The Cape elections have resulted in the defeat of the
Pro- gressives and a victory for the Bond party, which will pro- bably give them a majority of four or five votes. We have dealt with the subject at length elsewhere, and will only say here that if the result appears dangerous to the Imperial connection, we have no one to thank for it but Mr. Rhodes.. He did his best to make the issue one between loyalty and disloyalty, and thus added one more item to the now tolerably long list of injuries done by him to the Empire. We need hardly say that we have no personal feeling against Mr.. Rhodes, and can admire an Imperial " adventurer,"—using• the word in General Gordon's sense. We cannot', however, forget Mr. Rhodes's Imperial record. He contributed £10,000 to a disloyal faction whose avowed object, when under Mr. Parnell's leadership, was to injure the United Kingdom and make government in Ireland impossible. He exercised in Cape politics a demoralising influence based on the maxim that any opposition could always be squared or smashed. He organised the Raid. Finally, he has done his best to inflame racial feeling in Cape Colony, and to make the Dutch and English enemies. We cannot, then, pretend to feel sorry for the complete over- throw of Mr. Rhodes's pretensions that he holds the Cape in the hollow of his hand. Nor do we believe that the Bond party will use their victory in a way injurious to the Empire. There may be among them men who desire to "cut the painter," but the majority only wish to see South Africa, assume towards the Empire the position occupied by Canada. That is the object which all true Imperialists should work for here, and which the Colonial Office should favour. There is not the slightest reason why a Schreiner Ministry at Cape Town should do the Empire any more injury than a Laurier Ministry in Ottawa,—provided only the Bond party is let alone and not hounded into unwise action. You can, of course, always make men rebels by treating them as rebels.
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