The Last Will and Testament of Cecil Rhodes/Part 2/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.—HIS CONVERSATIONS.
Since Mr. Rhodes’s death I have had opportunities of making a close inquiry among those who have been most intimately associated with him from his college days until his death, with this result. I found that to none of them had Mr. Rhodes spoken as fully, as intimately, and as frequently as he talked to me concerning his aims and the purposes to which he wished his wealth to be devoted after his death. This is not very surprising, because from the year 1891 till the year 1899 I was designated by Mr. Rhodes in the wills which preceded that of 1899 as the person who was charged with the distribution of the whole of his fortune. From 1891–3 I was one of two, from 1893 to 1899 one of three, to whom his money was left; but I was specifically appointed by him to direct the application of his property for the promotion of the ideas which we shared in common.
I first made the acquaintance of Mr. Rhodes in 1889. Although that was the first occasion on which I met him, or was aware of the ideas which he entertained, he had already for some years been one of the most enthusiastic of my readers—indeed, ever since I succeeded to the direction of the Pall Mall Gazette (when Mr. Morley entered Parliament in the year 1883), and began the advocacy of what I called the Imperialism of responsibility as opposed to Jingoism, which has been the note of everything that I have said or written ever since. It was in the Pall Mall Gazette that I published an article on Anglo-American reunion which brought me a much-prized letter from Russell Lowell, in which he said: “It is a beautiful dream, but it’s none the worse on that account. Almost all the best things that we have in the world to-day began by being dreams.” It was in the Pall Mall Gazette in those days that I conducted a continuous and passionate apostolate in favour of a closer union with the Colonies. It is amusing to look back at the old pages, and to find how the preservation of the trade route from the Cape to the Zambesi was stoutly contended for in the Pall Mall Gazette, and cynically treated by the Times. The ideal of associating the Colonies with us in the duty of Imperial Defence was another of the fundamental doctrines of what we called in those days “the Gospel according to the Pall Mall Gazette.” It was in the Pall Mall that we published “The Truth about the Navy,” and the Pall Mall, more than any other paper, was closely associated with the heroic tragedy of General Gordon’s mission to Khartoum.
Cecil Rhodes, brooding in intellectual solitude in the midst of the diamond diggers of Kimberley, welcomed with enthusiasm the Pall Mall Gazette. He found in it the crude ideas which he had embodied in his first will expressed from day to day with as great an enthusiasm as his own, and with a much closer application to the great movements which were moulding the contemporary history of the world. It is probable (although he never mentioned this) that the close personal friendship which existed between General Gordon and himself constituted a still closer tie between him and the editor of the journal whose interview had been instrumental in sending Gordon to Khartoum, and who through all the dark and dreary siege was the exponent of the ideas and the champion of the cause of that last of the Paladins. Whatever contributory causes there may have been, Mr. Rhodes always asserted that his own ideas had been profoundly modified and moulded by the Pall Mall Gazette.
But, as I said, it was not until 1889 that I was first introduced to him. As I had been interested in the expansion of British power in Africa and in the preservation of the trade route which rendered the northern expansion possible, I had constantly exerted myself in support of the ideas of Mr. Mackenzie, who was in more or less personal antagonism to the ideas of Mr. Rhodes. Mr. Mackenzie and Mr. Rhodes both wished to secure the northern territory. Mr. Rhodes believed in thrusting the authority of Cape Colony northward, and Mr. Mackenzie was equally emphatic about placing Bechuanaland under the direct authority of the Crown. This difference of method, although it produced much personal estrangement, in no way affected their devotion to their common ideal. As I was on Mr. Mackenzie’s side, I had nothing to do with Mr, Rhodes; and when Sir Charles Mills (then Cape Agent-General) first proposed that I should meet him, I was so far from realising what it meant that I refused. Sir Charles Mills repeated his invitation with a persistency and an earnestness which overcame my reluctance; I abandoned a previous engagement, and accepted his invitation to lunch, for the purpose of meeting Mr. Rhodes.
Mr. Rhodes, said Sir Charles Mills, wished to make my acquaintance before he returned to Africa. I met Mr. Rhodes at the Cape Agency, and was introduced to him by Sir Charles Mills on April 4th, 1889. After lunch, Sir Charles left us alone, and I had a three hours’ talk with Mr. Rhodes. To say that I was astonished by what he said to me is to say little. I had expected nothing—was indeed rather bored at the idea of having to meet him—and vexed at having to give up my previous engagement. But no sooner had Sir Charles Mills left the room than Mr. Rhodes fixed my attention by pouring out the long dammed-up flood of his ideas. Immediately after I left him I wrote:—
“I have never met a man who, upon broad Imperial matters, was so entirely of my way of thinking.”
On my expressing my surprise that we should be in such agreement, he laughed and said—
“It is not to be wondered at, because I have taken my ideas from the Pall Mall Gazette.”
The paper permeated South Africa, he said, and he had met it everywhere. He then told me what surprised me not a little, and what will probably come to many of those who admire him to-day with a certain shock.
He said that although he had read regularly the Pall Mall Gazette in South Africa, it was not until the year 1885 that he had realised that the editor of the paper, whose ideas he had assimilated so eagerly, was a person who was capable of defending his principles regardless of considerations of his own ease and safety. But when in 1885 I published “The Maiden Tribute” and went to gaol for what I had done, he felt, ‘‘Here is the man I want—one who has not only the right principles, but is more anxious to promote them than to save his own skin.” He tried to see me, drove up to Holloway Gaol and asked to be admitted, was refused, and drove away in a pretty fume. Lord Russell of Killowen had the same experience, with the same result. No one can see a prisoner without an order from the Home Office.
Mr. Rhodes did not tell me what I learned only since his death, from Mr. Maguire, that the solitary occasion on which he ever entered Exeter Hall was when, together with Mr. Maguire, he attended an indignation meeting, called to protest against my imprisonment, which was addressed, among others, by Mrs. Josephine Butler and Mrs. Fawcett.
He left for Africa without seeing me; but on his return in 1889 he said he would not sail until he had met me and told me all his plans. Hence he had made Sir Charles Mills arrange this interview in order to talk to me about them all, and specially to discuss how he could help me to strengthen and extend my influence as editor.
Writing to my wife immediately after I had left him, I said:—
“Mr. Rhodes is my man.
