RH OD E S
CECIL
M A N A N D E M PI RE M A KE R
-
B"
PRI N C E S S C A T H E RI N E RA D ZI W I LL
(C A T H E
RIN E
KO LB -D A N V I N)
W i t h E i ght P ho t ogravure P lat e s
C A S S E LL
C O M PA N " , LT D
Lo n do n , N e w " ork , T o r o n t o a n d M e lb o ur n e
0 18
C ON T E N T S
C H APT E R
1
.
2
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3
.
PA G E
C E C IL
T HE
A
R H OD E S
A N D S I R ALF RE D
OF
F O U N D A T I ON S
MIL NE R
F O RT U NE
C O M P L E X P E R S O N A LI T "
MR S VA N K O O P MA N
.
5
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6
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7
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8
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9
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10
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11
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R H OD E S
A N D T HE
RA
T HE AF T E R MA T H O F
R H OD E S
ID
T HE
RA
ID
A N D T HE AF R I K A N D E R
T HE I NF LU EN C E O F S I R ALF RE D
T HE
OP EN I N G
AN E S T IMA T E
O F T HE
NE W
O F S I R AL F RE D
CR O S S C U RREN T S
THE P R I S O NE R S C A M P S
’
.
14
.
15
.
16
.
I N F LI G H T
F R O M T HE
D E A LI N G
I T H T HE
W
C O N C L U S IO N
I ND EX
R AN D
R E F U GE E S
UN D E R MA RT IA L LA W
MIL NE R
C EN T U R"
T HE C O N C EN TRA T IO N C AM P S
13
B ON D
MIL NE R
LI S T O F I LLU S T RA T I O N S
T HE RT
.
H O N C E C IL
RH
.
OD E S
F r on ti sp i e ce
F A CI N G PA G E
T HE
RT
.
HON
W
.
.
P R E S I D EN T
K RU G E R
T HE H O N
"
TH E
RT
.
.
.
P S C H RE I NE R
32
.
68
H H OFME" R
86
.
HON SIR
.
W
.
F
H E L" H U T C H I N S O N
98
-
.
VI S C O U N T MIL N E R
T H E RT
T HE
RT
.
.
1 32
HON S IR
LE A N D E R
HO N S I R
"O H N GO R D O N
.
.
S T A RR
"A M E S O N
S P R I GG
.
1 48
2 24
I N T ROD UC T I ON
c ent death o f S ir S t arr "ame son re mi n ded the
p u b li c of the S out h Afri can War whi c h was such an
e ngrossi ng subj ect to the B ritish p ub l ic at the c l ose of
’
the nineties and the first years of the p resent century
" e t though it may seem quite out of d ate to reo p en
the question when so many more im p ortant matters
occup y attention the re l ationship between S outh Afr ic a
and En gl and is no small matter
I t has a l so ha d its
influence on act u al e v ents if on ly by pro v ing t o the
worl d the talent which Great B rit ain h as disp l aye d in
the a d ministration of her vast C o l onies an d the tact with
which British sta tesmen have contri v e d to convert their
foes of the day before into f rien d s sincere d evoted
HE
re
,
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,
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,
,
and true
,
.
No other country in the wor ld cou ld have achie v ed
such a succes s as did England in the com p l icated and
singularl y di fficult t as k o f ma k in g itse l f
p o p ul ar amon g
nations whose in d e p en d en c e it ha d d estroye d
T h e secret o f this won d erf u l performan c e l ies prin
c i p ally in the care which En g lan d has exercise d to se c ure
the welfare of the anne x ed p op ul ation an d to d o nothin g
.
,
ix
In t rod uc t i on
likely to kee p them in remembrance o f the subord inate
p osition into which they had been re d uced
ne v er crushe s tho se wh om it subdues
.
England
Its inbred t alent
.
for colonisation has invariab ly l e d it a l ong the right path
in regard to its colonial
d evelop ment
Even in cases
.
where Britain made the weight of its ru l e rather heavy
for the p eople whom it ha d conquered there stil l d e
,
v e l op e d
among them a de sire to remain fe d erated to
the British Em p ire
and also a conviction that union
,
,
though it mig ht be unpleasant to their p ersonal fee l in gs
an d sy mpathies
,
was
,
after
a ll ,
the be st thing which
could have happ ened to them in regard to their material
interests
.
Prosperity has invariab l y atten d e d B rit ish rule
wh e r
foun d s c op e to de v el op its el f an d at the
present hour B ritish p atriotism is f ar more d emonstr a
ti v e in I nd ia Australia or S outh Africa than it is in
Englan d itse lf The sentiments thus stron gly e x p ressed
impart a cert ain z eal otism to their f ee l ings which con
st it u t e s a s tron g l in k with the M other C ountry
In
any hour of national dan g er or c a l amity this trait p ro
vi d es her with the en th u siastic he l p of her chi ld ren from
ever i t has
,
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,
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.
across the seas
.
The Eng l ishm a n g enerall y quiet at home an d even
,
subdued in the presence of stran g ers
,
is exuberant in
the Colonies ; he likes to shout h is p atriotism up on e v ery
I n t rod uc t i on
p ossible occasion even when it woul d be better
to
,
frain
.
re
It is an aggressive patriotism which sometimes
is quite un c outh in its manife stations
,
but it is
r
eal
d isinterested and de v oid of any mercenary
or p ersona l moti v e s
It is imp ossible to kno w what Engl and i s if one has
not had the opp ortunity of visitin g her D ominions over
sea
I t i s j us t as im p os sib le to judge of En gl ishmen
when one has on l y s ee n them at home amid the
comforts of the eas y an d pleasant e x istence which on e
enj oy s in M errie Englan d an d on l y there
I t is not
the c o untry S q uires whose home s a re such a definite
featur e of Eng l ish l ife ; nor the a ristocr ati c members
of the Peerage with their influence a n d their wea l th ;
’
nor even the po l itical men who sit in St Ste p hen s
who have sp read abroad the fame and might an d p ower
patriotism
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of England
yet to be
.
,
But it is these modest pioneers of
who in the wilds and deserts
,
Au stral ia an d Asia
,
of
nation s
S outh Africa
ha ve demonstrated the realities
Eng l ish civilisation and the En g lish spirit of free d om
In
,
of
.
the hour of danger we have seen al l these mem
be rs of the great Mother
C ountry rush to its help
spectac l e has been an inspiring one
,
an d
.
The
in the case of
S ou th Africa especially it has been unique inasmuch
,
as it has be en predicted far and wide that the memory
of
t he
B oer War woul d ne v er d ie out an d that loy al ty
,
xi
In t rod uc t i on
to Great B ritain would never be found in the vast
African veldt
.
Facts ha v e be l ied this rash assertion
,
an d the worl d has seldom witnessed a more impress ive
vindication of the trium p h of true Imperialism than that
presente d by Genera l s Botha
of a who l e nation
p e n de n ce
again st
d evote d ser v ant
S muts
.
As the le ader
Genera l B otha defended its inde
,
a
an d
ggression
an d
,
yet became the faithful
the true a d herent of
t he
,
people
whom he had fought a few y ears before putting at their
,
dis p osa l the weight of his powerful p ersonality and the
stren gt h of his influence o v er his
men
p artisans an d country
.
C AT HE RINE
D e c emb e r, 1 91 7
.
xi i
RAD ZI W
I LL
.
R H OD E S
CECI L
C H AP T E R I
I R H ODE S
CEC L
AND
SI R ALF RED MI LNE R
HE conquest of S outh Af rica is one of the most
curious ep isodes in English history Begun through
purely mercenary motives it yet acquired a character
of grandeur which as time went on dives ted it of all
sordid and unworthy susp ici ons S outh Africa has cer
t a i n l y been the land of adventurers and many of them
found there either fam e or disgrace unheard Of riches or
the most abj ect p overty p ower or humiliation At the
same tim e the C o l ony has had amongst its rulers states
men of unblemished reputation and high honour
administrators of rare integrity and men wh o saw
beyond the fleeting interests of the hour into the far
more imp ortant vista of the future
When President Kruger was at its head the Trans
vaal Rep ublic would have crumbled under the intrigues
of some of its own citizens The lust for riches which
followed up on the di scovery of the goldfi e ld s had t oo
a drastic e ffect The Transvaal was bound to fall into
the hands of someone and to be that Someone fell to
the lot of England This was a kindly throw of Fate
because England alon e could administer all the wea l th
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B
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1
Ceci l Rh od es
of the region without its be coming a danger not only
to the community at large but also to the Transvaalers
That this is so can be proved by the eloquence of
facts rather than by words It is suffi cient to l ook up on
what S outh Africa was twenty fiv e years ago and up on
what it has become since under the protection of British
rule to be convinced of the truth of my assertion From
a land of p erennial unrest and perpetua l strife it has
been transformed into a p rosperous and quiet colony
absorbed only in the thought of its economic and com
m e rc i a l p rogress
Its p opulation which twenty years
ago was wasting its time and energy in useless wrangl e s
stands to day united to the Mother Country and
absorbed by the sole thought of how best to p rove its
devotion
The Boer War has still some curious issues of which
no notice has been taken by the public at large One
of the principal p erhap s indee d the most imp ortant of
these is that though brought about by material ambi
tions of certain p eople it ended by being fought against
these very same p eople and that its conc l usion eliminated
them from p ublic life instead of a d ding to their influence
and their p ower The result is certainly a strange and
an interestin g one but it is easily explained if one
takes into account the fact that once England as a
nation —
and not as t he nation to which belonged the
handful of adventurers through whose intrigues the war
was brought about ente red int o the p ossession of the
Transvaal and organised the long tal k e d of Unio n of
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2
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of t h e
V al u e
B o e r W ar
S outh Africa the country St arted a normal existence
free from the unhealthy symptoms whi ch had hinder e d
,
its p rogress
It became a useful member of the vast
British Empire as well as a p rosp erous country enj oying
a g ood government and launched itself up on a career
it could never have entered up on but for the war
D estructive as it was the Boer cam p aign was not a
war of annihilation
On the contrary without it it
w ou ld h av e been impossible for the vast S outh African
territories to become federated into a Union of its own
a nd at the same time to take her place as a member of
another Empire from which it derived its p rosp erity
and its welfare
The grandeur of England and the
s oundness of its leaders has never c om e out in a more
striking manner than in this conquest of S outh Africa
—a blood s tained con q
uest which has become a love
match
D uring the concl u d in g years of last century the
p ossibility of union was seldom ta k en into consideratio n ;
few indeed were cleve r enough and wis e enough to
find out that it was boun d t o take place as a natural
consequence of the S outh African War
The war
cleared the air all over S outh Africa
I t crushed and
destroyed all the susp icious unhealthy elements that
had gathered around the gold mines of the Transvaal and
the diamond fields of Cap e Colony
It disp ersed the
coterie of adventurers wh o had hastened there with the
intention of becoming rapidly rich at the e x p ense of the
inhabitants of the country A few men had succeeded
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3
Ceci l Rh o d es
in building for themselves fortunes beyond the dreams
of avarice whilst the maj ority contrived to live more or
less well at the exp ense of those nai ve enough to trust
to them in financial matters until the day when the war
arrived to p ut an end to their p l un de rin gs
T h e struggle int o which President Kruger was com
p e l l e d to rush was expec ted by some of the p owerful
intriguers in S outh Africa to result in increasing the
influence of certain of the mi l l ionaires who up to the
time when the war broke out had ruled the Transvaal
and indirectly the Cap e Colony by the stre n gth and
imp ortance of their riches
Instead it weakened and
then destroyed their p ower
Without the war S outh
Africa would have grown more wick ed and matters
there were bound soon t o come t o a crisis of some sort
The crux of the situation was whether thi s crisis was
going to be brought about by a few unscrupulous people
for their own benefit or was t o arise in consequence of
the clever and far seeing policy of wise p oliticians
Happily for England and I shall even say happily
for the world at large such a politician was found in
the p erson of the then Sir Alfred Milner who worked
u n se l fi sh l y toward the grand aim his far sighted I m
li
a
e
r
i
sm saw in the distance
p
—
History will give Viscount Milner a s he is t o day
the place which is d u e t o him H i s is indeed a great
figure ; he was courageous enough sincer e enough and
brave enough to give an account of the difficulties of
the task he had accepted
His exp erience of Colonial
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E arl y D a y s
at
the
Cap e
p olitics was principally founded on what he had seen
and studied when in Egy pt and in India which was a
qu e stionable equip ment in the entirely new areas he was
called up on t o administer when he landed in Table Bay
Used to Eastern shrewdness and Eastern dupli city he
had not had opp ortunity to fight against the u n scru p u
l ou sn e s s of men w h o were neither born nor brought up
in the country but who had grown to consider it as
their own and exp loited its resources n ot only to the
utmost but also to the detriment of the p rinciples of
common hone sty
The reader must not take my words as signifying a
sweep ing condemnation of t h e Europ ean p opula tion of
S outh Africa
On the contrary there existed in that
distant p art of the world many men of great integrity
high p rinciples and unsullied honour who would never
under any condition whatsoever have lent themselves to
mean or dishonest action ; men who held up high their
national flag and who gave the natives a splendid example
of all that an Englishman cou l d do or perform when
called up on to maintain the reputation of his Mother
C ountry abroad
S ome of the early English settlers have left great
remembrance of their useful activity in the matter of
the colonisation of the new continent to which they had
emigrated and their descendants of whom I am happy
to say there are a great number have not shown them
selves in any way unworthy of their forbears
S outh
Africa has its statesmen a n d p oliticians who having been
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5
Ce c i l Rh od es
born there understand perfectly well its necessities and
its wants Unfortunately for a time their voices were
crushed by the new comers who had invaded the country
and who considered themselves better able than anyone
else to administer its a ffairs They brought along with
,
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-
,
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them fresh strange ambitions unscrupulousness deter
mination to obtain power for the furtherance of their
p ersonal aims and a greed which the circumstances in
which they found themse l ves placed was bound to de
thing even worse than a vice because
v e l op into som e
it made light of hum a n l if e as well as of human
p rop erty
In any j ud g ment on S outh Africa on e must never
forget that after all before the w ar d i d the wor k of a
scavenger it was nothing else but a vast mining camp
with all its terrifying mood s its abj ect defects and its i n
di fference with regard to moral s and to means The firs t
men who began to exploit the riche s of that vast terri
tory contrived in a relatively easy way to b u ild up their
fortunes upon a solid basis but many of their followers
eager to walk in their step s found di fficulties up on
which they had not reckoned or even th ought about In
order to put them aside they used whatever means lay
in their p ower without hesitation as to whether these
answered to the p rinciples of honesty and straight
forwardness Their ruthless conduct was so far a dv an
t age ou s to their future schemes that it insp ired disgust
among those whose ancestors had sought a prosperity
founded on har d work and conscientious toil These good
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6
Ceci l Rh od es
standing of the e ntanglements and complications of
S outh African p olitics
’
Previous to S ir Alfred s app ointment as Governor
of the Cap e of Good Hop e the offic e had been fil led by
men who though of undoubted integrity and high stan d
ing were yet unable to gauge the volume of intrigue
w ith which they had to cop e from those w h o had already
established an iron or rather golden —rul e in S outh
Africa
C oteries of men whose sole aim was the amassi ng of
quick fortunes were virtual rulers of Cap e Colony with
more p ower than the Government to whom they simu
late d submission
All sorts of weird s tories were in
circulation One popular belief was that the mutiny of
the D utch in C ap e C olony j ust before the Boer War
was at bottom due to the influence of money This was
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followed by a feeling that but for the aggressive opera
,
tions Of the outp ost agents of certain comme rcial mag
it would have been p ossible for England to realise
n ates
t h e Union of S outh Africa by p eaceful mean s instead
of the bloody arbitrament of war
In the minds of many Dutchmen — and D utchmen
who were sincerely p atriotic T ra n sv a al e rs— the conviction
was strong that the natural cap abilities of Boers did not
lie in the direction of developing as they could be the
amazing wealth p roducing resources of the Transvaal and
of the Orange Free State By British help alone such
men believed could their count ry hop e to thrive as it
ought
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A
Ma g ic N a m e
Here then was the nucleus around which the p eace
ful union of Boer and English p eoples in S outh Africa
could be a chieved without bloodshed
Indeed had
Qu e en Victoria been represented at the Cap e by S ir
Alfr e d Milner ten years before he was app ointe d
Governor there many things which had a disastrous i n
fl u e n c e on the D utch elements in S outh Africa w ould
not have occurred
The Jameson Raid would certainly
not have been planned and attempted To this incident
can be ascribed much of the strife and unpleasantness
which followed by which was lost to the British Govern
ment the chance then fast rip ening of bringing about
without difficulty a reconciliation of D utch and English
all o ver S outh Africa
This reconciliation woul d have
been achieved through Cecil Rhodes and would have
been a fitting crown to a great career
At one time the most p opular man from the Z ambesi
to Table Mountain the name of Ce cil Rhodes was sur
rounded by that magic of p ersonal p ower without which
it is hardly p ossible for any conqueror to Obtain the
material or moral successes that give him a place in
history ; that win for him the love t h e resp ect and
sometimes t h e hatre d of his contemp oraries S ir Alfre d
Milner would have known how t o make the work of
Cecil Rhodes of p ermanent value to the British Emp ire
It was a thousand pities that when S ir Alfred Milner
took office in S outh Africa the influence of Cecil Rhodes
at one time p olitically d ominant had so materially
shrunk as a definitive p olitical facto r
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9
Ceci l Rh od es
S ir Alfred Milner found himself in the presence of a
p osition already comp romised beyond r e demption and
obliged to fight against evils which ought never to have
been allo wed to develop
Even at that time h owever
it would have been p ossible for S ir Alfred Milner to find
a way of disp osing of the various difficulties connected
with English rule in S outh Africa had he been p rop erly
seconded by Mr Rhodes
Unfortunately for both of
them their antagonism to each other in their concepti on
of what ought or ought not to be done in p olitical
matters was further aggravated by intrigues which
’
tended to keep Rhodes apart from the Queen s High
C ommissioner in S outh Africa
It would not at all have suited certain p e ople had
S ir Alfred contrived t o acquire a definite influence over
Mr Rhodes and assuredly this would have happ ened
had the two men have been allowed unhindered to a p p r e
ciate the mental standard of each other
Mr Rhod es
was at heart a sincer e p atri ot and it was su fficient to
make an app e al to his feelings of attachment to his
M other C ountry to cause him to look at things from that
p oint of view Had there existed any real intimacy b e
tween Groote S chuur and Gove rnment House at Cap e
Town the whole course of S outh African p olitics might
have been very di fferent
S ir Alfre d Milner arrived in Cap e Town with a singu
l a rl y free and unbiased mind determined not to a ll ow
’
other p eople s op inions to influence his own and also
to use all the means at his disp osal to uphold the authority
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10
S m o u ld e r i n g s
of
D isc on t e n t
of the Queen without entering into conflict with any
one He had heard a deal ab out the enmity of English
and D utch but though he perfectly well realised its
cause he had made up his mind to examine the situation
for himse lf He was not one of those who thought that
the raid alone was resp onsible ; he knew very well that
this lamentable a ffair had only fanned into an open blaze
years long s moulderings of discontent
The Rai d had
been a consequence not an isolated sp ontaneous act
Littl e by little over a long sp an of years the ambitious
an d s ordi d ov e rri di n gs of various restless and too often
rec k less a d venturers ha d come to b e considere d as r e p re
se n t at i ve of English rule
English opinions a n d what
’
was still more unfortunate Englan d s p ersonality as an
Empire and as a nation
On the other side of the matter t h e D utch—who
were inconceivably ignorant— thought their l ittle domain
the p ivot of the world Blind to realities they had no
idea of the legitimate relative comp arison between the
Transvaal and the British Emp ire and so grew arro
ga n t l y opp ressive in their attitude towards British settlers
and the p owers at Cap e Town
All this naturally tinctured native fee l ing
S us
p ic i on was foste red among the tribes guns and a mm un i
tion p ercolated through Boer channels the b l acks viewed
with d isdain the friendly advances made by the British
and the atmosphere was thick with mutual distrust
The knowledge that this w as the situation could not but
impress p ai n q y a delicate and p roud mind an d surel y
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11
Ceci l Rh od es
Lord Milner can be forgiven for the illusi on which he
at one time undoubtedly cherished that h e would be
able to disp el this false notion about his Mother Country
that p ervaded S outh Africa
The Govern or had not the least animosity against the
D utch and at first t he Boers had n o feeling that S ir
Alfr e d was prej udiced against them
Such a thought
was dril led into their minds by subtle and cunning p eople
who for their own avaricious ends desired to estrange
the High C ommissioner from the Afrikanders
Sir
Alfred was represented as a tyrannical unscrupulo u s
man whose one aim in life w as the dest ruction of every
v e stige of D utch indep endence D utch self government
and Dutch influence in Afric a Th ose who thus maligned
him applied themselv e s to make him unp opular and to
render his task so very uncongenial and unpleasant for
him that he would a t last giv e it up of his own accord
or else become t h e obj ect of such violent hatreds th at
the Home Government would feel compelled to recal l
him Thus they would be rid of the p resence of a p er
s on a ge p o s sessed of a sufficient energy t o opp ose them
and they would no longer need t o fear his observant eyes
Sir Alfred Milne r saw himself surr ounded by all sorts
of difficulties and every attempt he made to bring for
ward his own plan s for t h e settlement of t h e S outh
African question crumbled t o the ground almost before
he could begin to wor k at it Small wonder therefore
if he felt discouraged and began t o form a fals e op inion
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concerni n g the p ersons or the facts with whom he had
12
’
Rh od es S e l f D ece p t i on s
-
to deal Those who might have help ed him were con
strained without i t being his fault Mr Rhodes became
persuaded that the new Governor of Cap e C olony had
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arrived there with preconceived notions in regard to him
’
self
He was led to believe that Milner s firm deter
mination was to crush him ; that moreover he was
j ealous of him and of the work he had done in S outh
Africa
Incredibl e as it a p p e a rs R h ode s believed this absurd
fiction and learned t o look up on S ir A l fred Milner as
a natural enemy desirous of thwarting him at every
step The Bloemfontein Conference at which the bril
liant qu alities and the concil iating sp irit of the new
Governor of Cap e Colony were first made clearly mani
fest was r e p resented t o Rhodes as a desire to p resent
him before the eyes of the D utch as a negligible quanti t y
in S outh Africa Rhod es was strangely susceptible and
far too mindful of the opinions of p e op le of absol u tely
n o import ance He fell into the snare and though he
was careful to hide from t h e p ublic his real feelings in
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regard to S ir A lfred Milner yet it was imp ossible for
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anyone w h o knew hi m well not to perceive at once that
he had made up his mind not to help the High C om
missioner
There is s uch a thing as damning p raise
and Rhodes p oured a go od deal of it on the head of S ir
Alfred
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Fortunately S ir Alfred was su fficiently conscious of
the rectitude of his intentions a n d far too superior to
feelings of petty spite He never allowed himself to be
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13
Ceci l Rh od es
troubled by these unpleasantnesses but went on his
way without giving his enemies the pleasure of noticing
the measure of success which unhappily attended their
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,
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camp aign He remained i n flexible in his conduct and
disdaining any j ustification went on doing what he
thought was right and which was right as events
p roved subsequently
Although Milner had at last to
give up yet it is very largely due to him that the S outh
African Union was ultimately constituted and that the
much talked of reconc iliation of the Dutch and English
in Cape C olony an d in the Transvaa l became an a c c om
Had Sir Alfred been listened t o from the
p l i sh e d fact
very beginning it might have taken place sooner and
p erhap s the Boer War altogether avoided
’
It is a curious thing that England s colonising powers
whi ch are so remarkable took such a long time to work
their way in S outh Africa At least it would have been
a curious thing if one did not remember that among
the first white men who arrived there Englishmen were
much in the minority
And of those Englishmen who
were a ttracted by the enormous mineral wealth which
the country contain ed a go od prop ortion were not of
the best class of English colonists
Many a one who
landed in Table Bay was an adventurer drawn thither
by the wish to make or retrieve his fortune Few came
as did Rhodes in search of health and few again were
drawn thither by the pure love of adventure In Aus
t ra l i a
or in New Z ealand or other colonies p eople
arrived with the determination to begin a new life and
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14
Ce c i l Rh od es
D utch part of its p opulatio n He ha d the best i n t e n
tions in regard to President Kruger himself and there
was one moment j ust at the tim e of the Bloemfontein
C onferenc e when a m odus v iv e n di between President
’
Kruger and the Court of St James s might have been
est ablished notwithstanding the di ffi cult question of
the Uitlanders
It was frustrated by none other than
these very Uitlander s who fondly believi ng that a war
with England would establish the m as absolute masters
in the Gold Fields brou ght it ab out little realising that
thereby was to be accomplished the one thing which
the y dre aded — the firm j ust and far —
seeing rule of Eng
land over all S outh Africa
In a certain sense the Boer War was fought j ust as
much against financiers as against President Kruger
It put an end to the arrogance of both
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16
C H AP T E R I I
TH
E F O UNDATI ONS
OF F
O R T UNE
T is imp ossible t o sp eak of S ou th Africa without
awarding to C ecil Rhodes the tribute which u n qu e s
Without h im
t i on a b ly is due to his strong p ersonality
it is p ossible th a t the vast territory which became so
thoroughly as sociate d with his name and with his life
would still b e without p olitical imp ortance
Without
him it is probable that both the D iamond Field s t o which
Kimberley owes its p rosperity and the Gold Fields
which have won for the Transvaal its renown would
never hav e risen above the imp ortance of those of Brazil
or C alifornia or Kl ondyke
It was Rhodes who first conceived the thought of
turning all these riche s into a p olitical instrument and
of using it to the advantage of his country — the Englan d
to which h e remain e d so profoundly attached amid all
the vicissitudes of his life and to whose p ossessions he
was so eager to add
Cecil Rhodes was ambitious in a grand strange
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manner which made a complet e abstraction of his own
personality under certain conditions but which in other
circumstanc e s made him violent brutal in manner
thereby procuring enemies without number and de t ra c
tors witho ut end
His nature was something akin to
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c
17
,
Ce c i l Rh od es
that Of the Roman Emp erors in its insensate desire to
exercise unchallenged an unlimited p ower
Imp atient
of restraint n o matter in what shap e it presented itself
b e brooked no resist ance to his schemes ; his rage against
contradiction and his opp os ition to any independence
of thought or action on the p art of those who were
around him brought about a result of which he would
have been the first to complain had he suspected i t
that of allowing him to execute all his fancies an d of
giving way t o all his resentments
Herein l ies the
reason why so many of his schemes fe l l through This
unfortunate trait also thrust hi m very often in to the
hands of those who were clever enough to exploit it and
’
who more often than p roved good to Rhodes reno wn
suggested to him th e ir own schemes and encouraged
him to approp riate them as his own
He had a very
quick way of catching hold of any suggestions that tallied
with his symp athies or echoed any of his s ecret thoughts
or as p irations
Yet withal Rhodes was a great soul and had he only
been left t o himself or made longer soj ourns in Eng
land had h e understood English p olitical life mor e
clearly had he h a d to grapple with the difficulties which
confront public existence in his M other C ountry he
would most certainly have done fa r greater things He
found matters far too easy for him at first and the
obstacles which he encountered very often p roved either
of a trivial or e l se of a removable nature — b y fair means
or methods less commendable
A minin g camp i s not
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18
Ma t ab e l e lan d
a schoo l of morality and j ust as diamonds lose of their
value in the estimation of those who continually handle
them as is the case in Kimberley so integrity and
honour come to be looked up on from a peculiar p oint
of view according to the cod e of the maj ority
Then again it must not be forgotten that the first
opponents of C ecil Rhodes were black men of whom
the Europ ean alway s has the conception that they are
not his equals It is likely that if instead of Lobengula
he had found before him a Europ ean chief or monarch
Rhodes would have acted differently than history credits
him to have done toward the dusky sovereign
It is
impossible to j udge Of facts of which one has h a d n o
occasion to watch the develop ments or which have taken
place in lands where on e has never been Neithe r Fer
nando Cortez in M exico n or Pizzaro Gonzal o in Peru
proved themselves merciful toward the p op ulations whose
territory they conquered The tragedy which seale d the
fate of Matabeleland was neither a darker nor a more
terrible one than those of which history sp eaks when
re l ating t o us the circumstances attending t h e d iscovery
of America
Such events must b e j udged obj ectively
and forgiven accordingly
When forming an opinion
on the d oings and achievements of Cecil Rhod es one
must make allowance for all the temptations which were
thrown in his way and remember that he was a man
who if ambitious was not so in a p ersonal sense but in
a large lofty manner and who W hilst appropriating to
himself the good things which he thought he co uld
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19
Ce c i l Rh od es
gra sp w a s a lso eager to make others share the profit of
his success
Cecil Rhodes in all save name was monarch over a
continent almost as vast as his own fancy and imagina
tion He was always dreaming always lost in thoughts
which were wandering far beyond his actual s urround
ings carrying him into regi ons where the common spirit
of m ankind seldom travelled
He was born for far
better things than those which he ultimately attained
but he did not belong to the century I n which he lived ;
his ruthless p assions of anger and arrog a nce were more
fitted for an earlier and cruder era Had he p ossesse d
any disinterested friends cap able of rousing the better
qualities that slumbered beneath his app arent cynicism
and unscrup ulousness most undoubtedl y he would have
becom e the most remarkable ind ividual in his generation
Unfortunatel y he found himself surrounded by cr e at ures
absolutely inferior to himself whose deficiencies he was
the first to notice whom he d espised either for their
i n si gn i fi can ce o r for their mental and mora l failings but
to whose influence he nevertheless succumbe d
Wh e n Ce cil Rh odes arrived at Kimberley he was a
mere y outh
He had come t o S outh Africa in quest
of health and because he had a brother already settled
there He rbert Rh odes who was later on t o meet with
a terrible fate Cecil if one is t o belie v e what one hears
from those who knew him at the tim e w as a shy y outh
of a retiring disp osi ti on whom no one could e v er have
suspected would develop into the hardy strong man h e
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20
’
Rh od es F i r s t S t e p
became in time
He w a s constantly sick an d more
than once was on the p oint Of falling a victim of the
dreaded fever which prevails all over S outh Africa and
then was far more virulent in its nature than it is to
day
Kimberley at that time was still a vast solitude
with here and there a few scattered huts of c orrugated
iron occupied by the handful of colo nists Water was
rare : it is related indeed that the only way t o get a
wash was to use sod a wat e r
’
The beginning of Rhode s fortune if we are to b e
l ieve what we are told was an ice mach ine which h e
started in p artnership with another settler The p roduce
they sold to their comp anions at an ex orbitant pric e
but not for long ; whereafter the e nterp rising you ng
man p roc eeded to buy some plots of ground of whose
l
o
fi
a
in
diamonds
he
had
go
d
reason
to
be
aware
r
o
i
c
c
y
p
It must be here remarked that Rhodes was never a p oo r
man ; he could indulge in experiments as to his m anner
of investing his capital
And he was not slow t o take
advantage of this circumstance
Kimberley was a wild
p lace at that time and its d istance f rom the civilis e d
world as well as the fact that nothing was controlled
by public op inion helped some to amass vast fortunes
and put the weaker int o the absolute power of the most
unscrup ulou s It is to the honour of Rhodes that how
ever he might have been tempted he never listened to
the advice which w a s given t o him to do what the others
did and to desp oil the men whose p rop erty he might
have desire d to acquire He never gave way to the ex
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21
Ceci l Rh od es
cesses of his daily comp anions nor accepted their
methods of enriching themselves at top sp eed so as
s oon to b e able t o return home with their gains
From t h e first moment that he set foot on African
soil Rhodes succumbed to the strange charm the country
o ffers for thinkers and dreamers His naturally languid
t emperament found a source of untold satisfaction in
watchin g the S outhern Cross rise over the vast veldt
’
where scarcely man s foot had tro d where the immensity
of its space was equal le d by its sub l ime quiet g randeur
He liked to spend the night in the open air g azing at
t h e innumerable stars an d listening to the voice of the
desert so fu l l of attractions for those who have grown
’
t o discern somewhat of Nature s hidde n j oys and sorrows
S outh Africa became for him a s econd Motherland and
one which seemed to him to be more hospitable to his
temperament than the land of his birth In South Africa
he felt he could find more satisfaction and more enj oy
ment than in England whose conventionalities did not
appeal to his rebellious unsophisticated heart He liked
to roam abou t in a n old coat and wideawake hat ; to
forget that civilisation existed ; to banish from his mind
all memory of citie s where man must bow down to Mrs
Grundy and may not defy unscathed certain well
de fi n e d p rej udices
Yet Cecil Rhodes neither c a red for convention nor
custom His motto was to do what h e like d and not to
trouble about the j udgments of the crowd
He never
however live d up to this la st part of his profession
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22
,
Ceci l Rh od es
but also among the coloured p eople notwithstanding the
ruthlessness which he d isplayed in regard t o them
There w e re millio naires far richer than himself in Kim
berley and in J ohannesburg
Alfred Beit t o mention
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only one could disp ose of a much larger capital th a n
Rhod e s ever p osse ssed but this did not give him an
influence that could be comp ared with that of his
friend and not even the Life Governorship of D e Beers
p rocured for him any other fame than that of being a
fabul ously ric h man
Barney Barnat o and Joel were
als o familiar figures in the circ l e of wealthy sp e c u
lators who lived under the shade of Table Mountain ;
but none among these men some of wh om wer e als o
remarkable in the i r way could effect a tenth or even
a millionth p art of what Rhodes succeeded in p erform
ing
His was the moving spirit without whom these
men could never have conceived far less don e all that
’
they did
It was the magic of Rhodes name which
created that fo rmidable organisation called the D e Beers
C o mp any ; which ann e xed to the British Emp ire t h e
vast territory known now by the name of Rhod esia ;
and which attracted to the gold fields of Johannesburg
all those whom they were to enrich or to ruin With
’
out the association and glamour of R hodes name too
this area could never have acquired the political i m
p or tance it p ossessed in the few years which preceded
’
and covered t h e Boer War t odes was the mind
which after bringing about the famous Amalgamation
of the diamond mines around Kimberle y then con
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24
Rh od esi a
the idea of turning a p rivate comp any into a
political instrument of a p ower which wou ld control
p ublic opinion and p ublic life all over S outh Africa
more effectually even than the Government
This
organisation had its own agents and sp ies and kep t up a
wide system of secret s e rvice
Under the p retext of
loo king out for dia mond thieves these emissaries in
ce i ve d
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reality made it their duty to rep ort on the private
op inions and doings of those whose p ersonality inspired
distrust or apprehension
This organisation was more a dictatorship than any
thing el se and h a d about it something at onc e genial and
Me p hi st op h e li a n The conquest of Rhodesia w a s nothing
in comparison with the p ower attained by this combine
which arrogated t o itself almost unchallenged the right
to domineer over every white man and to subdue every
coloured o n e in the whole of the vast S outh African
C ontinent Rhod e sia indeed was only rend ered p ossible
through the p ower wielded in Cap e C olony to bring the
great Northward adventure to a successful ly definite
issue
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In referring to Rhodesia I am reminded of a curious
fact which so far as I am awar e has never been men
t i on e d in any of the biographies of Mr Rhod es but
which on the contrary has been carefully concealed
from the public know l edge by his admir e rs and h i s
satellites The conc es sion awarded by King Lobengula
to Rhodes and to the few men w h o together with him
t ook it up on themselves to add this piec e of territory
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25
,
Ce c i l Rh o d es
to the British Empire had in reality already been gi v en
by the dusky monarch— long before the ambitio ns of
D e Beers had taken that direction— to a Mr S onnen
berg a Germa n Jew w h o had very quickly amassed a
considerable fortune in various sp eculations
This Mr
S onnenberg— who was subsequently to represent the
D utch party in the Cape Parliament and who became
on e of the foremost members of the Afrikander B ond
—
during one of his j ourneys into the interior of the
country from Basutoland where he resided for some
time had taken t h e opp ortunity of a visit to Matabele
land t o obtain a concession from the famous Lobengula
This covered the s ame ground an d advantages which
later were granted to Mr Rhodes and his business
associates
O wing in some measure to n e gligence a n d p artly
through the imp ossibility of raising the enormous capital
nece ssary to make anything p rofitable out of the con
cessi on M r S onnenberg had put the document into his
drawer without troub l ing any more about it
S u b se
quently when Matabeleland came into p ossession of
the Chartered C omp any Mr S onnenberg ventured to
sp eak mildly of his own concession and the matter was
’
mentioned t o Mr Rh odes
The l atter s rep ly was
typical
Te l l the
fool that if he was fool enough
to los e this chance of ma k ing money he ought t o take
”
the consequences of it
And Mr S onnenberg had t o
content himself with this reply
B eing a wise man in
his g enerati on he was c l e v er enough to ignore the inci
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26
A
D is p u t e d Ti t l e
dent and realisin g the p rinciple that might is stronger
than right he never again attempted to disp ute the title
of Cecil John Rhod es to the conquest which he had
made and as I believe p ushed prudence to the extent
of consigning his own concession to the flames
He
knew but too well w hat his future prosp erity would have
been worth had he remembere d the document
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.
