29 MARCH 1902, Page 7

MR. RHODES.

[COMILIINICATED.]

THE death of Cecil Rhodes in his forty-ninth year removes by far the most interesting figure in South African politics. At an age when an English barrister would be a rising junior, and a home politician might, if he were lucky, look for minor office, Mr. Rhodes was Premier of Cape Colony. It is hardly too much to say that he was the first Colonial politician who became really known to the British public, who touched their imagina- tion. He is the first subject of the Crown—for we can hardly call Prince Rupert a British subject—to give his name as an official title to a portion of the Empire. He was the first rich man in South Africa to value wealth merely as an instrument towards the realisation of political ideas. In many ways it would. be easy to show that he was unlike his predecessors and contemporaries. It is, however, very difficult for one who, starting with every wish to admire Mr. Rhodes's political career, felt compelled, after a some- what close examination of South African politics, to criticise him very freely, now to do justice, and no more than justice, to the very remarkable man whom the Empire has lost. Rather too much was written during his lifetime on Mr. Rhodes's idiosyncrasies. The line between political interest and vulgar curiosity is at times ill-defined, and amongst Mr. Rhodes's admirers were some who possessed neither taste nor judgment. We were told a great deal about his manner of life, his ways of speech,—much that was trivial, several things that were inaccurate. To take a small instance : a certain school in England had made up its mind that Mr. Rhodes was an enemy to the natives in South Africa. This notion was quite un- founded, but in order to insist upon its falsity some of Mr. Rhodes's friends racked their brains to demonstrate his love for the Kaffir. Thus we read in " personal reminis- cences " contributed. by Dr. Jameson to a Life of Cecil Rhodes published in 1897 that " in his house near Cape Town there are no white men or women servants : his servants are all native boys." A few days before he read this statement the present writer had been admitted to Groot Schuur by an unmistakably English footman. But it was exactly the kind of statement to influence foolish people in England, and it is amazing that when there was so much of importance that could be said accurately in favour of Mr. Rhodes, his supporters should have had recourse to imaginary trivialities. Such tactics create a revulsion of feeling in people who happen to know the facts. I quote what was evidently a slip of the memory in one of Mr. Rhodes's real friends, but it would not be hard to cite many deliberately misleading statements by less reputable men. He was, in fact, unhappy on the whole in his entourage. He had a few intimate friends, but, like Sir Robert Walpole, he seemed as a rule unable to find worthy subordinates.

It is quite impossible to enter into his political life, but one may be allowed to dwell upon one or two aspects or episodes in some detail. !['he two governing factors in the policy of an English Cape Colonist are, of course, the view he takes of the Dutch and the view he takes of the native. Now, as regards the Dutch, the miserable Raid, with all its recklessness and double-dealing, has probably to a great extent obscured Mr. Rhodes's real attitude. I believe that its permanent monument will be found in the creation of Rhodesia. Rhodesia is the only province in South Africa which has been founded by agreement between the two nationalities. Of course the South African Republic was opposed to it altogether from the first. But the Cape Dutch gave hearty support to the northern development, and when Mashonaland had been secured Dutchmen as well as Englishmen from all parts of South Africa entered the new province, and later on fought side by side against the Matabele. This was a very remarkable event. The Transvaal War in 1881 had aroused great enthusiasm amongst the Dutch in the Colony for the Boers, and it is probably safe to say that but for Mr. Rhodes's steady work the Cape Dutch would have been glad to see the North handed over to the South African Republic. As events turned out, Mr. Rhodes argued with success that the North was the heritage of the Cape. While he was extending the British Empire towards the Zambesi he was kept in office at Cape Town by Dutch voters. Ten years before, any one would have believed this impossible. Up to 1895 he was on excellent terms with the Orange Free State. He was able to draw that Republic into a Customs Convention and a railway agreement. But Dutch support was not to be had for nothing, and the bargain practically was that if the Cape Dutch co-operated in the extension of British dominions, they might have the internal affairs of Cape Colony managed very much as they wished. This tacit bargain was deeply resented by the English of the Eastern Province and Natal. Mr. Rhodes was believed to be the servant of the Bond. That is the real explanation of much of the enthusiasm which he aroused among English Colonials after 1895. They were so delighted to find that, after all, he was " all right " in his feelings towards Krilgerism that they were willing to overlook much and to forget much. Very few people at home realise the absolute despondency into which loyal Englishmen had fallen after the Majuba surrender. England, apparently, not only did not care for their interests, she was indifferent to the disgrace of her arms and the repudiation of her pledges. What was a little skirmish, an unimportant modification of boundaries, to the British voter, was something very different to men in South Africa. Hence they were not in a mood to give full weight to considerations which some of us think more important than immediate suc- cesses when they saw an Englishman of great ability ranged definitely on the English side in a struggle which they believed inevitable. Mr. Rhodes entered public life very soon after 1881, but he certainly had no deliberate purpose of revenge. He tried to make the Transvaal, like the Free State, a partner in his scheme of gradual federation. But he really had nothing to offer President Kriiger. To an obstinate man who disliked and despised the English, who believed that an all-Dutch South Africa was possible in the near future, it was not very tempting to be allowed a junior partnership in a Confederation consolidated under the British flag. Mr. Rhodes was willing to give up Swaziland, and an outlet to the ocean ; President Kruger would give nothing in return. Mr. Rhodes was very much in the position of a way. great American financier who must either compel a rival to amalgamate, or smash him. But he had absolutely no racial animus. He liked the Dutch, up to a point he understood them marvellously (though in 1895 he cer- tainly overestimated his own influence with them). He had a good deal of sympathy with men who were per- petually being called stupid and backward and narrow- minded by ignoramuses fresh from England. We breed a terrible number of people to whom every language but English is gibberish, all foreign customs silly, and we have sent a good many of them to South Africa from time o time. In the free atmosphere of Colonial life men whu would be to some extent kept in their places at home can and do expatiate freely. Mr. Rhodes knew that if you want to persuade a man to adopt better methods of farming, or to form sounder ideas of civic duty, you will not command success by telling him that he is a fool and cumbers the ground. There is a curious little book, " With Rhodes to Mashonaland," by a Dutch Member of the Cape Assembly, Mr. De Waal, which reveals uncon- sciously how and why Mr. Rhodes could do so much with the Dutch. They liked him so much, they trusted him so entirely, that his action in 1895 was felt by many of them as treachery unparalleled in history.

