Cecil Rhodes | Page 5

crown to
a great career.
At one time the most popular man from the Zambesi to Table Mountain,
the name of Cecil Rhodes was surrounded by that magic of personal
power without which it is hardly possible for any conqueror to obtain
the material or moral successes that give him a place in history; that
win for him the love, the respect, and sometimes the hatred, of his
contemporaries. Sir Alfred Milner would have known how to make the
work of Cecil Rhodes of permanent value to the British Empire. It was
a thousand pities that when Sir Alfred Milner took office in South
Africa the influence of Cecil Rhodes, at one time politically dominant,
had so materially shrunk as a definitive political factor.
Sir Alfred Milner found himself in the presence of a position already
compromised beyond redemption, and obliged to fight against evils
which ought never to have been allowed to develop. Even at that time,
however, it would have been possible for Sir Alfred Milner to find a
way of disposing of the various difficulties connected with English rule
in South Africa had he been properly seconded by Mr. Rhodes.
Unfortunately for both of them, their antagonism to each other, in their
conception of what ought or ought not to be done in political matters,
was further aggravated by intrigues which tended to keep Rhodes apart
from the Queen's High Commissioner in South Africa.
It would not at all have suited certain people had Sir Alfred contrived
to acquire a definite influence over Mr. Rhodes, and assuredly this
would have happened had the two men have been allowed unhindered
to appreciate the mental standard of each other. Mr. Rhodes was at
heart a sincere patriot, and it was sufficient to make an appeal to his
feelings of attachment to his Mother Country to cause him to look at
things from that point of view. Had there existed any real intimacy
between Groote Schuur and Government House at Cape Town, the
whole course of South African politics might have been very different.

Sir Alfred Milner arrived in Cape Town with a singularly free and
unbiased mind, determined not to allow other people's opinions to
influence his own, and also to use all the means at his disposal to
uphold the authority of the Queen without entering into conflict with
anyone. He had heard a deal about the enmity of English and Dutch,
but though he perfectly well realised its cause he had made up his mind
to examine the situation for himself. He was not one of those who
thought that the raid alone was responsible; he knew very well that this
lamentable affair had only fanned into an open blaze years-long
smoulderings of discontent. The Raid had been a consequence, not an
isolated spontaneous act. Little by little over a long span of years the
ambitious and sordid overridings of various restless, and too often
reckless, adventurers had come to be considered as representative of
English rule, English opinions and, what was still more unfortunate,
England's personality as an Empire and as a nation.
On the other side of the matter, the Dutch--who were inconceivably
ignorant--thought their little domain the pivot of the world. Blind to
realities, they had no idea of the legitimate relative comparison between
the Transvaal and the British Empire, and so grew arrogantly
oppressive in their attitude towards British settlers and the powers at
Cape Town.
All this naturally tinctured native feeling. Suspicion was fostered
among the tribes, guns and ammunition percolated through Boer
channels, the blacks viewed with disdain the friendly advances made by
the British, and the atmosphere was thick with mutual distrust. The
knowledge that this was the situation could not but impress painfully a
delicate and proud mind, and surely Lord Milner can be forgiven for
the illusion which he at one time undoubtedly cherished that he would
be able to dispel this false notion about his Mother Country that
pervaded South Africa.
The Governor had not the least animosity against the Dutch, and at first
the Boers had no feeling that Sir Alfred was prejudiced against them.
Such a thought was drilled into their minds by subtle and cunning
people who, for their own avaricious ends, desired to estrange the High

Commissioner from the Afrikanders. Sir Alfred was represented as a
tyrannical, unscrupulous man, whose one aim in life was the
destruction of every vestige of Dutch independence, Dutch
self-government and Dutch influence in Africa. Those who thus
maligned him applied themselves to make him unpopular and to render
his task so very uncongenial and unpleasant for him that he would at
last give it up of his own accord, or else become the object of such
violent hatreds that the Home Government would feel compelled to
recall him. Thus