[To THE EDITOR OP THE 'SPECTATOR.1 Sna,—Surely your comments on
my letter in the Spectator of .4 'Ind 3rd are scarcely worthy of your judgment and -fair- ness. One of your four objections to Mr. Rhodes -was his gift of 210,000 to the party of Mr. Parnell,—" the rebels:, in your phrase. I pointed out that so far from aiding a party of rebels, Mr. Rhodes's gift was made on the distinct undenstaaa. lug that he was helping in the first step- to Imperial Federa, tion and "Home-rule all round," and not towards disintegra. tion ; nay, that when Mr. Parnell was reported to hare declared against retaining the Irish Members at Westminster. Mr. Rhodes drew back aghast, and wanted his money applied to other purposes. And I added—" incidentally," as you say—. by way of emphasising Mr. Rhodes's devotion to the Imperial tie, that his subscription to the funds of the Liberal party was made on similar conditions, his fear of whose infringe. ment drew from him a similar protest and a similar pro. visional withdrawal. "It would be horrible," was the cri de cceur in both cases, "if my money went towards the disin. tegration of the Empire." Whether this is to 133 correctly qualified as "cultivating Little Englander and Rome-role lands" for some more or less personal motive, I must leave your readers to decide. For I address myself now to some- thing else.
It appears that your good faith has been assailed in certain quarters for accepting my reference to Mr. Rhodes's corre- spondence with Mr. Schnadhorst. Let me say, then, that I hare myself seen the correspondence, and that the facts are precisely as they may be gathered from my reference of August Sidle what is now not a new but an old story known to others, and, I think, printed long since. To repeat, Mr. Rhodes, a Liberal Imperialist, and in touch with Mr. Schnadhorst, gave the latter a certain subscription to th3 'Liberal party funds. He was doubtful only about the party's policy in Egypt, and here Mr. Schnadhorst, like Mr. Parnell, reassured him. Presently, as in the other case, came a speech of Mr. Morley's recom- mending (I have no means, at this distance from books of reference, of informing myself how strongly) that Egypt be evacuated. Some phrase of Mr. Gladstone's about the same time struck Mr. Rhodes, I dare say very wrongly, as pointing the same way. He wrote at once, as I have said, to Mr. Schnadhorst provisionally diverting his subscription In the first of two letters which I have seen Mr. Schnadhorst replies that he is much embarrassed by Mr. Rhodes's com- munication, and generally discusses the evacuation as if as a question of Liberal policy it were still open and undecided. In the second he writes cheerfully that Mr. Rhodes may set his mind at rest; he has seen those in authority—the names, even if I could be quite certain of them, might still, I think, be left unpublished—and that he is enjoined to assure Mr. Rhodes that the policy of the Liberal party does not embrace the evacuation of Egypt. Consequently there will be no neces- sity to return Mr. Rhodes's subscription. It is three years since I read • those letters, and though I should be sorry to swear to a single phrase in them, there is simply no manner of doubt about their substance; which, indeed, I had not realised would prove so startling as it appears to have proved to [We print Mr. Boyd's letter as he specially desires that we should do so, though it is really unnecessary in view of Mr. Rhodes's own letter. Mr. Boyd, after having received the lie direct from Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, is very naturally and very properly determined to repeat his assertions over his own name. We feel sure that Sir Henry Campbell-Banner. man will now offer an apology to our correspondent for the vehemence of the language be used last week in regard to Mr. Boyd's story. Mr. Boyd had not seen the text of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's letter when he wrote the above letter, as he is abroad. Since then, however, he has seen and has written again, desiring us specially to publish his letter with his name in full, in order to meet openly and refute the assertions of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Sir William Harcourt in regard to his veracity—Fn. Spectator.]
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