MR. RHODES AND HIS DEFENDERS. T HE fact that Dr. Jameson
and the officers who acted under him are to be tried in a Court of law, and that then the question of the complicity of the Chartered Company in recent events is to have full and fair investi- gation at the hands of the Government, must preclude us from touching in the present article on the recent events in the Transvaal, or from in any way attempting to attack or defend Mr. Rhodes's actions in South Africa. In regard however to Mr. Rhodes's general attitude and political methods there is no such need for reticence, and we shall therefore say something as to the manner in which he is defended by his friends from the charges that are brought against him. The ablest, the sincerest, and apparently the most inspired of these defenders is Mr. Stead. Mr. Stead has for years been not only a warm admirer of Mr. Rhodes, but has also enjoyed his confidence, and pro- bably knows Mr. Rhodes on the Imperial side better than any living man. Again, Mr. Stead's defence of Mr. Rhodes, though it has been now published for a whole week, has not been disclaimed by any of Mr. Rhodes's friends or agents. Hence it is admissible to regard Mr. Stead's article in the Review of Reviews for February as conceivably giving an authentic account of Mr. Rhodes's position. With Mr. Stead's proem on "The Rhodesian Religion" we do not feel constrained to deal, nor shall we trouble to discuss Mr. Barney Barnato's favourable, or Mrs. Olive Schreiner-Cronwright's un- favourable opinion. We are quite inclined to believe that Mr. Rhodes is a Napoleonic man, and have no objection to him on that score, though we confess we should have preferred the analogy to have been Cromwell. Again, we do not doubt that Mr. Rhodes is "not a mere Englander," and are not displeased to hear it. A man who has spent hal his life in the Colonies would indeed be a poor creature were he not to be impressed by the sense of the wider Imperial patriotism. In a word, we are quite willing to agree that Mr. Rhodes is a man of large ideas and a strong will ; that he has sound general notions about the Empire ; and that he is so sincerely anxious to secure a great future for the British race in South Africa, that he is willing to devote his time, his money, and his energy thereto. But though we admit these premises we confess that we find it difficult to jump to the conclusion that therefore Mr. Rhodes can do no wrong, or rather may be excused as regards almost everything he does to further his ends. Instead, we hold that the higher and nobler and greater a man's ends are, the more necessary it is that he should be made to keep straight in regard to those ends. If the greatest truths require the greatest care in their statement, the greatest causes require the most solid and sound foundations. And for this reason, if for no other. You cannot really separate your means and your end. They run into each other and become one. If, then, you use doubtful means to obtain a great end, you may find at last that you have turned your great and noble end into a small and sordid one.
We do not say that Mr. Rhodes has yielded to this temptation to use ignoble means to gain noble ends. He may be, and we hope he is, a perfect Sir Galahad among managing directors. All we wish to note on the present occasion is that Mr. Stead appears to hold that Mr. Rhodes considers that the nobility of his aims justifies him in using means which are not noble. For example, he speaks as follows of Mr. Rhodes's temptation to take short cuts in politics :—" Infallible Mr. Rhodes is not. His ethical development has, as I have frequently re- marked, been arrested. He has not kept pace with his political ideas, and therein has always been his great peril. That is to say, he has a supreme indifference to the means so long as he can attain his ends. That is characteristic of all men who are in earnest about their end ; but those who have a clear insight into the internal laws which govern the universe, know that the shortest cut which traverses a great moral law is often the longest way about. Statesmen who endeavour to reach their end without regard to moral considerations are very much like children who, seeing that the railway line is the shortest road to the station, trespass on the rails regardless of the trains which sooner or later will hurl them to destruction." Mr. Stead goes on to tell us, under the cross-heading "Money in Politics," that "Mr. Rhodes is no doubt sub- ject to continual temptation to underrate the importance of the ethical element in the affairs of men. He may say, no doubt, that it is only in the pennyweights he is unethical, and that it is possible to carry political purism to such an ex- tent as to render all political life impossible." Next follows a passage which points out that Mr. Gladstone, in spite of his idealism, had to practise "respectable bribery" in the shape of " baronetages, peerages, stars, and garters, and all the ingenious substitutes which civilisation has devised for corruption by hard cash." Our political corruption has however, says Mr. Stead, been "sublimated into inoffensiveness." "But Mr. Cecil Rhodes had no such resources of civilisation at his disposal." "His train- ing was not in the ethical but in the financial field. He had to deal, not with electors, but with shareholders. He had to manage, not Ministers, but directors. In the world of stock and share lists, where everything is for sale, every man has his price, for when you are dealing with a commodity which represents so much money value, it is quite legitimate to give money value for it. The great temptation under which Mr. Rhodes has always lived has been that of transferring to the political field the ethics of the Board-room, and to regard votes and political interest as being just as lawful and legitimate articles of commerce as Preference Stock or Debenture Bonds." Mr. Stead goes on to deal with Mr. Rhodes's strange gift of £10,000 to the Parnellites. "It was in- evitable that Mr. Rhodes, reared as he has been, trained in financial methods, which had as their culminating triumph the amalgamation of the De Beers Diamond Mines, should not be very squeamish as to the employ- ment of money in politics. His famous gift of £10,000 to Mr. Parnell, by way of rewarding the Irish chieftain for his refusal to accept Home-rule on the Colonial as opposed to Home-rule on the American basis, was the first and most conspicuous instance of Mr. Rhodes's methods." This is frank, but what follows is franker still. "In the Cape Parliament we may believe Olive Schreiner that the practice of local corruption has attained