“I have just had three hours’ talk with him.
“He is full of a far more gorgeous idea in connection with the paper than even I have had. I cannot tell you his scheme, because it is too secret. But it involves millions. . . . He expects to own, before he dies, four or five millions, all of which he will leave to carry out the scheme of which the paper is an integral part. . . . His ideas are federation, expansion, and consolidation of the Empire.
“He is . . . . about thirty-five, full of ideas, and regarding money only as a means to work his ideas. He believes more in wealth and endowments than I do. He is not religious in the ordinary sense, but has a deeply religious conception of his duty to the world, and thinks he can best serve it by working for England. He took to me; told me things he has told to no other man, save X. . . . It seems all like a fairy dream.”
It is not very surprising that it had that appearance. Never before or since had I met a millionaire who calmly declared his intention to devote all his millions to carry out the ideas which I had devoted my life to propagate.
Mr. Rhodes was intensely sympathetic, and like most sympathetic people he would shut up like an oyster when he found that his ideas on “deep things” which were near to his heart moved listeners to cynicism or to sneers.
He was almost apologetic about his suggestion that his wealth might be useful. ‘‘Don’t despise money,” he said. “Your ideas are all right, but without money you can do nothing.” “The twelve apostles did not find it so,” I said; and so the talk went on. He expounded to me his ideas about underpinning the Empire by a Society which would be to the Empire what the Society of Jesus was to the Papacy, and we talked on and on, upon very deep things indeed.
Before we parted we had struck up a firm friendship which stood the strain even of the Raid and the War on his part and of “Shall I Slay my Brother Boer?” and “Hell Let Loose” on mine. From that moment I felt I understood Rhodes. I, almost alone, had the key to the real Rhodes, and I felt that from that day it was my duty and my privilege to endeavour to the best of my ability to interpret him to the world.
It was in 1889, at our first interview, that he expounded to me the basis of his creed. I did not publish it till November, 1899. Although it was issued during his lifetime, it provoked from him neither publicly nor privately any protest, criticism, or correction.
I therefore think that my readers will be glad to be afforded an opportunity of seeing what I wrote in October, 1899, which I reprint exactly as it was published.
HIS RELIGION.
Mr. Rhodes’s conception of his duties to his fellow-men rests upon a foundation as distinctly ethical and theistic as that of the old Puritans. If you could imagine an emperor of old Rome crossed with one of Cromwell’s Ironsides, and the result brought up at the feet of Ignatius Loyola, you would have an amalgam not unlike that which men call Cecil Rhodes. The idea of the State, the Empire, and the supreme allegiance which it has a right to claim from all its subjects, is as fully developed in him as in Augustus or in Trajan. But deep underlying all this there is the strong, earnest, religious conception of the Puritan. Mr. Rhodes is not, in the ordinary sense of the word, a religious man. He was born in a rectory, and, like many other clergymen’s sons, he is no great Churchman. He has an exaggerated idea of the extent to which modern research has pulverised the authority of the Bible; and, strange though it may appear to those who only know him as the destroyer of Lobengula, his moral sense revolts against accepting the Divine origin of the Hebrew writings which exult over the massacre of the Amalekites. In the doctrine of eternal torment he is an out-and-out unbeliever. Upon many questions relating to the other world his one word is Agnostic—“I do not know.” But on the question of Hell he is quite sure he knows, and he knows that it is not true. Indeed, it is his one negative dogma, which he holds with astonishing vigour and certitude. It conflicts with his fundamental conception of the nature of things. Whatever may be or may not be, that cannot be.
HIS MEDITATIONS.
It may appear strange to those who only realise Mr. Rhodes as a successful empire-builder, or a modern Midas, at whose touch everything turns to gold, to hear that the great Afrikander is much given to pondering seriously questions which, in the rush and hurry of modern life, most men seldom give themselves time to ask, much less to answer. But as Mohammed spent much time in the solitude of his cave before he emerged to astonish the world with the revelation of the Koran, so Cecil Rhodes meditated much in the years while he was washing dirt for diamonds under the South African stars. He is still a man much given to thinking over things. He usually keeps three or four subjects going at one time, and he sticks to them. At present he has on his mind the development of Rhodesia, the laying of the telegraph line to Tanganyika, the Cape to Cairo railway, and the ultimate federation of South Africa. These four objects preoccupy him. He does not allow himself to be troubled with correspondence. He receives letters and loses them sometimes, but answers them never.
In the earlier days, before he was known, he kept his thoughts to himself. But he thought much; and the outcome of his thinking is making itself felt more and more every day in the development of Africa.
THE SEARCH FOR THE SUPREME IDEAL.
When Mr. Rhodes was an undergraduate at Oxford, he was profoundly impressed by a saying of Aristotle as to the importance of having an aim in life sufficiently lofty to justify your spending your life in endeavouring to reach it. He went back to Africa wondering what his aim in life should be, knowing only one thing: that whatever it was, he had not found it. For him that supreme ideal was still to seek. So he fell a-thinking. The object to which most of those who surrounded him eagerly dedicated their lives was the pursuit of wealth. For that they were ready to sacrifice all. Was it worth it? Did the end, even when attained, justify the expenditure of one’s life? To answer that question he looked at the men who had succeeded, who had made their pile, who had attained the goal which he was proposing he should make his own. What he saw was men who, with hardly an exception, did not know what use to make of the wealth they had spent their lives in acquiring. They had encumbered themselves with money-bags, and they spent all their time in taking care of them. Other object in life they seemed to have none. Wealth, for which they had given the best years of their life, was only a care, not a joy—a source of anxiety, not a sceptre of power. “If that is all, it is not good enough,” thought Rhodes.
IN POLITICS.
Then his thoughts turned to politics. Why not devote his life to the achievement of a political career? He might succeed if he tried. Rhodes seldom doubts his capacity to succeed when he tries. Again he looked at the ultimate. In South Africa the top of the tree was represented by the Cape Premiership. What kind of men are Cape Premiers? He had known some of them. They were men who had alternate spells of office and opposition. Most of them were mediocrities; few of them had power, even when they held place. They were dependent for their political existence upon the goodwill of followers whom they had to wheedle or cajole. The position did not seem enviable; so once more Rhodes decided “it was not good enough.” ‘The true goal was still to seek.
