It is with a sense of deep regret that we
record the appointment of Sir Graham Bower as Colonial Secretary to the Mauritius. We do not wish to be too hard upon Sir Graham Bower, but it will be remembered that the South African Committee reported that "Sir Graham Bower was guilty of a grave dereliction of duty in not communicating to the High Commissioner the information which had come to his knowledge." The evidence showed that even putting the kindest construction on his action, which is the construction we are quite willing—nay, anxious—to put on it, Sir Graham Bower, a public official in a post of the highest confidence and trust, allowed himself to be talked round and bamboozled into a disloyal silence by Mr. Rhodes. For such conduct be is not apparently to take the consequences, but is to be given at the Mauritius an appointment as good as that he held at Cape Town. Surely it is not the taxpayers of the Colony of Mauritius, but Mr. Rhodes who ought to find com- pensation for the man he has so deeply injured and brought to disgrace,—the disgrace of being described by a House of Commons' Committee as having been "guilty of a grave dereliction of duty." Why should the Empire be made to provide for Mr. Rhodes's victims
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