C H AP T E R III
A CO MPLEX PE R S O NALI T "
H OD E S I A
and its annexation was but the develop
ment of a vast scheme of conquest that had its start
in the wonderfu l brain of the individual w h o by that
time had becom e to b e sp oken of as the greatest man
S outh Africa had ever known L ong before this Cecil
Rhodes had entered p olitical life as member of the Cape
Parliament He stood for the province of Barkly West
and his election which was violently conteste d made
him master of this constituency for the whole of his
The entry int o p olitics gave a decided
p olitical career
aim to his ambitions and inspired him to a new activity
directing his wonderful organising faculties toward othe r
than financial victories and instilling within him the
desire to ma k e for himself a nam e n ot solely associated
with sp eculation but one which would rank with those
great Englishmen who had carried far and wide British
renown and spread the fame of their Mother Country
across the seas
’
Rhodes ambitions were not as unselfish as those of
Clive t o mention only that on e nam e He thought far
more of himself than of his native land in the hours
when he m ed itated on all the advantages which he might
obtain from a p olitical career He saw the way to b e
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28
D ream s
of
Em p i re
come at last abso lutely free to give shape to his d reams
of c onquest and to hold under his sway the vast con
t i n e n t which he had insensibly come to consider as his
p rivate prop erty And by this I d o not mean Rhodesia
only— which he always spoke of as
My co u ntry
but he also referred to Cap e Colony in the same way
With one distinction however which was remarkable
”
he called it
My old country
thus expressing his
conviction that the new one p ossessed all his a ffections
It is p robable that had time and opp ortunity been
granted him t o bring into execution his further plans
thereby to e stablish himself at Joh a nnesburg and at
Pretoria as firmly as he had d one at Kimberley and
B ul u w a y o the latter township s would have c ome to
occupy the same secondary imp ort a nce in his thoughts
as that whi c h Cape Colony had assumed
Mr Rhodes
may have had a penchant for old clothes but he cer
t a i n ly preferred new countries to ones already explored
To give Rhodes his due he was not the money—
gru b bing
man one wou l d think j udging by his companions He
was constantly p l annin g constantly dreaming of wider
areas to conquer and to civilise The p ossession of gol d
was for him a means not an aim ; he app reciated riche s
for the p ower they produced to do absolutely all that
he wished but not for the boast of having so many
millions standing to his account at a bank He meant
to become a king in his way and a king he unquestion
ably was for a time at least until his own hand shattered
his throne
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29
Ceci l Rh od es
His first tenure of the Cap e Premiership was most
successful and even during the second term his p op u
l ari t y went on growing until the fatal Jameson Raid
a n act of folly which nothing can explain
nothing can
excuse
Until it broke his p olitical career transform
ing him from the resp ected s tatesman whom every p arty
in S outh Africa looked up to into a kind of broken idol
never more t o be trusted Rhodes had enj oyed the com
l
e
confidence
of
the
Dutch
p
arty
They
fully
t
e
be
p
l i e v e d he w a s the only man cap able of effecting the
Union which a t that time was already considered to be
indispensable to the prosp erity of S outh Africa Often
he had stood up for their rights as t h e oldest settlers
and inhabitants of the country Even in the Transvaal
notwithstanding the authority wielded then by President
Kruger the p opulace would gladly have taken a dva n
tage of his services and of his e xp erience t o help them
settle favourably their everlasting quarrels with the Uit
landers as the E n gli sh c ol on i st s were called
Had Cecil Rhodes but had the patience to wait a n d
had he cared to enter into t h e details of a situation
the intricacies of which non e knew better than he it is
p r ob abl e that the annexation of the Transvaal to the
British Empire would h a ve taken plac e as a matter of
course and the Boer War would never have broken out
Rhodes was not only p opular a mong the D utch but
also enj oyed their confidence and it is no secret that
he had courted them t o the extent of exciting the sus
—
i
o
i
c
n
s
of
h
u
l
tra
English party the Jingo elements
t
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30
Ce c i l Rh od es
to the interests of Great Britain ; on the contrary he
assured himself it wou l d make the latter far more p ower
ful than it had ever been before in the land over which
By nature something of an Italian
h e would reign
he considered his native land as a stepping
c o n do tt i e ri
stone to his own grandeur
For a good many years he had chosen his best friends
among D utchmen of i n fluence in the C ap e C olony and
in the Transvaal
He flattered courted and praised
them until he quite p ersuaded them that nowhere else
would they find such a staunch supp orter of their rights
1
and of their claims
Me n like Mr S chreiner for i n
stance trusted him absolutely and believed quite sin
c e r e l y that in tim e he would be able to establish firm
and friendly relations between the C ape Government and
that of the Transvaal
Though the latter country had
been as it were sequestrated by friends of Rhodes
—
o
much to their own p r fit Mr S chreiner felt convinced
that the C olossus had never encouraged any plans which
these p eople might hav e made against the indep endence
of the Transvaal Rep ublic
Rhodes had so completely
fascinated him that even on the eve of the day when
Jameson crossed the Border Mr S chreiner when ques
t i on e d by one of his friends about the rumours which
had r e ached Cap e Town concerning a p r oj ected invas ion
of the Transvaal by p eop le connected with the Chartered
C omp any repudiated them with energy Mr S chreiner
indeed declared that so long a s r Rhodes was Prime
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N ow
Hi gh C o mmi s s i on er for t h e Un i on
32
of
S o ut h Afri c a
.
M iss O l i v e Sc h r ei n e r
Minister nothin g of the k ind could or woul d hap p en as
neither Jame son nor any of his lieutenants would dare
to risk such an adventure without the sanction of their
’
Chief and that it was more to the latter s interest than
to that of anyone else to preserve the indep endence of
the Transvaal Republic
Talking of Mr S chreiner reminds me Of his sister
the famous Olive S chreiner the author of so many books
which most certainly will long rank among the Eng
lish cl a ssics
Olive S chreiner w a s once upo n terms of
great friendship with Mr Rhodes w h o extremely admired
her great talents S he was an ardent Afrikander p atriot
D utch by sympathy and origin gifted with singu l ar i n
t e l li ge n c e and p ossessed of wide views w hich strongly
appealed t o the soul and to the spirit of the m a n who
at that time was considered as the greatest figure in
South Africa
It is not remarkable therefore that Rhodes should
fall into the habit of c on fi di n g in Miss S c h reiner whom
he found was miles above the p eople about him He
used t o hold long conversations with her and to initiate
her into many of his plans for the future plans in which
the interests and the welfare of the Cap e Dutch as well
as the Transvaalers used always to play the princip al
p art
His friendship with her however was view e d
with great displeasure by many who he ld watch around
him Circumstances— intentionally bro u ght about some
maintain— consp ired to cause a cooling of the friendship
between the two most remarkable p ersonalties in S outh
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33
Ceci l Rh od es
Later on Miss S chreiner w h o was an ardent
having disco vered what she termed and con
si de r e d to be the duplicity of the man in whom she had
so absolutely trusted refused to meet Cecil Rhodes again
Tro op er Peter Halkett of Mashona
H e r famous book
”
land
was the culminating point in their quarrel and
the break became complete
This however was but an incident in a life in which
the feminine element never had any great influence per
hap s because it was always kept in check by p eople
anxious and eager not to allow it to occ u py a place in
the thoughts or in the existence of a man whom they
had confiscated as their own prop erty Ther e are p e ople
who having risen from nothing to the heights of a social
p osition are able to shake off former associations : this
was not the case with Rhodes who on the contrary as
b e advanced in p ower and in influence found himse lf
every day more embarrassed by the men who had clung
to him when he was a diamond digger and who through
his financial acumen had built up their fortunes They
surrounded him day and night eliminating eve ry p erson
likely to interfere ; sl a ndering ridiculing and c al u m n i
ating them in turns they at l a st left him nothing in place
of his shattered faiths and lost ideals until Rhodes b e
came as is olated amid st his greatness and his millions
as the veriest beggar in his h ovel
It was a sad sight to watch the ethical degradation
of one of the most re m arkable intelligences among the
men of his generation ; it was heartrending to see him
Africa
p atriot
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34
A
D issi m u la t or
fall every day more and more into the power of n u
scrupulous p eople who did n othing else but exploit him
for their own benefit
S outh Africa has always been
the land of adventurers and many a queer story could
be told That of Cecil J ohn Rhodes was p erh ap s the
most wonderful and the most t ragic
Whether he realised this retrogression himself it is
di fficult to say
S ometimes one felt that such might
be t h e case whilst at others it seemed as if h e viewed
his own fate only as something absolutely wonderful
and bound t o d evel op in the future even m ore pros
a s always
W
than
it
had
done
in
the
p
ast
There
r
o
u
s
l
e
y
p
about him something of the tragediante comediante
applied to Nap oleon by Pop e Pius V I I and it is a b so
lu t e ly certain that he often feigned sentiments which
he did not feel anger which he did not experience and
pleasure that he did not have He was a being of fits
and starts moo ds an d fancies who liked t o p ose in such
a way as to g i ve others an absolutely false ide a of his
p ersonality when he considered it useful to his interests
t o do so
At times it was evident he e x perienced regret
but it is doubtful whether he knew t h e meaning of r e
morse The natives seldom o ccupied his thoughts and i f
he were reminded in later years that after all terrible
cruelties had been p ractised in Mashon a land or in Mata
b e l e l an d he used simp ly to shrug his shoulders and to
remark that it was imp ossible to m a ke an omelette with
out breaking some eggs It never occurred t o him that
there might exist p eople who obj ected to the brea k ing of
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35
,
Ceci l Rh o d es
a certain kind of eggs and that humanity had a right
to be considered even in conquest
And after all was this annexation of the dominions
of poor Lobengula a conquest " If one takes into
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account the strength of the people w h o attacked the
savage king and his own weakness can one do els e but
regret that those w h o slaughtered L obengula did not
remember the rights of mercy in regard to a fallen foe "
There are dark deeds connected with the a ttachment of
Rhodesia to the British Empire deeds which would never
have been p erformed by a regular Engl ish Army but
which seemed quite natural to t h e band of enterprising
fellows who had staked their fortunes on an exp editi on
which it was their interest to represent as a most
dangerous and d i ffi cult affair
I do not want t o di s
parag e them or their courage but I cannot help ques
t i on i n g whether they ever had t o withstand any serious
attack of the enemy I h a ve been tol d p erfe ctly sicken
ing details concerning this conquest of the territory now
known by the name of Rh odesia
The cruel manner
in which after having wrung from them a concession
which virtually desp oiled them of every right over their
native land and after having goaded these peopl e into
exasperation the p eople themselves were exterminate d
was terrible beyond words For instance there occurred
the incident mentioned by Olive S chreiner in Troop er
”
Peter Halkett of M a shonaland
when over one hundred
savages were suffocated alive in a cave where they sought
a refuge
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36
Ceci l Rh od es
compassionate heart Generous to a fault he lik e d to
be able to oblige his friends or those who pas sed as
such while the charitable acts which he was constantly
performing are too numerous to be remembered
He
had a supreme contempt for money but he sp oiled the
best sides of his strange eccentric character by enj oy
ing a display of its worst facets with a
cussedness
a s amusing as it was sometimes unp l easant
Is it re
markable then that many p eople who onl y saw him in
the disagreeabl e moods should j udge him from an entire l y
false and misleading p oint of view "
Rhod es was a man for whom it was imp ossible to feel
indi fference ; one either hated him or be c ame fascinated
by his curious and p eculiar charm
This quality led
many admirers to remain faithful to him even after dis
illusion h a d shattered their former friendship an d who
w hilst refusing to sp eak to him any more yet retained
for him a deep a ffection which not even the conviction
that it had been misplaced could alter
This is a r e
markable and indisputable fact
After having rallied
around him all that was honest in S outh Africa ; after
having been the p etted child of all the old and influential
ladies in Cape Town ; after having been accepted as their
leader by men like Mr S chreiner and Mr Hofmeyr
who clever though th e y were and convinced as they
must have been of their p ersonal influence on the D utch
p arty and the members of the Afrikander B ond still
’
p referred to subordinat e their j udgment t o Rhodes ;
after having enj oyed such unp aralleled confidence
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38
A
S t ran g e S i tu a t i on
Rhodes had come t o be spurned and rej ected p olitically
but had always ke pt his place in their hearts
Fate
and his own faults separated him fro m these p eopl e of
real weight and influence and left him in the hands of
those w h o p retended that they were attached t o him
but who in reality cared only for the material a dva n
tages that their constant attendance upon him procured
to them They poisoned his mind they sep arated him
from all those who might h a ve be en useful to him and
they profited by the circumstance that the Raid had
estranged him from his former friends to st rengthen
their own influence up on him and to persuade him that
those who had deplored the ra sh act were p ersonal
enemies wis hf ul for his downfall and disgrace
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39
C H AP T E R IV
M RS
.
OO PMAN
V AN K
M ONG those with whom Rhodes had been intimate
from almost the first days of his establishm e nt in
Cap e Town and his entrance into p olitical l ife w a s a
lady who for something like half a century had been
enj oying an enviable p osition throughout almost the
w hole of S outh Afric a
Mrs v a n K oopman was a D utch
woman of considerable means and of high character
S h e was clever we ll read and her quick int e lligence
allowed h e r to hold her own i n discussion upo n any sub
j e ct ag a inst the most eminent m e n of her generation
S h e had never made a secret of her D utch symp athies
nor of her desire to see her countrymen given equal
rights with the English all over South Africa S h e was
on excellent terms with President Kruger and with
President Steyn whose p ersonality was a far more
remar k able on e than that of his old and crafty colleague
The le a ding S outh African p olitical men us e d to
’
meet at Mrs va n Koopman s to discus s the current
events of the day It is related that she was one of the
first to bring to the notice of her friends the complica
tions that were bound t o follow upon the discovery of
the gold fields and to implore them t o define without
delay the p osition of the foreign element which was
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40
M isse d Opp or t u n i t y
A
certain to move toward Johannesburg as s oon as the
news of the riches contained in that region b e came
public p roperty
If the English Government had considered the matter
at onc e the complications which arose as so on as com
p an i e s be g an to b e formed would have been less acute
The directors of these concerns imagined themselves to
be entitl e d to displ a ce local government and took al l
executive p ower into their own hands This wou l d never
ha ve happened if firm governmental action had been
p romptly taken
The exam ple of Kimberley ought to
have op ened the eyes of the Mother C ountry and
measures should have been taken t o prevent the p urely
commercial domain of the gold fields from assuming
such strident p olitical activities and little by little
d om inating not only th e Transv a al R epublic but also
the rest of S outh Africa
Mrs v an K oopman had cherished a great a ffection
for Rhodes Her age —
she was in the si x ties— g a ve an
almost m a ternal character to the tenderness with which
she viewed him
He had m ade her his confidante
telling her all that he meant t o do for t h e welfare of
the land which she loved so dearly
S he thought he
looked up on S outh Africa with the same feelings of
admiration as she di d
The strength of her belief led Mrs van Koopman to
interest all her friends in t h e career of the young Eng
lishman who app ealed to her imagination as the e m b odi
ment of a ll that was great and go od Her enthusiasm
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41
Ceci l Rh od es
endowed him with many qualities that he did not possess
and magnified thos e which he really had
When he
consulted her as t o his future plans she entered closely
into their d etails discu ssed with him their chances of
success advised him an d used all her influence which
was great in winning him friends and adherents She
trusted him fully and on his part whenever h e re
turned to C ap e Town after one of his yearly visits to
Kimberley o r after a few months sp ent in the solitudes
of Rhodesia his first visit was always to the Ol d and
gentl e lady who welcom e d him with ope n arms words
of affection and sincere as well as de v oted symp ath y
S he had always refused to listen t o disp aragement of
her favourite and would never allow any of the grue
some details conn ected with the anne x ation of Rhodesia
t o be recited in her presence
’
In Mrs v an Koopman s eyes ther e was only a
glorious s ide to the Rhodesian expediti on and s h e re
o
i
c
d
in the renown which it was destined to bring to
e
j
the man who had conceived and planned it S h e fully
believed that Rhodes meant to bring Engli sh civilisa
ti on English laws the English sense of indep endence
and resp ect for individual freed om into that distant land
The fact that lucre lay at the b ottom of the exp edition
never crossed her mind ; even if it ha d she would have
rej ected th e thought wi t h scorn an d contempt
Although the attacks up on Cecil R hod e s increased
d a y by day in intensity and in bitterness Mr s v an
Koopman never wavered in her allegiance
S he attri
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42
.
A G ood
Fr ie n d
buted them to j ealousy and envy and strenuously de
fended his name Mrs van Koopman too rej oiced at
any n e w success of Rhod es as if it had been her own
She was the first t o congrat ul ate him when the dignity
of a P rivy Co u ncillor was awarded to him
After the
M atabele Rebellion during which occurred one of the
most famous ep isodes in the life of Rhodes Mrs van
Koopman had been loud in her praises of the m a n whom
s h e had been the first to guess would do great things
The episode to which I refer when he alone had had
the courage to go unattended and unarmed to meet the
savage chiefs as sembled in the Mat op p o Hills had by
the W a y done more than anything else to consolidate
the p ositi on of the chairman of D e Beers in S outh
Africa
D uring the first administration of Cap e C olony by
Mr Rhod es when his accession to the p remiership had
been viewed with a certain susp icion by the D utch
p arty Mrs van Koopman made tremendous e fforts t o
induce them to have full confidence in her prot ég é
And the attemp t succeeded because even the shrewd
M r Hofmeyr had at last s uccumbed to the constant
entreaties which sh e had p oured upon him
The nce
’
forward Mr Hofmeyr became one of Mr Rhodes
firm admirers and s trong partisans
Under the able
guidance of Mrs van Koopman the relations between
t h e D utch party and their future enemy became so
cordial that at last a singular construction was p ut up on
both sides of the all iance by the opp onents of both The
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43
Ceci l Rh od es
accusation a lready referred to was m ade against Rhodes
that he wished to make for himself in South Africa a
p osition of such indep endence and strength that even
the authority of t h e Queen might find itself com
promised by it As has been p ointed out the supp osi
tion was devoid of truth but it is quite certain that the
then Premier of Cap e Colony would not have obj ected
had the suzerainty been placed in his hands by Eng
lan d and British rule in S outh Afric a vested solely in
his person
D uring a brief interval in his p olitical leadership
Rhod e s pursued his work in Rhodesia
In those days
the famous British S outh Africa Comp any whi c h was
to become known as the Chartered C ompany was de fi
n i t e l y constitut e d
and began its activity in the new
territories which had come under its control E re long
though the tide of events brought him again to the
head of the Governm ent This time however though
his appointment had been considered as a foregone con
elusion and though very few had opposed it he no
longer met the same sympathetic attention and c o
operatio n which had characterised his first administra
tion of p ublic affairs The Colony h ad begun to realise
that Mr R hodes alone and left free t o do what he
lik ed or what he believed w as right was very different
from Mr Rhod es under t h e influence of the many so
called financiers and would b e p oliticians who surrounded
him
An atmosp here of favouritism and of flattery had
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44
Ceci l Rh od es
of being rep eated on a larger and far more imp ortant
scale with as much imp unity and as little danger
as the other one had been Alarmed beyon d words by
all that she was hearing she determined to find out for
herself the tru e state of things and trusting to her
’
kn owledg e of Rhodes character she asked him to call
upon her
Rhodes came a few afternoons later and Mrs v an
Koopman closely questioned him on the subj ect telling
him of the tales which were being circulated not only
in Cape Town but also at Kimberley and B ul u w a yo and
Johannesburg Rhodes solemnly assured her that they
w e re nothing but malicious gos sip and taking her
hand s in his own he rep eated th at all she had hear d
concerning the sinister designs he was supposed to be
harbouring against the I ndep endence of the Transvaal
had abs olutely n o foundation
To add force t o his
words he continued that he resp e cted her far too much
to d e ceive her willingly and that he would never have
risked meeting her and t alking with her up on s uch a
had there been the slightest gro und for the
s ubj ect
rumours which were disturbing the tranquillity of the
inhabitants of Cap e Town When h e left her Mrs v an
K oopman felt quite re a ssured
Next m orning Mrs v a n Koopman told her anxious
friends that she h a d received such assurances from Rhodes
th at she could not d isbelieve him , and that the best thing
which t h e y could d o wou ld be to co n tradict all statements
on the subj ect of a raid on the Transvaal that might come
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46
Mr s
to their
ing
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Koo p m an and
va n
th e
Ra i d
This occurred on an after Christmas even
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c a rs .