IN THE CHURCHES.
The House in which Cecil Rhodes was born.
(By kind permission of Wm. Blackwood and Sons.)
A DARWINIAN IN SEARCH OF GOD.
So he went on digging for diamonds, and musing, as he digged, on the eternal verities, the truth which underlies all phenomena. He was a Darwinian; he believed in evolution. But was it reasonable to believe that the chain of sentient existences which stretched unbroken from the marine Ascidean to man, stopped abruptly with the human race? ‘‘Was it not at least thinkable that there are Intelligences in the universe as much my superior in intellect as I am superior to the dog?” “Why should man be the terminus of the process of evolution?” So he reasoned, as all serious souls have reasoned long before Darwin was heard of.
Reincarnation, the possibility of an existence prior to this mortal life, did not interest him. “Life is too short, after all,” he used to say, “to worry about previous lives. From the cradle to the grave—what is it? Three days at the seaside. Just that and nothing more. But although it is only three days, we must be doing something. I cannot spend my time throwing stones into the water. But what is worth while doing?” Then upon him there grew more and more palpably real, at least as a possibility, that the teachings of all the seers, of all the religions, were based on solid fact, and that after all there was a God who reigned over all the children of men, and who, moreover, would exact a strict account for all the deeds which they did in the body. He combated the notion; but the balance of authority was against him. All religions, in all times—surely the universal instinct of the race had something to justify it!
A FIFTY PER CENT. CHANCE.
Mr. Rhodes argued the matter out in his cool, practical way, and decided the question for himself once for all. He did not surrender his agnostic position, but he decided that it was at least an even chance that there might be a God. Further than that he did not go. A fifty-per-cent. chance that there is a God Almighty is very far removed from the confident certainty of “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” But a fifty-per-cent. chance God fully believed in is worth more as a factor in life than a forty-per-cent. faith in the whole Christian creed.
“WHAT WOULDST THOU HAVE ME TO DO?”
Mr. and Mrs. Maguire.
WHAT IS HE DOING?
Mr. Rhodes, as I have said, is a Darwinian. He believes in the gospel of evolution, of the survival of the fittest, of progress by natural selection. With such outfit as this, he set himself in his diamond-hole to attempt the solution of the oldest of all problems. “If there be a God, and if He cares anything about what I do, then,” said Rhodes to himself, “I think I shall not be far wrong in concluding that He would like me to do pretty much as He is doing—to work on the same lines towards the same end. Therefore, the first thing for me to do is to try to find out what God—if there be a God—is doing in this world; what are His instruments, what lines is He going on, and what is He aiming at. The next thing, then, for me to do is to do the same thing, use the same instruments, follow the same lines, and aim at the same mark to the best of my ability.”
Having thus cleared the way, Mr. Rhodes put on his thinking cap and endeavoured to puzzle out answers to these questions. It sounds somewhat profane, the way in which he puts it; but in its essence, is it not the way in which all earnest souls, each according to his own light, have endeavoured to probe the mystery of the universe? Is not the supreme profanity not the use of mundane dialect to describe the process, but rather the failure to put the question at all?
(1) THE DIVINE AREA OF ACTION.
The first thing that impressed Mr. Rhodes, as the result of a survey of the ways of God to man, is that the Deity must look at things on a comprehensive scale. If Mr. Rhodes thinks in continents, his Maker must at least think in planets. In other words, the Divine plan must be at least co-extensive with the human race. If there be a God at all who cares about us, He cares for the whole of us, not for an elect few in a corner. Whatever instrument He uses must be one that is capable of influencing the whole race. Hence the range of the instrument, or, as a Papist would say, the catholicity of the Church, is one of the first credentials of its Divine origin and authority. Hole-and-corner plans of salvation, theological or political, are out of court. If we can discover the traces of the Divine plan, it must be universal, and that agency or constitution which most nearly approximates to it in the universality of its influence bears the Divine trade-mark.
(2) THE DIVINE METHOD.
This conception of the Divine credentials seemed to Mr. Rhodes to be immediately fatal to the pretensions of all the Churches. They may be all very good in their way,[3] but one and all are sectional. The note of catholicity is everywhere lacking. Even the Roman Catholic but touches a decimal of the race. Besides, all the Churches are but of yesterday. They belong to the latest phase of human evolution. What Mr. Rhodes was after was something older and more universal. He found it in the doctrine of evolution. Here, at least, was a law or uniform method of Divine procedure which in point of view of antiquity left nothing to be desired, and which at this present moment is universally active among all sentient beings. What is the distinctive feature of that doctrine? The perfection of the species, attained by the elimination of the unfit; the favourable handicapping of the fit. The most capable species survives, the least capable goes to the wall. The perfecting of the fittest species among the animals, or of races among men, and then the conferring upon the perfected species or race the title-deeds of the future; that seemed to Mr. Rhodes, through his Darwinian spectacles, the way in which God is governing His world, has governed it, and will continue to govern it, so far as we can foresee the future.
(3) THE DIVINE INSTRUMENT.
The planet being postulated as the area of the Divine activity, and the perfecting of the race by process of natural selection, and the struggle for existence being recognised as the favourite instruments of the Divine Ruler, the question immediately arose as to which race at the present time seems most likely to be the Divine instrument in carrying out the Divine idea over the whole of this planet. The answer may seem to Chauvinists obvious enough. But Mr. Rhodes is not a Chauvinist. He was conducting a serious examination into a supremely important question, and he would take nothing for granted. There are various races of mankind—the Yellow, the Black, the Brown, and the White. If the test be numerical, the Yellow race comes first. But if the test be the area of the world and the power to control its destinies, the primacy of the White race is indisputable. The Yellow race is massed thick on one half of a single continent: the White exclusively occupies Europe, practically occupies the Americas, is colonising Australia, and is dominating Asia. In the struggle for existence the White race had unquestionably come out on top.
The White race being thus favourably handicapped by the supreme Handicapper, the next question was which of the White races is naturally selected for survival—which is proving itself most fit in the conditions of its environment to defeat adverse influences and to preserve persistently its distinctive type?
(4) THE DIVINE IDEAL.
