MR. LABOUCHERE'S COLLAPSE. -w E cannot congratulate Mr. Labouchere on the
result of his action in the South African Committee. It was clearly his duty after he had accepted a seat on that body not to express outside the Committee-room any opinion on subjects connected with the subject of inquiry. Unfortunately he paid no attention to this elementary principle in the matter of judicial investiga- tions, but wrote a letter to a French newspaper in which he made charges against the men whose doings he was investigating. When he was confronted with these charges, and with a series of more specific accusations which he brought against Dr. Rutherfoord Harris in Parliament, he failed to substantiate them, and has withdrawn them in the fullest and most unqualified manner. It cannot be denied that the incident is most unsatisfactory from several points of view. It is very unsatisfactory to have a member of a Parliamentary Committee first make charges, and then withdraw them because he has no proofs. (On the Friday before the withdrawal Mr. Labouchere in effect repeated the charges against Dr. Harris, and only asked to be allowed to prove them.) The effect on the attitude of the public towards the whole subject of the doings of the Chartered Company is even more unsatisfactory. People see that certain financial charges made against members of " the Rhodes group " have ignominiously collapsed, and they at once jump to the conclusion that Mr. Rhodes and his friends have been entirely cleared from all financial and interested motives in the matter of the Raid and the Revolution. They forget that Mr. Labouchere's failure to prove the prinui facie unlikely charge that Dr. Harris and Mr. Beit speculated on the supposition that the Raid would send down the Rand shares, does not disprove the allegation that Mr. Rhodes and his group were anxious to get hold of the Transvaal in order to work the mines under a regime which would be more favourable to the gold industry. In other words, the collapse of Mr. Labouchere's accu- sations does not prove that the Raid was inspired by a sense of high-souled philanthropy. There is reason to fear, however, that the public may think so, and that in this way the true significance of the inquiry and the evidence brought before it may be mis- construed.
Again, it cannot be said that the inquiry as a whole has been in any sense well managed. Though we readily admit that the Chairman has acted with great good sense, moderation, and fairness, and, in fact, just as one would wish a Chairman of such a Committee should act, there has been a lamentable lack of method and con- centration about the investigation. No one on the Corn- mittee seems to have any clear and definite feeling as to the points to be cleared up. On both sides there has been a desire to make " scores " either for or against Mr. Rhodes, but no special anxiety to arrive at definite conclusions. Witnesses have been allowed to ramble on about anything and everything. Unimportant points have been pursued with the utmost ingenuity and activity, while points of real moment have been left wholly untouched. The best way of realising the futility of much of the inquiry is to consider for a moment the object with which the Com- mittee was appointed. It was (1) to inquire into the origin of the Raid ; (2) to learn how the Chartered Company and its directors had carried out the great public trust which had been committed to their charge. In regard to the Raid, what the Committee required to know was whether the alleged defence given for the Raid was true or not. It is alleged that Mr. Rhodes, though he helped to prepare a revolution in Johannesburg, and kept a force on the border in case of eventualities, never dreamt of sending in Dr. Jameson in order to precipitate events or to make a revolution which would not otherwise have come off. It was the duty of the Committee to test this theory, and to find out also whether Mr. Rhodes's conduct before and after Dr. Jameson's start was con- sistent with the theory that he objected most strongly to the Raid taking place. Now we admit, of course, that the Committee have diligently dropped their questions into the pond in considerable numbers. What we complain of is that they have not thoroughly dragged the pond and made sure that there was no corner which had escaped their investigations. To obtain really satisfactory results the South African pond required far more deliberate and thorough attention than it received. What was wanted was not sportsmanlike angling. but the sterner work of those who fish not for pleasure but for business.
Is it too much to hope that when the Committee come to the second part of their inquiry—the administration and general action of the Chartered Company—they may take to a more thorough and businesslike way of conducting their work ? We have always held, and hold still, that though not so personal and sensational as the Raid, the administration of the Company was infinitely the more important matter before the Committee. The Raid is over, but the Company still continues its injurious, or beneficent, work, whichever it may turn out to be. As we have said above, a very great public trust was handed over to certain men,—to Mr. Rhodes, Mr. Beit, the Duke of Fife, the Duke of Abercorn, Lord Grey, and their co-directors. What the country wants to know is how this great trust has been discharged, whether its recipients did their duty fully and efficiently, or whether, through carelessness or idleness or want of good sense, they betrayed their trust. We make no suggestion as to how the investigation may result ; all we ask is that the investigation shall be thorough. That there is a prinui facie case for believing that the trust has not been carried out in the manner intended will, we think, be pretty generally admitted. Again, we think that it will be ad- mitted that men entrusted with the work of governing their fellows are engaged in a specially grave and important trust, and that a special solicitude and rectitude of action in the discharge of that trust must be exacted from them. You may allow a reckless, happy-go-lucky way of doing business in the directors of a soda-water manufacturing company which you cannot allow in those who control a. great province of the Empire, and in whose bands are placed powers of life and death. Nor should the Committee stop at the doings of the Company. We hold that they may, and indeed must, also consider the truth of the allegations that the Company was compromised in its origin, and that its financial basis was from the inception unsatisfactory. It may be utterly untrue that shares at par, at a time when those shares were at a premium, were distributed to people who were likely to be useful to the Company. We have hopes, indeed, after Mr. Labouchere's recent failure to prove his allegations, that this accusation may also prove unfounded. All these matters, however, require investigation, and directors like the Dukes of Fife and Abercorn and Lord Grey—who we fully admit are perfectly honourable, if careless or infatuated, men—should be the first to insist on the fullest inquiry. We have felt com- pelled to speak strongly in regard to the Duke of Fife, but it is needless to say that we have no desire to attack him on any personal grounds. We hold, indeed, that he gave his evidence in a manly and straightforward manner which did him credit, though in our opinion he erred greatly in not admitting that Mr. Rhodes's conduct had made him unworthy of trust. But though the Duke of Fife has shown himself so poor a judge of men, he must be, we are sure, anxious that not the slightest shadow of suspicion in regard to its administration or origin shall rest upon the Company with which his name is connected. We trust, therefore, that when the time comes he will have the good sense and firmness, however disagreeable the task may be, to insist upon the investigation into the Company's affairs being most thorough and complete. Mr. Labouchere may bring and retract a dozen new charges and accusations, but the failure of these must not for a moment be allowed to prevent the fullest and freest investigation into the manner in which the Chartered Company has discharged its task.
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