almost Napoleonic dimensions. As to that I know nothing. I can imagine that if there was any one who wanted to be bought, I do not think Mr. Rhodes would have much more scruple about buying him than our forefathers used to have scruples about buying the votes of the freeholders by whose free and independent suffrages they were returned to the House of Commons." Lastly, Mr. Stead deals with the question of the promotion of the Company. "A great deal has been said concerning the way in which that Company was formed, and the methods by which its shares were used to conciliate the influence of influential persons. It is probably true that the option of taking a £1 share at par, which could be resold immediately for £2 or £3 in the open market, was offered to many of those who had assisted in the promoting of the Company. This may be regarded as corruption, and denounced accordingly ; but it is probable that Mr. Rhodes looked at the matter in a broad way, and recognised all those who had helped him in securing the Charter and given the requisite financial guarantees as those who were entitled to the first chance of profit by the enterprise which he had invented, and which they had helped to bring into existence. I am not an expert in the ways of financing, nor have I an opinion as to what are the limits of the permissible in reserving shares for issue at par to those who have assisted you in launching a Company. So far as I know, the corruption so much talked of did not go beyond this very simple and obvious method familiar to all promoters." In other words, Mr. Stead suggests that Mr. Rhodes has acted on the principle,—" If you meet with opposition, buy it up." Further, Mr. Stead, if we understand him rightly, infers that though the good citizen should perhaps deplore these sentiments, he need not mind very much so long as Mr. Rhodes's aims are sound and patriotic, and that at any rate he is not called upon to say—" I will resist you and oppose you unless and until you give up your present methods ; " but may instead, though with a sense of chastened regret at the means, enter and enjoy the Empire which has been so rapidly obtained for him.
Into the question of whether all or any of the admis- sions made by Mr. Stead are in fact true or not, we do not desire to enter. They may in Mr. Rhodes's case be en- tirely absurd and unfounded, and we sincerely trust they are so. We want to take wider ground and to join issue with Mr. Stead not on the individual, but on the general question. Let us leave the question of whether Mr. Rhodes does or does not act as Mr. Stead infers, or has or has not an arrested ethical development, entirely out of the discussion. What we want to ask is,—Supposing there were a man acting on the lines indicated by Mr. Stead, what ought to be the attitude adopted towards him by those who wish their country well and are anxious to see the Empire developed and increased ? Is the influence of such a man, supposing he exists, to be encouraged and assisted or opposed ? Is he to be trusted or is he not ? In our opinion he is not to be trusted. However high his general aims are, he must be watched with the utmost solicitude. When we say this, we are speaking from no exaggerated standpoint of political purism, but simply on grounds of expediency. We are all for the expansion of the Empire, but the Empire will never expand if we try to base that expansion on political corruption. Look at the facts. Our Indian Empire did not begin to thrive till the element of corruption had been eliminated from it in Olive's second administration. Its vast expansion under Cornwallis, Wellesley, and Dalhousie in past generations had nothing to do with "money in politics." Again, when we added Burmah to the Empire the money element was not the lever. Take again the significant fact that the epoch when our home politics were most under the influence of money, the epoch of Grafton and North, was the epoch when we lost a whole continent. When purity returned with the younger Pitt, the Empire expanded with leaps and bounds. Take, lastly, the Victorian era, which has been notoriously free from corruption. That has been essentially the time of Imperial expansion. We need not argue the question whether it is worth while to wink at the introduction of pecuniary " deals " into political life in order to obtain a larger sphere of Empire, for history shows conclusively that it is not necessary. Depend upon it, those who will do the Empire the best service and will add most to its greatness and its size will be those who insist that, as far as possible, the principle of buying out opposition shall be banished from political affairs. No doubt men will always be liable to the tempta- tion to take the short cut to power and influence, and no doubt also it will prove impossible in the future, as in the past, to get rid entirely of the money element in politics. We are not fanatical optimists, and know well enough that human nature remains human nature. What we want to insist on, however, is the absolute need for the nation to fight against the theory that these things are sure to be, and that therefore they may be winked at and tolerated as long as the end is a, good one. Once admit that, and the money element will invade our public life, as it has invaded that of America and of France. The case is like that of the housewife who says that dirt exists, and that it is useless to combat it. Once take that line, and the house will become uninhabitable from the accumulations of dust and filth. The only plan is to keep up a, constant fight with the enemy, and to fight him at every point. We are not, as our readers know, mealy-mouthed negro- philes, and we believe that the destiny of the English race is to hold the best parts of the earth, and to govern the inferior races. As long as we can, however, we will resist any tendency which must deprive the race of the power to carry out its high mission. But if once we admit that "the money element" may be safely tolerated in our political life, of a surety our strength will depart. Men may be rash, cruel, brutal, bloodthirsty, indifferent to all the finer feelings in the competition for empire, and still no great harm may be done. Rough, unhewn stones serve as well for foundations as the neatest "faced" granite ; but if ever we get to think that men may buy and be bought in political life without harm, we are, as a nation, undone. Corrumpere et corrumpi. That was Tacitus's description of Roman decay. If the same can ever be said of the British Empire, our fate will be that of the realm of the Cresars.
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