LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

THE DEAD-SET AGAINST SIR ALFRED MILNER. [To THE EDITH OP TUE "SPECTATOR."] Stn,—In common with many another friend and admirer of Sir A. Milner, I have read with real regret the reflections on Mr. Cecil Rhodes which to my mind disfigure your otherwise admirable defence of the High Commissioner in the Spectator of March 9th. However much we may condemn his part in the Jameson Raid (paid for, one had imagined, by this time), there is absolutely no ground for supposing that Mr. Rhodes has the faintest design to pose as a representative of Imperialism in opposition to Sir Alfred Milner or any other accredited official representative. What has he done or said since Sir Alfred's advent in South Africa to justify the shadow of the shade of that suspicion ? If the truth were known, he has, perhaps, had his chance to profit, in the sense of making up old quarrels, by the movement against the High Commissioner. One seems to see a hint of certain subterra- nean overtures in the attempt made by Sir Alfred's enemies in the Press to fall back on Mr. Rhodes as, "after all, the anti- dote for Sir Alfred Miler." Be that as it may, his attitude since Sir Alfred Milner came has been merely unexception- able. He kept away from the festivities (which he had himself prepared) at the opening of the railway at Bulawayo, that he might not embarrass the High Commissioner, or seem to be challenging a fraction of his popularity. Throughout the war, beyond going through the siege of Kimberley with his own workpeople of De Beers, sharing hardships and privation like any common person, beyond equipping General French with the stores necessary to catch Cronje, and subscribing more than any single individual (as, indeed, was just) to various war funds, Mr. Rhodes has lain hidden. His solitary public appearance was made at the open- ing of the South African League Congress, when he reminded his hearers how much they owed to Lord Roberts and Sir Alfred Milner, and, pleading for conciliation, impressed on them the important truth that "in this war we have not been fighting the Dutch, let us be quite clear about that. We have been fighting Krugerism,—the domination of one man and a tiny oligarchy, his personal adherents." Surely these sentiments were not improper in the President of the South African League. But you will say that though Mr. Rhodes's conduct has been blameless enough during Sir Alfred Miler's High-Commissionership, you feel justified of your grave doubts qf him by his sneers at Downing Street in the days of Sir Alfred's predecessors ? If I am right, you are misled by that old, old perversion of what took place over the acquisition of Bechuanaland. It will be hard to find a finer instance of the potency of a solitary, untruth. Mr. Rhodes is accused of taking up the cudgels on behalf of the Transvaal as against the Imperial Government. What he actually did was to point out that if Bechononlculd should be occupied by Boers, it would not stand direct Imperial government.. . He is accused- of having uttered the phrase "I "want to eliminate the Imperial factor:" Turning to the verbatim account of the speech in question, we find that, Mr. Rhodes said this :—" If we do not settle this ourselves [i.e., get hold of Bechuanaland, the key to tLa North] we shall see it taken up in the House of Commons on the one side or other, not from any real interest in the question, but simply because of its consequences to those occupying the Ministerial benches. We want to get rid of Downing Street in this. question and to deal with it ourselves as a selfigoverving Colony." I need not enlarge on the difference between this, the authentic version of Mr. Rhodes's one well-known reference. to Downing Street, and the perversion. But if you still disapprove his tone in this regard, I should like to remind you that Mr. Rhodes was speaking at a time when. Imperialists in this country were sufficiently rare. Is it any. wonder that he deprecated the interference of the Little Englander in days when Little Englander M.P.'s were many ; that he was anxious that Parliament should not pluck the proposed new acquisition from the Empire P. " We are all Imperialists now," said Mr. Chamberlain the other day. But Mr. Rhodes was an Imperialist before Im- perialism had permeated Parliament.—I am, Sir, &c., C. B.

P.S.—If any of your readers care to have Mr. Rhodes's "confession of faith" in his own words, they will perhaps be interested in the accompanying extracts from his speeches between 1883 and 1891 :-

(1) "I believe in a United States of South Africa, but as a portion of the British Empire."—Cape House, July 18th, 1883.

(2) "I think all would recognise that I am an Englishman, and that my strongest feeling is loyalty to my own country."—Cape House, June 30th, 1885.

"The Hon. Member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Hofmeyr), the advocate of an independent South Africa under its own flag, has no bait that can tempt me."—Cape House, June 23rd, 1887.

"We must endeavour to make those who live with us feel tifat there is no race distinction between us ; whether Dutch or English, we are combined in one object, and that is the union of the States of South Africa, without abandonment of the Imperial tie."—Barkly West, Sep-. tember 28th, 1888.

(5) "I know myself I am not prepared at any time to

forfeit my flag If I forfeit my lig, what have I left ? If you take away my flag, you take away every- thing."—Kimberley, September 6th, 1890.

(6) ' Well, we have made mistakes in the past in reference to. the neighbouring States, and if I had my will I would abolish that system of independent States, antagonistic to ourselves, south of the Zambesi."—Kimberley, March 20th, 1891.

[We gladly publish "C. B.'s " able defence of Mr. Rhodes, though we cannot agree with it, for we desire that our.

readers should hear both sides. We were not, in fact, alluding to the much disputed "Imperial factor" speech, but to the attitude assumed by Mr. Rhodes towards the Imperial Government and the Colonial Office directly after the close of the Matabele War. Our grounds for dis- trusting Mr. Rhodes's Imperialism, and for regarding it as an Imperialism for which the Empire has no use, are, however, wider than any petulance of speech in regard to the Home Government. We distrust him as an Imperialist. because—(1) he gave £10,000 to the Irish rebel party under Mr. Parnell when the defenders of the Union were engaged in a death-struggle with that party,—i.e., Mr. Rhodes handed the sinews of war to the Empire's deadliest enemy; (2)

he pampered the Bond, thbugh knowing all the time, as we now perceive, its true nature ; (3) he introduced into the

Empire that demoralising mixture of speculative com- mercialism and Imperialism which led, among other things,-to the crimes and blunders of the Matabeleland settlement and the Matabele revolt.; (4) he engineered, or, more correctly, muddled, the Jameson Raid, and so tied the hands of the Imperial Government for five years while the Boers were preparing their forces, and thus prevented us helping the Outlanders, though help was rightly due to them. "A Plague on such Imperialism" seems to us the necessary comment. What would

Imperialists have said if -before the war some capitalist

here, who professed to be an Imperialist, had given £10,000 to the leaders of the Baud? But the Bond was not so deadly .

an enemy of the Empire as Mr. Parnell and his National. League.—En. Sprelator.]

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