of
the year 1 8 95
When the decisive conversation w hi ch I have j ust
relate d was ta k ing plac e between Mrs van Koopman
and C ecil R hodes D octor Jameson and his handful of
eager adventurers had already entered Transvaal terri
tory The Raid had become an accomplished fact I t
was soo n realise d that it was the most deplorable affair
that could have occurred for the reputation of Cecil
Rhodes and for his p olitical future
The rebound in
deed w a s immediate ; his p olitical career came to an
end that day
The p e rson who was stru ck most p ainfully by this
disgracef u l and cryingly stupid adventure w a s Mrs
van Koop man
All her illu sions — and she had nurse d
many concerning Rhod es— were destroyed at one blow
She never forgave him
All his attempts to bri ng
about a reconciliation failed and when later on he would
fain have O btained her forgiveness she absolute ly re
fused all adva nces and declared that s h e w ould never
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consent willingly to look upon his face or listen to his
voice again
The p roud old woman whose ide als had
been wre c k ed so cruelly c ould not but feel a p rofound
co ntempt for a man w h o had thus deliberately lied to
her at the very time when sh e was app ealing to his
confidence
Her aristocratic instincts arose in indigna
tion at the falsehood s which had been used to dup e her
She would not listen t o any excuse would not admit
any extenuatin g circumstances ; and p erha p s bec a u se
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47
Ceci l Rh od es
she knew in the secret of her heart that she would
never be able to resist the pleadings of the man who
had thus deceived her she absolu tely refused to see him
Rhodes never despaired of being restored to her
favour an d would have given much to anyone able to
induce her to relent in her j udgment as t o his conduct
Up to the l ast he made atte mpts to p ersuade her to
reconsider her decision but they all proved useless and
he died without having been able to win a forgiveness
which h e craved for many years
I used to know Mrs van Koopman wel l and to see
her often
I admired her much not only on account
of her great talents and of her p owerful intellect but
also for the great dignity which she displayed all through
the Boer War when susp ected of favouring the D utch
cause t o the extent of holding communication s with the
rebels all over the Cap e C olony she never committed any
indi scre t i on or gave cause for any direct action against
her For som e time by order of t h e military au t ho ri
ties she was placed under p olice sup e rVI s1 on a n d her
house was se arched for p apers a n d document s which
however w e re not found —as might ha v e been foreseen
All through these trying months she never wavered
in her attitude nor in her usual mode of life exc e pt
that s h e saw fewer p eople tha n form erly —not as she
used p layfully to say because she feared to be com
promised but because she did not wish to compromise
others
More than once during my visits I sp oke t o
her of Mr Rhodes and tried to induce her to re l ent
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48
A L o st
Fr i e n d sh i p
in her res olution I even went so far as to tell her that
her consent to meet him would more than anything
else cause him to use all his influence or what remained
of it in favour of a p romp t settlement of the war in
a peace honourable t o both sides
Mrs v a n Koopman
smiled but remained immovable
At last seeing that
I would not abandon the subj ect she told me in tones
which a d mitted of no discussio n that she had far too
muc h a ffection for Rhodes not to have b een s o entirely
ou t to the core by his duplicity i n regard to her and
by his whol e c onduct in that u nfortunate matter of the
Raid Sh e could trust him n o longer she tol d me and
conse quently a meeting with him would only give her
unutterable p ain and reviv e memories that had better
remain undisturbed
Had I cared for him less I woul d
not say so to you
she adde d
but you must know
that of all sad things the saddest is the destructi on of
”
idols one has built for oneself
This attitude on the part of the one friend he ha d
the greatest affection for was one of the many episodes
which embittered R hodes
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49
,
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C H AP T E R V
R H ODE S
F TE R
AND
T H E RAID
the Raid faithful to his usual tactics of
making others resp onsible for his own misdeeds
Ce cil Rh odes grew t o hate with ferocity all those whos e
silence an d q u iet d isapproval reminded him of the fatal
error into which he had been led He was loud in his
ex p ressions of resentment against Mr S ch reiner and the
other members of the Afrikander p arty w h o had not
b e en able t o conceal from him their indignation at his
conduct on the memorable occasion which ruined his
own p olitical life
They had comp elled him—one
j udged by his demeanour—to resign his o ffice of Prime
Minister at the very time when he was about to trans
form it into something far more imp ortant—to use it
as the stepping —
stone t o future grande u rs of which he
already dreamt alth ough he h a d s o far refrained from
sp eaking abo ut them to others
Curious to say how
ever he never blamed the authors of this p olitical mis
take and never in p ublic at le as t repr oache d Jameson
for the disaster he had brought up on hi m
What his secret thoughts were on this subj ect it is
easy to guess
Circumsta nces used to o ccur now and
then when a stray word sp oken on impulse allowed one to
disce rn that he dep l ored the moment of wea k ness int o
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50
for E a ch
which h e had been inveigled
For instance during a
dinner party at Groote S chuur when talking about the
state of things prevai ling in J ohannesburg j ust before
the war he mentioned the names of five Reforme rs
who after t he Raid had b e en condemned to death by
President Kruger and added that he had p aid their
Yes
he
fi n e of twenty fi v e thousand p ounds each
continued with a certain grim accent of sati re in his
”
voice
I p aid
for each of these gentlemen
And when one of his guests tactlessly remarked
But
sure l y you need not have done so Mr Rhod es " It
was tacitly admitting that you had been a p arty t o their
enterp rise " h e retorted imm e diately
And if I choo se
to al l ow the wo rld to think that such was the case w hat
business is it of yours "
I thought the man was going
to drop under t h e table so utterly flabbergasted did he
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It is o f course extremely di ffic ult to know what
was the actual p art played by Rhodes in the Raid He
carrie d that secret to the grave an d it i s not l i kely
that his accomplices will ever reveal their own share in
the responsibility for that wild adventure My imp res
sion is that the idea of the Raid was start ed among the
entourage of Rh od es and sp oken of before him at length
He would listen in silence as was his wont when he
wished to establish the fact that he had nothing to do
with a thing that had been submitted to him
Thus
the Raid was t acitly en couraged by him without his
ever having pronounced himself either for or against it
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51
Ceci l Rh od es
Rhod es was an extremely able p olitician and a far
seeing one into the bargain He w ould never have com
m i t t e d himself int o an open approval of an attempt
which he knew perfectly well involved the rights of
nations On the other hand he would have welcom e d
any circumstance which would result in the overthrow
of the Transvaal Rep ublic by friends of his His former
succ e sses and esp ecially the facility with which had
been carried out the att a chment of Rhodesia to the
British Empire had refracted his vision and he refused
—
or faile d— to see t h e d ifficulties which he might e n
counter i f he wanted to p roceed for the second time
on an op eration of the sam e k ind
On the other hand he was worried by his friends t o
allow them t o tak e decisive acti on and was told that
every one in England would approve of his initiati ve I n
taking up on himself the resp onsibility of a step out of
which coul d only accrue sol i d a d vantag e for the Mother
C ountry
Rhod es ha d been t oo lon g away from England and
his soj ourns there during the ten years or so immediately
p receding 1 895 ha d been far too short for him t o have
bee n able t o come t o a prop er app recia tion of the
imp ortance of p ublic op inion in Great Britain or of
those principles in matters of Government which no
sound Engli sh p olitician will ever dare to p ut aside if
he wishes t o retain his hold
He failed to understand
and to appreciate the narrow limit which must not be
overstep ped ; he forgot that when one wants to p erform
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52
Ceci l Rh od es
also to app eal to Europ ean j udgment to adj udge an un
j u st ifia b le aggression
Ap art from all these considerations which ought to
have been seriously taken int o account by D octor Jame
son and his comp anions t h e whole exp edition was
planned i n a stupid careless manner N o wonder that
it immediately came to grief
It i s probabl e that if
Rhodes had entered into its details and allowed others
to consult him matters might have taken a different
turn
B ut as I have already shown he preferred to
be able to say at a given moment that he had known
nothing about it
At least this must have been what
he m e ant to do But events p r oved t oo strong for him
The fiasco was too complete for Rhodes to es c ap e from
its resp onsibilities though it must be conceded that he
never tried to do so once the storm burst
He face d
the music bravely enough perhaps because of the know
ledge that no denial would be believed perhaps also b e
cause all the inst incts of his after all great nature
caused him t o come for ward to take his share in the
disgrace of the whole deplorable a ffair
Whether he forgave D octor Jameson for this act of
folly remains a mystery Personally I have always held
that there must have a n ca davre e n t re cu m No friend
ship could account for the strange relations which ex
i st e d between these two men one of whom had done
so much to harm the other
At first it woul d have
seemed as if an individual of the character of Ce cil
Rhodes wou l d never have br ought himself to forg i v e his
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54
A tt i t u d e
of
th e
Du t c h P ar t y
conf ederate for the c lumsiness with which he had handl e d
a matter up on which the reputation of both of them
d ep ended in the p resent as well as in the fut u re
But
far from abandoning the friend who had brought him
into such trouble he remained on the s ame terms of
in timacy as b efore with the difference p erhap s that
he saw even m ore of him than before the Raid
It
seemed as if he wanted thus to affirm before the whole
world his faith in the man through whom his whole
p olitical career had been wre cked
The attitude of Rhod es toward Jameson was com
m e n t e d up on far and wide
The Dutch p arty in Cap e
To wn s a w in it a mere act of bravado into which they
read an acknowledgment that strong as was the
Colossus he was t oo weak to tell his accomplices to with
draw from public sight until the ever increasing diffi
c ul t i e s
with the T ra n sv aa l whi ch became more and
more acute after the Raid— had been settled in some
way or other between President Kruger and the British
Government Instead of this Rhod es seemed to take a
p articular pleasur e in parading the trust he declared h e
had in D octor Jameson and t o consult hi m p ublicly
up on almost all the p olitical questions which were sub
m i t t e d t o him for consideration
This did not mean that
he followed the advi c e w hi ch he recei v ed because s o
far as I was able to observe this was seldom the case
To add to the contrariness of the situation Rhod es
al ways seemed more glad than anythi ng else if he heard
someone make an ill natured remark about the D octor
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55
Ceci l Rh od es
or when anything p articularly disagreeable occurred to
’
the latter
An ironic smile used to light up Rhodes
face and a sarcastic chuckle be heard But still when
e ver one attempted to explain to h i m that the Raid
had been an unforgivable p iece of imprudence or
hazarde d that Jameson had never been prope rly punished
for it R hod es invariably took t h e p art of this friend
of his y ounger days and woul d never acknowledge that
’
D octor Jim s desire to enter public life as a member
of the Cape Parliament ought not to be gratified
O n hi s side D octor Jameson was determ ined that
the opp ortunity to do so should be o ffered to him and he
’
used Rhodes influence in order to obtain election He
knew very well that without it his candidature would
have no chance
Later on when j udging the events which preceded
’
the last two years of Rho des life many p eople ex
pressed the opinion that Jam eson being a physician of
unusual abi l ity was p erfectly well aware that his friend
was not destined t o live to a very old age and there
fore wished to obtain from h i m while he could all the
p olitical supp ort he required to establish his career as
the statesman he f ully believed he W a s In fact D octor
Jameson had made up his mind to outlive the odium
of the Rai d and to become rehabilitated in p ublic
opinion to the extent of being allowed to take up the
l eadership of the party which had once owned Rhodes
as its chief By a strange freak of Providence help e d
no doubt by an iron will and opp ortunitie s made the
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56
’
Rh od es P ol i t ic al D o w n fall
most of Jameson who had been the great culprit in
the mad adventure of the Raid became the foremo st
man in Cap e Colony for a brief p eriod after the war
while Rhodes who had been his victim bore the full
consequences of his weakness in having p ermitted him
self to be p ersuaded to look through his fingers on the
enterprise
Rhodes never recovered any real p olitical influence
was distrusted by English and D utch alike looked up on
with caution by the Cap e Government and with sus
even
among
his
followers
The
p
oor
man
had
i
i
o
n
c
p
no friends worthy of the name and those up on whom
he relied the most were the first to betray his confidence
Unfortunately for himself he had a profound contempt
for humanity an d imagined himself capable of control
ling all those whom he had elected to r ule He imagined
he could turn and twist anyone according to his own
impulses In supp ort of this assertion let me relate an
incident in which I p laye d a part
When the Boer War showed symptom s of dragging
on for a longer time than exp ected some Englishmen
prop osed that Rh odes should be asked t o stand again
for Prime Minister to do which he resolutely refuse d
Opinions however were very much d ivided
S ome
people declared that he was the only man cap able of
concil iating the Dutch and bringing t h e war to a happy
issue
Others asserted that his again taking up the
reins of Government would be considered by the
—
Afri k ander Bond which was very p owerfu l at the time
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57
Ceci l Rh o des
—
as an unj ustifiable p rovocation which would only
further embitter those who had never forgiven Rh odes
for the Raid
.
A member of t h e Upper House of Legislature wh om
I used t o see often and w h o was a strong p artisan of
R hodes determined to seek advice outside the House
and went t o see an imp ortant p olitical p ersonage in Cap e
Town one of those who frequented Groote S chuur and
who p osed as one of t h e strongest advocates of Rh od es
again becoming the head of the Government p resided
over by Sir Alfred M ilner What was the surprise of
my friend when instea d of finding a symp athising
auditor he heard him say that he considered that for
the moment t h e return of Rhodes at the head of a ffairs
would only complicat e matters ; that it was st ill too s oon
after the Raid ; tha t his spirit of anim osity in regard
to certain p eople might n ot help to sm ooth matters at
such a critical j uncture ; and that moreover Rhod es
had grown very morose and tyrannical and refused to
brook any contradiction Coming from a man w h o had
no reason to be friendly with Rhodes the remarks just
reported would not have been imp ortant but p roc eed
ing from a personage who was continually flattering
Rhod es they struck me as showing such considerable
duplicity that I wrote warning Rhode s not to attach
t oo much importance to the p rotestations of devotion
t o his p erson that the individual in question was p er
The reply which I
p e t u all y p ouring down up on him
received was abso l utely characteristic
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58
’
Rh od es Pe r s onal Man n e r
Thanks for your letter Never mind what X
says
He is a harm less do n k ey who can al ways ma k e
”
hi mse lf useful when required to do so
The foregoing incident is enlightening as to the rea l
nature of Cecil Rhodes
His great mistake was p re
c i se ly in this c onviction that he coul d order men at will
and that men would never betray him or inj ure him
by their false interp retation of the directions which it
pleased him t o give them
He c onsidered himse lf so
entirely sup erior to the rest of mankind that it never
struck hi m that inferior beings could turn upon him and
rend him or forget the ob ed ience to his orders whi ch
he exp ected them to observe
He did not app reciate
p eople with independence though he admired them in
those rare moments when he woul d condescend to be
sincere with himself and with others ; but h e preferred
a great dea l the miserable creatures who always sai d
yes to a l l his vagaries ; who n ever dared to criticise
any of his instructions or to di ffer from any opinions
which he expressed
S ometimes he uttered these
op inions with a brutality that did him considerable
harm inasmuch as it could not fail to cause repugnan c e
among an y who listened to him but were not sufficiently
acquainted with t h e p ecul iarities of his character to dis
cern that he wanted simply t o scare his audience and
that he did not mean one single word of the ferocious
things he said in those moments when he happ en e d to
be in a p articularly p erverse mood an d when it pleased
him to give a totally fal se imp ression of himse lf and
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59
Ceci l Rh o des
the nature of his convictions in p olitical and p ublic
m atters
It must not be lost si ght of when judging Mr
Rhodes that he had been living for the best p art of his
life among p eople with whom he could not have any
thing in c ommon except the desire to make m oney in
the shortest time p ossible He was by nature a thinker
a philosopher a reader a man w h o belonged to the best
’
class of students those who understand that one s m i nd
wants continually improving an d that it is apt to rust
when not kept active
His comp anions in those first
years which foll owed upon his arrival in S outh Africa
woul d certainly not have appreciated any of the books
the reading of which c onstituted the solace of the young
man who still preserved in his mind the traditions of
Oxford They were his inferiors i n everything : i n t e ll i
gence instruction
comp rehension of those higher
p roblems of the soul and of the mind which always i n
t e re st e d him even in the most troubled and anxious
moments of his life
He understood and realised that
this was the fact and this did not tend to inspire him
with esteem or even with consideration for the p eople
with whom he was comp elled to live and work
Me n like Barney Barnat o to mention only this one
name among the many felt a kind of awe of Cecil
Rhodes
This kind of thing going on as it did for
years was bound to give Rhodes a wrong idea as to
the fac ulty he had of bringing others to share his points
of view and he became so accustomed to be considered
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60
Ceci l Rh od es
p ossessed of houses in Park Lane and shooting bo x es
in S cotland He liked to relate all that h e knew about
them and sometimes even t o mention certain facts
which the individuals themselves would probably have
—
preferred t o be consigned to oblivion
But a n d here
—
d
comes the singularity t o which I have referre
Rhod es
would not allow anyone else t o sp eak of these thin g s
and h e always took the p art of his so called friends when
outsiders hinted at dark episodes which did not admit
of investigation
He almost gave a certificate of good
conduct t o peopl e whom he might have been heard
referring to a few hours before in a far more ant agonistic
spirit than that displayed by those whom he s o sharply
contradicted
I remember one amusing instance of the idiosyncrasy
referred to
There was in Johannesburg a man who
having arrived there with twenty fi ve p ounds in his
p ockets —as he liked to relate with evident pri d e in the
fact— had in the c ourse of two years amassed to g ether
a fortune of two millions sterling
One day during
dinner at Gro ot e S chuur he enlarged up on the subj ect
with such offensiveness that an English lady new l y
arrived in S outh Africa and not yet e x p erienc e d in the
things which at t h e time were better left unsaid was
so annoyed at his p ersistency that she interrupted the
speaker with the remark
Well if I were you I would not be so eager to
l et the world kn ow that I had made t w o millions out of
twenty fi v e p ounds
It sounds exactl y li k e the st o ry
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62
A
S t i n g i n g Re t or t
man who says that in or d er to catch a train at
’
si x o cloc k in t h e morning he gets up at t e n minutes
to s i x You know at once that he cannot possibly have
washed whilst your story shows that y ou could not p os
of
t he
.
,
”
have been honest
I leave the reader to imagine t h e consternation pro
But what
d uce d among those p resent by these words
wer e their feelings when they heard Rh od es say in
sib ly
.
.
reply
Well one doe s not always find water to wash in
and at Kimbe rley this happened oftener tha n one
imagines ; as for being honest who cares for honest y
”
nowada y s "
Those wh o have not lived i n S outh Africa Mr
”
Rhodes
was the retort which silenced the Colos sus
This man of the get rich quick variety was one of
those who had mastered the di ffi c irlt op eration of pass
ing off to others the mines out Of which he had a l ready
extracted most of the gold an occup ation whi ch in the
earl y Johannesbur g days had been a favourite one with
many of the inhabitants of this wonderful town
One
must not forget that as soon as the fame of the gold
fields of the Transvaal began to spread adventurers
hastened there together with a few honest p ioneers
desirous of making a fortune out of the riches of a soil
which esp ecially in p rosp ectuses lavishl y distributed on
the London and Paris Stock E x changes was describe d
as a modern Golconda
C oncessions were bought and
sold companies were formed with a rapidity which
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63
Ceci l Rh od es
savoured of the fabulous Men made not only a living
but also large profits by reselling plots of ground which
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they had bought but a few hours before and one heard
nothing but loud p raises of this or that mine that could
”
be had for a song
owing to family circumstances
or other reasons which obliged their owner to part
with it
The individual who had boast ed of the intelligent
manner with which he had transformed his twenty fi v e
p ounds into two solid millions had early in his career
invested some of his capital in one of these m ines
Its only merit was its high sounding name
He tried
for some time without success to disp ose of it At last
he happen e d to meet a Frenchman newly arrived in
Johannesburg who wanted to acquire so ni c mining
p rop erty there with the V iew of forming a comp any
Our hero immediately o ffered his own
The French
man resp onded to the app eal but exp ressed the desire
to go down himself into the shaft to examin e the pro
perty and get some ore in order to test it before the
p urchase was completed T h e condition was agreed to
with eagerness and a few days later the victim and his
executioner proceed e d together to the mine
The
Frenchman went down whilst Mr X
remained
above He walked about with his hands in his p ockets
smoking cigarettes the ashes of which he let fall with
an app arent negligence into the baskets of ore which
were being sent up by the Frenchman
When the
latter came up rather hot and dusty the baskets were
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64
A
M i n i n g S t or y
taken to Johannesburg and carefully examined : the ore
was found to contain a considerable quantity of gold
The mine was bought and not one scrap of gold was
ever found in it
Mr X
had provided himse lf
with cigarettes made for the purp ose which contained
gold dust in lieu of tobacco and the ashes which he
had dropped were in reality the precious metal the
p resence of which was to p ersuade the u nfortunate
Frenchman that he was buying a p rop erty of consider
able value He p aid for it something like two hundred
thousand pounds whilst the fame of the man who had
thus cleverly tricked him spread far and wide
The most amusing part of the story consists in its
The dup ed Frenchman though full of
dén ou em e n t
wrath was nevertheless quite up to the game
He
kept silence but p roceeded t o form his comp any as if
nothing had been the matter When it was about to
be constituted and registered he asked M r X
to
become one of its d irectors a demand that the latter
could not v ery well refuse with decency He therefore
allow e d his name to figure among those of the members
of the board and he used his best endeavours to p ush
forward the shares of the concern of which he was pom
p ou sl y described on the prosp ectus as having been once
the happy owner As his name was one to conjure with
the scri p went up to unheard of prices when bot h he
and his supposed victim the Frenchman real ised and
retired from the venture the richer by se veral hundreds
of thousan d s of poun d s Histor y d oes not sa y what b e
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F
65
Ceci l Rh o d es
came of the shareholders As for Mr X
b e now
lives in Europ e and has still a rep utation in S outh
Africa
This story is but one amongst hundreds and it is
little wonder that surrounded as he was with men who
indulged in this charming p astime of always trying to
’
dup e their fellow creatures Rhodes moral sense r e
lax e d
It is only surprising that he kept about him so
much that was good and great and that he did not
succumb altogether to the contamination which affected
everything and everybody around him
Happily for
him he cherished his own ambitions had his own dreams
for companions his absorption in the great work he
had undertaken ; these things were hi s salvation Rho
’
desia became t h e p r i nc i p al field of Rhodes activity
and the care with which he fostered its prosp erity kept
him too busy and interested to continue the quest for
riches which had been hi s great if not his p rincip al o c c u
during
the
first
years
of
his
stay
in
S
outh
Africa
t
o
n
i
a
p
Although Ce cil Rhodes was so happily placed that
he had no need to bother over wealth he was not so
aloof to the glamour of p olitics
He had always felt
the irk of his retirement after the Raid and the han k er
ing after a leading p olitical p osition became more pro
n ou n c e d as the episode which shut the Parliamentary
door behind him after he had p assed through its portals
faded in the mind of the p eople
It was not surprising therefore to observe that
p oliti cs once more took the upper hand amidst his pre
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66
S t ra y e d
A P r e d ic t i on t h a t
occup ations
It was though politics connected with
the development of the country that bore his name
more than with the welfare of the Cap e Colony or of
the Transvaal
It was only during the last two years
’
of Rhodes existence that his interest revived in the
places connected with his first successes in life Rhodes
had been convinced that a war with the Boers would
last only a matter of a few weeks— three months as he
p rophesied when it broke out—and he was equall y sure
though for what reason it is difficult to guess that the
war would restore him to his former p osition and p ower
The illusion lingered long enough t o keep him in a state
of excitement during which carried along by his natural
enthusiasm he indulged in several unconsidere d step s
and when at last his hop e was disp elled he accused every
body of being the cause of his disapp ointment Never
for a moment would he admit that he co ul d have been
mistaken or that the war which at a certain moment
his intervention might p ossibly have avoided had been
the consequence of the mischievous act he had not
prevented
W hen the Bloemfontei n Conference failed Rhodes
was not altogether displeased He had felt the a ffront
of not being asked to attend ; and though his common
sense told him that it would have been altogether out
of the question for him to take part in it as this w ould
have been considered in the light of a p ersonal insult by
President Kruger he would have liked to have been
consulted by Sir A lfred Milner as well as by the English
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67
Ceci l Rh od es
Government as to the course to be a dopted during
its deliberations
He was fully p ersuaded i n hi s own
mind that S ir Alfred Milner being still a new arrival
in S outh Africa had not been able to grasp its compli
and so had not adopted the best means
ca t e d problems
to ba ffl e the intrigues of President Kruger and the dip
l om a c y of his clever c olleague President Steyn
At
every tale which reached Ceci l Rhod es concern ing the
di fficulties encountered by Sir Alfred he declare d that
”
he was glad to be out of this mess
" e t it was not
difficult to see that he p assionately regretted not being
allowed t o watch from a seat at the council table
the vicissitudes of this last attempt by conference to
smooth over difficulties arising from the rec k lessness dis
played by p eople i n arrogantly rushing matters that
needed caref u l e x amination
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68
C HAP T E R VI
T HE
AFTERMAT H
THE RAID
OF
OW A RD the close of the last chapter I referred
to the Raid passing from the for efront of p ublic
memory But though as a fact it became blurre d in
the mind of the people as a factor in S outh African
history its influence by no means diminished
Indeed
the aftermath of the Raid assumed far greater p rop or
tions as time went on
It influenced so entirely the
further destinies of S o uth Africa and brought about
such enmities and such bitterness along with it that
nothing short of a war could have washed away its i m
pressions Up to that fatal adventure the Jingo English
elements always viewed with distrust and disli k e in the
Transvaal as well as at the Cap e had been more or l ess
held back in their desire to gain an ascendancy over the
D utch p opulation whilst t he latte r had accepted the
Jingo as a necessary evil devoi d of real importance and
only annoying from time to time
After the Raid all the Jingoes who had hop ed that
its results would be to giv e them greater facilities of
enrichment considered themselves p ersonally ag grie v e d
by its failure They did j ust what Rhodes was a l ways
doing The Boers and President Kruger had acted cor
r e c t ly in this enterprise of D octor Jameson
but the
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69
Ceci l Rh o des
Jingoes made them resp onsible for the results of its
failure They went about giving expression to feelings
of the most violent hatred against the Boers and railed
at their wickedness in daring t o stand up in defence of
rights which the British Government had solemnly
recognised
It became quite useless to tell those mis
guided individuals that the Cabinet a t Westminster had
from the very first blamed Rhodes for his share in what
the English Press with but few exception s had declared
to be an entirely disgraceful ep isode
They p retended
that p eople in London knew no t hing about the true
state of affairs in S outh Africa or the necessities of the
country ; that the British Government had always shown
deplorable weakness in regard to the treatment meted
out to its subj ects in the Colonies and that both Rhodes
and Jameson were heroes wh ose names deserve d to be
handed d own to p osterity for the services which they
had rendered to their country
It is true that these ardent Jingoes were but a small
minority and that t h e right minded elements among the
English Colonials universally blamed the unwarranted
attack that had been made against the indep endence of
the Transvaal B ut the truculent minority shouted l oud
enough to drown the censure an d as with a few notable
exceptions the S outh African Press was under the i n
fl u e n ce of the magnates it was n ot v ery easy to protest
against the strange way in which the Raid was being
excused
I am p ersuaded that had the subj ect been
allowed to drop it would have died a natura l death or
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70
A L and m ark
of
H is t or y
at worst been considere d as an historical blunder But
the partisans of Rhodes the friends of Jameson and p er
s on a ge s connec ted with t h e leading financial powers did
their best to keep the remembrance of the expedition
which wrecked the p olitical life of Rh odes fresh before
the public The mere mention of it was soon sufficient
t o arouse a tempest of p as sions esp ecially among the
D utch party and by and by the history of S outh Africa
resolved itself into the Raid an d its memorie s
You
never heard p eople say
This happ ened at such a
time
they merely declared
This happ ened before
or after the Raid
It became a landmark for the i n
habitants of Cap e Town an d of the Transvaal and I
could almost believe that in Kimberley at any rate the
very children in the schoo ls were taught to d ate their
knowledge of English history from the time of the Raid
The enemies of Cecil Rhodes and their number was
legion always declared that the reason why he had faced
the music and braved public op inion in England lay in
the fact that for some reason or other he was afraid of
D oc tor Jameson
I have referred already to this cir
c u m st an c e
Whilst refusing to admit such a p ossibility
yet I must own that the influence and even the authority
exercised by the D octor on his chief had something
uncanny about it My own opinion has always been that
’
Rhodes attitude arose principally from h i s conviction
that Jameson was the only one w h o understood his con
st i t ut i on
the sole being capable of looking after his
health Curious as it may seem I am sure the C olossus
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71
Ce c i l Rh od es
had an inordinate fear of death and of illness of any
kind He knew that his life was not a s ound one but
he always rebelled against the idea that like other
mortals he was subj ect t o death I feel p ersuaded that
one of the reasons why he chose to be buried in the
M at op p o Hi l ls was that in selecting this l onely sp ot he
felt that he would not often be called up on to see the
place where he would rest one day
This dread of the un k n own so rare in p eople of his
calibre remaine d with him until the end I t increase d
in acuteness as h i s he a lth began to fai l
Then more
than ever d i d he entertain and plan new schemes as
if to p ersuade himse lf that he had unlimited time before
him in which t o e x ecute them His fi at t e re rs knew how
to play up on his weakness an d they never f a iled to do
so
Perhap s this foible e x plains the influence which
D octor Jameson undoubtedly e xercised up on the mind
of Rh odes He believed himse l f to be in safety when
ever Jameson was about him An d so in a certain sens e
he w a s because with all his faults the D octor had a
real affection for the m a n t o whom he had been boun d
by so many t i es ever since the days when at Kimberley
they ha d worke d side by side building their fortunes an d
their careers
By a curi ous frea k of d estin y when the tide o f e v ents
connected with the war h a d given to the Progressive
English p arty a clear maj ority in the Cape Parliament
Jameson assumed its leadership as a matter of c ourse
l argely because he was the p olitical ne x t of k in to
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72
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H o s p i t al i t y
G roo t e Sc h uu r
at
Rhodes The fact that at that time he lived at Groote
Schuur added to his p op ularity and he continued whilst
there the traditional hospitality displayed during the
lifetime of Rhodes
That he ultimately became Prime
Minister was not surprising ; the office fell to his share
as so many other good thin g s had fallen before ; and
having obtained this supreme triumph and enj oyed it
for a time he was tactfu l enough to retire at p recise l y
the right moment
The Raid in directly killed Rhodes and directly
obliterated his p olitical reputation
It lost him too
the resp ect of all the men who coul d have he lp ed him
to govern S outh Africa wisely and well
It deprived
him of the e xperience and p opu l arity of Mr S chreiner
Mr Merriman Mr S auer an d other members of the
Afrikander Bond who had once been up on terms of i n
t i m a c y and affection with him
It must never be forgotten that at on e p eri od of
his history Rh odes was considered to be the best friend
of the D utch p arty ; an d secondly that h e had been
the first to criticise the action of the British Govern
ment in regar d t o the Transvaal At the very moment
when the Raid was c ontemplated he was making the
most solemn assurances to his friends— as they then b e
li e v e d themselves to b e —that he would never tolerate
any attack against the independence of the Boers
If
his advice had been taken Rhodes considered that the
errors which culminated at Maj uba with the defeat of
the British troops wou l d have be e n avoided He caused
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73
Ceci l Rh od es
the same assurances to be conveyed to President Kruger
and this duplicity which in a nyone less compromised
than he was in r e gard to the D utch party might have
been blamed was in his case considered as somethin g
akin to high treason and roused against him sentiments
not only of hatred but also of disgust
When later
on at the time of the Boer War Rh odes made attempts
to ingratia t e himself once more into the favour of the
D utch he failed to realise that while there are cases
when animosity can give way before p olitical necessity
it is quite imp ossible in private t o shake hands with an
individual whom one despises
And that such persons
as Mrs van Koopman or Mr S chreiner for instance
desp ised Rhodes there can be no doubt
They were wrong in doing so Rhodes was e ssen
t i all y a man of moods and also an opp ortunist in his
strange blunt way Had the D utch rallied round him
during the last war it is certain that he would have given
himself up body and sou l to the task of trying to
smooth over the difficulties whi ch gave such an obstinate
character to the war He would have induced the Eng
l ish Government to grant to all rebe l co l onists w h o
returned to their allegiance a generous p ardon and re
instatement into their former rights
Even whi l e the war l asted it is a fact that in a
’
certain sense Rhodes own p arty susp ected him of b e
traying its interests I feel almost sure that Sir Alfred
Milner did not trust hi m but neverthe l ess he would
have liked Rhodes as a coadj utor If the two men were
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74
Ceci l Rh od es
It is indisputable that whilst he was shut up i n t he
D iamond City Rhod es entered into secret ne g otiations
with some of the D utch leaders This though it might
have been construed in the sense of treason against his
own Motherland had it reached the k nowledge of the
e x treme Jingo party was in reality the si ncere effort
of a true patriot to p ut an end to a struggle whi c h was
threatening to destroy the prosp erity of a country for
which he had laboured for so many years
I n j udging R hodes one must not forget that thou g h
a leading personality in S outh Africa and the chair
man of a corp oration which practically rul ed the whole
of the Cap e Colony and in part also the Transvaa l
he was after all at that time nothing but a p rivate
individual
He had the right to p ut his personal i n
fl u e n c e at the service of the State and of his country
if he considered that by so doing he could bring to an
end a war which threatened t o bring destruction on a
l and that was j ust beginning to progress towar d civil
i sat i on
It must be remembered that his was the only
great p ersonality in South Africa capable of opp osing
President Kruger and the other D utch and Boer leaders
He was still p opular among many people —feared by
some worship p ed by others He could rally round him
many elements that would never coalesce with either
D utch or English unless he provided the impetus of his
authority and approval If only he had spoken frankly
to the Boer leaders whom he had caused to be approached
called them to his side instead of having messag es con
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76
S i tt i n g on t h e F e n c e
to them by p eople whom he could disavow later
on and whom in fact he did disavow ; and if on
the other hand Rhod es had placed himself at the dis
p osal of Sir A lfred Milner and told him op enly that he
would try to se e what he could d o to help him the
tenseness of the situation would alm ost certainly have
been eased
In a position as intermediary between two a dve r
sa ri e s w h o required his advi c e and influence to smooth
the way toward a s ettlement of the terrible S outh African
question R hodes could have d one incalculable service
an d added lustre to his name But he did not and it
is not with out interest to seek the reason why the
Co l ossus was not coura g eous enough to embark up on such
a course
Wh e ther through fear of his actions being
wrongly interpreted or else because he did not feel sure
of his ground and was apprehensive lest h e might be i n
du ce d to walk into a trap Cecil Rhodes never would
pronounce himself up on one side or the other He left
to well wishers t h e task of reconciliation b etween him
self and his enemies or if not that at least the p ossi
b il it y for both once more to take comm on action for the
solution of South African difficulties The unfortunate
side of the whole affair lay in the fact that the Boer
and Bond leaders each remained under the impression
th at in t h e Raid affair it was against their particular
body that Rhodes had sinned that it was their cause
which he had betrayed Accordingly they exp ected him
to recognise this fact and to tell them of his re g ret
v e ye d
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77
Ceci l Rh od es
’
But this was not Rhod es way : on the contrary he
looked to his adversaries to consider that they had
wronged him
Both parties adhered firm ly to thei r
p oint of view ; it was n ot an easy matter to p ersuade
either of them to tak e the initiative
Each very well
knew and felt it was an indisp ensable step but each
considered it should be taken by the other
This brings me to make a remark which probably
has never yet found its way into print though some
have sp oken about it in S outh Africa It is that Cecil
Rhodes whilst being essentially an Empire Maker
was not an Empire Ruler
His conceptions were far
too vas t to allow him to take int o consideration the
smaller details of everyday life which in the manage
ment of the a ffairs of t h e world obliges one to consider
p ossible ramification s of every great enterprise Rhod es
wanted simply to sweep away all obstacles without giv
ing the slightest thought to the consequences likely to
follow on so offhand a manner of getting rid of di fficulties
In addition to this disregard of vital details there
was a tinge of selfishnes s in everything which Rhodes
undertook and which gav e a p ersonal asp ect to matters
which ought to have been looked up on purely from the
obj ective
The acquisition of R hodesia for instance
was considered by him as having been accomp l ished for
the aggrandisement of the Empire and also for his own
benefit He sincerely believed that he had had nothing
else in his mind when he founded the Chartered Com
p any than the desire to conquer a new co u ntry and to
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78
,
A t B u luw a y o
give it to England ; but he would certainly ha v e felt
cruelly affronted if the British Government h ad ever
taken its administration into its own hands and not
allowed Rhodes to do exactly what he pleased there
He loved to go to B ul u w ay o and woul d sp end weeks
watching all that was being done in the way of agri
culture and mining In particular he showed consider
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able interest i n the natives
The C olonial O ffice in London was treated by Cecil
Rhodes with the utmost disdain on the rare occasions
when it tri e d to put in a word concerning the estab
l i shm e n t of British rule in the territories w hi ch he gloried
in having presented to the Queen It was sufficient to
mention in his presence the possibility of the Charte r
being recalled to p ut Rhodes into a p assion No king
or tyrant of old indeed treated his subj ects with the
severity which Rhodes showed in regard to the di fferent
civil officials and military defenders of the Rhod esia he
loved so much and so unwisely
It is curious that Rhodes never allowed sp eculation
a free hand in Rhodes i a as he had done at Kimberley
or at Johannesburg
He was most careful that out
siders should not hear about what was going on and took
endless precautions not to exp ose the companies that
worked the old dominions of p oor King Lobengula
to the sharp criticism of the European Stock Exchanges
Their shares remained in the hands of p eople on whose
discretion Rhodes believed that he could rely and no
one ever heard of gambling in scrip excitin g the minds
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79
Ceci l Rh od es
of the inhabitants of B ul u w ay o or S alisbury to any thing
like the d egree stocks i n Transvaal concerns did
In Rhodesia Rhodes believed himself on his own
ground and free from the criticisms which he gues sed
were constantly uttered in regard to him and to his
conduct In the new land which bore his name Rhodes
was surrounded only by dependants whilst in Cap e
Colony he now and then came across someone who would
tell him and what was wo rse who would make him feel
that after all he w as not the only man in the worl d
and that he could not always h ave everything his own
way Moreover in Cap e Town there was the G overnor
whose p ersonality was more imp ortant than his own
and whom whether he liked it or not he had to take
into consideration and to whom in a certain sense he
had t o submit
And in Kimberley there was the D e
Beers B oard which though composed of men who were
entirely in dependence upon him and whos e careers he
had made yet had to be consulte d
He coul d n ot
entirely brush them aside the less so that a whol e army
of shareholders stood behind them who from time t o
time were impudent enough to wish to see what was
being done with their m oney
Nothing in the way of hamp ering critics or circum
scribing authorities existed in Rhodesia The C hartered
Comp any though administered by a Board was in
reality left entirely in the hands and un d er the control
of Rhodes Most of the directors were in England and
came before p ublic notice on l y at the annual genera l
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80
The C a p e
to
C a i ro R a i l w a y
meeting which was a l ways a success , inasm uch as n o
one there h ad ever ventured to criticise otherwise than
in a mild way the work of the men who were supp osed
to watch over the development of the resources of the
country
Rhod es w as master and probably his p ower
woul d have even increased had he l ived long enough to
see the completion of the Cap e to Cairo Rai l wa y which
was his l a st hobby and the absorbing interest of the
closing years of his life
The Cap e to Cairo R ailway was one of those vast
schemes that can be ascribed to the same quality in his
character as that which made him so essentiall y an
Empire Maker It was a proj ect of worl d wide imp ort
ance and destined to set the seal to the p ara
mount influenc e of Great Britain over the whole of
Africa It was a work which without Rhodes wou l d
never ha v e been accomplished
He was right to feel
proud of having conceived it ; and England too ought
to be proud of having counte d among her s ons a man
capable of starting such a vast enterprise and of going
on with it desp ite the violent opp osition and the many
misgivin g s with which it was recei v e d by the genera l
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p ub h c
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81
,
CHAPTER VII
R H ODE S
THE AF R I KANDE R B O ND
AND
O return to the subj ect of the negotiations which
undoubtedly t ook place between Rhodes and the
leaders of the Afrikander B on d during the war I must
say that so far as I know they can rank among the
most disinterested actions of hi s life
For once there
was no p ersonal interest or p ossible material gain con
n e c t e d with his desire to bring the D utch elements in
S outh Africa to look up on the situation from the purely
p atriotic p oint of V ie w as h e di d hi mself
It would have been most certainly t o the advantage
of everyb od y if instead of p ersisting in a resistance
which was b ound to collap se no matter how succes sful
it might appear to have been at its start the B oers
together with the D utch Afrikanders had sent the oli v e
branch to Cap e Town
There would then ha v e been
some hop e of comp romise or of coming to term s with
England before being crushed by her armies It would
have been favourable to English interests also had the
great bitterness which rendered the war such a long
and such a rabid one not had time t o spread all over
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the country
Rhodes intervention which S ir Alfred
Milner could not have refused had he o ffered it backed
b y the Boers on one side and by the English Progressi v e
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82
Ceci l Rh od es
consequently the ma g nates were bitterl y hate d by the
Boers
An d not without reason
No reasonable B oer
would have seriously obj ected t o a union with Eng l and
p rovided it had been e ffecte d under conditions assuring
them autonomy and a certain indep endence
B ut no
one wanted to have libert y an d fortune l eft at the mercy
of adventurers even though some of them ha d risen to
reputation and renown obtaine d tit l es an d bought their
way int o S ociety
Unfortunately for him Rhodes was supp ose d to re
p resent the c l ass of p eople referre d to or at any rate
to favour them One thing is certain—the great fi n an
c i al interests which Rhodes p ossessed in the Gol d Fields
an d other concerns of the same kind lent some credence
to the i d ea
All thes e circumstances prevented pub l ic
op inion from e x p re ssmg full confidence in him because
no one could bring himself to believe what nevertheless
would have come true
I n t h e question of restoring p eace to S outh Afri c a
’
Rhod es most certainly would never have ta k en anyone s
advice ; he woul d have acted according to hi s own i m
pulse and more so b ecause D octor Jameson was not with
him during the who l e time Kimberl ey was besiege d
Unfortunately for all the p arties concerned R hodes l et
slip the opp ortunity to resume his former friendship
with Mr Hofmeyr the only man in S outh Africa
whose intelligence c ould measure itself with his own
And in the absence of this first step from Rh odes a
—
false p ri d e which was wounded vanity more than any
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84
S i r A l fr e d M i ln e r M is j u d g e d
thing else—p revente d the B ond from see k in g the help
of R hodes
Thi s attitude on the p art of each man
.
