high honour, administrators
of rare integrity, and men who saw beyond the fleeting interests of the
hour into the far more important vista of the future.
When President Kruger was at its head the Transvaal Republic would

have crumbled under the intrigues of some of its own citizens. The lust
for riches which followed upon the discovery of the goldfields had, too,
a drastic effect. The Transvaal was bound to fall into the hands of
someone, and to be that Someone fell to the lot of England. This was a
kindly throw of Fate, because England alone could administer all the
wealth of the region without its becoming a danger, not only to the
community at large, but also to the Transvaalers.
That this is so can be proved by the eloquence of facts rather than by
words. It is sufficient to look upon what South Africa was twenty-five
years ago, and upon what it has become since under the protection of
British rule, to be convinced of the truth of my assertion. From a land
of perennial unrest and perpetual strife it has been transformed into a
prosperous and quiet colony, absorbed only in the thought of its
economic and commercial progress. Its population, which twenty years
ago was wasting its time and energy in useless wrangles, stands to-day
united to the Mother Country and absorbed by the sole thought of how
best to prove its devotion.
The Boer War has still some curious issues of which no notice has been
taken by the public at large. One of the principal, perhaps indeed the
most important of these, is that, though brought about by material
ambitions of certain people, it ended by being fought against these very
same people, and that its conclusion eliminated them from public life
instead of adding to their influence and their power. The result is
certainly a strange and an interesting one, but it is easily explained if
one takes into account the fact that once England as a nation--and not
as the nation to which belonged the handful of adventurers through
whose intrigues the war was brought about--entered into the possession
of the Transvaal and organised the long-talked-of Union of South
Africa, the country started a normal existence free from the unhealthy
symptoms which had hindered its progress. It became a useful member
of the vast British Empire, as well as a prosperous country enjoying a
good government, and launched itself upon a career it could never have
entered upon but for the war. Destructive as it was, the Boer campaign
was not a war of annihilation. On the contrary, without it