At this point in the analysis Mr. Rhodes dropped for the moment the first line of inquiry to take up another, which might lead him more directly to his goal. What is it that God—if there be a God—is aiming at? What is the ultimate aim of all this process of evolution? What is the Divine ideal towards which all creation presses, consciously or unconsciously? To find out the ultimate destination of sentient creatures may be difficult or even impossible; but the only clue which we have to the drift of the Divine action is to note the road by which He has led us hitherto, to see how far we have got already. Then we may be in a position to infer, with some degree of probability, the route that has still to be travelled. If, therefore, we wish to see where we are tending, the first thing to do is to examine those who are in advance. We do not go back to the ape, the Bushman, or the Pigmy to see the trend of evolution. We go rather to the foremost of mankind, the most cultured specimens of the civilised race, the best men, in short, of whom we have any records or knowledge since history began. What these exceptionally—it may be prematurely—evolved individuals have attained is a prophecy of what the whole phalanx of humanity may be destined to reach. They are the highwater mark of the race up till now. Progress will consist in bringing mankind up to their level.
THE THREEFOLD TEST: JUSTICE—LIBERTY—PEACE.
Proceeding further in his examination of the foremost and most highly evolved specimens of the race, Mr. Rhodes found them distinguished among their fellows by certain moral qualities which enable us to form some general conception as to the trend of evolution. Contemplating the highest realised standard of human perfection, Mr. Rhodes formed the idea that the cue to the Divine purpose was to discover the race which would be most likely to universalise certain broad general principles. “What,” asked Mr. Rhodes, “is the highest thing in the world? Is it not the idea of Justice? I know none higher. Justice between man and man—equal, absolute, impartial, fair play to all; that surely must be the first note of a perfected society. But, secondly, there must be Liberty, for without freedom there can be no justice. Slavery in any form which denies a man a right to be himself, and to use all his faculties to their best advantage, is, and must always be, unjust. And the third note of the ultimate towards which our race is bending must surely be that of Peace, of the industrial commonwealth as opposed to the military clan or fighting Empire.” Anyhow, these three seemed to Mr. Rhodes sufficient to furnish him with a metewand wherewith to measure the claims of the various races of the world to be regarded as the Divine instrument of future evolution. Justice, Liberty, and Peace—these three. Which race in the world most promotes, over the widest possible area, a state of society having these three as corner-stones?
Who is to decide the question? Let all the races vote and see what they will say. Each race will no doubt vote for itself, but who receives every second vote? Mr. Rhodes had no hesitation in arriving at the conclusion that the English race—the English-speaking man, whether British, American, Australian, or South African—is the type of the race which does now, and is likely to continue to do in the future, the most practical, effective work to establish justice, to promote liberty, and to ensure peace over the widest possible area of the planet.
QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM!
“Therefore,” said Mr. Rhodes to himself in his curious way, “if there be a God, and He cares anything about what I do, I think it is clear that He would like me to do what He is doing Himself. And as He is manifestly fashioning the English-speaking race as the chosen instrument by which He will bring in a state of society based upon Justice, Liberty and Peace, He must obviously wish me to do what I can to give as much scope and power to that race as possible. Hence,” so he concludes this long argument, “if there be a God, I think that what He would like me to do is to paint as much of the map of Africa British red as possible, and to do what I can elsewhere to promote the unity and extend the influence of the English-speaking race.”
Mr. Rhodes had found his longed-for ideal, nor has he ever since then had reason to complain that it was not sufficiently elevated or sufficiently noble to be worth the devotion of his whole life.
The passage in Aristotle which exercised so much influence upon the Oxford undergraduate was his definition of virtue, “Virtue is the highest activity of the soul living for the highest object in a perfect life.” That, he said, had always seemed to him the noblest rule to follow, and he made it his rule from the first. I kept no written notes of that memorable conversation. But the spirit and drift of our talk the following extract from a letter which I wrote to Mr. Rhodes three months later may suffice to illustrate:—
“I have been thinking a great deal since I first saw you about your great idea” (that of the Society, which he certainly did not take from the Pall Mall Gazette), “and the more I think the more it possesses me, and the more I am shut up to the conclusion that the best way in which I can help towards its realisation is, as you said in a letter to me last month, by working towards the paper. . . . If, as it seems to me, your idea and mine is in its essence the undertaking according to our lights to rebuild the City of God and reconstitute in the nineteenth century some modern equivalent equipped with modern appliances of the Mediæval Church of the ninth century on a foundation as broad as Humanity, then some preliminary inspection of the planet would seem almost indispensable.”
Any immediate action in this direction, however, was postponed until he made a success of Mashonaland. He wrote, “If we made a success of this, it would be doubly easy to carry out the programme which I sketched out to you, a part of which would be the paper.”
So he wrote from Lisbon on his way out. A year later (November 25th, 1890) he wrote:—
“My dear Stead,—I am getting on all right, and you must remember that I am going on with the same ideas as we discussed after lunch at Sir Charles Mills’. . . . I am sorry I never met Booth. I understand what he is exactly. . . . When I come home again I must meet Cardinal Manning, but I am waiting until I make my Charter a success before we attempt our Society—you can understand.”
By the time this letter reached me I was leaving the Pall Mall Gazette and preparing for the publication of the first number of the Review of Reviews. It was an enterprise in which Mr. Rhodes took the keenest interest. The first number was issued on January 15th, 1891. He regarded it as a practical step towards the realisation of his great idea, the reunion of the English-speaking world through the agency of a central organ served in every part of the world by affiliated Helpers.
This interest he preserved to the last. He told me with great glee when last in England how he had his copy smuggled into Kimberley during the siege at a time when martial law forbade its circulation, and although he made wry faces over some of my articles, he was to the end keenly interested in its success.
After this explanation I venture to inflict upon my readers some extracts from the opening address “To all English-speaking Folk,” which appeared in the first number of the Review of Reviews. Possibly they may read it to-day with more understanding of its significance, and of what lay behind in the thought of the writer. Mr. Rhodes regarded it, he used to say, as “an attempt to realise our ideas,” for after the first talk with him when he touched upon these “deep things,” it was never “my ideas” or “your ideas,” but always “our ideas.” Bearing that in mind, glance over a few brief extracts from the manifesto with which this periodical was launched into the world:—
To all English-Speaking Folk.
