ALFRED BELT By Seymour Fort
Rhodes's friend and collaborator not only in building up the diamond and gold industries of South Africa, but also in founding Rhodesia, has had to wait long for a literary memorial, for he died in 1906. Thus it is no surprise to find Mr. Seymour Fort's Alfred Bed (Ivor Nicholson and Watson,-8s.-6d.)-somewhat fragmentary, He left no personal records, and most of those who knew him well are dead. As Beit was a very shy and reserved man, hating the publicity that Rhodes loved, he would not have regretted the biographer's difficulties. Mr. Fort, unable to give much detail about Beit's life, 'draws attention to the wonderful work that has been done by his foundation, the Beit Railway Trust, for education- and other public services in Rhodesia, and by the colonial history chair that he founded at Oxford. Alfred Beit was born in Hamburg in 1853 and went out to Kimberley in 1875. Within a dozen years he had made a great fortune in diamond mining, begun to make another on the Rand, and started the Chartered Company. _ His biographer lays stress on his great personal popularity with both English and Dutch of all classes, and on his unfailing generosity. More might have been said of his truly remarkable art collection, one of the choicest formed in modern. tunes. Beit never lost interest in his native country, but -he became as ardent an enthusiast as Rhodes for the spread of English civilization beyond- the Limpopo, and Rhodesia benefits still by his generosity.
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