would simply have been ridiculous under ordin ary cir
c um st a n c e s but at a time when such grave interest s were
at stake and when the future of so many pe ople was
l iable to be comp romised it became criminal
In sharp c ontras t to it s tood the conduct of Sir
A lfred Mi l ner who was ne v er influenced by his p ersonal
fee l ings or b y hi s vanity where the interests of his
country were engaged D uring the few months which
prece d e d the war h e was the obj ect of virulent hatred
on the p art of most of the white p opu l ation of the
Colon y When the first disillusions of the war brought
along with them their usual harvest of disapp ointments
the p ersonality of the High C ommissioner app eare d at
last in its true light and on e began to realise that here
w as a man who p osse ssed a singularl y clear view on
matters of p olitics an d that all his actions were g ui d ed
by soun d principles
His quiet determination not to
all ow himself to b e influenced b y the gossip of Cap e
Town was also realised and amid all the s pite shown it
is to his honour that instead of throwing up the sp onge
he persevered unti l at last he succeeded in the ai m which
he ha d kep t before him from the day he ha d landed in
Table Bay
He restored peace to the dark continent
where no one h ad welcomed him but where everyb ody
m ourned his departure whe n he ba d e it goo d bye after
the most anxious years he ha d ever known
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When S ir Alfre d accepted the p ost of Go v ernor of
85
Ceci l Rh od es
the Cap e C olony and English High C ommissioner in
S outh Africa he had intended to s tudy most carefully
the local conditions of the new country whither fate and
his duty were sending him and the n after having
gained the necessary exp erience cap ab l e o f gui d ing him
in the di fferent step s he aspired to take to proceed to
the formidab l e task he ha d set for himse l f His great
obj ect was to bring about a reconciliation betwe en the
t w o g reat p olitical p artie s in the C ol ony — the South
African League with Rhodes as President and the
Afrikander Bon d headed by Messr s H ofm e yr (the one
most in pop ular favour with the Boer farmers ) S auer
and S chreiner
In the gigantic task of welding t ogether two materi als
which p ossessed little a ffinity and no love for each other
Sir Alfred was unable to be guide d by his experience in
the M otherl and
In England a certain constitutional
p olicy was the bas i s of e v ery party
At the C ap e the
dominating factors were pers onal feeling s p ersonal
hatred s and affections while in the case of the League
it was m oney and money alone
I do not mean that
every member of the League ha d been bought by D e
Beers or the Chartered Comp any ; but what I do main
tain is that the maj ority of its members ha d some
financial or material r e ason to enrol themse lv es
I n j udgin g the p olitics of S outh Africa at the perio d
of which I am writing one must not forget that the
greater number of those wh o then constituted the so
called Progressi v e p arty were m e n who ha d tra v elle d to
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86
The In fl u e n c e
of
D e B ee r s
the Cap e through l ove of adventure and the desire t o
enrich themse lv es quickly It was only the first comers
who had seen their hopes realise d Th ose who came after
them found things far m ore d i fficult an d had perforce
to make the best of what their p redece ssors l eft
On
the other hand it was re l ati v ely easy for them to find
employment in the service of one or the other of the
big c omp anies that sp ran g up and by wh om most of
the mining and in d ustria l concerns w ere owned
When the influence of the D e Beers increased after
its amalgamation w ith the other diamond companies
around Kimberley and when Rh odes made up his mind
that onl y a p olitica l career could help him to achieve
his vast plans he struck up on the thought of using the
money and the influence which were at his disp osal to
transform D e Beers into one of the m o st formidable
po litical instruments the world had ever seen He suc
c e e de d in doing so in what would ha v e been a wonderful
manner if one did not remember the crowd of fortune
seeking men who were continually landing in S outh
Af rica These soon foun d that it wou l d advantage them
’
to enro l un d er Rhod es banner for he was no or d inary
mi ll ionaire Here st oo d a man who was p erp e tually dis
covering new treasures anne x ing new continents and
who ha d always at his d isp osal profitab l e p osts to scatter
amon g his foll owers
The reflex action upon Rhodes was that un con
sc i ou sl y he drifte d int o the conviction that every man
cou ld b e bought provided one knew what i t was he
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87
Ce c i l Rh od es
wante d He understood p e rfectly well the art of spee n
’
lating in his neighbours weaknesses and thus liked t o
invite certain p eople to make l ong stays at his ho u se
not because he liked them but bec ause he k new if they
did not that they would soon disco v er that the mere
fact of being t h e guest of Mr Rhodes p rocured for
them the reputation of being in his confidence B eing
a guest at Groote S chuur endowed a man with a p restige
such as no one who has not l ived in S outh Africa can
realise and furthermore enabled him to catch here and
there scrap s of news resp ecting the m one y mark ets of
the world a proper un d erstanding and use of which
could be of c onsiderable financial value
A cup of tea
at Groote S chuur was su fficient to bring about more than
one p olitical conversion
Once started the S outh African League s oon became
a power in the l and not so strong by an y means as the
Afrikan d er B ond but far more influentia l in o fficial and
esp ecially in financial circles Created for the app arent
aim of s upp orting British government i n Cap e Co l ony
it found itse lf almost from the very first in conflict with
it if not outwardly at least tacitly After his rupture
with the Bond consequent u p on the Raid Rhodes
brought considerab l e energy to bear up on the develop
ment of the League He caused it to exercise all over
the C olony an occult p ower which more than on c e defied
constituted authority and p roved a source of embarrass
ment to British rep resentatives with greater frequency
than the y wou ld have cared to own S ir Alfred Milner
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,
Ceci l Rh od es
being susp ected But
the menace at once and
the tact which he always
he undertoo k p roceeded to
n ot
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,
Sir Alfred Milner discovered
with the quiet firmness and
displayed in everything that
cop e with the organisation
.
Sir Alfr e d soon fou n d himse lf confronted by the irri
t a t i on of Rhodes who had re l i e d on his supp ort for the
schemes which he ha d nursed in regard to the Transvaal
I must here explain the reas on why R h od es had thrown
his glances toward the Rand One must remember the
p eculiar conditions in which he was p laced in being
alway s surrounded by creatures whom he could only keep
attached to his p ers on and t o his ambition by satisfying
their greed for gold When he had annexed Mata bele
land i t h ad been p rincipally in the e x p ectation that one
would fin d there the rich gold bearing s trata said to ex ist
in that region U nf ortunately thi s hope proved a fa l la
Although thousan d s of p ounds were sp ent
c i ou s one
in si nk ing and research t h e re sults obtained were of so
insignificant a nature and the quantity of ore extracted
so entirely insufficient to justify sy stematic exploitation
that the adventure rs ha d p erforce to turn their attention
toward other fields
It was after this disillusion that the i d ea too k ho l d
of Rho d es which he communicate d t o his frien d s to
acquire the go ld fie ld s of the R and an d to transf orm the
rich Transvaal into a region where the Chartere d Com
p any and the S outh African Lea g ue woul d ru l e Pre
vi c us to this if we are to be l ieve President Kru ger
R h od es had trie d to concl ude an al liance with him an d
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90
Rh od es S ees P r esi d e n t Kr ug e r
once up on his return from Beira to Cap e Town had
stopp ed at Pretoria where he paid a visit to the old
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Boer statesman
It is quite likely that on this occasion R hodes put in
a word suggesting that it woul d be an advantage to the
Transvaal to become p ossessed of an outlet on the sea
bo ard but I hardly think that Kruger wrote the truth
in his memoirs in stating that when mentioning D e l agoa
Bay Rhodes used the words
We must si mply take
”
it thus associating himse lf with Kruger Cecil Rhodes
was far too cute to do any such th ing knowing that it
would b e interpreted in a sense inimical to hi s plans
But I shoul d not be surprised if when the Presi dent
remark ed that D e l agoa was Portuguese he had replied
”
It does not matter and you must simply take it
This would have been far more to the p oint as it would
have hinted to those who knew how to read between
the lines that England which Rhodes was persuade d
was incarnated in himsel f would not min d if the Trans
vaal did lay hands on D e l agoa Bay S uch an act would
furnish the British Government with a p retext for
dabbling to some effe ct in the a ffairs of the Transvaal
Republic
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Such a move as this would have been j ust one of
these things which Rhodes was fond of doing He felt
sometimes a kind of malicious pleasure in whisp ering to
others the ve ry things likely to get them into trouble
should they be so foolish as to do them
In the case
of President Kruger however he had to d ea l with a
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91
Ceci l Rh od es
mind which though uncouth yet p ossessed all the
slimness of which s o many examp l es are to be found
in S outh Africa
Kruger wrote
Rhodes represented capi tal no
matter how base and contemptible and whether b y
lying bribery or treachery al l an d ever y means were
welcome t o him if they l ed to the attainment of his ambi
”
tious desires
B ut Oom P aul was absolutely wrong in
th in k ing that it was the p ersonag e he was thus describing
who practise d all these abominations He ought t o have
remembered that it was his name on l y which was asso
c i a t e d with all these basenesses
and the man himself
if left t o his better self w ould never have condescen d e d
to the many acts of doubtful moral ity with which his
memory w i l l remain associated in history
I am firmly convinced that on his own imp ulse he
would never for instance have ventured on the R ai d
But unhappily his habit when somethi n g not quite
was mentioned to him was to say nothin g and to tr ust
to his goo d l uc k to avoid unpleasant consequences arising
out of hi s si l ence
Had he venture d to Opp ose the
plan s of his confederates they wo ul d have immediately
turned upon him and
There were p erhap s p ast
facts whi ch he did not wish the worl d to remember His
frequent fits of raging temp er arose from this ir k some
feeling and was his way—a futile w ay—o f revenging
himse lf on his j ail ors for the d urance in which they kept
him The man who be lieved himse lf to be omni p otent
in S outh Af rica an d wh o was consi d ere d so powerf u l by
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92
Ceci l Rh od es
the arms of the English Progressive party and to sta rt
a campaig n of his own against the rebel Colonials an d
the D utch inhabitants of the Transvaal
While the siege of Kimberley lasted even while he
was seeking to bec ome reconciled to the British element
Rhodes asserted himself in a strongly o ffensive manner
He sent to Sir Alfred Milner in Cap e Town rep orts of
his own as to the military authorities and dispositions
couched in such alarming tones that the High Com
missioner became most uneasy concerning the p ossible
fate of the D iamond City
These reports accused the
officers in charge of the town of fai l ing in the p erform
ance of their duties and showing symptoms of abj ect
fear in regard to the besieging Boer army It was only
after a n explanation from S ir Redvers Buller and after
the latter had communicated t ohim the letters which
he himself had received from Colonel K e ke w i ch the com
mander of the troop s to whom had been entrusted the
defence of Kimberley that Sir Alfred was re assured
The fact was that Rh odes became very imp atient to find
that his movements were watched by the mi l itary a ut hori
ties an d that sometimes even the orders whi ch he gave
for what he considered the greater security of the town
and gave with the sup erb assurance which distinguished
him were cancelled by the responsible ofli ci als
D is
graceful scenes followed R hodes was accused of wish
ing to come to an arrangement with Cron j e w h o was
in charge of the besieging troops in ord er to brin g the
w ar to an end by his own efforts
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94
M i l i t ar y Ma n da t e
A
I ne v er hav e been ab l e to ascertain how much of
real truth if any was in the vario u s accusations made
against Cecil Rhod es by the English General O fficers
but they were embo d ied in the message which was
alleged t o have been flashed across to Kimberley after
the battl e of Modder R iver by Lord Methuen but which
was supp osed by those whom it concerne d t o have been
inspired by the C ommander i n Chief
”
Tell Mr Rhodes
the heliograph ran
that on
my entry into Kimberley he and his friends must take
”
their immediate departure
Two y ears later in November 1 90 2 S ir Redvers
Buller when sp eaking at the annual d inner of the
D evonians in Lond on remar ked that he must protest
against the rumours which during the siege of Kimber
ley had been sp rea d by some of its residents that the
Imperial authorities had been in a p erpetual st a te of
”
funk
The allusion was understood to refer to Mr
Rhod es by his p artisans who p rot e sted against the sp eech
Rhod es inde ed during his whol e life was never in
greater disfavour with the English Government than
after the siege of Kimberley ; p erhap s because he h a d
always accused Whitehall of not understanding the real
state of things in S outh Africa The result of that i m
’
p e ra t i ve telegram an d Rhodes belief as to its source
was bitter hatred against Sir Redvers Buller
It soon
found expression in vindictive attacks by the who l e Rho
de si an Press against the strategy the abilities and even
the p ersonal honesty of S ir Redvers Bul l er
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95
Ce c i l Rh od es
Whether Rhodes up on his arrival in London
attempted to hurt the General I do not know but it
could be always taken for granted that Rhodes could be
a very bad enemy when he chose
Upon his return to Groote S chuur he seemed more
dissatisfied than ever with the Home G overnment He
was loud in his denunciations and unceasing in his oriti
S ir Alfred however l ik e the wise man he was
c i sm s
preferr e d to ignore these pinpric k s an d invariabl y treated
Rhod es with the utmost courtes y an d attention
He
always showe d himse lf glad to listen to Rhodes and to
discuss with him p oints which the Colossus thought
it worth whi l e t o talk over At that time Rhodes was
in the most e quivocal p osition he had ever been in his
l ife
He cou l d not return t o Kimberl ey ; he di d not
care to go to R h odesi a ; and in Cap e C ol ony he w as
a l ways restive
At this p erio d all k inds of discussions use d to ta k e
place concerning the ultimate resul ts of the war and the
infl uence which it wou ld have on the future d evelopment
of affairs in the Transvaal
The financiers began to
realise that after the B ritish flag had once been raise d
at Pretori a they woul d not have such a g ood time of it
as they ha d hop ed at first and now ha v ing done their
best to hurry on the war regretted it more than an y
body else The fact was that everybody in S outh Africa
with the e x ception of the Boers themselves who k new
v ery well their own resources had bel ieve d that the war
woul d b e o v er in thre e month s an d that the Trans v aal
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Ceci l Rh o d es
felt al l over Cape C olony Their aim w as to reduce
the register in order to bring about a considerable falling
and thereby sub
off of voters for the Afrikander Bond
st an t i a l ly influence the results of the next e l ection to the
Cap e Parl iament
At this p eriod certain overtures were made on c e again
to the Bond party
They proceeded app arently from
men supp osed to act on their own initiative but who
were known t o be in favour at Groote S chuur These
advances met with no resp onse but when the rumour
that they had been mad e spread amon g the p ublic owing
to an indiscretion R hodes hastened t o d eny that he had
been a p arty to the plan —as was hi s wont when he
failed to achieve A ll the same it is a fact that mem
bers of the House of Assembly belonging to the Afri
kander p arty visited Groote S chuur in the course of that
last winter which Rhodes sp ent there and were warmly
we l come d Rhodes showe d himsel f unusually gracious
He hoped these forerunners wou ld rall y his former
friends to his side once more But Rho d es was exp ecting
t oo much considerin g al l the circumstances
Faithfu l
to his usual tactics even whilst his Afrikan d er guests were
being p ersuade d to lend themselves to an intrigue from
which they had hop ed t o win something Rhod es w as
ma k ing himself resp onsible for another step l ikely to
render the always strong hatre d even more acute than
e v er More than that h e was advocating through cer
tain undergroun d channe l s the suspension of the Consti
t u t i on in C ap e C o l ony
was
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98
TH E R T
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H ON
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SI R
W
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F
.