There exists at this moment no institution which even aspires to be to the English-speaking world what the Catholic Church in its prime was to the intelligence of Christendom. To call attention to the need for such an institution, adjusted, of course, to the altered circumstances of the New Era, to enlist the co-operation of all those who will work towards the creation of some such common centre for the inter-communication of ideas, and the universal diffusion of the ascertained results of human experience in a form accessible to all men, are the ultimate objects for which this Review has been established.
We shall be independent of party, because, having a very clear and intelligible faith, we survey the struggles of contending parties from the standpoint of a consistent body of doctrine, and steadily seek to use all parties for the realisation of our ideals.
These ideals are unmistakably indicated by the upward trend of human progress and our position in the existing economy of the world. Among all the agencies for the shaping of the future of the human race none seem so potent now and still more hereafter as the English-speaking man. Already he begins to dominate the world. The Empire and the Republic comprise within their limits almost all the territory that remains empty for the overflow of the world. Their citizens, with all their faults, are leading the van of civilisation, and if any great improvements are to be made in the condition of mankind, they will necessarily be leading instruments in the work. Hence our first starting-point will be a deep and almost awestruck regard for the destinies of the English-speaking man. To use Milton’s famous phrase, faith in “God’s Englishmen” will be our inspiring principle. To make the Englishman worthy of his immense vocation, and, at the same time, to help to hold together and strengthen the political ties which at present link all English-speaking communities save one in a union which banishes all dread of internecine war, to promote by every means a fraternal union with the American Republic, to work for the Empire, to seek to strengthen it, to develop it, and, when necessary, to extend it, these will be our plainest duties.
Imperialism within limits defined by common sense and the Ten Commandments is a very different thing from the blatant Jingoism which some years ago made the very name of empire stink in the nostrils of all decent people. The sobering sense of the immense responsibilities of our Imperial position is the best prophylactic for the frenzies of Jingoism. And in like manner the sense of the lamentable deficiencies and imperfections of ‘‘God’s Englishmen,” which results from a strenuous attempt to make them worthy of their destinies, is the best preservative against that odious combination of cant and arrogance which made Heine declare that the Englishman was the most odious handiwork of the Creator. To interpret to the English-speaking race the best thought of the other peoples is one among the many services which we would seek to render to the Empire.
We believe in God, in England, and in Humanity. The English-speaking race is one of the chief of God’s chosen agents for executing coming improvements in the lot of mankind. If all those who see that could be brought into hearty union to help all that tends to make that race more fit to fulfil its providential mission, and to combat all that hinders or impairs that work, such an association or secular order would constitute a nucleus or rallying point for all that is most vital in the English world, the ultimate influence of which it would be difficult to overrate.
This is the highest of all the functions to which we aspire. Our supreme duty is the winnowing out by a process of natural selection, and enlisting for hearty service for the commonweal all those who possess within their hearts the sacred fire of patriotic devotion to their country.
Who is there among the people who has truth in him, who is no self-seeker, who is no coward, and who is capable of honest, painstaking effort to help his country? For such men we would search as for hid treasures. They are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and it is the duty and the privilege of the wise man to see that they are like cities set on the hill which cannot be hid.
The great word which has now to be spoken in the ears of the world is that the time has come when men and women must work for the salvation of the State with as much zeal and self-sacrifice as they now work for the salvation of the individual. To save the country from the grasp of demons innumerable, to prevent this Empire or this Republic becoming an incarnate demon of lawless ambition and cruel love of gold, how many men or women are willing to spend even one hour a month or a year? The religious side of politics has not yet entered the minds of men.
What is wanted is a revival of civic faith, a quickening of spiritual life in the political sphere, the inspiring of men and women with the conception of what may be done towards the salvation of the world, if they will but bring to bear upon public affairs the same spirit of self-sacrificing labour that so many thousands manifest in the ordinary drudgery of parochial and evangelistic work. It may, no doubt, seem an impossible. dream.
That which we really wish to found among our readers is in very truth a civic church, every member of which should zealously—as much as it lay within him—preach the true faith, and endeavour to make it operative in the hearts and heads of its neighbours. Were such a church founded it would be as a great voice sounding out over sea and land the summons to all men to think seriously and soberly of the public life in which they are called to fill a part. Visible in many ways is the decadence of the Press. The mentor of the young democracy has abandoned philosophy, and stuffs the ears of its Telemachus with descriptions of Calypso’s petticoats and the latest scandals from the Court. All the more need, then, that there should be a voice which, like that of the muezzin from the Eastern minaret, would summon the faithful to the duties imposed by their belief.
This, it may be said, involves a religious idea, and when religion is introduced harmonious co-operation is impossible. That was so once; it will not always be the case.
To establish a periodical circulating throughout the English-speaking world, with its affiliates or associates in every town, and its correspondents in every village, read as men used to read their Bibles, not to waste an idle hour, but to discover the will of God and their duty to man, whose staff and readers alike are bound together by a common faith and a readiness to do common service for a common end—that, indeed, is an object for which it is worth while to make some sacrifice. Such a publication so supported would be at once an education and an inspiration; and who can say, looking at the present condition of England and of America, that it is not needed?
That was my idea as I expressed it. That was Mr. Rhodes’s idea also. It was “our idea”—his idea of the secret society—broadened and made presentable to the public without in any way revealing the esoteric truth that lay behind. Mr. Rhodes recognised this and eagerly welcomed it.
Mr. Rhodes returned to England in 1891, and the day after his arrival he came round to Mowbray House and talked for three hours concerning his plans, his hopes, and his ideas. Fortunately, immediately after he left I dictated to my secretary a full report of the conversation, which, as usual, was very discursive and ranged over a great number of subjects of the day. It was in this conversation, after a close and prolonged argument, that he expressed his readiness to adopt the course from which he had at first recoiled—viz., that of securing the unity of the English-speaking race by consenting to the absorption of the British Empire in the American Union if it could not be secured in any other way. In his first dream he clung passionately to the idea of British ascendency—this was in 1877—in the English-speaking union of which he then thought John Bull was to be the predominant partner. But in 1891, abandoning in no whit his devotion to his own country, he expressed his deliberate conviction that English-speaking reunion was so great an end in itself as to justify even the sacrifice of the monarchical features and isolated existence of the British Empire. At our first conversation in 1889 he had somewhat demurred to this frank and logical acceptance of the consequences of his own principles; but in 1891 all hesitation disappeared, and from that moment the ideal of English-speaking reunion assumed its natural and final place as the centre of his political aspirations. He resumed very eagerly his conversation as to the realisation of his projects. He was in high spirits, and expressed himself as delighted with the work which I had done in founding the Review of Reviews, and especially with the effort which was made to secure the co-operation of the more public-spirited persons of our way of thinking in every constituency in the country, which formed the inspiration of the Association of Helpers.
