Mr. Cecil Rhodes, managing director of the British South Africa
Company, made a speech to his shareholders on Tues- day in the Terminus Hotel, Cannon Street, the persuasive merit of which may be judged from a single fact. His audience were enthusiastic, though he gave them no dividend. He told them that their vast possessions—bigger, the Duke of Abercorn said, than Central Europe—were all healthy ; that he had three railways making; that he had made a telegraph already paying 4 per cent., and in communication with London ; that immigrants were coming in ; that they were buying " stands "—i.e., claims for gold-mining—readily ; that he had beaten the Portuguese, and bought off Lobengula, the Negro lord of the land ; and that, in short, he had created for them a vast and valuable dependency. He was going at once to build a telegraph to Uganda, and so settle that little matter; and he intended to square the Mandi and run his wires northward to the Mediterranean. Mr. Rhodes knows, it is clear, the hidden truth that the English are an imaginative people ; and he stirred their imaginations—geographical, religious, and pecu- niary—with consummate art. We recognise fully his claims as adventurer, orator, and financier ; but we should like to know, all the same, what he is really driving at. Is he founding a British Colony, or a dependent Empire, or a South African Federal Monarchy P Clearly, he is going his own way, without much attention to any increase he may make to British responsibilities.
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