Delagoa Bay and the Transvaal has cost untold millions and thousands of lives-would never have consented to

move.

The result, therefore, would have been the expansion of the Boer Republic to the Zambesi River, and the junction of its territory with German South-West Africa, where it touches the Zambesi, and the complete shutting off of British trade to the vast undeveloped interior.

The policy attributed to Prince Bismarck of ousting British influence in South Africa, and joining hands with the Transvaal in holding a steel rope from sea to sea, became, therefore, incapable of realisation without war with the British Government, and a general European war, which the holders of Alsace-Lorraine could not contemplate with a light heart.

As I have already said, I have no materials, except those open to the whole world, on which to judge as to Mr. Cecil Rhodes's intention or methods. As to this service of his to the Empire there can, however, be no doubt or hesitation. Without his control of the millions of De Beers and his promptitude of action, not waiting for the consent of a debating Parliament or an unteachable Treasury at Westminster, the British annexation of that vast territory would, in human probability, not have been accomplished. In which case, the problem now before the Imperial Government would have been different indeed.

The prevention of Boer expansion to the west effected by the Bechuanaland Expedition of 1884, under Sir Charles Warren, showed a similar regard for Imperial interests in the maintenance of the trade route to the interior. But in the Bechuanaland Expedition the action was taken by the Imperial Government. In the annexation of the territory north of the Limpopo the action was taken by an individual citizen of the Empire on his own initiative, and at the expense of resources of which he held the control.

Of the political methods of the late Premier of Cape Colony, various estimates have been made.

His opponents-and there are some among staunch

Imperialists-tell you that his alliance with the Bond strengthened its power for anti-British purposes.

But the parallel of Prince Bismarck persisted in presenting itself to my mind. One would like to hear what any survivor of forty years ago of the old National Liberal Party of Prussia could tell one of their earlier relations with the Man of Blood and Iron. Even in later days he is said to have kept in his cigar-case a veritable olive leaf, to be tendered by the victorious leader of the Junkers to the National Liberals.

Parendo vinces.

As are the powers of nature, so are princes and democracies. Lord Chancellor Bacon's demeanour towards the contemptible Prince, into whose hands the inscrutable designs of Providence had committed the lordship of Scotland and England and Ireland, would too hastilty be deemed mere opportunism.

The stories of Mr. Cecil Rhodes's reputed comment on General Gordon's views of life and action-" Your ideas are admirable, but they lack a gold basis"; of Mr. Rhodes'sagain reputed-indignation at General Gordon's refusal to accept the contents in gold of the treasure chamber of the Chinese Emperor, grateful for the repression of Taeping rebels, if, as is to be hoped, they are true, would explain many adaptations of means to an end.

In a speech delivered to the shareholders of De Beers after the relief of Kimberley, Mr. Rhodes referred to a conversation of his with the late Mr. Carl Borckenhagen, editor of the Young Afrikander Bloemfontein Express. In this colloquy the late premier of the Cape Colony was, as he says, invited to throw in his lot with the party which designed to oust British influence from South Africa, and to form an independent Afrikander nation; a proposition declined, as being incompatible either with the respect of the Dutch people, which, towards a deserter, would be inconsiderable, or with the duty of a citizen of the Empire.

Singularly enough, I have Mr. Carl Borckenhagen's version of that colloquy. The able journalist described the

attitude of the late premier as one of crass materialism. "Money, not the sword of the spirit."

I ventured to tell him that, in all ages, one who aspires to act, and not merely to teach, must use the weapons of the time and generation. In one time muscle; in another tactical skill in arms; in another speech; in another gold. And this is not, of necessity, materialism.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN JOHANNESBURG.

DEALING with the policy of President Kruger, I have referred to the various restrictions on the attainment of the franchise, imposed after the London Convention of 1884, with the object of retaining power in Boer hands, and excluding any possible participation in power of those who did not entertain the dream of an anti-British Dutch dominion in South Africa, and even of those who were in any respect "Engelsch gezind."

Now, many writers and speakers have blamed the President — while, strangely enough, congratulating the Empire-for not seizing on the undoubted opportunity, presented to him by the influx of the new European population and his control of a revenue of millions, to build up a great Republic on the model of the United States of America, consisting of all Europern nationalities. There is not the faintest doubt that the President had this prospect; had it especially after the Jameson Raid in 1896; and had it even up to a short time before the war of October 1899.

Many, even of British descent in South Africa, perplexed and despairing of ever seeing any sane and consistent policy adopted by the Imperial Government, would most decidedly have thrown in their lot with the formation of such a Republic, destined to ultimate independence, if they were treated by the Boers on terms of equality. Some critics even ascribe to the baleful influence of State Secretary Leyds the President's not having adopted this line of policy. I shall show later on that it was not the policy of State

Secretary Leyds that had the last word in precipitating war; but there is a much deeper objection to all those irrelevant criticisms. They remind me of the ingenious speculations as to what would happen if an impossible Tsar were a Socialist, or an inconceivable Pope a revolutionist. The mind of President Kruger, and of all the dominant caste among the Boers, would revolt against such a conception of a Republic. By independence they meant Dutch independence, of a Dutch-speaking, Dutch-thinking, Dutch-ruling, Dutch-praying and Dutch-fighting folk, and not nineteenthcentury new-fangled Republicanism of a cosmopolitan herd of unwarlike European Outsiders, of a different religion and language, whose participation in political power would bring the Republic into harmony with, instead of opposition to, the Empire. Aut Caesar, aut nullus.

As might, however, have been anticipated, the Outsiders, more especially the British majority, did not take kindly to this archaic conception of their position-whether paralleled by that of Hebrews in Egypt, or of Helots in Sparta; and refused to be comforted by any amount of plausible explanations as to the President's necessity of consulting the prejudices of the veldt Boer. Within five years of the discovery of the Witwatersrand, they started against the exclusionist legislation of the Volksraad, an agitation ever increasing in volume and determination.

For the first few years, in fact until 1894, the Uitlanders addressed their petitions and remonstrances to the Government and Volksraad of the Transvaal. They formed a National Union to agitate for the removal of their grievances. When, however, after years of agitation, they found their petitions rejected with scorn, and a speaker in the Volksraad telling them that if they wanted rights they could take up rifles and fight for them, and the President declaring that he would never yield and that the storm might burst, they turned their eyes to the Imperial Power. Their appeal to Lord Loch, the High Commissioner in 1894, primarily induced by the refusal of the British Helots to take up military service against the Kaffir tribes, as long as they were refused the