H E L" H UTC H I N S O N
-
Ce c i l Rh od es
have been an everlasting blot on the reputation of the
Government
’
After Rho d es death when the question of the su s
p ension of the Constitution was raised b y the Pro
gres si v e s in the House of Assembl y it was discussed
in all its detail s and it was p roved that the S outh
African League in trying throu g hout the country to
obtain s ignatures to a monster p etition on the matter
had resorted to some more than singular means to obtain
these signatures Mr S auer who was the l e a d er of the
Bon d party in the Chamber revealed how the Leag ue
h a d employed a g ents to induce women an d sometimes
young children t o sign the p etition and tha t at the
camp near S ea Point a suburb of Cap e Town where
soldiers were stationed p revious to their dep arture for
England these same agents were en g age d in gettin g
them to sign it before they l eft und er the in d ucement
of a fixed salary up to a certain amount an d a l arge
p ercentage aft er it had been excee d ed accordin g to the
number of the names obtained in this way
When
trustworthy p eople of unimp eachab l e character wrote to
the p apers denouncing this man oeuvre the sub sidised
p apers in C ap e Town and the Rhodesian Press refused
to p ublish the affidavits sworn on the subj ect but wrote
columns of calumnies about the D utch Colonials an d
as a finishing stroke clamoured for the suspension of
the C onstitution
The speech of Mr S auer gave rise to a heate d
debate duri ng which the Progressive me m b ers i n dig
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1 00
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Re v e la t i on s
de n ie d his assertions
Then ste p p e d in Mr
D a v i d d e Waa l that friend of Rhodes to whom I hav e
a l re ady referred
He ro se t o bring hi s testimony to
the facts reveal e d b y Mr S auer who was undoubtedl y
the most able leader which the Afri k ander p arty p os
sesse d with the e x ception perhap s of Mr M erriman
I n February
he said
there was a meet
ing in C otswo ld Chambers consisting of the twenty two
members of the House of Assembly w h o went by t h e
’
I t w as at first discussed a n d
name of Rhod es group
u l timatel y decid e d to wait on the Prime Minister and
to inter v iew him concerning the expen d iture of the war
which ha d re ached the sum of
monthl y Then
after some further discussion we came to the conclu
sion to meet onc e more
This was d one on Feb
ru ary 1 7t h
" ou must remember that war was still
ragin g at the time
At this second meetin g it was
agree d to formulate a s cheme t o be submitte d to t he
Governme nt which p ropos e d the susp ension of the C on
s t i t ut ion in regard to five clauses
The first was to be
this v ery su spension then a new re gistration of v o t ers
a redistribution of seats the indemnity to be awarde d
to the faithful English C olonial s and finall y the re
e stab l ishment of the Constituti on
As to this last I
must ma k e a statement and tha t is that if I had k now n
that it was meant to withdraw the Constitution for
more than one month I would have obj ected to it but
I was told that it would be onl y a matter of a few
”
d ays
n an t l y
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1 01
Ceci l Rh od es
At this p oint Mr de Waal was interrupte d by a
Progressive member who exclaimed that D r James on
had deni e d that such a thing ha d ever been sai d or
mentioned
I know he has done so
replie d Mr de W aal
but I will make a declaration on my oath
A com
”
he went on
which waited
m i tt e e was then appointed
on the Prime Minister and presente d to him this v er y
same petition
S ir Gordon Sprigg however sai d that
he would not be ruled by anyone because they had a
resp onsible Government The Committee rep orte d when
it returned that the Prime Minister w as opp os e d to
any movement started on the basis of the petition which
they had p resented to him and that he would not mo v e
an inch from his declaration saying energetically
Never " I shall never do it " S ir Gordon Sprig g had
further pointed ou t that the result of such a step would
be that the Cap e woul d become a Crown C olony and
”
would find itse lf in the sam e position as R ho d esia
Perhap s this was what Rhodes and the S outh African
League had wished but the publication of the details
connecte d with this incident especial ly p roceeding from
a man who ha d ne v er made a secret of the ties which
’
had b ound h i m to Rhodes an d who among the latter s
D utch friends had been the only one who had never
failed him drove t h e first nail into t h e coffin of
R h od esian p olitics
It was common k nowledge that de W a a l had stead
fastly s too d by Rho d es e v en d uri n g t he terribl e time of
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1 02
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CHAPTER VII I
TH E I NFLUE NCE
OF
SI R ALFR E D
ER
MIL N
HE occult p ower exercis ed by the League on the
inner p olitics of S outh Africa could not fai l t o i m
press Sir A lfred Milner most unp l easantl y Fran k him
sel f i t must ha v e often been abso l ute ly repu l sive t o him
to have to d o with p eople whom he feared to trust an d
who believed that the y coul d bring into po l itical l ife the
laxities of the minin g camp
Though not aware of it
even before he landed in C ap e Town the Progressi ves
had made up their minds to rep resent him as determined
to sweep the Dutch off the face of the e arth
Belie v ing Sir A lfred to be the c onfe d erate of R h od es
the Boers too wou l d hav e nothing to do with him
Whils t the Blo emfontein Conference was going on
Presiden t K r uger as well a s the l eaders of the Afri
kander B ond were o verwhelmed with covert warnings
When c e they
t o d istrust the High Comm i ss i oner
emanated is not a matter of much doubt
S ir Alfred
was accused of wanting t o lay a trap for the B oer
plenip otentiaries who were tol d to beware of him as
an accomplice of Mr Joseph Chamberl ain , whose very
name p roduced at Pretoria the s a me e ffect as a red rag
up on a bull Under these circums t ances the C onf eren c e
was bound to fail an d the High Commissioner returne d
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1 04
L ook i n g
B a c k on t h e B o e r W ar
to Cape Town very d eci d edl y a s ad der an d most cert ainly
a wise r man
Now that years have p asse d since the B oe r War it
is possible t o secure a better p ers p ective in the light of
which one can questio n whether i t woul d have been p os
sible to avoi d t h e conflict b y an arr an g ement of some
kind with the B oe r R epub l ic s
Personally I be l ieve
that an understan d ing was not out o f t h e question if
the strong financial interes ts had not opp osed its a ccom
f
s
but
at
the
am
time
a
p
atche
d
up
a
fair
l
i
h
m
n
t
s
e
e
;
p
wo ul d not have been a happy event for either South
It wou ld have left matters in
Af rica or for E ng l and
al most the same condition a s they had been before and
the milli onaires who were the re a l masters on the Rand
wou ld have foun d a dozen p rete x ts to p rovoke a n e w
quarre l with the Trans vaa l Government Had the B oer
Exec utive attempted to do awa y with the p ower of the
concerns which ru l e d the gold m ine s an d diamon d fields
it would have courted a resistance with which it would
have been ne x t t o imp ossib l e to d ea l The war would
still have taken p lace but it might have occurre d at a
far l ess fa v ourab l e moment No arra ngement with Presi
d ent Kruger even one most p rop itious to British i n
t e re st s c ou l d ha v e done away with the corrup tion and
the bribery which from the fi rst moment of the dis
c ove ry of the g o ld fiel d s
inva d e d that p ortion of S outh
Africa an d this co rruption would always have st ood in
the wa y of the establishment of the S outh Afri can
Union
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1 05
Ce c i l Rh od es
Sir Alfred Milner knew all this very well and prob
a bly h a d an i n ward conviction notwithstanding his efforts
to prevent the war that a conflict w a s the only means
of breaking these chains of gold which shackled the
wheels of progress At so critical a time the supp ort of
Rhodes and his party wou l d have been invaluable And
Sir Alfre d would have welcomed it
C ecil R ho des of
course had declared himself officially in accord with the
High Commissioner and even praised him to a de g ree
of fulsomeness B ut the ulterior motive was simply to
excite the D utch p arty against him The reputation of
Sir Alfred Milner as a statesman and as a p ol itician was
constantly challenged b y the ve ry p eople who ought to
have defended it
Rhodes himself had been p ersuaded
th at the Governor harboured the m ost sinister designs
against hi s p erson The innuen d o was one of the most
heinous untruths ever invented by his crowd of
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An opp ortunity came my way b y which I was able
to convince myself how false was the belief nourishe d by
Rhodes a g ainst Milner D uring the course of a conver
sation with Sir Alfred I boldly as ke d him whether he
was really such an enemy of R hodes as represented I
was surprised by the mo d erate tone in which he replie d
to my after all i mp ertinent question
The remark s
which we then exchange d filled m e with the greatest
admiration for the man who so nobly an d so worthily
uphel d B ritish p restige in S outh Africa un der the mos t
trying circumstances
Milner was an entirely honest
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1 06
,
Ce c i l Rh od es
in love with S ir A lfred as I had so su dd enl y become
his champion
Then he ended
You are trying to
”
make me bel ieve the impossib l e
I d id not al l ow him
however to ruffle me as evidently was his desire but
replied that when one came to k now better those whom
one had only m e t occasionally without ever having
’
talked with them seriously it was natural to amen d one s
opinion accordingly
I tol d him t oo that m y earl ier
misapprehension ha d been intens ifie d by a certain l ad y
’
who p ose d as Rhod es greatest friend an d who had been
loud in her denunciations of the High Commissioner
long before I had ever met him B ut now I added I
had come to the conclusion that S ir A lf red ha d been
terribly maligned
At this p oint Rhodes interru p ted me with the re
mark :
We l l I
S o you think that he is a p aragon
’
won t contradict you and besi d es you k now that I
have always defended him ; but sti ll with al l his v irtues
”
he has not yet found ou t what he ought to do with me
What can one d o with you Mr Rho d es " I aske d
with a smi l e
Leave me a l one
was the characteristic reply in
a tone w hi ch was su fficient for me to foll ow the a d vice
as it meant that the man was getting restive an d might
at any moment break out into one of those fits of rage
which he s o often used as a means to bring t o an end
a conversation in which he felt that he might not come
out as victor
A few d ays l ater a rabid R ho d e sian who ha p p e ne d
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1 08
A d v e r se
In fl u e n c es
at
W ork
" ou
to be stay ing at Groote S chuur approache d me
”
have b een trying to convert Mr Rhodes to S ir Alfred
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he remark e d
I have done nothing of the kind
I said
I am
not a preacher but I have been telling Mr Rhodes that
he was mistaken if he thought that he had an enemy
”
in the High Commissioner
Had you any reason t o suppose that he consi d ere d
him one " w as the unexpected question
Well from what I have seen it seem e d to me that
you have a l l been doing your best to persua d e him that
”
such was the case
I retorted
and wh y you should
”
have d one so p asses my comprehension
The conversation droppe d but the incident confirmed
me in m y op inion that strong forces were at work to
sow enmity between Rh odes and S ir Alfred M ilner for
fea r the infl uence of the Hig h C ommissioner might
bring Rhodes to loo k at things di fferently
As things
stood at the moment R h odes was p ersuaded that the
High C ommissioner hated him was j ealous of him
wante d him o u t of his p ath and never meant to a ll ow
him un d er any cir c umstances whatever to have any say
’
in the settl ement of S outh African a fl a i rs This convi e
tion which was c arefully nourished from the outside
evo k e d in his mind an absurd and silly rage to which no
man of common sense unblinded by vanity could have
fallen victim I would not be so foolish as to deny to
the famous Life Governor of D e B eers either abundant
common sense or outstanding inte l ligence but here was
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1 09
Ceci l Rh o d es
a man gifted with genius who under the impulse of
passion could act and speak like a chi ld
Rhodes looked upon the High Commissioner as a
nuisance unfortunately not to be set aside What ex
asperated him especially in regard to the High Com
m issioner was the fact that he k new quite well th a t Sir
A lfred Milner coul d as sume the resp onsibility for con
cluding p eace when that time arrived Rhodes always
hoped that hi s personal influence on the English as well
as among the Bond p arty would enable him to persuade
the leaders of the rebe l movement in C ap e C olony to
lay d own their arms and to leave their interests in his
hands
Should such a thing have happ ened Rhodes
thought that such a success as this would e fface the bad
impression l eft by the Raid
He grudgingly admitted
that that wild adventure had not pleased p eople but he
always refused t o acknowledge that it w as the one great
and unredeemable mistake of his life I remember once
having quoted t o him the old French motto which in
the Mi ddle Ages was the creed of eve ry true knight
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M on
M on
M on
dm e d D i e u ,
b ra s
au
coe u r
’
L hon n e u r
mi,
auw
da m e s ,
m oi "
Ah yes " In those times one could still think
”
about such things
he simply remarked which p roved
to me that he had no comprehension of the real sense
of the beautifu l wor d s The higher attributes of mind
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110
Ce c i l Rh od es
the organisin g an d amalgamation of D e B eers or the con
quest of Matabeleland had anything beautiful ab out
them Sti l l they were triumphs which no one except
himse lf could have achieved
He un d oubte dl y erecte d
an edifice the l ike of which ha d never been seen in
modern times an d he op ened to the ambitions and to
the greed of t he world new prosp ects new sources of
riches which cause d v ery many to loo k u p on him as truly
the god of material success
R hodes can be said to have re v ol utionise d S ociety by
bringing to the social horizon people who but for the
riches he plac e d within reach of their gras p ing fingers
would never ha v e been able to emerg e from their nu cul
t u re d obscurit y
Pe ople have said to me
How g enerous was
Rhodes "
Yes but always with a shade of di sd ain in
the giving which hurt the recipients of his charity One
of the legends in the Ca p e i s that hal f those whom
Rhodes helpe d had been his victims at one time or t he
other
It was n o wonder that Ce ci l R ho d es was an embittered
man when one reflects how many curses must hav e
been showered up on his hea d T he conque st of Mata
b e l e l an d had not gone by without e v oking terrible
enmities ; and the amalgamation o f D e Beers in con
sequence of whi ch so many p e op l e who had sp ent
thousands of p oun d s in acquiri n g p l ots of g roun d where
they had hoped to find diamonds an d who h ad l ater to
p art from them for a mere son g were amon g t he thi ngs
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1 12
The I D B A c t
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ne v er forg iven him by those whom the sp eculations ha d
ruined Later on came the famous Bill which he caused
t o be adopted in both Houses of Legislature concerning
the illicit buying of diamonds the I D E Act
T h e I D B enactment destroy ed one of the funda
menta l principles i n British legislature which always
supp oses a man to be inn ocent until he has b een proved
gui l ty
It practically put the whole of Cap e C olony
T he statute was not
under the thumb of D e Beers
wisely framed It c ould b e inv oked to remove p ersons
whose presence in Kimberley was inconvenient There
fore the I D B Act dre w on the head of Rh odes and
It is unfo r tunately
of his co ll eagues torrents of abuse
certain that cases happ ene d where diamonds were hid
den s urreptitiously among the e ffects of certain persons
who had had the imprudence t o say too loudly that th e y
meant to e x p ose the state of things existing in Kim
berley ; and in consequence innocent men were sentenced
to long terms of i mprisonment
I heard on e story in p articular which if true throws
a terrible l i ght on the state of a ffairs in the D iamond
City
A young man of g ood connectio n s wh o had
arrived from England to see k hi s fortune in S outh Africa
was engaged in Kimberley at a small salary by one of
the big diamond mining concerns
After about three
’
or four months soj ourn he felt so disgusted that he de
cl ar e d quite loudly that as s oon as he could put by
su fficient money to p ay his p assage back to Europe he
wou ld do so there to make it the business of his l ife
I
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Ceci l R h od es
to enlighten his compatriots as to what was going on in
S outh Africa He threatened too to warn his country
men against those who used to deluge England with
prosp ectuses praising in exalted terms the wonderful
state of things existin g in S outh Africa and d ilating
upon the future prosp ects of Cap e Colony
Old resi
dents warned him he would do better to restrain his
wrath until he was out of reach of intereste d p arties ; he
did not listen t o them with the result that one morning
dete ctives app eare d in the house where he lod g ed
searche d h is room and—found some d iamonds hid
den i n a flower p ot of geraniums which was standin g
in his window an d which the daughter of his l andl ady
h a d given him that very morning
No protest ations of
the unhappy young fellow availed him He was ta k en
’
to Cap e To wn and condemned to seven y ears im p rison
ment the e n d of which he did not live t o see as he
died a few months after he had been sentence d
The story was freely current in S outh Africa ; and
true or not it is unquestionable that a large number of
persons suffered in consequence of the I D E Act no
more serious p roofs being o ffere d that they ha d taken
or concealed diamonds than the fact that the stones ha d
been found in unlikely places in their rooms
B oo k s
without number have been written about the I D B Act
a great number evidently evincin g hatre d or re v en g e
against Mr R hodes and his l ieutenants
The famous D e Beers Compan y acquire d a p osition
of overwhelming strength in the social economical and
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114
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Ceci l Rh od es
the High Commissioner Perhaps had he kept his sus
p i c i on s to him self instead of communicating them to
others he might have been p ersuaded in time to recog
nise that there was a great deal in the opinions which
S i r Alfred held as to the p a rticip ation of financi a l organ
i sa t i on s in p olitica l matters
If only e ach could have had
a c h a nce for a frank understanding p robably Milner
would not have obj ected to Rhodes continuing t o con
trol the vast m achine into which the diamond mines
amalgamation had grown so long as it confined its opera
tions to commerce
If Government is exercised by a single person it is
possible for it to p osses s the elements of j ustice and
equity and to be carried out with few mistakes of such
gravity as would compromise the whole system
But
unfortunately the S outh African autocrac y meant an
army of small autocrats and it was they who compromised
Rh odes and then sheltered themselves behin d his gigantic
person ality from the unp opularity and detestation w hi ch
their actions aroused in the whole of S outh Africa
I feel p ersonally convinced that if during the p eriod
which immediately followed up on the relief of Kim
berley and of Ladysmith Rhodes had approached Sir
A lfr e d and frankly told him that he wanted to try his
luck with the D utch p arty and to see whether his former
friends and colleagues of the Afrikander Bond could not
be induc ed to listen to reason the High Commissioner
would have been onl y too glad to meet him and to
explain his views on the whole question
Instead of
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116
The Fl y i n t h e O i n t m e n t
doing so Rhodes carried away as he always was by this
everlasting de s ire to be the first everywhere did not
even give a thought to the wisdom of c on fi din g to any
one the e fforts which he undoubtedly made to induce
the Bond leaders to trust him again
There was a moment when things got very near to
an understanding between Rhodes and Sir Alfred This
w as when Mr S auer himself entertained the thought
of letting Rhodes sway the future by making with the
English Government conditions of a peace which would
not wound to the quick the feelings of the D utch p art
of the p opulation of the Colony
A circumstance apparently insignificant destroyed
all the hopes th a t had been entertained by several who
wished the Colossus well Certain p ap ers were brought
to Rhodes ; these cont a ined information likely to p rove
of use to him as well as to the English Government
After he had read them he asked that they should be
l eft with him until the following day The person in
charge of the documents had been asked not to p art with
them even for a single hour as it was imp ortant that
no one should b e able to copy d ocuments which might
seriously compromise certain p eople Therefore she r e
fused
Rhodes thereup on flew into a terrible p assion
and demanded to know the reason for the app arent dis
trust When told that it was not so much a quest ion
of distrust as the imp ossibility of breaking a p romise
once gi v en he exclaimed that he would have nothing
more to do with the who l e business and starte d al mo s t
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117
Ceci l Rh od es
immediately afterwards his agitation for the suspension
of the Constitution in Cap e Colony But— and this is
—
an amusing detail to note Rhodes used every p ossible
e ffort to obtain possession of the pap ers he had been
a llowe d to see
going so far as to have the house searched
of the p erson w ho had refused to allow him to keep the
doc u m e n t s a revenge which was as mean as it was use
less because the pap ers in question had been at once
returned to their rightful owners
The request made by R hodes to keep these d ocu
ments p roduce d a very bad impression on those who
had begun to entertain hop es that he might be induced
to throw the weight of his personality into the scale of
a settlement
It confirmed the suspicions held by the
Afrikander pa rty ever since the R ai d
They say that everyone is a fforded once the chance
’
of one s lifetime I n the case of Rh odes he certainl y
missed by that action the on e opp ortunity of reinstatin g
himse lf once a gain up on the p innacle whence the a dve n
ture of D octor Jameson had caused him t o fal l
I remember that whilst these events were goin g on
a p olitical man well acquainted with all det ai ls of the
endeavour to secure a reconciliation between the Afri
kander B ond and R h od es came to see me one e v ening
We talked over the whole situation He to l d me that
there were p eople who thought it would be a g ood
thing to inform S ir Al fre d Milner of what was g oing on
in the hope that he might give Rhodes an in k ling that
he knew that intri g ue was rife at Groote S chuur an d at
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118
CHAPTER IX
THE O PE NI NG
OF
TH
E
NE W
E T R
C N U "
UCH were the p reoccup ations the intrigues and the
emotions which all through that monotonous winter
of 1 90 0 1 90 1 agitated the inhabitants of and the visi
tors to Groote S chuur Rh ode s himself seemed to be
the one man who thought the least about them It is
certain that he fe l t hurt in his p ride and in his con
s c i ou sn e s s that the good which he had wanted t o do
failed to be appreciated by those whom he had intended
to benefit
But outwardly he made no sign that the
matter interested him otherwi se than from a purely
obj ective p oint of view that of the statesman who thinks
that it is part of his duty to put his services at the dis
p osal of his country whenever required to do so He
felt als o slightly s urp ri sed to find once he had expressed
his willingness to use the exp erience of S o uth African
affairs which he had acquired and which no one in the
C ap e p ossessed with such thoroughness that the p eople
who had appealed to him and whom he had consent e d to
meet half way would not give him the whole of their
confidence ; inde ed they showed some app rehension that
he would use his knowledge to thei r detriment
When one reviews all the circumstances that cast
such a tra gic shade over the history of these eventfu l
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1 20
A t C ro ss P u r p o ses
months one cannot help coming to the conclusion that
there was a good dea l of misunderstanding on both sides
and a deplorable lack of confidence everywhere Rhodes
had entirely los t ground among his former friends and
would not understand that it was more difficult even on
the part of th ose who believed in hi s g ood intentions
t o e fface the impression that he had been playing a double
gam e ever since the R a id had dep rived him of the con
fi de n c e and supp ort which p reviously were his all over
Cap e Colony
The whole situation as the new century op ened was
a game of cross p urp oses
S ir Alfred Milner might
have unravelled the sk e in but he was the one man wh om
no one interested in the business wished to ask for help
And what added to the tragedy w as the curious but u m
disputable fact that even those who reviled Rhodes hop ed
he would return to power and assume the Premiership in
place of Sir Gordon Sp rigg
I n spite of the respect which S ir Gordon Spri gg in
spired and of the e steem in which he was held by all
parties it was generally felt that if Rhodes were once
more at the helm he might return to a m ore reasonable
View of the whole situation In such an o ffice too it
was believed that Rhodes would give the Colony the
benefit of his remarkable gifts of statecraft as well as
wield the authority which he liked so much to exercise
for the greater goo d of the country in general and of
the British Government in particular I believe that if
at that mome nt Cecil Rhodes had become the head of
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1 21
Ceci l Rh o d es
the Cabinet not one voice even among the most fanatic
of the Afrikan d er Bond wou l d have obj ected
Those
’
most avers e to such a p ossibility were Rhodes own sup
p orters a small group of men whose names I shall
refrain from mentioning
All true friends of R hodes however must surely h a ve
felt a keen regret that he wasted his talents and his
energy on those entangled and after al l d espicab l e C ap e
p olitics The man was create d for something better an d
healthier than that
He w as an Empire Maker by
nature one who might ha v e won for himsel f everl asting
”
renown had he remained
King of R hodesia
as he
liked to call himself There in the vast solitudes which
by his enterprise and f oresight had become a p art of
the British Empire he ought to have gone on unin
t e rru p t e dly in the glorious task of bringing civilisation
to that hitherto unknown land For such work his bi g
nature an d stran g e character were well fitte d an d his wide
ranging mind appreciated the extent of the task
As
he used to s a y himse lf sometimes he was never so hap p y
and never felt so free and so much at p eace with the
worl d and with man k ind as among the M at opp o Hills
The statesmanlike qualities which C ecil Rhodes u n
doubtedly p ossessed were weakened by contact with
inferior people
It is imp ossible to create real p ol i
t i c i a n s and sound ones at the same rapid p ace as financi a l
magnates sp rang up at the Cap e as we l l as in the
Transvaal The class w h o entered p olitics h ad as little
real solidity ab out them as the houses an d d we l lin g s
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1 22
Ceci l Rh od es
there are so m any things ; so many things And they
want me here too and there is this place
He stopped then relap sed once more into his deep
meditation leaving me wondering what was holding
back this m an who was reputed to do only what he
chose
Surely there would have been a far better far
nobler work for him to do there in that distant North
which after all in sp ite of the beauties of Groote S chuur
was the only place for which he really cared There he
c ould lead that absolutely free and untrammelled life
which he loved ; there his marvellous gifts could exp and
with the freedom necessary for them to shin e in their best
light for the good of others as well as for his own
advantage
In Rhodesia he was at least free to a
certain extent from the parasites
How could one help p itying him and regretting that
his indomitable will did not extend to the courage of
breaking from his p ast a ssociations ; that he di d not
carry his determi nation far enough to make up his min d
to consecrate what was left of hi s life to the one task
for which he was best fitted that of making Rho d esia
of
the
most
glorious
p
ossessions
of
the
B
ritish
one
ig
odes had done so much
Rh
achieved
so
much
é éc r wn
o
‘
lfhd conceived such great things — as for instance the
daring inception of the Cap e to Cairo Railway—that it
surely could have been p ossible for him to ris e above
the shackling wea k nesses of his en v ironment
S o many years have p assed since the death of Rhode s
that now on e c an j udge him obj ectively
To me
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1 24
,
Com mun e
knowing him so well
w i th th e
S t ar s
I did it seem that as his
figure recedes into the background of history it acquires
more greatness He was a mystery to so many becau se
few had been able to guess what it was that he really
meant or b elieved in or h op ed for
Not a religious
man by any means he yet possessed that religion of
nature which pervades the soul of anyone who has ever
lived for long face to face with grandeurs and solitudes
where human p assions h a ve no entrance
It is the
adoration of the Greatness W h o created the beauty
which no touch can defile no tongue slander and nob ody
destroy
Under the stars to which he co nfided so
much of the thoughts which he had kept for himself in
his youth and e arly manhood Rhodes became a di fferent
man There in the silence of the night or the dawn of
early morning when he started for those long rides of
which he was s o fond he became a ffection a te kind
thoughtful and tender There he thought he dreamt
he planned and the result of these wanderings of his
mind into regi ons far beyond those where the peop le
around him could s tray w as that he revealed himself as
God had made hi m and such as man hardly ever saw
him
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Rhodes h a d alway s been a great reader ; books i n
d e e d had a great influence over his mind his actions
and op inions
He used to read slowly and what he
had once assimilated he never forgot
Years after he
would remember a passage treating of some historical
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fact or of some social interest and apply it to his own
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1 25
C eci l Rh od es
work
For instance the idea of the Glen Grey Act
was suggested to him by the famous book of Mackenzie
*
in which he described the
I Va l la c e dealing with R ussia
conditions under which Russian peasants then held their
land When R h odes met the author of the afore m e n
t i on e d v olume at S andringham where both were staying
with the then Prince and Princess of Wales he told him
at once with evident pleasure at being able to do so
that it was his boo k which ha d suggested that p articul ar
bit of l e gisl ation
Another occasion I remem b er when Rhodes spoke
of t h e great impression p ro d uced up on his opinions by
a book called The Martyrdom of
the work of
Winwood Reade an author not ve ry well known t o the
general pub li c
T h e essay was an unusually powerful
negation of the D ivinity
R hodes had u nfortunately
for him chanced across it j ust aft e r he had l eft the
University an d during the first months following up on
his arrival in S outh Africa he read it in his moments
of leisure between looking for diamonds in the sandy
p l ains of Kimberley It completely up set all the tradi
tions in which he had been nurtured —
i t must be remem
—
w
a
s
bered that he
the son of a clergyman and caused
a revolt against the teachings of his former masters
The a dventurous young m a n who had left his
native country well stocked with p rinciples which he
was a lready be g inning to find embarrassing found in
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"
R u ssi a
f Pub li sh e d
C a ssell )
i n the U S A
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1 26
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1 87 5
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Ceci l Rh od es
mora lity and to religion was nothing b u t affectation
He treated G od in the same o ffhand way he handl e d
men w hen in order to terrify them he exposed before
their horr ified eyes abominable theories to which his
whole life gave the lie But in his inmost heart he knew
very well that God existed He would h ave felt quite
content t o render homage to the Almighty if only this
could have been done incognito In fact he was quite
ready to believe in God but would have felt extremely
sorry h a d anyone suspected that such could be the case
’
The ethical side of Cecil Rhodes character remained
all through his life in an unfinished state
It might
perh a p s have been t h e most beautiful side of his many
sided life had he not allowed t oo much of what was
material base and common to rule him
Unwilling l y
p erhap s but nevertheless certainly he gave the imp res
sion that his life was enti rely dedicated t o ignoble p ur
p oses Perhap s the punishment of hi s existence lay pre
c i se l y in the rapidity with which the words
Rhodesian
”
”
finance
and
Rhodesian p oliti cs
c ame t o sign i fy
corruption and bribery Even though he may not ha v e
been actually guilty of either he most certainly p rofited
by both He instituted in S outh Africa an utter want
’
’
of resp ect for one s neighbour s prop erty which in time
was a prime cause of the Transvaal War Hated as he
was by some distrusted as he remained by almost every
body yet there was nothing mean about Cecil Rhodes
Though one felt inclined to detest him at times yet one
could not he l p l iking and even l oving him when he
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1 28
Rh od esi an P ol i t ics
al lowe d one to see the real man behind the veil of eyni
c i sm a n d irony which he constantly assum e d
’
With Rhodes death the whole system of Rhodesian
p olitics perished It then became relatively e a sy for S ir
Alfred Milner to introduce t h e necessary reforms into
the government of S outh Africa
The financial mag
nates who had rule d at Johannesburg and Kimberley
ceas e d to interest themselve s p olitically in the manage
ment of the a ffairs of the Government They disapp eared
on e after the other bidding g ood bye to a country which
they had always hated most of them sinking into an
obscu rity where they enj oy good dinners and forget the
nightmare of the p ast
The D utch and t h e English elements have become
reconciled and loyalty to England which seemed at the
time of the Boer War and during the years that had
p reced ed it to have been confined to a sm all number of
the English has become t h e rule
British Imperialism
is no mere phantom : the Union of S out h Africa has
p ro v ed it t o have a very virile body and what is more
important a lofty a n d clear visioned soul
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1 29
CHAPTER X
AN
E S T I MAT E
OF S I R
AL F RED
M
ILNE R
HE conditions under which S ir Alfred Milner
found himself comp elled to shap e his p olicy of con
ciliation were beset with obstacles and di fficul ties
An
understanding of these is indi spensable to the one who
would read aright the history of that period of Imperial
evolution
The question of the refugees who overwhelmed Cap e
Colony with their lamentations after they had been
obliged to leave the Transvaal at the beginning of the
host ilitie s— the claims of the Rand multi milli onaires
the indignation of the D utch Colonists confined in
concentration camps by order of the military au t h ori
ties— the Jingoes who thought it would be only right
to shoot down every D utch symp athiser in the country
these were among the things agitatin g the S outh
African p ublic mind and setting up conflicting c l aims
impossible of adj ustment without bitter censure on one
hand or the other The w onder is that amid all these
antagonistic ele ments Sir Alfred Milner c ontrived to
fulfil the larger part of the tasks which he had sketch e d
out for himself bef ore he left England
The programme which S ir Alfred p l anned to carry
out p roved in the long run to have been thoroughly
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1 30
Ceci l Rh o d es
quiet dignity wi th which he withst ood unj ustifiable attacks
when dealing with not to b e foreseen d i fli cul t i e s which
arose while carrying on his gigantic task
Very few
would have h a d the courage to remain silent and u n
daunted whilst condemned or j udged for thi ngs he had
been unable to alter or to banish An d y e t this was
precisely the attitude t o which Sir Alfred M i l ner faith
full y adhered
I t stands out among the many p r oofs
which the p resent Viscount Milner has given of his strong
character as one of its mo st chara cteristic features for it
a ffords a brilliant illustration of what wil l mastere d by
reason can do
Since those perilous days I have heard many di ffering
’
critici sms of Lord Milner s ad mi n i stration as High C om
missioner in S outh Africa
Wh at those w h o e x p ress
op inions without understanding that which l ie s u nd er the
surface of hist ory fail to take into account is the peculiar
almost invi di ous p osition and the l oneliness i n which S ir
A l fr e d had t o stan d from the very first day that he
landed i n Tab l e Bay He cou l d not ma k e friends dare d
’
not ask anyone s advice was forced always to rely entire l y
up on his own j udgment He would not have been human
had he not sometimes fe l t misgivings as to the wisdom
of what he was doin g
He never ha d the he l p of a
Ministry upon who m he could rely or with whom he
could symp athise
The C abinet p res ided o v er b y S ir
Gor d on Sp rigg was comp ose d of very we l l intentioned
men But with p erhap s on e sing le e x ception it d id n ot
p ossess any strongly in di vidual istic p ersona g e cap ab l e of
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1 32
Photo
V
ISC O UN T
M
ILN E R
Russe ll
Ceci l Rh od es
Afrikander Bond hated him that was a recog
but this hatred did S ir A lfred more good
n i se d fact
than anything else
The attacks directed against hin
were so mean that they only won him friends among
the very people to whom his policy had not been accept
able The abuse showered by certai n newspapers upon
the High C ommissioner not onl y strengthened his hands
and his authority but transforme d what ought to have
remained a p ersonal question into one in which the
dignity as well as the presti g e of the Emp ire was i n
volved To have recalled him a fter he had been sub
to
such
treatment
would
have
been
equiva
l
ent
d
e
c
t
e
j
to a confession that the State was in the wrong
I
have never been able to understand how men of such
undoubte d perception as Mr Sauer or M r Merriman
