An interview with Mr. Rhodes appeared in the Daily Mai?
of Saturday last in which grave charges are levelled against General Buller and Colonel Kekewich. The delay in relieving Kimberley was, in Mr. Rhodes's opinion, inexcusable. General Baller's instructions to Lord Methuen were "scan- dalous"; it would have been a " disgrace to England" had they been carried out. As regards the siege, Mr. Rhodes went on :—" I found plenty to do. We organised a troop of eight hundred horse, we built a cannon, we supplied water from the mines when the Boers cut off the water supply, we set up a soup kitchen and distributed ten thousand ratons a day, and—ah ! there was enough to do. The military worried us about all these things. They did not believe in them.' After giving various instances of alleged vexatious interfer- ence and unwarrantable neglect on the part of the military authorities, Mr. Rhodes actually contended that they had exaggerated the number of the enemy "simply because by doing so we account for bad generalship without confessing it." We have no desire to minimise the services undoubtedly rendered by Mr. Rhodes during the siege, and above all, the generosity which his worst enemies have never denied him; but it may be pointed out first, that his efficiency as a military expert is somewhat discounted (a) by his historic remark before the war about the Boer military resources being the greatest unpricked bubble in existence ; (5) by his connection with the humiliating fiasco of the Jameson Raid ; and second, that there is a general consensus of opinion in quarters by no means hostile to Mr. Rhodes that Colonel Kekewich and his Staff grappled with the very serious problems of the civil situation in Kimberley with conspicuous tact and ability.
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