“You have begun,” said he, “to realise my idea. In the Review and the Association of Helpers you have made the beginning which is capable afterwards of being extended so as to carry out our idea.”
We then discussed the persons who should be taken into our confidence. At that time he assured me he had spoken of it to no one, with the exception of myself and two others. He authorised me to communicate with two friends, now members of the Upper House, who were thoroughly in sympathy with the gospel according to the Pall Mall Gazette, and who had been as my right and left hands during my editorship of that paper.
He entered at considerable length into the question of the disposition of his fortune after his death. He said that if he were to die then the whole of his money was left absolutely at the disposition of “X.”
“But,” he said, “the thought torments me sometimes when I wake at night that if I die all my money will pass into the hands of a man who, however well-disposed, is absolutely incapable of understanding my ideas. I have endeavoured to explain them to him, but I could see from the look on his face that it made no impression, that the ideas did not enter his mind, and that I was simply wasting my time.”
Mr. Rhodes went on to say that his friend’s son was even less sympathetic than the father, and he spoke with pathos of the thought of his returning to the world after he was dead and seeing none of his money applied to the uses for the sake of which he had made his fortune.
Therefore, he went on to say, he proposed to add my name to that of “X.,” and to leave at the same time a letter which would give “X.” to understand that the money was to be disposed of by me, in the assured conviction that I should employ every penny of his millions in promoting the ideas to which we had both dedicated our lives.
I was somewhat startled at this, and remarked that “X.” would be considerably amazed when he found himself saddled with such a joint-heir as myself, and I suggested to Mr. Rhodes that he had better explain the change which he was making in his will to “X.” while he was here in London.
“No,” he said, “my letter will make it quite plain to him.”
“Well,” I said, “but there may be trouble. When the will is opened, and he discovers that the money is left really at my disposition, instead of at his, there may be ructions.”
“I don’t mind that,” said Mr. Rhodes; “I shall be gone then.”
The will then drawn up was revoked in 1893.
In 1892 Mr. Rhodes was back in London, and again the question of the disposition of his fortune came up, and he determined to make a fifth will. Before he gave his final instructions he discussed with me the question whether there should not be a third party added, so that we should be three. We discussed one or two names, and he afterwards told me that he had added Mr. Hawksley as a third party. His reasons for doing this were that he liked Mr. Hawksley, and had explained, expounded, and discussed his views with him, and found him sympathetic. He went on to say:—“I think it is best that it should be left so. You know my ideas, and will carry them out. But there will be a great deal of financial administration that “X.” will look after. Many legal questions will be involved, and these you can safely leave in the hands of Mr. Hawksley.”
And so it was that when the fifth will, drafted in 1892, was signed by Mr. Rhodes in 1893, “X.,” Mr. Hawksley and myself were left sole executors and joint-heirs of Mr. Rhodes’s fortune, with the understanding that I was the custodian of the Rhodesian ideas, that I was to decide as to the method in which the money was to be used according to these ideas, subject to the advice of ‘‘X.” on financial matters, and of Mr. Hawksley on matters of law.
In 1894 Mr. Rhodes came to England and again discussed with me the working of the scheme, reported to me his impressions of the various Ministers and leaders of Opposition whom he met, discussing each of them from the point of view as to how far he would assist in carrying out “our ideas.” We also discussed together various projects for propaganda, the formation of libraries, the creation of lectureships, the despatch of emissaries on missions of propagandism throughout the Empire, and the steps to be taken to pave the way for the foundation and the acquisition of a newspaper which was to be devoted to the service of the cause. There was at one time a discussion of a proposal to endow the Association of Helpers with the annual income of £5,000, but Mr. Rhodes postponed the execution of this scheme until he was able to make the endowment permanent. He was heavily drawn upon in the development of Rhodesia; he did not wish to realise his securities just then, but he entered with the keenest interest into all these projects.
“I tell you everything,” he said to me; “I tell you all my plans. You tell me all your schemes, and when we get the northern country settled we shall be able to carry them out. It is necessary,” he added, “that I should tell you all my ideas, in order that you may know what to do if I should go. But,” he went on, “I am still full of vigour and life, and I don’t expect that I shall require anyone but myself to administer my money for many years to come.”
It was at an interview in January, 1895, that Mr. Rhodes first announced to me his intention to found scholarships. It is interesting to compare the first draft of his intentions with the final form in which it was given in his will of 1899 and its codicil of 1900. He told me that when he was on the Red Sea in 1893 a thought suddenly struck him that it would be a good thing to create a number of scholarships tenable at a residential English University, that should be open to the various British Colonies. He proposed to found twelve scholarships every year, each tenable for three years, of the value of £250 a year, to be held at Oxford. He said he had added a codicil to his will making provision for these scholarships, which would entail an annual charge upon his estate of about £10,000 a year. He explained that there would be three for French Canadians and three for British. Each of the Australasian Colonies, including Western Australia and Tasmania, was to have three—that is to say, one each year; but the Cape, because it was his own Colony, was to have twice as many scholarships as any other Colony. This, he said, he had done in order to give us, as his executors and heirs, a friendly lead as to the kind of thing he wanted done with his money. The scholarships were to be tenable at Oxford.
When Mr. Rhodes left England in February, 1895, he was at the zenith of his power. Alike in London and in South Africa, every obstacle seemed to bend before his determined will. It was difficult to say upon which political party he could count with greater confidence for support. He was independent of both parties, and on terms of more or less cordial friendship with one or two leaders in both of the alternative Governments. In Rhodesia the impis of Lobengula had been shattered, and a territory as large as the German Empire had been won for civilisation at a cost both in blood and treasure which is in signal contrast to the expenditure incurred for such expeditions when directed from Downing Street. When he left England everything seemed to point to his being able to carry out his greater scheme, when we should be able to have undertaken the propagation of “our ideas” on a wider scale throughout the world.