or other leaders of the Bond d id not grasp this fact Sir
Alfred himself put the aspect very c l everly before the
p ublic in an able and dignified speech which he made
at the lunch o ffered to Lord Roberts by the Mayor and
Corp oration of Cap e Town when he said
To vilify her
’
re p resentative is a strange way to sh ow one s loyalty to
”
the Queen
’
A feature in Sir Alfred Milner s character which was
little known outside the extremely small circle of his
p erson a l friends was that when he was in the wrong he
never hesitated to acknowledge the fact with straight
forward frankness His j ud gments were sometimes hasty
but he was always willing to amend an opinion on j ust
grounds There was a good dea l of do g g e d fi rmness in
T he
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1 34
O v e rr u l i n g s fro m Whi t eh all
his character b ut not a shred of stubbornness or obstinacy
He never yi elded one inch of his ground when he b e
l i e ve d himself t o be in the right but he was always
amenable to reason and he never refused to allow him
self t o be convinced even though it may be that his
natural sympathies were not on the side of those with
whom he had got to deal
Very few statesmen could
boast of such qualities and they surel y ought to weigh
considerably in the balance of any j udgment p assed upon
Viscount Milner
The welfare of S outh Africa and the rep utation of
Sir Alfred would have been substantially enhanced had
he bee n able to assert his own authority according to
his own j udgment without overrulings from Whitehall
and with absolute freedom as to choice of colleagues
His p osition was most di fficult and though he showed
no outward sign of this fact it is imp ossible to believe
that he did not feel its crushing weight
Between the
Bond Mr Hofmeyr the race hatred which the D utch
accused him of fomenting the question of the refugees
the c l amours of the Jingo Colonials and the e xt re me
seriousness of the military situation at one time it was
In
perfe ctly marvellous that he did not break down
stea d as very few men coul d h a ve done he kept a clear
head ed shrewdness owing to which the Emp ire most
cert ainly contract e d an immense debt of gratitude toward
him for not having allo wed himself to yield to the temp
t at i on of retaliating upon those who had made his task
such a p articularly hard one
His forbearance ought
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1 35
Ceci l Rh od es
never to be lost sight of in j udging t h e circum stances
which brought about and attended the S outh African
War Whilst the war was going on it was not realised
that Sir Alfred Milner was the only man who—when
the time arrived — could allay the passions arising from
the conflict But without vanity he knew an d could
well afford to wait for his reward until history rather
than m e n had j udged him
In the meanwhile Sir Alfred had to struggle against
a s e a of o bstacles in which he was p robably the only
man clever enough not to drown himself— a danger which
overtoo k others who had tried t o plunge into the com
p licat e d p olitics of S outh Africa
A succession of a d
m i n i st ra t ors at Government House in Cap e Town ended
their p olitical career the re and left broken in spirit
d amaged in rep utation
As for the local p oliticians they were mostly honest
mediocrities or adventurous spirits who used their i n
An exception was
fl u e n c e for their p ersonal advantage
Mr Hofmeyr But h e was far t oo absorbed in securing
the recognitio n of D utch supremacy at the Cape to be
able t o work on the milder plane necessary t o bring
about the one great result T h e p op ularity of Mr Hof
m e yr was immense and his influence indisputable ; but
it was not a broad influence He s huddere d at t h e mere
p ossibility of the Tra n svaal falling into the hands of the
British
Whilst touching up on the subj ect of the Trans v aal
I may say a word concerning the strangely mixed p c p u
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1 36
Ceci l Rh o d es
a one as would have been that of having in his veins
”
all the blood of a l l the Howards
The Joels w ere
Hebrews ; the Rudds supp osed to belong to the same
race through some remote ancestor ; the Mosenthals
Abrahams Phillipps and other notabil ities of the Rand
and Kimberley were Jews and one among the so called
R eformers associated with the Jameson Raid was an
American engineer John Hays Hammond
The war which was supposed to win t h e franchise
for Englishmen i n the Transvaal was in reality fought
for the advantage of foreigners
Most p eople honestly
believed that President Kruger was aiming at destroy
ing English prestige throughout the vast dark con
t i n e n t and wou l d have been horrified h a d t hey known
what was going on in that distant land Fortunes were
made on the Rand in a few d ays but very few English
men w ere among the number of those wh o contrived to
acquire million s
Englishmen indeed were not con
genial t o the Transvaal whil st foreigners claiming t o
be Englishmen because they murdered the English
language abounded and p rosp ered and in time came
sincerely to believe that they were British subj ects owing
to the fact that they continually kept rep eating that
Britain ought to possess t h e Rand
When Britain came really t o rule the Rand the
adventurers found it did not in the l east secure the
advantages which they had imagin ed wou l d derive
from a war they fostered
This question of the
Uitlanders was as embarrassing for the English Govern
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1 38
M e na c e
of t h e
Ma g na t es
ment as it had been for that of the Transvaal These
adventurers who composed t h e mass of t h e motley p c pu
lation which flo urished on the Rand would prove a
source of annoyance t o any State in the world On the
other ha nd the imp ortance acquired by the so called
financial magnates was daily becoming a public danger
inasmuch as it tended to substitute the reign of a par
t i cu l ar class of individu al s for the ruling of those re sp on
sible for the welfare of the country
These p ersons
individually believed that t hey each un d erst ood better
than the Government the c onditions prevailing in S outh
Africa and p erp etually accused D owning Street of not
realisin g an d never p rotecting British interests there
Amidst their recriminations and the publicity they
could command from the Press it is no wonder that S ir
Alfred Milner felt bewildered
It is to his everlasting
honour that he did not allow himself to be overp owered
He was p olite to everybod y ; listened carefully to all the
many wonderful tales that were being related to him
and wit hout compromisin g himself proceeded t o a work
of q u iet mental elimination that very soon made him
thoroughly grasp the intricacies of any situation
He
quickly came to the conclusion that President Kruger
was not the princip al obstacle to a p eaceful development
of British Imp erialism in S outh Africa If ever a con
fl i c t was foisted on two countries for mercenary motives
it was the Transvaal War and a shrewd an d impartial
’
mind like Milner s did n o t take long to discover that such
was the ca se
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1 39
Ceci l Rh od es
He was not however a man cap able of lending him
self meekly to schemes of greed however wilily they
were cloaked His was not the kind of nature that for
the sake of p eace submits to things of which it does not
app rov e
This man who was rep resen t ed as an
oppressor of the D utch was in reality their best friend
and p erhap s t h e one who belie v ed the most in their
eventual loyalty t o the English Crown It is a thousand
p ities that when the famou s Bloemfontein Conference
took place Sir Alfred Milner as he still was a t that
time had not yet acquire d the e x p erience which l ater
became his c oncern ing the true state of things in the
Trans v aal
Had he at that time p ossessed t h e know
ledge which he was later to gain when the beginning
of hostilities obliged s o many of the ruling spirits of
Johannesburg to migrate to t h e Cap e it is l ikely that
he would have acted differently
It w as n ot easy for
the High C ommissioner to shake off the influence of all
that h e heard whether t old with a good or bad in t e n
tion and it was still harder for him in those first days
of his o ffi ce to discern who was right or wh o was wrong
among those who crowded their advice up on him —an d
neve r forga v e him when he did not fo l low their ill
balanced counse l s
Concerning the outstan d ing personality of C eci l
Rhod es the p osition of S ir Alfred Milner was even more
difficult and entan gled than i n regar d to anyone else It
is useless to d eny that he had arriv e d at Cap e Town with
c onsiderab l e p rej udice against Rhodes
He cou ld not
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1 40
Ceci l Rh o d es
not infrequently acted up on opinions which were not
based upon experience or upon any local conditions
They believed too implicitly w hat they were told and
when they heard people protest with tears in their
their devotion to the British Crown and lament
e yes
over the leniency with which the Governor of Cap e
C olony looked upon rebellion they could not possibly
think th at they were listening to a tissue of lies told
for a purp ose nor guess that they were being made use
of Under such conditions the only wonde r is t h e few
mistakes which were made
To come back to the
’
Boers concentrat ion camps S ir Alfred Milner was not
a sa n guinary man by any means and his character was
far too firm to use violence as a means of government
It is probable that left alone he would have found
some other means to secure strict obedience from the
refugees to orders which most never thought of resist
ing Unfortunately for everybody concerned he could
do nothing beyond expressing his opinion a n d the
circumstance that out of a feeling of duty he made
no p rotestations against things of which he could not
ap prove was e x ploited against him both by the Jingo
English party and by the D utc h all over S outh Africa
At Groote S chuur esp ecially no secret was made by
the friends of Rhodes of their disgust at the state
of things prevailing in concentration camps and
it was adroitly brought to the kn owledge of all the
partisans of the Boers that had R hodes been master of
the situation such an outrage on individual liberty
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1 42
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S i r A l fr e d s B i tt e r D ay s
woul d never have taken place
S ir Alfred Milner was
subj ected to unfair ill natured criticisms which were as
cunning as they were bitter The concentration camp s
a fford only one instance of the secret ant a gonisms and
injustices which Sir Alfred Milner had to bear and
combat
No wonder thoughts of his d ays in S outh
are still to him a bitter memory '
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1 43
CHAPTE R XI
C R
OS S
CUR
R ENT S
HE intrigues which made Groote S chuur such a
disagreeable place were always a source of intense
wonder to me I could never understand their necessity
Neither could I app reciate the kind of h yp ocrisy which
induced Rhodes continually to affirm that he did not
care to return to p ower whilst in reality he longed to
hold the reins again
It would have been fatally easy
for Rhodes even after the hideous mistake of the Raid
to regain his political popularity ; a little sincerity and
a little t ruth were all that was needed Unfo rtunately
both these qualities were wanting in what was other
wise a really gifted nature Rhodes it seemed by h i s
ways could not be sincere and though he s eldom l ied
in the material sense of the word yet he allowed others
to think and act for him even when he knew them to
be doing so in absolute contradiction to what he ought
to have done himself He app eared to h ave insufficient
energy t o enforc e his will on th ose whom he d esp ised
yet allowed to dictate t o him even in matters which he
ought to have kept absolutely under his own control
I shall always maintain that Rhodes without his so
calle d friends would most certainly have been one of
the greatest figures of his time and generation He had
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1 44
Ceci l Rh od es
remember asking him how it came that he seldom
showed the d esire to go away somewhere quite alone
if even for a day or t w o so as to remain really t ete a
t ete with his own reflections His reply was most charac
What should I do with myself " One must
t e ri st i c :
”
have p eople about t o play cards in the evening
I
”
might have added
and to flatter one
but refraine d
T his craving continually to have someone at hand to
bully scold or to make use of was certainly one of
’
the fail ings of Rhodes p owerful mind It also indicated
in a way that thirst for p ower which never left h i m
until the last moment of his life He had within him
the weakness of those dethroned kings who in exile
still like to have a C ourt about them and to travel in
state
Rhodes had a court and also travelled with a
suite who under the p retence of being useful to him
e ffectually barred access to any stranger
But for his
entourage it is likely that Rh odes might have outliv e d
the odium of the Raid
But as Mrs van Koo pman
said to me
What is the use of trying t o hel p Rhodes
when one is sure that he will never be allowed to per
form all that he might promise "
The winter which followed up on the relief of Kim
berley Rh odes sp ent almost entirely at Groote S chuur
going to Rhodesia only in spring D u u ng these months
negotiations between him and certain leaders of the
Bond p arty went on almost uninterruptedly
These
were either conducted op enly by p eople like Mr D avid
de Waal or else through other channe l s when not
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A b u si n g L ord R ob e r t s
entr usted to persons whom it would be relatively easy
later on to disavow
Once or twice these negotiations
seemed to take a favourabl e turn at several p oints but
always at the last minute Rhodes withdrew under some
p retext or other What he wo u ld have liked would have
been to have as it were the D utch p arty the Bond
the English Colonists the S outh African League Presi
dent Kruger and the High Commissioner all rolled into
one fall at his feet and implore him to save S outh
Africa Wh en he perceived that all t hese believed that
there existed a p ossibility for matters to be settled with
out hi s intervention he hated every man of them with
a hatred such as only very absolute natures can feel
To hear him exp ress his disgust with the military
authorities abuse in turns Lord Roberts whom he used
to call an old man in his dotage Lord Kitchener w h o
was a particular antip athy the High C ommissioner
the Government at home and the Bond was an educa
tion in itself
He never hesitated before m aking use
of an expression of a coarseness such as d oes not bear
repeating and in his private conversations he hurled
insul ts at the heads of all
It is therefore no wonder
that the freedom of sp eech which Rhode s exercised at
Groote S chuur added to the difficulties of a situation
the brunt of which not he but S ir Alfred Milner had
t o bear
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More than once the High C ommissioner caused a
hint to be conveyed to Cecil Rhodes that he had better
betake himself to Rhodesia and remain there until there
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1 47
Ceci l Rh o des
was a clearer sky in C ap e Colony
These hints were
always given in the most delicate manner but Rhodes
chose to consider them in the light of a personal affront
and p oured down torrents of invective upon the British
Government for what he termed their ingratitude The
truth of the matter was that he could not bring him
self to understan d that he was not the person alone
capable of bringing about a p ermanent settlement of
S outh Africa The energy of his young days had left
him a n d p erhap s t h e chronic disease from which he was
su ffering added to his constant state of irritation and
obscured the clearness of his judgment in these p ost
raid days
I hop e that my readers will not imagine from my
reference that I have a grudge of any kind again st
*
D octor J a m e son
On the contrary truth compels me
to say that I have seldom met a more delightful creat ure
than this old friend and companion of Ceci l Rhodes
and I do believe he held a sincere affection for his chief
But Jameson as well as Rhodes was under the i n
fl u e n c e of certain facts and of certain circumstances and
I d o not think that he was at that p artic u lar moment
about w h ich I am writing the best adviser that Rhodes
might have had In one thing D octor Jim was above
suspicion : he had never d irtied his hands with any of
the financial speculations which those about Rhodes
’
indulged in to t he latter s detriment much more than
his own considering t h e fact that it was he wh o was
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D r J m es on d ie d N o ve m b e r 26 th
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1 48
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1 91 7
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D r "a m es on
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considered as the father of their various
smart
schemes
Jameson always kept aloof from every kind
of sh a dy transaction in so far as mo ney matters were
concerned and p erhap s this was the reason why so
many p eople detested hi m and kep t a dvisi n g Rhode s
to brush him aside or at all events not to keep him
His name was
n ear him whilst the war w a s going on
to the D utch as a red rag t o a very fier ce and more than
furious bull while the Bond as well as the burghers of
the Transvaal would rather have had dealings with the
Evil One himself than with D o c tor Jim
Th eir pre
j udices against him were not to b e shaken
In reality
others ab out Rhodes were far more dangerous than
Jameson c ould ever have proved on the question of a
South African s ettlement in which the rights of the
D utch e lements in the Cap e and Orange Free Stat e
would be respected and considered
Whatever might have been his faults D octor Jame
son was neither a rogue nor a fool
For Rhodes he
had a sincere affection that made him keenly alive to
the dangers that might threaten the latter and anxi ous
to avert them
But during those eventful months of
t h e war the infl u ence of the D octor also had b e en
weakened by the p eculiar circumstances which had
arisen in consequence of the length of the B oer re
Before the war broke out it had bee n generally
s i st an c e
supp osed that thre e months would see the end of the
Transvaal Republic and Rhod es himself more often
than I care to remember had prophesied that a few
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1 49
Ceci l Rh o des
weeks would be the utmost that the struggle could last
That this d id not turn ou t to be the case had been a
surprise to the world at large and an intense disappoint
ment to Cecil Rhodes
He had all along nourished a
bitter animosity against Kruger and in regard to him
as well as Messrs S chreiner Mie rri m an Hofmeyr
S auer and other one time colleagues he carried his
yi n di c t i v e n e ss to an extent so terrible that more than
of the most regrettable
once it led him into some
actions in his life
Cecil Rhodes p ossessed a curious shyness which gave
to his character an appearance the more misleading in
that it hid in reality a will of iron and a ruthlessness
com p a rable to a Co n do t ti e re of the Middle Ages The
fact was that his s oul was thirsting for power and he
was inordinately j ealous of successes which anyone but
himself had or could achieve i n S outh Africa
I am
p ersuaded that one of the reaso n s why he always tried
by inference t o disp arage Sir Alfred Milner was his
’
annoyance at the latter s calm way of g oing on with the
task which he had mapped out for himself without allow
ing his mind to be troubled by the o utcries of a mob
whom he desp ised from the height of his great integrity
unsullied honour and consciousness of having his duty
to perform Neither could Rhodes ever see in poli tical
matters the necessities of the moment often made it the
duty of a statesman to hurl certain facts into oblivion
and to reconcile himself to new circumstances
That he did disparage Sir Alfred Milner is u n fort u
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1 50
Ceci l Rh od es
able to snatch from President Kruger
Whether thi s
would have happened had Rhodes not died before the
conclusion of peace remains an Op en question
It is
certain he woul d have obj ected to a limitation of the
p olitical p ower of the concerns in which he had got
such tremendous interests ; it is equally su re that it would
have been for him a crue l disapp oi ntment had his name
not figured as the outstanding signature on the treaty
of peace
There were in this strange man moments
when his p atriotism assumed an entirel y p ersonal shape
but imp robable as it may appear to the reader there
was sincerity in the conviction which he had that the
only man who underst ood what South Africa required
was himself and that in all that he had done he had
been working for the benefit of the Empire There was
in him s omething akin to the feeling which had inspired
”
the old Roman saying
He
Ci v i s R om an u m sum
understood far better than any of the individuals by
whom he was surrounded the true meaning of the word
Imp erialism Unfortunately he was apt to apply it in
the personal sense until indeed it got quite confused
in his mind with a selfish feeling which prompted him
to put his huge p ersonality before everything else
If
one may do so a reading of his mind wou ld show that
in his secret heart he felt he had not annexed Rhod esia
t o the Em pire nor amal g amate d the Kimberl ey mines
and organised D e Beers for the benefit of his native
Britain but in order to make himself the most powerful
man in S outh Africa and yet at the same time shrewdly
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1 52
O n e S ec r e t
I n fl u e n ce
of
realised that he could not be the king he wished to
become unless England stood behind him to cover with
her
his heroic actions as well as his misdeeds
’
That Rhod es d eath occurred at an opp ortune moment
cannot be denied
It is a sad thing to say but for
S outh Africa true enough It remove d from the p ath
of Sir Alfred Milner the p rincip al obstacle that h a d st ood
in his way ever since his arrival at Cap e Town
The
Rhodesian party deprived of its chief was entirely
harmless
Rhodesian p olitics too lost their strength
when he was n o longer there to imp ose them upon S outh
Africa
One of the great secrets of the enorm ous influence
which the C olossus had acquired lay in the fact that he
had never spared his money when it was a question of
thrusting his will in directions favourable to his interest
None of those w h o aspired to take his place could follow
him on that road because none were so sup erbly i n
di fferent t o wealth Cecil Rhodes did not care for riches
for the personal enj oyments they can p urchase
He
was frugal in his tastes simple in his manners a n d b e
longings and absolutely careless as to the comforts of
life The waste in his household was something fabulous
but it is a question whether he ever particip at e d in
luxuries showered up on others
His one hobby had
been the embellishment of Groote S chuur which he had
really transformed int o somethi ng absolutely fairy l ike
as regards its exterior beauties and the loveliness of its
grounds and gardens Inside too the house furnished
fl ag
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1 53
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Ce c i lt
ode s
after the old D utch style struck one by its handsome
ness though it was neither homelike nor comfortable
In its decora t ion he had followe d t h e plan s of a clever
architect to whose artistic education he had generously
contributed by giving to him facilities to travel in Europ e
but he had not lent anything of his own p ersonality to
the interior arrangements of his home which had always
kept the look of a show place neither cared for nor
prop erly looked after
Rhodes himself felt happ ier and more at his ease
when rambling in his splendid park and gazing on Table
Mountai n from his stoep than amidst the luxury of his
richly furnished rooms S ometimes he would sit for hours
looking at the landscap e before him lost in a meditation
which but few care d to d isturb and after which he i n
variably show ed himself a t his best and in a softer mo od
than he had been before Unfortunately these moments
never lasted long and he used to revenge himself on
those w h o had surprised him in such reveries by indulging
in the mos t caustic and cr uel remarks which he cou l d
devise in order t o goad them out of all p atience
A
strange man with strange instincts ; and it i s no wonder
that once a p erson who knew h i m well and who h ad
known him in the day s of his youth when he had n ot
yet developed his strength of character had said of him
that One could not help liking him and one could not
avoid hating him ; and sometimes one hated him when
”
one liked him most
S ir Alfred Milner had neither liked nor hated h im
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1 54
Ceci l Rh od es
not in accordance w ith his own convictions
Had he
thought they had the least chance of being adopted most
certainly he would have opp osed them with j ust as much
energy as S ir Gordon Sprigg had done He saw quite
well that it would not have been oppo rtune or p olit ic
to p ut himself into open opp osition to Rhod es
Sir
Alfred therefore did not contradict the rumours which
attributed t o him the desire to reduce the C ape to the
condition of a Crown C olony but bent his energy to the
far more serious task of negotiating a p ermanent p ea ce
with the leading men in the Transvaal a peace for which
he did n o t want the protection of Rhodes and t o which
an association with Rhodes might h a ve p roved inimical
t o the end in view— the ideal of a S outh African Federa
tion whi ch Rhod es had been the first to visualise but
which Providence did not p ermit him to s e e aecom
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1 56
CHAPTER XI I
TH
E CONCENT RATION
CAM P S
T is imp ossible to speak or write about the S outh
African War without ment i oning the Concentration
Camp s A great deal of fuss was made about them not
only a broad where all the enemies of England t ook a
particular and most vicious pleasure in m agnifying the
s o called cruelties which were supposed to take place
but also in the English Pre ss where long and heart
rending accounts app eared concerning the iniquities and
injustices p ractised by the milita r y authoriti e s on the
unfortunate Boer families assembled in the Camp s
In recurring to this long forgotten theme I must
first of all say that I do not hold a brief for the Eng
lish Governm ent or for the administration which had
charge of British interests in South Africa
But pure
and simple j ustice compels me to p rotest first against
the use which w as made for party purp oses of certain
regrettable incidents an d more strongly still against
the totally malicious and ruthless way in which the inci
dents were interpreted
It is nece ssa ry befo re p assing a j ud gment on the
C oncentration Camps to explain how it came about that
these were organised At the time of which I am writing
’
p eople imagined that by Lord Kitchener s orders Boer
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1 57
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Ceci l Rh od es
women children and old people were forcibly taken
away from their homes and confined without any reason
for such an arbitrary proceeding in unhealthy places
where they were subj ected to an existence of privation
as well as of humiliation and su ffering Nothing of the
kind had taken place
The idea of t h e C a mps ori ginated at first from the
Boers themselves in an indirect way When the Eng
lish troop s marched into the Orange Free State and the
Transvaal most of the farmers who composed the bulk
of the population of t h e two Repub lics having taken to
arms there was no one left in t h e homes they h ad aban
don e d save women children and old men no longer able
to fight These fl e d hurr iedly as soon as English detach
ments and patrols were in sight but most of the time
they did n ot know where they could fly to and generally
assembled in camps somewhere on the veldt where they
hoped t hat the British troops would not discover them
There however they soon found their p osition i n t ol e r
able owing to the want of f ood and to the lack of
hygienic p recaution s
The Brit ish aut horities became aware of thi s state
of things and could not but try to remedy it U n for
t u n at e l y this was easier said than done
To come to
the help of several thousands of p eople in a country
where absolutely n o resources wer e to be found w a s a
quite stupendous task of a nature which might well
have caused the gravest anxieties to the men resp onsible
for the solution
It was then that the decision was
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1 58
Ceci l Rh od es
and children for the resistance their husbands and fathers
were making against an aggression which in itself nothing
could justify
S o far as the Boers themselves were concerned I
think that a good many among them viewed the subj ect
with far more equanimity than the English public For
one thing the fact of their women and children being
put in places where at least they would n ot die of
hunger m ust have come to them rather in the light of a
relief than anything else
Then too one must
not lose sight of the conditions under which the Boer
burghers and farmers used to exist in no rmal t imes
Cleanliness did not rank among their virtues ; a n d as a
rule hygiene was an unknown science
They were
mostly dirty and neglected in their p ersona l a p pearance
and their houses were certainly neither built nor kept
in accordance with those laws of sanitation whi ch in the
civilised world have become a matter of course Water
was scarce and the long and torrid summers duri n g
which every bit of vegetation was dried up on the veldt
ha d inured the population to certain p rivations which
would have been intolerable to Europ eans These things
and the unfortunate habits of the Boers made it ex
t re m e l y d ifficult
if not imp ossible to realise in the
Camp s any app roach to the degree of cleanliness which
was desirable
To say that the people in the Concentration Camp s
were happy would be a gross exaggeration but to say
that they were martyrs would convey an equally false
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1 60
N e c essi t y for
Ca m p s
th e
idea When j udging of facts one ought always to r e
member the local c onditions under which these facts
have developed A Russian mouj ik sent to Siberia doe s
not find that his life there i s very much different from
what it was at h ome but a highly civilised well educated
man condemned to banishment in those frozen solitudes
su ffers acutely being d eprived of all that had made ex
I feel certain that
i st e n ce sweet and tolerable to him
an Englishman confined in one of the C oncentration
Ca m ps of South Africa would h a ve wi shed himself dead
ten times a day whilst the wife of a Boer farmer would
not have su ffered because of m issing soap and water and
clean towels and nicely served fo od though she might
have felt t h e place hot and unpleasant and might have
lamented over the loss of the home in which s h e had
live d for years
The C oncentration Camp s were a necessity because
without them thousands of p eople the whole white p c p u
lation of a count ry indeed amounting to something
over sixty thousan d people would have died of hunger
and c old
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The only means of existence t h e country Boers had
was the p roduce of their farms This taken away from
them they were left in the presence of starvation and
starvation only
This p op ulation dep rived of every
means of subsistence would have invaded Cap e Colony
which already was overrun with white refugees from
Johannesburg and the Rand who had proved a pro
l i fi c source of the greatest annoyance to the British
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1 61
Ceci l Rh od es
G overnment To allow this mass of miserable humanity
to wander all over the Colony would have been inhuman
and I would like to know what those who in England
and up on the Continent were so indignant over the
Concentration Camps would have said had it turned out
that some sixty thousand human creatures h a d been
allowed to starve
The British Government owing to the local condi
tions under which the South African War came to be
fought found itself in a dilemma out of which the only
esc a p e was to try to relieve wholes a le misery in the most
p ractical manner possible
There was no time to plan
out with deliberation what ought to be done some means
had to be devised to keep a whole p opulation alive whom
an administration would have been accused of murdering
had t here been del ay in feeding it
There was als o another danger to be faced had the
veldt been allowed to become the scene of a long con
t i n u e d migration of nations— that of allowing the move
ments of the British troop s t o become kno w n thereby
lengthening a war of already intolerable l ength to say
nothing of exposing uselessly the lives o f English de
t a ch m e n t s which in th i s guerrilla kind of warfare wou l d
inevitably have occurred had the Boer leaders remained
in con stant communication wit h their wanderin g com
p atriots
Altogether the institution of the Concentration Camp s
was not s uch a bad one originally Unfortunately they
were not org anise d with the seriousness which ought to
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1 62
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Ceci l R h o des
"
that of goi n g on with their resistance until their last
penny had been exhausted and their last gun had been
captured
Without these detestable Jingoes who would have
done so much harm not only to South Africa but also
to their Mother Country England i t i s certain that an
arrangement which would have brought about an honour
able peace for everybody could have come much s ooner
than it did
A significant fact wo rth rememberi n g
that the Boers did not attempt to dest roy the m ines on
the Rand — goes far to prove that they were not at all
so determined to hurt British p rop erty or to ruin
British residents or t o destroy the large shareholder
concerns to which the Transvaal owe d its celebrity as
was credited to them
When the first rumours that terrible things were
going on in the Concentration Camp s reached England
there were found at once amateurs willing to start for
S outh Africa to investigate the t ruth of t h e accusa
tions A great fuss was made over an appeal by Lady
Maxwell the wife of the Military Governor of Pretoria
in which she entreated America to assist her in raising
a fund to provi de warm clothing for the Boer women and
children Conclusions were immediately drawn saddling
the military authorities wi th responsibility for the dest i
t u t i on in which these women and children found them
selves But in the name of common sense how could
one expect that p eople who had run away before what
they believed to be an invasion of barbarians d e termined
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1 64
’
L a dy
Ma x w e ll s In t e r es t
—
to burn down and destroy all their belongings how could
one expect that these people in their flight woul d have
thought about taking with them their winter clothes
which i n t h e hurry of a dep arture in a torrid summer
would only have proved a source of embarras sment t o
them " M ore recently we have seen in Belgium France
Poland and the Balkans what occurred to the refugees
who fled before foreign invasion The very fact of Lady
’
Maxwell s app eal p roved the solicitude of the ofli ci a l
English classes for the unfortunate Boers and their
desire to do s omething to p rovide them with the n e c e s
f
sar l es of l i fe
Everybody k nows the amount of money which is
—
required in cases of this kind and i n addition to
’
—
America s unstinting response public and p rivate
charity in Britain flowed as generously as it alway s does
up on every occasion when an appeal is made t o it in
cases of real misfortune But when it comes t o relieve
the wants of about sixty three thousand p eople of all
ages and conditions this is not so easy t o do as p ersons
fond of criticising things which they do not understand
are apt sweepingly to declare Very soon the question
of the Concentration Camp s became a Party matter and
was made capital of for Party p urposes without dis
crimination or restraint Sham philant hropists fi lled the
newsp ap ers with their indignation and a rep ort was
published in the form of a pamphlet by Miss Hobhouse
which it is to be fear e d contained some percentage of
tales p oured into her ears by p eople who were nurture d
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1 65
Ceci l Rh od es
in the general contempt for truth which at that time
existed in S outh Africa
If the question of Concentration Camp s had been
examined seriously it would have been at once perceiv e d
what a tremendous burden the resp onsibility of having
to find fo od and shelter for thousan ds of enemy p eople
imp osed on English o ffi cials
No one in Government
circles attempt e d or wished to d eny sorro wf ul as it was
to have to recogn ise it that the condition of the Camp s
was not and indeed could not be nearly what one
would h a ve wished or desired On the other hand the
British authorities were unremitting in their efforts to
do everything which was comp atible with prudence to
imp rove the condition of these Camp s Notwithstanding
people were so excited in regard to the question and it
”
was so entirely a case of Give a dog a bad name
that
even the app ointment of an Imp erial Commission to
report on the matter failed to bring them t o anything
’
app roaching an impart ial survey Miss H ob hou se s re
p ort had excited a n emotion only comp arable to the
’
publication of Mrs Beecher Stowe s famous novel
’
Uncle Tom s Cabin
Miss Hobhouse came to S outh Africa inspired by
the most generous motives but her lack of know l edge
of the conditions of existence common to everyone in
that country p revented her from forming a true opinion
as to the real hardship of what she was called up on to
witness Her own interp retations of the difficulties and
d iscomforts which she found herse lf obliged to face
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1 66
Ceci l Rh od es
be transp orted w ith the quickness that those resp onsible
heartily desired " D id she remember that the British
troops also had to do without the most elementary com
fort s in sp ite of all the things which were constantly
being sent from home for t he benefit of the field
forces " Both had in S outh A fi c a two enemies in
common that could not be subdue d— d istance and diffi
culty of communication With but a single line of rail
way which half the time was cut in one place or another
it was but natural that the Concentration Camp s were
dep rived of a good many things which those who were
comp elled to live within their limits would under dif
fe re n t circumstances or conditions
have had as a
matter of course
Miss Hobhou se had to own that she met with the
utmost courtesy from the authorities with whom she ha d
to deal a fact alone which proved that the Government
was only too glad to all ow p eople to see what was being
done for the Boer women and children a n d gratefully
appreciated every useful suggestion likely to lighten t h e
sad lot of those in the Camp s
It is no use denying and indeed no one Sir Alfred
Milner least of all would have denied that some of the
scenes witnessed by M iss Hobhouse which were after
wards described with such tremulous indignation were
of a nature to shock p ublic opinion both at home and
abroa d
