MR. RHODES.
(To THE EDITOR OP TITS asascraron.") SIR,—As my letter printed in the Spectator of March 23rd was the cause of " X. R.'s " somewhat belated rejoinder from South Africa (July 13th) and the self-same editorial comments which you have appended to Mr. H. p. Preacott's stout reply to "X. R." (July 27th); you will perhaps permit me a word more. I may remind you parenthetically that I endeavoured to answer your comments on their first appearance, but that for reasons of your own— very different, I am sure, from those which govern the News and other Pro-Boer organs' apparently similar purpose—you did not see your way to print my letter ia reply.
(a) Of your four grounds for distrusting Mr. Rhodes. one is the Raid, while another (that "he introduced into the Empire that demoralising mixture of speculative commercialism and Imperialism," &c.) is too vague to admit of a brief reply. Still, it might give you pause to recollect the character of the country and of the men with whom Mr. Rhodes has too often had to deal He has hypnotised a good many purely business men, men not even natives of our country, into a profound and sincere enthusiasm for our great Empire and our flag. But be may have had to begin, first of all, by pointing out the commercial advantages of expansion. For himself at no period of his career has money for money's sake ever seemed matter of concern. The majority of clerks at decent wages live as luxuriously.
(b) As for the Jameson Raid, with all that may be said against it, how many people in their heart of hearts believe that the Raid, supreme error as we call it, was more baneful in tying the hands of the Imperial Government than, useful upon the whole and salutary, like the lightning flash in a black night that shows you the precipice to which your un- witting feet have strayed P I am not concerned to defend the Raid, only its condemnation may be overdone. And you may be aware that there are many, not precisely fools, but shrewd, impartial witnesses, who believe that this crime or folly —and in itself let us admit it both—did save us from things worse; to wit, the re-establishment, upon a basis of Krugeritee and alien capitalists in alliance, of such a South African Republic as would have made a Federated South Africa under British colours impossible for all time.
(c) But Mr. Rhodes "gave £10,000 to the Irish rebel party under Mr. Parnell when the defenders of the Union were engaged in a death-struggle with that party." Not precisely. Mr. Rhodes knew little enough of home politics and the Nationalist party, but he did know that he was in favour of "Home-rule all round," or, as we say, of Imperial Federa- tion. Now he had Mr. Parnell's assurance that his Home- rule was a first step to a general system of local self- government throughout the Empire, with one Federal Parliament. Later, when the real nature of the scheme became apparent, and Mr. Parnell was talking Separa- tion and the non-retention of the Irish Members, Mr. Rhodes, in letters which I myself have handled, demanded back his money. "It would be a horrible thing," he says, "if my money went to helping a scheme which aims at the dis. memberment of the Empire," and he requires Mr. Parnell to pay over the money to charitalile causes to be agreed on between them. The words quoted are, as nearly as I can re- member, Mr. Rhodes's ipsissima verba. The same words and thought occurred in a letter to Mr. Schnadhorst regarding £5,001:1 which Mr. Rhodes had given to the funds of the Liberal party on condition that its leaders should not urge or support our retrogression out of Egypt. Mr. Parnell's answer and Mr. Schnadhorst's were to the same effect. Mr. Parnell replies that if ever he uttered certain phrases about Separation which had frightened Mr. Rhodes, " it was in a moment of temporary insanity " ; and he binds himself to the retention of the Irish Members at Westminster. Mr. Schnadhorst replies that the leaders of the Liberal party are not represented in this matter by the expressions of Mr. M—, and that he is directed from a lofty quarter to assure Mr. Rhodes that the Liberals will stick to Egypt and that 25,000. No charities benefited from the aggregate £15,000 (d) As for the charge of "pampering the Bond, though knowing all the time its true nature," that again is unfairlY stated. What Mr. Rhodes did was to enter into an arrange" ment with the Bond to support its .Afrikander policy in return for the Bond's support of his scheme of Northern expansion. It was unpleasant, but a case of '‘ no alliance no Rhodesia"; nay, instead of Rhodesia a huge German Dominion or a Dutch Republic established north of Cape Colony. There no choice but to make terms with Onze Jan (Mr. J. Hofmeyr). That cool, determined gentleman carried the voting-power of Cape Colony in his waistcoat-pocket. Which was the greater evil, an arrangement with the Bond or the loss to Great Britain of the Northern territories?
I have troubled you at great length, or I might go further and examine the credit side of Mr. Rhodes's account—how (as a great Proconsul once put it to me), when, after Amajuba, English- men in Africa were sick of the very name of the Home Govern- ment, and more than doubtful of the value of the tie with "Home," "he came along and began things all over again" ; of the story of the North and all the indescribable heart-break- ing labour canied over many years which its final acquisition implied; of the enormous expense of care and money in rallying the natural resources of Cape Colony of which English- men at home apparently know nothing; of his buttressing of education, and of all the Churches, irrespective of their different shades of dogma; of a life and fortune devoted to the Empire of England in that South Africa where he has lived and where he hopes to die. But it is enough to have tried to protest against what I humbly believe to be your mis- apprehension on the points you single out for condemnation. As for "X. R.," a single instance of his want of accuracy must suffice to answer him. "X. R.," as a proof of Mr. Rhodes's unfitness to be Premier in Cape Colony, states that Mr. W. P. Schreiner once accused Mr. Rhodes of turning the Cape Assembly into "a human pig-stye." It was not Mr. Schreiner, it was Mr. Rhodes who used the phrase. There was a good deal of " temper " and wrangling during the winter Session of 1898, not confined to any one side, and Mr. Rhodes appealed to both sides to do their work without turn- ing the Assembly into a numan pig-stye. A small matter, but a little accuracy becomes even" X. R."—I am, Sir,
C. B.
[Our correspondent's second letter of which he speaks was refused on grounds of length and because he had already occupied a considerable quantity of our strictly limited space. We print his present letter because it contains some new matter of very great importance, with which we have dealt elsewhere in our issue of to-day,—i.e., with the account of Mr. Rhodes's financial dealings with the Liberal party. We must add, however, that we do not represent, and never have represented, the Raid as per se a transaction which must be con- demned without mercy. If the Raid had really been what it professed to be, and what many persons here at first believed it to be—i.e., a bond-fide and spontaneous act on the part of the Raiders intended to help the Reformers in Johannesburg—it might have been passed over without condemnation. But it proved on investigation to be something very different, and it inost certainly paralysed the action of, the British in South Africa for over four years.—En. Spectator.]
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