As regards the natives, Mr. Rhodes's views were certainly not those of Exeter Hall ; but as certainly they were not those of Cortes or Pizarro, as some would have us believe. Perhaps they were not unlike Carlyle's views of the black man. He knew from experience what an utter farce the Kaffir franchise in Cape Colony has been, and he knew, as stay-at-home people do not, how very often a Kaffir may justly be described as "half devil and half child." But in his Glen Grey Act he made the first statesmanlike attempt to turn the Kaffir into a decent citizen.

So far I have tried to give some account of Mr. Rhodes as a factor in the local politics of South Africa. But he was interested in the British Empire as no South African politician before him had been interested. To put things concisely, the great difference between Mr. Rhodes and many men with whom he had to work was that he had been to Oxford, and they had not : his brothers were officers in the Army, and theirs were not. He had close links with home, and he was probably more interested in the British Empire as a whole than in its South African Colonies, whither the accident of ill-health had led him. Of course he became to a great extent absorbed in Africa,—so absorbed that he chose for the execution of his Johannesburg schemes a moment at which our rela- tions with the United States were dangerously strained. But he remained a keen observer of home affairs. .His very exceptional position brought him into personal contact with men who are mere names to most Colonial politicians. He even attempted, as we know, to interfere in home politics : he contributed to Nationalist funds, subscribing to the support of a party that had preached sedition and countenanced crime on the understanding that henceforth they would become Federalists instead of Separatists ; he contributed to Liberal funds on an unauthorised assurance that Liberals would be good Imperialists. On the other hand, his legitimate influence probably counted for something in the retention of Uganda. He hoped to link North and South Africa by railway and telegraph lines, and the conception appealed to the public mind. He persuaded the De Beers Corpora- tion, a purely financial syndicate, to help British expan- sion, and he came to the assistance of the British Central Africa Protectorate when the Imperial Government was lukewarm.

He went to Oxford later than most men, after some experience of the very unacademic life of Kimberley, and lie was never at a public school. His masterfulness was therefore unchecked by some of the factors which mould most Englishmen of his class. Perhaps an old public- school boy would have got on better with Sir Charles Warren in 1885, with Colonel Kekewich in 1900. A man with a higher sense of legality would have shown more consideration for Portugal twelve years ago. The Portu- guese were in his way : he did not thine or denounce them, they were playing legitimately for their hand,—but they were, as Lord Byron said to his wife, damns.* in his Of the financial side of-his career I am not competent to: speak. Finance and politics are closely interwoven in South Africa. Mines and railways, in normal times, occupy four-fifths of the attention of the local Legislatures. Undoubtedly Mr. Rhodes's great wealth, added to his abilities, gave him something of the position of an American " boss " as well as the ordinary position of a political leader. But it is to be remembered that his wealth saved him from all danger of becoming a pro- fessional politician,—a class unpleasantly numerous in some parts of the Empire. It was of no direct concern to his pocket whether he was in or out of office. He made his money fairly at the diamond-fields, where he proved himself abetter man of business than some very sharp and very shady practitioners. Inevitably he saw much of the seamy side of finance, and acquired undesirable hangers-on. It was a doubtful blessing for the Cape that its Premier was so intimately concerned with financial enterprises both within and outside its territories. He inspired a curious confidence in his fellow-men : chronic grumblers who cursed the Chartered Company and all its works cheered him when he spoke to them in Rhodesia. He was no orator, but he knew what he wished to say, and he said it. Unfortunate pawns crushed in the great game believed that " Rhodes would make it all right," and sometimes at least he was able to restore the balance upset by some of his satellites.

Mr. Rhodes was generous to all deserving public causes. He stands out at the Cape as a rich man who was com- pletely unostentatious, indifferent to luxury, and always ready to support philanthropic and educational endeavours. He recognised the necessity of a teaching University for South Africa, and at one time he wished to build a College modelled exactly on the lines of Oriel. In his visits to Oxford he was probably seen at his best: he was genuinely interested in the progress of his old College, and 11-3 could talk delightfully to undergraduates. He did not think much of political economy, but he appreciated the educa- tionalvalue of the school of Literae Huinanior es. "Practical" as he was, he cared genuinely for the things of the mind. The archaeological discoveries in Rhodesia fascinated him. He was keenly alive to the charm of the past : he treasured the picturesque old Dutch architecture that lingers in and round Cape Town, and he encouraged—one might really say initiated—interest in the genealogical records of the Cape Dutch, of whom some spring from great families in Holland and France. His park under the slopes of Table Mountain was open to the public, and his collection of live animals is the only " Zoo " in the Colony.

It is with great misgivings that I venture to attempt this very slight account of Cecil Rhodes. I met him only twice, some years ago, for an hour or so, but the impression of his talk remains vivid. I have, however, had occasion to study carefully his political career, and I trust that, knowing myself merely an insignificant critic of one who has played such a great part in affairs, I have kept some sense of perspective. It is certain that there will be an outburst of blind eulogy which will do the dead man no service. To the best of my power I have written at his death nothing that I could not have written during