But at the same time it was not fair to
circumstances or t o pe opl e to have a false sentimentality
woven into what was written
Things ought to have
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1 68
A L i bel
been looked up on through the eyes of common sense
and not through the refracting glasses of the indignation
of the moment
It was a libel to suggest that the British
authorities re ndered the m selves guilty of deliberate
cruelty because on the contrary they al w ays and up on
every occasion did everyt hing they could to lighten the
lot of the enemy peoples who had fallen into their
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1 69
CHAPTER XIII
T HE
P
R IS O NE R S
’
CAMP S
WENT myself very carefully into the details of
whatever information I was able to gather in regard
to the treatment of Boer prisoners in the v arious Camps
notably at Green Point near Cape Town and I always
had to come to the conclusion that nothing could have
been better Is it likely that when such an amount of
care was best owed upon the men the women and children
should have been made the obj ects of special persecution "
No impartial person could believe such a thing to ha v e
been possible and I feel persuaded that if the people who
in England contributed t o make the position of the British
Government more di fficult than already it was could
’
have glanced at some Prisoners Camps for instance they
would very quickly have recognised that an unbalanced
sentimentality had exaggerated facts and even in some
cases distorted them
In Green Point the prisoners were housed in double
storied buildings which had balconies running round
them Here they used to spend many hours of the day
for not only could they see what was g oing on around
the Camp s but also have a good view of the sea and
passing ships Each room held six men and there was
besides a large mess room downstairs in each building
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Ceci l Rh od es
At Green Point Camp ample hospital accommodation
w as provided for the sick and there was a medical staff
thoroughly acquainted with the D utch language and Bo er
habits There was electric light in every ward as well
as all other comforts compatible with discipline
In the first six months of 1 90 1 only five men died in
the Camps the average daily strengt h of which was over
men As for the sick the average rarely surpassed
l per cent
amongst which were included wounded men
the cripples and the invalids left behind from the parties
of war prisoners sent oversea to S t Helena or other
places
The hospital diet included as a matter of course many
things not forming part of the ordinary rations such as
e x tra milk meat extracts and brandy
A suggestive
fact in that respect was that though the medical o ffi cers
in charge of the Camp s often appealed to B oer sym
p a t hi se rs to send them eggs milk and other comforts for
the sick prisoners they hardly ever met with response ;
and in the rare cases when it hap pened it was mostly
’
British officials or offi c e rs wives who provided these
luxuries
The spiritual needs of the prisoners of war w ere
l ooked after with consideration ; there was a recreation
room and during the time that a large number of very
young Boers were in Camps an excellent school in
’
which the headmaster and assistant teachers held teachers
certific ates Under the Orange River Colony this school
was later transferr e d to the Prisoners of War Camp at
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1 72
,
C on d i t i on s i n C a m p
and in both places it di d a considerable
amount of good The younger B oers took very kindly
and almos t immediately to English games such as foot
ball cricket tennis and quoits for which there was
plenty of room and the British authorities p rovided
recreation huts and goal posts and other implements
The Boers also amused themselves with amateur
theatricals club s winging and even formed a minst rel
”
troup called the
Green Point S p re e m os
In the Camp s there was a s hop where the Boers
could buy anything that they required in re ason at prices
regulate d by the Military Comman dant
Beyond this
relatives and friends we re allowed to send t hem fruit or
anything else with t h e exception of firearms
In t h e
Boer laagers were coffe e shop s run by sp eculative y oung
Boers
The prisoners used to meet there in order to
’
drink co ffee eat p ancakes and talk to heart s content
This p articular sp o t wa s generally called Pan Koek
Straat and the wildest rumours concerning the war
seeme d to originate in it
Now as to the inner organisation of the C amp s The
p risoners were a ll owed to choose a corp oral from their
mids t and also to sele ct a captain for each ho use Over
the whole Camp there reigned a Boer C ommandant
”
assist ed by a Court of H e e m ra de n consistin g of ex
l a n drost s and lawyers app ointed by the prisoners of war
themselv e s
Any act of insubordination or inattention
to the re gulations sanitary or otherwise was brought
before this court and the guilty party tried an d sen
S im on st ow n ,
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Ceci l Rh o des
When the latter refused to abide by the judg
ment of the Bo e r cour t he was brought before the Mili
tary Commandant but for this there was very seldom
need
The prisoners of war had p ermission to corresp ond
with their friends and relatives and were allowed news
papers and books
The former however were rather
too much censored which fact constituted an annoyance
which w ith the exer tion of a little tact might easily
have been avoided
As will be seen from the details the fate of the Boer
prisoners of war was not such a bad one after all Nor
either was life in the Concentration Camps and I have
endeavoured to throw some new light on the subj ect to
rebut the old false rumours which latel y the German
Government revived when taxed with harsh treatment
of their own prisoners of war so as to draw comp arisons
advantageously to themselves
While adhering to my p oint I quite realise that it
would be foolish t o assert that all the Concentration
Camps were organised and administered on the model of
the Green Point Camp where its vicinity to Cap e Town
allowe d the English authorities t o control everything
that w as going on In the interior of the country things
co ul d not b e arranged up on such an excellent scale but
had there not existed such a state of irritation all ov e r
the whole of S outh Afri ca —a n i rritation for which the
s o—
called English loyalists must also share the blame
matters would not have grown so sadly out of propor
t e n ce d
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1 74
Ceci l Rh od es
ning the risk of the Boers provisioning themselves there
from The risk would not perhap s have been so great
as could have been supp osed at first sight but then this
ought to have been done from the very beginning of the
war and the order t o burn the Boer farms ought never to
have been gi ven
But once the Boe r farms had been
deprived of their military use t o the enem y these people
could not be turned back to starve on the veldt ; the
British had to feed them or earn the reproach of having
destro yed a nation by hunger As things had develop ed
it w a s imp ossible for Great Britain to have followed any
—
other policy adopted p erhaps in a moment of rash
ness but t he consequences had to be accepted It only
remained to do the best toward mitigating as far as
p ossible the su fferings of the mass of humanity gathered
int o the Camp s and this I must maintain that t h e Eng
lish Government did better than could have been ex
p e c t e d by any who knew S outh Afric a and the immense
di fficulties which beset the British authorities
I t must not be forgotten that when the war began
it was l ooked upon in the l ight of a simple military
p romenade ; and who knows it might have been that had
not the B oers been j ust as mistaken concerning the i n
tentions of England in resp ect of them as Englan d was
in regar d t o the Boer military strength and p ower of
resistance
On e must take into account that for the
few y ears preceding the war and esp ecially since the
fat al Jameson Raid the whole of the Dutch p opulation
of the Transvaal and of the Orange Free S tate as well
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1 76
Ill u si on s
as that of Cap e Colony was p ersuaded that Englan d
had made up its mind to destroy it and to give up their
country as well as their persons into the absolute p ower
of the millionaires who ruled the Rand On their
side the millionaires openly declared that the mines
were their personal property and th at England was
going to war to give the Rand to them and thereafter
they were to rule this new possession without any
interference from anyone in the w orld not even that
of England
Such a s tate o f things was absolutely
abnormal and on e can but wonder how i deas of the kind
could have obtained cred ence
But strange as it may
seem it is an indisputable fact that the opinion was
prevalent all over S outh Africa that the Rand was to
be annexed to the British Emp ire j ust in the same way
as Rhodesia had been and under the same conditions
Everyone in S outh Africa knew that the so called con
quest of the domain of Kin g Lobengula had been effected
only because it had been supp osed that it was as rich in
gold and diamonds as the Transvaal
Wh en Rhodes had taken possession of the vast ex
panse of territory which was to receive his name the
fortune seekers who had fo llowed in his footstep s had
high anticip ations of sp eedy riches and came in time
to consider that they had a right t o o b tain t hat which
they had come to loo k for
These victims of money
hunger made Rhodes p ersonally resp onsible for the dis
app ointments which their greed and unhealthy appetites
encountered when at last they were forced to the con
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1 77
Ceci l Rh od es
el usion that Rhodesia was a land barren of gol d
In
time p erhap s and at enormous expense it might be
develop ed for the purp ose of cattle breeding but gold
and diamonds either did not exist or could only be
found in such small quantities that it was not worth while
looking for them
As a result of this realisation Rhodes found himse lf
confronted by all these followers w h o loudly clamoured
around him their indignation at having believed in his
assertions What wonder therefore that the thoughts
of these p eople turned toward the p ossibility of diverting
the treasures of the Transvaal int o their own direction
Rhodes was brought into contact with the idea that it
was necessary to subdue President Kruger
With a
’
m an of Rhodes impulsive character to begin wishing
for a thing was sufficient to make him resort to every
means at his disposal to obt ain it The Boer War was
the work of the Rhodesian p arty and long before it
broke out it was exp ected sp oken of and considered
not only by the Transvaal Government but also by the
Burghers w h o h a ving many opp ortunities of visiting
the Cap e as well as Rhodesia had there heard exp ression
of the determination of the S outh African League and
of those who called themselves followers a n d p artisans
of Rhodes to get hold of the Rand at the head of which
as an inevitable necessity should be the Colossus him
self No denial of these plans ever came from Rhodes
By his attitude even when relations between Lond on
and Pretoria were e x cel lent he gave encoura g ement to
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1 78
Ceci l Rh o des
all the en tangled questions which divided the Transvaal
Republic from the Mother Country by reason of its
manner of looking at the exploitation of the gold mines
On its side too perhaps England might have been
brought to consider the Boers in a di fferent light had
she disbelieved a handful of people who had every i n
t e re st in the world to mislead her and to keep her badly
informed as to the truth of the situation
When war broke out it was not easy for the C om
mand to come at once to a sane appreciation of the
situation and unfortunately for all the parties concerned
the unj ust prejudices which existed in S outh Africa
against Sir Alfred Milner had to a certain extent tinc
t u re d the minds of p eople at home exercising no small
i n flue nce on the men w h o ought to have help ed the
High Com missioner t o ca rry through his plans for the
settlement of the situation subsequently to the war
The old saying
Calumniate calumniate something
”
will always remain after it
was never truer than in the
case of this eminent statesman
It took some time for matter s to b e put on a sound
footing and before this actually occurred many mistakes
had been made neither easy to re ctify nor p ossible to
explain
Foremost among them was this question of
the C oncentration Camp s
Not even the p rotestations
of the women wh o subsequently went to the Cap e and
to the Transva al to rep ort officially on the question were
c onsidered sufficient to dissipate the prejudices which had
arisen o n this unfortunate question
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1 80
on t h e Re p or t
A C r i t ic
The best reply that was made to Miss Hobhouse a n d
to the lack of p rudence which sp oiled her g ood intentions
was a letter which Mrs Henry Fawcett a ddressed to
the W es tm i n st e r Gaz e t t e
In clear lucid diction this
lett er re established facts on their basis of reality and
explained with self resp ect and self control the inner
details of a situation which the malcontents had n ot
iven
themselves
the
trouble
to
examine
g
”
First says this forceful document
I would note
’
Miss H ob h ou se s frequent a cknowledgments that the
various authorities were doing their best to make the
conditions of Camp l ife as little intolerable as p ossible
The opening sentence of her report is January 2 2
I had a splendid truck given m e at Cap e Town through
the kind c c —
operation of Sir A lfred Milner— a large
’
double covered on e cap able of holding twelve tons
In
other places she refers t o the help given to her by various
o fficials The commandant a t Ali w al N orth had ordered
£ 1 5 0 w orth of clothing and had distributed it ; she
undertoo k to forward some of it
At Sp ringfontein
the commandant was a kind man and willing to help
’
both the peopl e and me as far as p ossible
Other similar
quotations might be made Miss Hobhouse acknow
ledges that the Government recognise that they are
responsible for providing cloth e s and she app ears rather
to dep re cate the making and sending of further supp lies
from England
I will quote her exact word s on this
p oint The italics are mine
The demand for clothin g
is so huge that it is hopeless to thin k that the p rivate
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1 81
Ceci l Rh o d es
charity of England and Colonial working p arties com
T h e G o v e rn m e n t
b i n e d can effectually cope with it
and
r e c ogn i s e t ha t t h e y m u s t p ro v i de n e c e ssary c l o t h e s
I think we all agree that having brought these p eople
int o this p osition it is their duty t o do so I t is of
a q
u e st i o n for E n glis h fo l k t o d e ci de how lon g
c o u rs e
There
t h e y l i ke t o go on m a ki n g a n d s e n di n g c lo t h e s
is no d oubt they are immensely appreciated ; besides
they are mostly made up which the Government cloth
’
’
ing won t be
Miss Hobhouse says that many of the
women in the Camp at Aliwal North had brought their
sewing machines
If they were set to work t o make
clothes it might serve a double purp ose of giving them
occup ation and the p ower of earning a little money and
it woul d als o ensure the clothes being made su ffi ciently
large Miss Hobhouse says p eople in England have very
incorrect notions of the magnificent p roportions of the
Boer women
Blouses which were sent from England
intended for women could only be worn by girls of twelve
and fourteen ; they were much too small for the well
develop ed Boer m a iden w h o is really a fine creature
’
C ould a woman s out —
out size be procured " It must be
remembered that when Miss Hobhouse saw the Camp s
for the first time it was in January the hottest month
in the S outh African year ; the di fficulty of getting sup
plies along a single line of rail often broken by the
enemy was very great The worst of the Camps she
saw was at Bloemfontein and the worst features of this
worst C amp were
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1 82
Ceci l Rh od es
si c h er are open for boys and girls
Children have
been reunited to p arents except that some girls through
’
Miss H ob h ou se s kind efforts have been moved away
from the Camps altogether into boarding schools Even
in this Bloemfontein Camp notwithstanding all that
Miss Hobhouse says of the abs ence of soap and the
scarcity of water she is able to write : All the tents
I have been in are exquisitely neat and clean e x cept
two and they are ordinary
Another imp ortant admis
sion about this Camp is to be found in the last sentence
’
of the account of Miss H ob h ou se s second visit to Bloem
fontein
She d escribes the iron huts which have been
erected there at a cost of
and says : It is so
strang e to think that every tent contains a family and
every family is in trouble — loss beh ind p overty in front
pri vation and death in the p resent— but they have agreed
’
to be cheerful and make the best of it all
There can be no doubt that the sweeping together of
about
men women and children int o these C amp s
must have been attended by great s u ffering and misery
and if they are courageously borne it is greatly to the
credit of the su fferers
The questions the public will
ask and will be j ustified in asking are
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Was the creation of t hese Camp s necessary
from the military p oint of view "
2
Are our officials exerting themse l ves to make
the con d itions of the Camps as little Oppressi v e as
p ossible
1
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1 84
The D e fe n c e
Ought the p u blic at home to supplement the
e fforts of the officials and supply additional comforts
and luxuries "
3
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The reply to the first question can only be given
by the military authori ties and they have answered it
in the affirmative Put b riefly their statement i s that
the farms on the veldt were being us e d by small com
mandoes of the enemy as storehouses for food arms and
ammunition ; and above all they have b een centres for
supplying fals e information to our men ab out the move
ments of the ene my and correct info rmation to the
enemy about the movements of the Briti sh
No one
blames the B oe r women on the farms for this ; they
have taken an active p art on behalf of their own people
in the war and they glory in the fact But no one can
take p art in war without sharing in its risks and the
formation of the C oncentration Camp s is part of the
’
fortune of war
In this sp irit they have agreed as
Miss Hobhouse say s to b e cheerful and make the best
of it
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The se cond question
Are our official s exerting
themselves to make the Camp s as little opp ressive as
—
"
p ossible
can also b e answered in the a ffirmative
j udging from the evidence supplied by Miss Hobhouse
herself This does not imply that at the date of Miss
’
H ob h ou se s visit or at any time there were not matters
capable of imp ro v ement
But it is c onf essed even by
hostile witnesses that the Government had a very di ffi cult
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1 85
Ceci l Rh od es
task and that its officials w e re ap p ly in g themsel v es to
grapple with it with energy kindness and goodwill
Miss Hobhouse complains again and again of the diffi
culty of procuring s oap May I quote as throwing light
up on the fact that the Boe r women were n o worse off
than the English themselves that Miss Brooke Hunt
’
w h o was in Pretori a to organi se soldiers institutes a
few months earlier than Miss Hobhouse was at Bloem
’
fontein s ays in her interesting book
A Woman s
’
Memories of the War : Captain
p resented me
with a p iece of Sunlight soap an act of generosity I did
not fully app reciate till I found that soap could not be
b ought for love or money in the town
A Boe r woman
of the working class said to Miss Brooke Hunt : You
English are di fferent fro m what I thought They told
us that if y our soldiers got inside Pretori a they would
r ob
us of everythi ng burn our houses and treat u s
cruelly ; but they have all been kind and resp ectable
’
I t seems a pity we did not know this before
Miss
Hobhouse supplies some rather similar testimony
In
her Rep ort she says : The Mafeking Camp folk were
very surprised to hear that English women cared a rap
ab out them or their suffering It has d one them a lot
of good t o hear that real symp athy is felt for them at
home and I am so glad I fought my way here if only
’
for that reason
In what p articular way M iss Hobhouse had to fight
her way to the Camp s does not app ear for she acknow
ledges the kindness of Lord Kitchener and Lord Milner
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1 86
Ceci l Rh od es
always glad to shake hands with a British soldier ; it
was because of the kindly d evices they had invented to
make over their own rations to the women and children
during the long j ourn ey when all were s uffering from
severe privations
Another Boer girl referring to an
act of kindness shown her by a British officer remarked
quietly : When there is so much to make the heart
’
ache it is well to remember deeds of kindness
The
more we multiply deeds of kindness between Boer and
Briton in S outh Africa the better for the future of
the two races who we hop e will one day fuse into a
”
united nation under the British flag
I hop e the reader will forgive me for having quoted
’
in such abunda nce from Mrs Fawcett s letter but it
has seemed t o me that th is plain unprejudiced and un
sophisticated rep ort on a subj ect which could not but
have been viewed with deep sorrow by every enlightened
p erson in England goes far to remo v e the doubts that
might still linger in the minds of certain people ignorant
of the real conditions of existence in S out h Afri c a
A p oint insufficiently realised in regard to S outh
African affairs is the manner i n which individu als com
p ara t i v e ly d evoid of education and wi t h o nly a ha zy
notion of p olitics contrived to be t aken into serious
consideration not only by those who visited S outh Africa
but by a certain section of English society at home and
also in a more restricted measure by p eople at the Ca p e
and in the Transvaal who had risen These p eople p ro
fesse d t o un d erstand local p olitics better th a n the B ritish
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1 88
D an g e ro u s G o ssi p
authorities and exp ected the officials as well as public
opinion in Great Britain to adopt their advice and to
recognise their right to bring forward claims which they
were always eager t o prosecute
Unfortunately they
had friends everywhere to whom they confided their
regrets that the British Go v ernment understood so very
little the necessities of the moment As these mal
contents were just back from the Rand there were
plenty of people in Cap e To wn and especially in Port
Elizabeth Grahamstown and oth er English cities in
Cap e C olony ready t o listen to them and to be i n
fl u e n c e d by the energetic tone in which they declared
that the B oers were being helped all al ong by D utch
Col onials who were doing their best to betray the
British
In reality matters were absolutely di fferent and
those who harmed England the m ost at that time were
precisely the p eople who proclaimed that they and they
alone were loyal to her and knew what was necessary
and essential to her interests and to her future at the
Cap e of G ood Hop e and the Rand Foremost amongst
them were the adherents of Rhodes and this fact will
always cling to his memory—most unfortunately and
most unj ustly I hasten to say b e cause had he been left
absolutely free to d o what he liked it is probable he would
have been the first to get rid of these encumbrances
whose i nterferences c ould only s ow animosi t y where
kindness and good will ought to have been put forward
Cecil Rhodes wanted to have the last and definite word
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1 89
Ceci l Rh o des
to say in the matter of a settlement of the South African
difficulties and as no one seemed willing to al low him to
utter it he thought that he would contrive to attain
his wishes on the subj ect by seeming to support the
exaggerations of his followers Yet at the same time
he had the leade rs of the D utch p arty approached with
a view of inducing them to app eal to him to put himself
at their head
This double game which w hile it lasted constituted
one of the most curious episodes in a series of events of
which every detail was interesting I shall refer t o later
in more detail but before doing so must touch upon
another and p erhap s j ust as instructive question— the
s o called
refugees whose misfortunes and subsequent
arrogance caused so many anxiou s hours to S ir Alfred
Milner during his tenure of office at the Cap e an d later
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on in Pretoria
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1 90
Ce c i l Rh od es
for these unfortunate bein g s deprived of their means of
existence the position became truly a lamentable one
They could not very well remain where they were because
the Burghers who had never taken kindly to them made
no secret of their hostility and gave them to understand
very clearly that as soon as war had been declared they
w ould simply turn them out without warning and con
Prudence advised no delay and
fi sca t e their prope rty
the consequence was that be g innin g with the month of
Au g ust and indeed the very first days which followed
up on the failure of the Bloemfontein Conference a stream
of people from the Transvaal b e g an migrating toward
Cape Colony which w as supposed t o be the place where
their su fferings would find a measure of relief t hat
they vainly imagined would prove adequate to their
needs At the Cap e strang ely enough no one had ever
given a thought to the possibility of such a thin g happen
ing In consequence the public w ere surprised by this
persi stin g stream of humanity which was b ein g p oured
into the Colony ; the authorities too be g an to feel a
despair as to what coul d be done I t is no exag g eration
to say that for months many hundreds of people arri v e d
daily from the north and that so long as communications
were kept open they continued to do so
At first the refugees inundated the lodging houses in
Cap e To w n but these soon bein g full to overflowin g
some other means ha d to be devised to hou se and fee d
them C ommittees were formed w ith whom the Govern
ment o fficials in the C o l ony worked with g reat z e al an d
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1 92
The P ol ish "e w s
considerable su c cess toward alleviating the misery with
which they found themselves confronted in such an
une x p ected manner The Municipal Council the various
religious communities the Medical men—one and all
applied themselves to relief measures even t hough they
could not comprehend the reason of the blind rush to
the Cape Nor in the mai n could the refugees explain
more lucidly than the one phrase which could be heard
on all sides no matter what might have been the socia l
position :
We had to go away because we did not feel
”
safe on the Rand
In many cases it would have been
far nearer to the truth to say that they had to go because
they could no longer lead the happy go lucky e xistence
they had been used to
The most to be pitied among these people were most
certainly the Polish Jews who originally h a d been e x
e
ll
d
e
from Russia and had come to see k their fortunes
p
at Johannesburg They had absol utel y no one t o whom
they could apply and what was sadder still no c l aim on
anyone ; on the English Government least of all On e
could see them huddling together on t h e platform of
Cape Town railway station surrounded by bundles of
ra g s which constituted the whole of their earthly belong
ings not knowing at all what to do or where to go to
Of course they were looked after because English charity
has never stopped before di fferences of race and creed
but still it was impossible to deny that their const antly
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increasing number a d ded considerably to the di ffi cu lt ies
of the situation
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1 93
Ceci l Rh od es
A Jewish Committee headed by the Chief R abbi of
Cap e Town the R ev D r Bender worked indefati g ably
toward the relief of these unfortunate creatures and did
wonders A considerable number were sent to Europe
but a g ood many elected to remain where they were and
had to b e provided for in some w ay till w ork could be
found for them which would at least allow them to exist
without being entirel y dependent on public charity
Among the aliens who sho w ed a desire to remain in S outh
Africa were many in p ossession of resources of their own ;
but they careful ly conceal e d the fact as upon whatever it
amounted to they counted t o rebuil d their fortunes when
B ritain became sole and absolute mist ress on the Rand
The most dang erous element in the situation was that
g roup of easy g oing l oafers who lived on the fringe of
finance and picked up a livin g by doing the odd things
needed by the bigger speculators When things began
to be critical these idlers were unab l e to make money
w ithout w orking and while prating of their patriotism
made the British Government responsible for their pre
sent state of p enury These men had some kind of
instruction if not e d ucation and pretended they under
stood all about p olitics the government of nations and
last but not least the conduct of the war Their free
talk inflamed with an enthusiasm got up for the occasion
gave to the stranger an entirely inco rrect idea of the
p osition and was calculated to give rise to sharp and
absolutely undeserved criticisms concerning the conduct
of the administration at home an d of the authorities in
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1 94
Ceci l Rh o d es
Corps which were formed These gave the benefit of
their experience to the British o ffi cers who relied on the
knowledge and perception of their informants because of
themselves especially during the first months which
followed upon their landing they could not come to a
clearly focused impartial judgment of the di ffi culties
w ith which they found their efforts confronted One
must also remember that these o fficers were mostly quite
young men full of enthusiasm who flamed up whene v er
the word rebellion was mentioned in their presence and
who having arrived in S outh Africa with the firm deter
mination to win the war at all costs must not be blamed
if in some cases they allowed their minds to be p oisoned
by those w ho painted the plight of the country in such a
lugubrious tint If therefore acts of what appeared to
be c ruelty were committed by these officers it would be
very wrong to make them alone responsible because they
w ere mostly done out of a spirit of self defence against an
enemy whom they belie v ed to be totally difl e re n t from
what he was in reality and who if only he had n ot been
exasperated would have p ro v ed of better and healthier
st uff than superficially his acts seemed to indicate
There was still an other class of refugee composed
of what I would call the rich elements of the Rand
the financiers direct ors of companies ; managers and
engineers of the di fferent concerns to which Kimberl ey
and Johannesburg owed their celebrity From the very
first these rightly weighed up the situation and had been
d etermine d to secure all the a d vantages which it held for
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1 96
The We l l
Do
-t o-
anyone w ho g ave himself the trouble to e x amine it
rationally They came to Cape Town under the pretence
’
of putting their families out of harm s way but in reality
because they wanted to be able to watch the development
of the situation at its centre They hired houses at
e x orbitant prices in Cape Town itself or the suburbs and
lived the same kind of hospitable existence which had
been theirs i n Johannesburg Their intention was to be
at hand at the settlement to put in their word when the
question of the different financial interests with which
they were connect ed w ould crop u p — as it was bound
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to do
The wel l to do e x ecutive class formin g the last group
had the greatest cause to feel alarme d at the consequences
which might follow upon the w ar A l thou g h they ho p ed
that they w ou l d be able to maintain themse lves on the
Rand in the same imp ortant positions which they had
occupied previous to the war yet they had enou g h
common sense to understand that they would not be
allowed under a B ritish administration the same free
hand that Presi d ent Kruger had given or which they had
been able to obtain from him by means of refreshers
administered in some shap e or other It is true that they
had always t he alternative of retiring from S outh Africa
to Park Lane whence they would be able to ast onish
Society but they preferred to wait in c ase the crash were
still delayed for some little t ime
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The big houses such as We rnher Beit and Cc
the head of which at Johannesburg was Mr Fred
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1 97
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Ce c i l Rh od es
E ckstein a man of decided ability who perhaps w as one
of those in S outh Afri ca who had judged the situation
with accuracy—woul d have preferred to se e the crisis
delayed M r Eckstein and other leadin g people knew
v ery w ell that sooner or later the Transvaal was bound
to fall to Englan d and they would have felt quite content
t o wait quietly until this event had been accomplished
as a matter of course by the force of circumstances
without violence
Pre sident Kruger was such an ol d
man that one could in a certain sense discuss the con
sequences w hich his d emise was bound to bring t o S outh
There was no real necessity to hurry on events
A frica
nor wou l d they have been hurried had it not been for the
e fforts of the R hodesians whose complaints had had more
than anything else to d o with the failure of the Bl oem
fontein Conference and al l that followed up on that
re g rettab l e incident I t was the R ho d esians an d not the
big houses of the R and who w e re most ea g er for
the war
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The e x ploitation of R ho d esia the principa l aim of
which was the foun d ation of another Kimberley had
turned out to be a d isapp ointment in that respect and
there remained nothin g but making the best of it
particularly as countless companies had been formed al l
with a distinctly mineral character to their prospe ctuses
Now if the Rand with all its wealth and its still u n e x
p l ore d treasure s became an appana g e of Kimberl ey it
woul d be re l atively easy to e ffect an amal g amation
between g o ld an d d iamond mines which e x i ste d there
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1 98
,
Ceci l Rh od es
’
greatest misfortune in Rhodes life w as his facu l ty too
often applied up on occasions w hen it were best sup
p ressed of seeing the mean and sordid aspects of an
action and of imagining that every man could be bought
provided one k new the price He w as so entirely con
v i n c e d of this latter fact that it always caused him a kind
of impatience he did not even give himself the trouble to
dissimulate to find that he had been mistaken This
happened to him once or twice in the course of his
career
The Eng l ish party in the C olony regretted until the
’
end of R hodes life the strange aberration that allowed
the Raid and made him sacrifice his reputation for the
sa k e of hastening an event which without his interference
w ould almost surely soon have come to pass The salient
feature of the R ai d w as its terrible stupidity ; in that
respect it was worse than a crime for crime is forgotten
but nothin g can effa c e from the memory of the world or
the con d emnation of history a col ossally stup i d p ol itica l
blunder
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After the fool ish attempt to sei z e hold of their
country the Boers distrusted British honour and British
integrity ; and d oubting the word or p romises of Engl a nd
they made her resp onsible for this mistake of Ceci l
R hodes Rhodes however refused to recognise the sad
fact The big magnates of Johannesburg said that t h e
wisest thin g R hodes could have done at this critical
j uncture would have been to go to Europ e there to
remain unti l after the war thus dissociating himsel f
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200
Pe a ce on Ri g h t L i n es
from t h e who l e question of the settle ment instead of
intriguing to be entrusted with it
’
The fact of Cecil Rho d es absence would have cleared
the whole situ ation relieved S ir Alfred Milner and
given to the Boers a kind of political and financial
security that peace w o ul d not be subj ect to the ambitions
a n d p rejudices of t heir enemies but conc l ude d with a view
to the general interests of the country
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201
C HAPTER XV
D
E ALI NG
W
I T H T H E R E F UGEE S
HE refugees were a cont inual worry and annoyance
to the English community at the Cape As time went
on it became e x tremely difficult to conci l iate the differing
interests which divide d them and to p revent them from
committing foo l ish or rash act s l ikel y to comp romis e
B ritish p restige in Africa The refugees were for the
most boisterous p eople They insisted upon bein g hear d
and e x pected the whole world t o agree with their conclu
sions however unstable these might be
I t was a b so
la tely usel ess to tal k reason to a refug ee ; he refuse d t o
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l isten
y ou but considered
to
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it —comp elled
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that as he had been as
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he would put
to l eave that modern p aradise
the R and and to settl e at Cap e Town it became the
resp onsibi l ity of the inhabitants of Cap e Town to main
tain him
Tab l e M ountain echoed with t h e soun d s o f
their vain t a lk They considered that they were the only
p eople wh o k new anything about what the Engl ish
G overnment ought to do and who criticised it the most
threatening at every moment that they would write to
—
their influential friends even the p oorest and most
obscure had influential friends —revealing the ab om i n
able way i n which English interests were neglected in
Cap e Colony wh e re t he Go vernment accor d in g to them
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202
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Ceci l Rh od es
Africa wh o without being able to sa y why considered
it in consequence a p art of its duty to exaggerate in the
direction of advocating severity toward the D utch This
did not contribute t o smoothen matters a n d it grew
into a very real dang er ini mical to the conclusion of an
honourable and p ermanent peace Federation which at
one time ha d been ardently wishe d fo r alm ost everywhere
became a new cause for an x iety as s oo n as it was
known that Rhode s was in favour of it People fancied
that his ambitions l ay in the dire ction of a kind of
d ictatorship exercised by himsel f over the who l e of S outh
Africa a dictatorship which would make him in e ffe ct
master of t h e country
Thi s however w a s the last thing which the financiers
on the Ran d wished Indeed they became quite alarmed
at the thought that it might become p ossible and
hastened to e x plain to S ir Alfre d Milner the peril which