And then, upon this fair and smiling prospect, the abortive conspiracy in Johannesburg of the Raid cast its dark and menacing shadow over the scene. No one in all England had more reason than I to regret the diversion of Mr. Rhodes’s energies from the path which he had traced for himself. Who can imagine to what pinnacle of greatness Mr. Rhodes might not have risen if the natural and normal pacific development of South Africa, which was progressing so steadily under his enlightened guidance, had not been rudely interrupted by the fiasco for which Mr. Rhodes was not primarily responsible.
It was what seemed to me the inexplicable desire of Mr. Rhodes to obtain Bechuanaland as a jumping-off place which led to the first divergence of view between him and myself on the subject of South African policy. The impetuosity with which his emissaries pressed for the immediate transfer of Bechuanaland to the Chartered Company made me very uneasy, and I resolutely opposed the cession of the jumping-off place subsequently used by Dr. Jameson as a base for his Raid. Mr. Rhodes was very wroth, and growled like an angry bear at what he regarded as my perversity in objecting to a cession of territory for which I could see no reason, but which he thought it ought to have been enough for me that he desired it. My opposition was unfortunately unavailing.
In the two disastrous years which followed the Raid, although I saw Mr. Rhodes frequently, we talked little or nothing about his favourite Society. More pressing questions preoccupied our attention. I regretted that Mr. Rhodes was not sent to gaol, and told him so quite frankly.
For reasons which need not be stated, as they are sufficiently obvious, no attempt was made to bring Mr. Rhodes to justice. His superiors were publicly whitewashed, while the blow fell heavily upon his subordinates. When Mr. Rhodes came back to “face the music” he fully expected that he would be imprisoned, and had even planned out a course of reading by which he hoped to improve the enforced sojourn in a convict cell.
Through all that trying time I can honestly say that I did my level best to help my friend out of the scrape in which he had placed himself without involving the nation at the same time in the disaster which subsequently overtook it. My endeavour to induce all parties to tell the truth and to shoulder the modicum of blame attaching to each for his share of the conspiracy failed. Mr. Rhodes was offered up as a scapegoat. But although differing so widely on the vital question with which was bound up the future of South Africa, my relations with Mr. Rhodes remained as affectionate and intimate as ever. The last time I saw him before the war broke out we had a long talk, which failed to bring us to agreement. Mr. Rhodes said that he had tried his hand at settling the Transvaal business, but he had made such a mess of it that he absolutely refused to take any initiative in the matter again. The question was now in the hands of Lord Milner, and he appealed to me to support my old colleague, for whose nomination as High Commissioner I was largely responsible. I said that while I would support Milner in whatever policy he thought fit to pursue, so long as he confined himself to measures of peace, I could not believe, even on his authority, that the situation in South Africa would justify an appeal to arms. Mr. Rhodes replied:—
“You will support Milner in any measure that he may take short of war. I make no such limitation. I support Milner absolutely without reserve. If he says peace, I say peace; if he says war, I say war. Whatever happens, I say ditto to Milner.”
In justice to Mr. Rhodes it must be said that he was firmly convinced that President Kruger would yield, and that no resort to arms would be necessary. He went to South Africa and I went to the Hague, and we did not meet again until after the siege of Kimberley.
It was in July, 1899, before the outbreak of the war, that Mr. Rhodes revoked his will of 1891, and substituted for it what is now known as his last will and testament. It is probable that the experience which we had gained since the Raid of the difficulties of carrying out his original design led him to recast his will to give it a scope primarily educational, instead of leaving the whole of his estate to me and my joint heirs to be applied as I thought best for the furtherance of his political idea. Anyhow, the whole scheme was recast. Trustees were appointed for carrying out various trusts, all of which, however, did not absorb more than half of the income of his estate. The idea which found expression in all his earlier wills reappeared solely in the final clause appointing his trustees and executors joint-heirs of the residue of the estate.
In selecting the executors, trustees and joint-heirs Mr. Rhodes substituted the name of Lord Grey for that of “X.,” re-appointed Mr. Hawksley and myself, strengthened the financial element by adding the names of Mr. Beit and Mr. Michell, of the Standard Bank of South Africa, and then crowned the edifice by adding the name of Lord Rosebery. As the will stood at the beginning of the war, there were six executors, trustees, and joint-heirs—to wit, Mr. Hawksley and myself, representing the original legatees, Lord Rosebery, Lord Grey, Mr. Beit, and Mr. Michell.
Many discussions took place during the framing of this will. In those preliminary discussions I failed to induce Mr. Rhodes to persevere in his original intention to allow the scholarships to be held equally at Oxford and Cambridge, and therein I think Mr. Rhodes was right. I was more fortunate, however, in inducing him to extend the scope of his scholarships so as to include in the scheme the States and Territories of the American Union, but he refused to open his scholarships to women. He was for some time in difficulty as to how to provide for the selection of his scholarships, for he rejected absolutely all suggestions which pointed to competitive examination pure and simple. A suggestion made by Professor Lindsay, of Glasgow, that the vote of the boys in the school should be decisive as to the physical and moral qualities of the competitors which Mr. Rhodes desiderated was submitted by me to Mr. Rhodes, and incorporated by him in the body of the will. The precise proportion of the marks to be allowed under each head was not finally fixed until the following year. So far as I was concerned, although still intensely interested in Mr. Rhodes’s conceptions, the change that was then made immensely reduced my responsibility. To be merely one of half a dozen executors and trustees was a very different rnatter from being charged with the chief responsibility of using the whole of Mr. Rhodes’s wealth for the purposes of political propaganda, which, if Mr. Rhodes had been killed by the Matabele or had died any time between 1891 and 1899, it would have been my duty to undertake.
