If this is correct, and "0. B." ought to know,
we obtain for the first time—for we do not remember to have seen the facts in print before—a clue to the extraordinary conduct of the nominally anti-Rhodes members of the South African Com- mittee, Sir William Harcourt and Sir Henry Campbell-Ban- nerman. These gentlemen, if the transaction recorded is correct, were at the mercy of Mr. Rhodes. They might, as we in fact noticed at the time that they did, perform a stage combat and make valiant passes over Mr. Rhodes's head, but they knew that if they really pressed him he could make them supremely ridiculous, and something more, by publishing the story of how he bought and they—or rather the Liberal party—sold "all that excellent and useful policy known as the evacuation of Egypt." No wonder the South African Committee was a fiasco, when Mr. Rhodes could at any moment tell the story of the 25,000 cheque and his dealings with the official organisation of the Liberal party. When it was noticed how little the Nationalists attacked Mr. Rhodes a. witty Member remarked that the gift of the £10,000 was the best example of " an unexhausted improvement" that he had ever seen. But now it seems Mr. Rhodes had improved the Liberal Little England lands as well as the Irish. Truly, Mr. Rhodes is a master of political agriculture.
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