such a thin g i f it e v er happ ened woul d consti tut e for
the community at larg e Their constant attendance up on
Sir A lfred however ; g ave rise to the ide a that these
financiers wanted to have it all their own w ay with him
and with the C abinet at home an d that they meant
to confiscate t h e Transvaa l to their ow n profit
The p resence of the moneyed class at the C ape had
also anot her drawback : it exasperate d the poorer re fu
gees who cou l d not forgiv e those who t oo had fle d the
Rand for having so successfully sa v ed their own belon g
ings from the general ruin and remaine d rich when so
many of thos e who ha d directly or in directly help e d them
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2 04
of t h e
Sy m p a t h y
We al t h y
to acquire their wealth were starving at their d oor In
reality the magnates of the Rand sp ent huge sums in the
relief of their poorer brethren in misfortune
I know
from p ersonal exp erience having often solicited them i n
favour of say s ome un fortunate Russian Jew or a des ti
tute Englishman who had lost all his earthl y belongings
through the war These millionaires p opularly accus e d
of being so hard hearted were always ready with their
purses to he l p those who app eale d to their charity But
the fact that they were able to live in large and luxurious
houses whilst s o many others were starving in hove l s
that their wives wore diamonds and p earls and that they
seemed still to be able to grati fy their every desire ex
asperated the multitude of envious s ouls congregate d at
the Cap e
A general feeling of uneasiness and of unp l easant
ness b egan to weigh on the whole atmosphere and as
it w as hardly possible for anyone to attack openly those
who had inexhaustible p urses it became the fashion to
say that the D utch were resp onsible for the general mis
fortune and to discover means of causing them u n
pleasantness
On the other hand as the war went on and showe d
no signs of subsiding the resources of those w h o with
p erfect confidence i n its short d uration had left the
’
Rand at a moment s notice began to dwindl e the more
quickly insomuch as they had not properly economi sed
in the beginning when the general ide a w a s p revalent
that the English army would enter Pretoria for the
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205
Ceci l Rh o d es
C hr istmas following upon the beginning of the war an d
that an era of unl imited prosp erit y was about to dawn
in the Trans v aal I do be lieve that among certain circles
the i d e a was roote d that once President Kruger had been
e x p elled from the R and its mines would become a sort
of p u blic p rop ert y accessib l e to the whole community at
large and controlle d b y all those who showed any i n
cli n at i on for doing so
T h e mine owners themsel v es looked up on the situa
tion from a totally di fferent p oint of view
They ha d
gathered far too much exp erience concerning the state
of thing s in S outh Africa to nurse illusions as t o the
results of a war which was bound to put an end to the
corruption of the Transvaal Republic They would ha v e
p referred infinitely to let thin g s remain in the condition
int o which they ha d dri ft ed since the Raid because they
understood that a strong British G o v ernment woul d be
interested in putting an end to the abuses which had
transformed the Rand into an annexe of the S tock E x
chan g e of a l most every Eur op ean capital
But as t he
war had broken out the y preferred that it should e n d
i n the establishment of a regul a r administration w hi ch
could neither be bought nor persuade d t o serve interests
in p reference to the public They d id not relish the p os
sib l e triumph of a sing l e man backed by a p owerfu l
financial company with whom they ha d ne v er l ive d upon
p ar t i cu l a ly a ffectionate term s
Rather than see S outh Africa continue under the in
fl u e n c e which ha d hitherto he ld it in g rip the ma g nat es
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2 06
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Ceci l Rh od es
to be able to take a plac e amid the most elegant and
e x clusive society of Europ e
Had Rhodes remain e d
alive he would have proved the one great obstacle which
the magnates of the Rand would have to take into con
sideration the disturbing element in a situation that
require d calm and quiet
If Cecil Rhodes had been allowed t o decide al one
as t o the best course of acti on t o pursue he also might
have come to the same conclusion as these magnates
D uring th ose moments when he was a l one with his own
thoughts and impulses he would have realised his duty
toward his country
He was conscious if o t hers w ere
not of how utterly he had lost groun d in S outh Africa
and he understood that any settlement of the S outh
African di fficulties could only become p e rmanent if his
name were not ass ociated with it
This though u n
deniable w as a great misfortune because Rhodes under
stood so p erfectly the art of making the best of every
situation and using the resources to hand that there
is no d oubt he would h av e b rou ght forward a practical
sol ution of the problems which had cropp ed up on every
He might have proved of infinite use to S ir
s ide
Alfred Milner by his thorough knowledge of the D utch
character and of the leaders of the D utch p arty with
whom he had worked But Rhodes was not permitte d
t o decid e al on e his li ne of conduct : there were his sup
p orters to be c onsulted his so called friends t o p acify
the English Jingoes t o satisfy and most di fficult of all
the Bond and D utch p arty to please Moreover he h ad
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208
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H arr y i n g Rh od es
been indulging in various intrigues of his own ha lf of
w hi ch ha d been conducted through others and ha lf car
rie d out alone with what he believed was success I n
reality they proved to be more of these disappoint
ments he had courted with a carelessness which would
have appeared almost incre dible if one did not know
C ecil Rhodes The Rhodesians who with intentio n had
contrived t o compromise him never left him a moment
to his o w n thoughts
Without the fl att e re rs who sur
round e d him Rhode s would un doubtedly h a ve risen to
the he ight of the situation and fran k ly and disinter
e st e d ly p ut himself at the disp osal of the High C om
missioner But they manage d so to irritate him against
the rep resentative of the Queen so to anger him against
the D utch party to which he had b e l onged formerly and
so t o p ersuade him that everybody was j ealous of his
successes his genius and his p osition in South Africa
’
that it became relative l y e asy with a man of Rhodes
character t o ma k e him smart und er the sense of non
appreciation
Thus g oa d e d Rho d es acte d often with
out premeditation
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In contrast to this imp atience and the s e nse of u n
satisfied vanity the c oolness and greatness of character
of S ir Alfred Milner app eared in strong contrast even
though many friends of earlier d ays such as W T
Stead had turned their backs upon S ir Al fred accusing
him of being the cause of all the misfortunes which fell
up on S outh Africa But those who thus condemne d S ir
Alfred did not un d erstand the p eculiar features of the
o
209
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Ce c i l Rh od es
situation He w a s cre d ited with inspiring all the harsh
measures whi ch were employed on occasion by others
measures which he had stridently disapproved R hod es
in his place would have killed somebody or destroyed
something ; S ir Alfred went slowly on with his work
dis daine d p raise as well as blame and looked toward the
future I leave it t o the reader to decide which of the
two showed himself the better p atriot
The refugees di d not take kindly to the High Com
missioner
They had been ful l of illusion s concerning
t h e help they fondly imagined he would be glad to o ffer
them and when they discovered that far from taking
them to his bosom he discoura g ed their intention of
remaining in C ap e Town until the end of the war they
grumbled and lied w ith freedom S ir Alfred gave them
very distinctl y to understand that they had better not
rely on the British Government t o feed and cl othe them
He said that they would be well advised to try to find
some work whi ch would allow them t o keep themselves
and their families But esp ecially he recommended them
to go back to Europe which he gravely assured the
refugees wa s the best place for them and their talents
This did not p lease those refugees who p osed as martyrs
of their English p atriotism and as victims of the hatred
They exp ected to be
of Kruger and of the D utch
petted and flattered as those looked up to as the saviours
of the Empire
All the foregoing applies to the middle class section
of the refu g ees
The p oorer ones g ru mble d a l so but
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21 0
Ceci l Rh od es
sideration He wearied everyb ody around him with his
constant p revarications in regard to facts he ought to
have accepted without flin ch i n g if he wanted t o regain
some of his lost p restige
Unfortunately for himse lf
and for the cause of p eace in S outh Africa Rhodes
”
fancied himself immensely clever at biding hi s tim e
as he use d to say He ha d ever lurking somewhere in
his brain the con v iction that one day the who l e situation
at C ap e T o wn an d Pretoria wou l d be come so entangl ed
that they would have to send for him to be g him as a
favour t o step round and by hi s ma gic touch unravel a l l
difficulties
His curious shyness his ambition and his
vanity battled with each other so long t hat those in
authority at last came to the sa d conclusion that it was
far better to lo ok elsew here for supp ort in their honest
e fforts at t his important moment in the e x istence of
the Africa n C ontinent
One last attempt was ma d e
It w a s backed up by
people in London among others by S tead S tead l i k ed
the Great Imperialist as well as on e man can like another
’
and had a great and j ustified confidence in Rho des g ood
heart as well as i n that i n de fin ab l e n obility which mani
fe st e d itself at times in his strange wayward nature
More over being gifte d with a keen sense o f intuition
t h e famou s j ournalis t realised quite well the immense
work that might have been done b y England through
Rhod es had the latter consented t o sweep away those
men around him wh o were self interested
But Rhodes p referred t o maintain his waiting atti
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21 2
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H i t t i n g t h e C on s t i t u t i on
tude whilst trying at the same time to accumulate as
many pro ofs as p ossible that people wanted him to
assert himself at last It was the fact that these p roofs
were denied to him at the very minute whe n he imagined
he held them already in his hand s which led t o his sud
de n ly turning once more against the p ersons he had been
almost on the p oint of p rop itiating It led him to begin
the movement for t h e susp ension of the C onstitution in
Cap e Colony out of which he exp ected so much and
wh i ch he intended t o use as his princip al weapon against
the enemies whom he suspected That was the last great
pol itica l venture in his l ife ; it failed but merciful Provi
denc e al l owe d him not t o see the utter collapse of his
latest house of card s
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21 3
C HAPTER XV I
UND
ER
MA R
T IAL
LAW
T may be u seful or at any rate of interest before I
lay my pen aside to refer t o severa l thin g s which
at the time the y occurred caused torrents of ink to fl ow
both in Eng l and an d in S outh Africa
T h e most im p ortant p erhap s was the app l ication o f
martial l aw in Cap e Colony I must rep eat that I h old
no brief for Engl and My a fi e c t i on and admiration for
her doe s n ot go to the extent of remaining absol utel y
blin d to faul ts sh e has mad e in the p ast and p erhap s is
m aking in the present I will not deny that martial law
which unfortunately is a necessi ty in wartime was
sometimes app l ied with severity in S outh Africa
But
the odium rests principally on the loyali sts ; t he i r sp i t e
ful informati on in m any cases induced British o fficers
t o treat as rebels p eop l e who had never even dreamt o f
rebellion
It must n ot be forg otten that those t o whom was
entrusted the applicat ion of martia l l aw had pe rforce
to rely on l ocal resi d ents whom they could not p ossibly
susp ect of using these o fficers t o satisfy private animosi
ties of further private interests
These B ritish o fficers
had never been use d to see suspicion reign as master
or to watch a p erf e ctl y conscious twisting o f the truth
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21 4
Ce c i l Rh od es
fore that man y p eople felt sore an d bitter at all that
they had undergone and were goin g t hr ough "
T h e administration of martia l law in the country
districts w as absolutel y deplorable but when one ex
amines minutely the circumstances of the cases of
inj ustice about which one cou l d ha v e no d oubt it
always emerged that these ne v er p roceede d from British
offi cers who on the c ontrary where v er the y found
themselves in comman d invariably acted with humanity
The great mistake of the mil itary authorities was that
they h ad far too much confidence in the Volunteer Corp s
and those members of it who were onl y an x ious to make
money out of existing circumstances
Unfortunatel y
certain officers i n command of the d ifferent c orp s were
e x trem e "ingoes an d this d istorted their who l e outloo k
Peop l e s aid at the time of the war that some d istricts
of Cap e C olon y had been turn ed into he l ls ; some things
i n truth calle d for strong comment
No word s cou ld
be energetic enough t o descri b e the manner in which
—
martia l l aw ha d been administere d i n the distri ct of
Graaf R einet for instance
The com m an dan t s t hi s
justice must b e rendered to them — general ly meant we ll
but u n fortunate l y they were assiste d by men of l ess
stable character as intelligen c e o fficers These in their
turn unwisely without due i nquiry enga g e d subor
di n at e s up on whom the y relied for their in formation
Graaf R einet p eop l e had ha d to p ut up with something
aki n to the S panish Inquisition Men there were afraid
to sp ea k for fear o f esp ionage the most innocent re
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21 6
O v e r c ro w d e d P r is on s
marks were disto rted by s p ies recruited from an u n
certain section of the community
A cattle inspector
was dep orted without trial ; in consequence t he S ecre
tary for Agriculture decided not to emp loy him again ;
at Graaf Reinet a Colonial intelligence officer con
st an t l y declared in public that it was hi s intention to
dri v e the p eople into rebellion ; and so i nstances could
be multipli e d
The rebellion was not due to martial law In Graaf
Reinet the p rison w as frequently so crowded often by
men who did not in the least know why that no more
sleeping ac commodation could be found in it
Peop le
were 1 11 durance vile because they would not j oin the
town g uard or defence force
S o o v ercrowded the
prison became that many persons contracte d d ise as e
during their incarceration
For these sad occurrences the Cape Go v ernment
w as not initially to blame ; more than once they had
remonstrated with the local military authorities but re
p orts concerning their conduct were not allowed to reach
the ears of Lord R obert s or of Lord Kitchener Very
often a Hottentot informed against resp ectable citizens
to the intelligence o fficer an d by virtue of that they
were impris oned as l ong as the military authorities
d eemed fit When released a man would sometimes
find that his house had been sacked and his most val u
ab l e prop erty carried away
Persons were dep orted at
’
an hour s notice without reasons being given and there
after scouts t ook p ossession of their farms and p lundered
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21 7
Ceci l Rh od es
an d destroyed e v erythin g
Four wagon loa d s of men
w omen an d children were dep orted from their homes at
Beaufort West
In vain did they ask what the y had
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Everybod y of the name of Van Zyl in the dis
t ri ct of Graaf R einet w as deported " not a sin g le p erson
w a s left on their farm s e x cept those who ha d dr i v en
them out of them And after these had done their wor k
”
the victims were to l d
Now you can return home
S ome h ad to wal k bac k many miles to their farms to
find onl y ruin l eft Many white p eople were impri sone d
on the mere e v i d ence of col oured persons the reputa
tion for veracity of whom was we l l known all over S outh
Africa and whose evi d ence against a white man would
never ha v e been admitte d in any court of law pre v ious
t o the w ar
In Uitenha g e the same k ind of thin g occurred
It
w as s u fficient for a B oer co l um n to pass near the farm
of an Afri k ander for the latter to be ta k en to p rison
without the slightest investi g ation No one k new where
the fine s p ai d went an d certainly a good many of those
which w ere imp osed by the commanders of the scouts
and v o l unteer corp s ne v er reached the co ffers of the
done
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Go v ern ment
At Cradoc k S omerse t East Graaf Reinet an d
Midde l burg p eop l e were compe l led to era d icate pric k ly
p ears and do other har d l abour simp ly because they ha d
remained quietly at home according to the proclamation
issued by S ir A l fred Mi l ner and refused to j oin a v olu n
teer corps of some sort or other
Many ma g istrates
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21 8
,
Ce c i l Rh od es
the place with them he found that the scouts had left
a n d was obliged to take the animals again back to hi s
farm
On the aftern o on of that same day he received
a message from the scouts and in reply told them to
’
come and see him He had meanwhile for safety s sake
sent two horses to be concealed a way from hi s stable
a n d kept one
a stallion at t h e homestead
The ne xt day Friday Boers appeare d earl y in the
afternoon Th e y took the stallion an d the fo l lowing day
they returne d and asked where the other horses were
M r S choeman declined to give an y information but
they discovered a n d sei zed them I mmedi ately after the
Boers had left Mr S choeman disp atch ed one of hi s
farm boy s named Barry t o D e Jaeger the nearest mil i
tary post to rep ort the occurrence
The scouts had
however disap p e a red and he learn ed from D e Jaeger
that before leaving th ey had receive d a rep ort of the
presence of the Boers
On the return of B arry M r
S choeman endeavoured to obtain another mess e nger
O wing to the state of the country which was infested
with the enemy his efforts proved unavai l in g
D uring the next week Mr S ch oeman with a con
si derabl e number of hi s n e ighbours was ordered to
Oudt sh oom
On his arrival he was arrested withou t any
charge or warrant and confined for some thre e months
bail being refused
No pre l iminary e x amination was
held as provided in the instructions on martial law
issu ed May l st 1 90 1
On S unday D ecember l st it
was notified to M r S choeman that he woul d be tried
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220
,
L ord Ki t che n e r
In t e r v e n es
on the following day and the charges were for the first
time communicated t o hi m
On D ecember 2 u d the
court assembled and Mr S choeman was charged with
,
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three o ffences
For not having handed his horses over to the
1
prop er m ilita ry authorities whereby they fell into the
.
,
hands of the enemy
For having been on friendly terms with the
2
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e
nemy
3
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enemy
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For h avi ng failed to rep ort
th e
presence of the
.
H e was found guilty on the first and last charges
and not guilty on the second count being sentenced to
’
si x months hard l abour and to p ay a fine of £ 5 0 0 or
’
to su ffer a further term of twelve months hard labour
in l ieu of the fine
The sentence was confirmed the
fine was p aid by Mr S choeman and he underwent the
impris onment for one month with h a rd labour and for
five month s without hard labour whi ch was remitted
upon order fro m Lord Kitchener who without e v en
being fully instructed as to the circumstances of the case
of his ow n accord lightened the terrible sentence p assed
up o n M r S choe man
Later on Mr S choema n was clear e d of t h e calumnies
that had been t h e cau se of his su ffering In this c ase
as i n m any others the victim was the obj ect of the
privat e v engeance of a man who had had a grudge against
him and repaid it in that abominable manner
One of the w orst mistakes among the man y com
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22 1
Ce c i l Rh od es
m i t t e d durin g t h e S outh African War was t o al low
residents to be invest e d with what was nothing less
than unlimited authority over their fel low citizens The
British Go v ernment w hich w as made responsible for
these acts would ne v er ha v e gi v en its sanction t o any
one of them ; mostl y it was unaware of the original
facts
The En g lish militar y authorities deal t in ab so
lute go od faith which ma ke s the more shameful the
conduct of th ose who wilful ly le d them into error Their
one fault w as not to rea l ise t hat certain indi v iduals were
not fit to administer martial l aw In one p articular dis
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tri ot the man in authority seemed to have as the s ingle
a i m of his life the punishment of anyone with D utch
sy mpathies or of D utch bl ood It was useless to appea l
to him because wh e never a c omplaint was brought by
an inhabitant of the distri ct he simply refused to listen
to it and p oured a torrent of abuse at the head of the
brin g er One of his most notorious actions was the treat
ment which b y his orders was inflicted on an old man
who e nj oyed the general esteem of b oth the English
and the D utch c ommunity a former member of the
House of Assembly His house was searched the flo ors
were t ak en up and the who l e gard en was dug out of
recogniti on in a search for documents that might ha v e
p rov e d that his son or himself or any other member of
his fami l y ha d been in corresp ondence with the two Re
A ll this kin d of thing was done on hearsa y
p ublics
evidence behind which lay p ersonal motives
Had the settl ement of the count ry been l eft entirely
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222
Ce c i l Rh od es
its prosp erity were not taxed
The Ministry p resided
over by S ir Gordon S prig g shared this feeling and in
consequence found itself su ddenly forsaken by its
adherents of the day before and the Rhodesian Press in
full cry against the Government
S ir Gordon Sprigg
was s t igmatised as a tool of the B ond and as disloya l to
the Empire after the fifty years he had wor k e d for it
with rare disinterestedness and great integrity Never
t h e le ss the Ministry d eclared that as there existed an
ab solute necessity for fi n ding new resources to li quidate
the e x p enses contin g ent on the war it would propose a
tax on diamonds and another one on dop
The exasp eration of the Rhodesian p arty which was
thus roused was the princip al reason why the agitation
for the susp ension of the Constitution in C ap e Colony
was started and pursued so vigorously in spite of the
small chance it had to succeed
His supp ort of this
agitation may be called the death bed e ffort of Rhodes
When he was no longer alive to len d them his strong
hand the Rhodesian p arty was bound to disperse Th ey
tried in vain to continue his policy but all their e fforts
to do so failed because there was nothin g really tangibl e
for them to work up on
With Ce cil Rhodes came to an end also what can
be ca ll ed the romanti c p eriod of the history of S outh
Africa that p eriod during which fo rtunes were made and
lost in a few days ; when new l ands were discovere d and
conquered with a facility and a recklessness that reminded
one of the Mi d dle Ages
The war estab l ishe d an
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224
THE R T
.
H ON
.
SI R "O H N
G
O RD O N
I
S PR G G
Ceci l Rh o d es
to develop itself on a plane of higher progress under the
protection of the British flag This Union was conceived
many many years e arlier by Cecil Rhodes It was his
great sp irit that thought of making into one gre at
nation the agglomeration of sma ll nationalities white
and black that lay over the veldt and impenetrable forests
of S outh and Centra l Africa For a long space of years
C e cil Rhodes was S outh Africa
S o long as Rhodes lived i t w ou l d have bee n i m p os
sible for South Africa to escap e the influence of hi s
brain which was always plotting and planning for the
future whilst forgetting more often th an was healthy
or wise the p reoccup ations of the present
After the
’
Queen s flag had been hoisted at Pre toria Cecil Rhodes
alive would hav e pr oved an anomaly in S outh Afric a
Ce cil Rhodes dead would still retain his p osition as a
dreamer and a thi n ker a man w h o always pushed for
ward without he e ding the ob stacles forgetful of aught
else but the end he was pursuing the country which he
loved so well and what he cared for even more his own
—
ambition Men like Rhodes with all their mistakes to
mar their dazzling successes— cannot be replaced ; it is
j ust as difficult to take up their work as it is to fill the
gap caused by their disappearance
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226
C ON C LUS ION
HAVE come to the end of what I intended at first
to be a book of reco ll ections but w hich has resolved
itself into one of impressions A more comp etent pen
than mine will one day write the inner history of this
S outh African War which by an anomaly of destiny had
quite di fferent results from those expected
S o many
things have occurred since it happened that the whole
sequence (ff events including the war is now looked
up on by many people as a simple incident in a long
story
In reality the episode w as something more than that
It was a manifestation of the great strength of the British
Empire and of the wonderful spirit of vitality which has
carried England triumphantly through crises that w ould
have wrecked any other nation
The incidents which
followed the war proved t h e generosity that lies at the
botto m of the English character and the grandeur that
comes out of it in those grave moments w hen the welfare
of a nation appears to be at st ake and its rulers are
unable to apply to a succession of evils and dangers the
right remedy to b ring about p eace and contentment No
othe r nations posses s this remarkable and distinctive fea
ture E ngland very wisely refused to notice the bitterness
whi ch s till persisted in the early days after the conclusio n
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227
Ceci l Rh o d es
of peace and devoted her energies to the one immense
and immediate work of Federation
The colossal work of Union had been conceived in
the shape which it was eventually to assume by Sir Alfred
M ilner who after having laid the foundations was patriot
enough to allow others to achieve its consummation
because he feared the unj ust estimate of his character
disseminated by interested p ersons might comp romise the
desired obj ect and far reaching possibilities of an enter
p rise which the most sanguine had never imagined could
be accomplished within so short a spac e of time
He
had toiled courageously toward the founding of a new
S tate where the rights of every white as well as of every
coloured man should be respected and taken into account
and where it wo uld be imp ossible for a handful of rich
men by the mere p ower of riches to control t h e lives
and consciences of others
’
The time of S ir Alfred Milner s administration was
the transitory period between the primitive and the
civilised that no nation escapes and this period S ir Alfred
used in working toward the establishment of a st rong and
wise government
Whether the one which started its
course of exist ence on the day when the Federation of
S outh Africa became an accomplished fact was strong
and wise it is not for me to say
At least it was a
patriotic government one which worked sincerely at t h e
abolition of the race hatred which the war had not entirely
killed and also one which recognised that after all it was
the principle of Imperial government that alone could
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228
Ceci l Rh o d es
Yes " Rhodes was a great Englishman in spite of his
faults and perhaps on account of his faults Beside the
genius of a D arwin or of a Pasteur the talent of a Shake
sp eare or of a Milton the science of a Newton or of a
Lister his figure seems a small one indeed and it is
absurd to raise him to the same lev e l as these truly
wonderful men
The fact that the activity of Cecil
R hodes lay in quite a di fferent direction does not how
eve r diminish the real importance of the work which
he did nor of the services which he rendered to his
country
The mistake is to j udge him as a universal
genius His genius had a particular bent ; it was always
directed toward one p oint and one only that of material
advantages to be acquired for the nation to which he
belonged and of w hich he was so proud to be the son
Without him S outh Africa would p ossibly have bee n
lost for the British Empire which owes him most cer
t ai n l y a great debt in that respect
The years which have gone by since hi s death have
proved that in many things Rhodes had been absolutel y
mistaken Always he was an attractive and at times
even a lovable personality ; a noble character marre d by
small acts a generous man and an unscrupulous foe ;
violent in temper unjust in his V iew of fac ts that dis
pleased him understanding chiefly his pers onal interests
true to those whom h e considered his friends but i m
plac a ble toward the people whom he himself had wronged
He was a living enigma to which no one had e v er found
a s olution ; because he p resented constantly new and
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230
C or t e z a s P ro t o t y p e
unexpected sides that app eared suddenly and shattered
the conclusion to which one had previously arrived
In Europ e Rhodes woul d not only have been i m
p ossible but he would never have found the opportunity
to give full rein to his faculties of organisation and of
conquest He knew no obstacles and would admit none
in h i s way ; he w as of t h e type of Pizarro and of Fernando
C ortez w ith fewer prejudices far more knowledge and
that clear sense of civilisation which only an Englishman
born and bred amid the traditions of liberty can possess
But he was lacking in the fine political conception
of government which S ir Alfred Milner possessed and
whilst refusin g to admit the thought of co mpromise in
matters where a little yielding to the wishes and desires
of others might have secured him considerable advantage
b e yet allowed himself to become entangled in intrigues
which he denied as soon as he p erceived that they coul d
n ot be success ful
but for which the world always con
d e m n e d and never forgave a nd even in some cases
despised him
No twithstanding the great bri l liance of his intelligence
and the s trength of his mind C ec il Rhod es wi ll always
b e found inferior to the p resent Viscount Milner as a
statesman
Rhodes could not and would not wait
Milner sp ent his w hole existence in waiting and waited
so suc c es sfully that he lived to see the realisation of the
plans which he had made and which so many even among
his friends had declared to be quite impossible for him
to realise Milner about whose tact and mental great
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,
2 31
Ceci l Rh o d es
ness so many false notions ex i sted in South Africa as
well as elsewhere had been the one man who had seen
clearly the consequences of the war A s he told me one
day when we were talking about the regrettable race
hatred which lent such animosity to the struggle :
It
w ill cease sooner than one thinks
The wise administrator who had studied human nature
so closely as he had done politics had based his j udgments
on the knowledge which he had acquired of the spirit of
colonisation which makes Great Britain so superior to
any other nation in the world and his b elief that her
marvellous spirit of adaptation was bound to make itself
felt in S outh Africa as it had elsewhere
S ir Alfred
Milner knew that as time went on the Afrikanders would
realise that their erstwhile enemies had given them the
position to which they had always aspired a p osition which
entitled them to take a place among the other great
nations of the world He knew too that their natural
spirit of pride and of vanity would make them cherish the
Empire that had allowed them to realise their ambition s
of the p ast Until the war they had been p roud of their
gold and of their diam onds ; after the war they w ould be
p roud of their c ountry And by the consciousness wh i ch
would gradually come to th e m of the advantages which
their Fed eration under the British flag had brought to
them they would become als o ardent British p atriots
blessing the day when in a p assing fit of insanity goaded
into it by p eople w h o had never seen clearly the situa
tion President Kruger had declared war on England
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232
In d e x
E
J ews P ol ish p li gh t f 1 93
J i n g o es h 6 9 1 07 1 30 1 35 1 42
E S TE I N F 97 1 97
1
63
2
1
6
1
E n gl an d a c qui res the T ran s v aal
qu es ti on f c on ce ntrati on Jo el S 2 4
th
c amp s 1 5 9
Joh ann es bur g a sh ad y O pe r at i o n i n 6 3
fl i gh t from 1 91
E n gli sh the a s c ol on is t s 1 4 1 5
e nm i ty i th th e D ut ch 1 1
g l d fi l d Of 2 4
r ec on cil i at i on w i th th e D ut ch 1 2 9
K
C O L O N E L e ntru s t e d wi th
K
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n
ce
Of
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ETT M R S H E R r e p l y to M is s K i mb e rl e di amon d m i n e s i n 1 7 2 4
FA
y
H ob h ou se 1 81
87
a an d a Joh ann es bur g
F r e n ch man
r
e
l
ie
f
of
116
m i n i n g pro p e rty 6 4
pur ch a se of p l ot s i n 2 1
Rh d
Rh o d es sec re t n eg oti ati on s 7 6
G
S i ege of 7 5 83 94
1
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Graaf R ei n e t marti al l aw i n 2 1 6
t
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1 59
Gr ee n P o i nt (C ap e T o w n ) c on ce ntra
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22 1
Groot e Sch uur the h ou se an d g ar d e n s
R
h
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d es an d 1 47
1 53
Koopman Mr s v an a u th or s a d mi r a
H
t i on for 4 8
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ll
m t of 47 7 4 1 46
H O JO N H S 1 3 8
45
he
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al
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rumour
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—
H el y H ut ch i n s on S i r W F 99
40
i
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H ob h ou se M i ss pamp hl e t on
46
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c amp s 1 6 5
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48
p
H ofm e y r M 3 8 43 83 84 8 6 1 3 5 Kru ge r P r esi d e nt 3 0 5 3 1 98
1 50 1 55
40
an
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Mr
s
v
an
Koopman
po p ul a i t y f 1 3 6
c an d d cri t ici s m s Of Rh o d es 92 93
51
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for
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form
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I
r e freshe r s for 1 97
I D B A
the un wis d om f 1 1 3
Rh o d es att e mpt s al li an ce w i th 90
Rh o d es b él
1 50
I mp e ri al C ommi ss i on r e port on
R h o d es d up li c i ty 7 4
ce ntrati on c am p s 1 6 6
w rn e d a g ai n s t S A M l n er 1 04
J
L
JA E S O N D R aff ecti on for R h o d es
72 1 4 8
L
A S I T r el i e f Of 1 1 6
b ec om es P ri m e M i n is t e r 73
Lob
e
n
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u
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a
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36
d e ath f 1 4 8 (not e )
an
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25
e nt e r s T ran sv a al t e rri tory 4 7 (
Ceci
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19
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on
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Of
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pol i c al a sp i rat i on s of 5 6
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37
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17
Lo
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s
t
s
an
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c
on
ce
ntr
a
t
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a
m
ps
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r el at i on s wi th Rh o d es aft e r th e
R ai d 5 4
rumour s Of his forthc om i n g rai d 45
M
the D ut ch an d 1 49
M
A E I N c on c e ntrat i on c am p 1 86
Jam e s on R a i d th e 9 30
Ma
uba
d
e
f
e
at
f B r i t ish a t 7 3
j
a c ol o ss al b l un d e r 2 00
Martial l aw i n C ap e C o l on y 2 1 4 l q
aft e rmath Of 6 9
t
Ma t y r d om f Man
i t s m 53
i nflu e n c e on R h o de s 1 2 6
tac i tl y e n c o ura ge d b y Rh o d e s
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2 34
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Matab el el an d 1 9
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M t p p H ill s an h i s tor ic m ee t i n g 4 3
R h o d es b i l p l 72
M w ell La d y an app e al b y 1 64
1 34 1 50
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M ethue n Lor d man da t e to R h o d es
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a h i nt to R h o d es 1 47
an d the B o er s 1 2 8 5 1 32
an d R h o d es 7 4 1 40 1 4 8
an d t he D e Beer s C omp a n y 1 1 5
appo i nt e d Go vernor of C ap e C o l on y
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d ig ni fi e d s p eech 1 3 4
effort s for p e a ce 1 5 6
hi s g r e at ob j ect 86
i nflu e n ce f 1 04
m i s un d e r s too d an d m is j u d ge d 7
1 2 8 5 1 0 4 1 0 7 1 0 8 1 80 2 2 8
o verr l e d from Whi t eh all 1 3 5
po l ic y of c on cil i ati on 1 3 0
r ep ort s fr om Rh o d es d e fe n ce f
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Rh o d es d i s tru s t f 1 3 7 5
the r e fu gees an d 2 1 0
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fl igh t from 1 91 i q
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ma gnates of 1 3 7 t q 1 97
R e a d e Wi n w oo d i nflu e n ce of h i s
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Rh o d es C l a gi tat es for s u sp e n si on
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b egi nn i n g of hi fortun 2 1
c r e at e d a P r i vy C oun c ill or 4 3
d e ath 1 2 9 1 5 3 2 2 4
e n d of h i s po li tic al c a r ee r 4 7 5 0
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patri o ti s m of 1 0 1 7 3 1 7 6 8 1 5 2
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i ll u si on s Of t h e D ut ch i n 1 76
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P I S V I I Po p e N ap ol e on 3 5
S au e r M 8 6 1 1 7 1 3 4 1 50 1 55
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P o l ish J ew s p l igh t f 1 93
l e a d e r f B on d par t y 1 00
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S ch o e man M i ll eg al arr es t f an d
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c onfi d e n ce i n Rh o d es 3
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qu es t i on s R h o d es 45
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