When, after the raising of the siege of Kimberley, Mr. Rhodes returned to London, I had a long talk with him at the Burlington Hotel in April, 1900. Mr. Rhodes, although more affectionate than he had ever been before in manner, did not in the least disguise his disappointment that I should have thrown myself so vehemently into the agitation against the war. It seemed to him extraordinary; but he charitably concluded it was due to my absorption in the Peace Conference at the Hague. His chief objection, which obviously was present to his mind when, nearly twelve months later, he removed me from being executor, was not so much the fact that I differed from him in judgment about the war, as that I was not willing to subordinate my judgment to that of the majority of our associates who were on the spot. He said:—
“That is the curse which will be fatal to our ideas—insubordination. Do not you think it is very disobedient of you? How can our Society be worked if each one sets himself up as the sole judge of what ought to be done? Just look at the position here. We three are in South Africa, all of us your boys”—(for that was the familiar way in which he always spoke)—“I myself, Milner and Garrett, all of whom learned 
Mr. F. E. Garrett.
“It’s all very well,” I replied, “but you see, although I have never been in South Africa, I learned my South African policy at the feet of a man who was to me the greatest authority on the subject. He always impressed upon me one thing so strongly that it became a fixed idea in my mind, from which I could never depart. That principle was that you could not rule South Africa without the Dutch, and that if you quarrelled with the Dutch South Africa was lost to the Empire. My teacher,” I said, “whose authority I reverence—perhaps you know him? His name was Cecil John Rhodes. Now I am true to the real, aboriginal Cecil John Rhodes, and I cannot desert the principles which he taught me merely because another who calls himself by the same name advises me to follow an exactly opposite policy.”
Mr. Rhodes laughed and said: ‘‘Oh, well, circumstances have changed. But after all that does not matter now. The war is ending, and that is a past issue.”
Mr. Rhodes went back to Africa and I did not see him again till his return last year. In January, 1901, he had added a codicil to his will, removing my name from the list of executors, fearing that the others might find it difficult to work with me. He wrote me at the same time saying I was “too masterful” to work with the other executors.[4]
In the October of that year he added Lord Milner’s name to the list of executors and joint-heirs, and in March, on his deathbed, he added the name of Dr. Jameson to the list of trustees.
Looking back over this whole episode of my career—an episode now definitely closed—I remember with gratitude the help which I was able to give to Mr. Rhodes, and I regret that in the one great blunder which marred his career my opposition failed to turn him from his purpose. Both in what I aided him to do and in what I attempted to prevent his doing, I was faithful to the great ideal for the realisation of which we first shook hands in 1889.
Apart from the success or failure of political projects, I have the satisfaction of remembering the words which Mr. Rhodes spoke in April, 1900, when the war was at its height. Taking my hand in both of his with a tenderness quite unusual to him, he said to me:—
“Now I want you to understand that if, in future, you should unfortunately feel yourself compelled to attack me personally as vehemently as you have attacked my policy in this war, it will make no difference to our friendship. I am too grateful to you for all that I have learned from you to allow anything that you may write or say to make any change in our relations.”
How few public men there are who would have said that! And yet men marvel that I loved him—and love him still.
That Mr. Rhodes is no more with us may seem to some a conclusive reason why all hope should be abandoned of realising his great idea. To me it seems that the death of the Founder in the midst of his unaccomplished labours is a trumpet call to all those who believed in him to redouble their exertions to carry out his vast designs for the achievement of the unity of the English-speaking race.
What is the Rhodesian ideal? It is the promotion of racial unity on the basis of the principles embodied in the American Constitution. The question of differential tariff is a matter of detail. The fundamental principle is, as Mr. Rhodes very clearly saw, the principle of the American Constitution; and, as he bluntly said, that is Home Rule. As an Empire we must federate or perish.
Mr. Rhodes saw this as clearly as Lord Rosmead, who was the first author of the saying; but it is to be feared that many of those who call themselves Rhodesians have not yet accepted the very first principle of Mr. Rhodes’s doctrine.
So this day they apologise for the subscription to Mr. Parnell’s Home-Rule Chest as if it were a lamentable aberration. It was, on the contrary, the very keynote of the whole Rhodesian gospel. No man had less sympathy with the high-flying Imperialists of Downing Street than had Mr. Rhodes. No man more utterly detested the favourite maxims of military satraps and Crown Governors. When he came home from the siege of Kimberley he told me that he expected “in two years’ time to be the best abused man in South Africa by the Loyalists.” “I am delighted to hear it,” I replied; “but how will that come about?” “Because,” he said, “these people have set their minds upon trampling on the Dutch, and I am not going to allow it. For you cannot govern South Africa by trampling on the Dutch.”
Mr. Rhodes was a Home Ruler first and an Imperialist afterwards. He realised more keenly than most of his friends that the Empire was doomed unless the principle of Home Rule was carried out consistently and logically throughout the whole of the King’s dominions. “If you want to know how it is to be done,” he once said to me, “read the Constitution and the history of the United States. The Americans have solved the problem. It is no new thing that need puzzle you. English-speaking men have solved it, and for more than a hundred years have tested its working. Why not profit by their experience? What they have proved to be a good thing for them is not likely to be a bad thing for us.”
To be a Rhodesian, then, of the true stamp you must be a Home Ruler and something more. You must be an Imperialist, not from mere lust of dominion or pride of race, but because you believe the Empire is the best available instrument for diffusing the principles of Justice, Liberty, and Peace throughout the world. Whenever Imperialism involves the perpetration of Injustice, the suppression of Freedom, and the waging of wars other than those of self-defence, the true Rhodesian must cease to be an Imperialist. But a Home Ruler and Federalist, according to the principles of the American Constitution, he can never cease to be, for Home Rule is a fundamental principle, whereas the maintenance and extension of the Empire are only means to an end, and may be changed, as Mr. Rhodes was willing to change them. If, for instance, the realisation of the greater ideal of Race Unity could only be brought about by merging the British Empire in the American Republic, Mr. Rhodes was prepared to advocate that radical measure.
The question that now arises is whether in the English-speaking world there are to be found men of faith adequate to furnish forth materials for the Society of which Mr. Rhodes dreamed:—
Glows down the wished Ideal,
And Longing moulds in clay what Life
Carves in the marble Real.
We have the clay mould of Mr. Rhodes’s longed-for Society. Have we got the stuff, in the Empire and the Republic, to carve it in marble?
Mr. Rhodes, like David, may have had to yield to a successor the realisation of an ideal too lofty to be worked out by the man who first conceived it.
‘It was in my mind,” said the old Hebrew monarch as he came to die, “to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God. But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars; thou shalt not build an house unto My name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in My sight. Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest. . . . he shall build an house for My name.”
So it may be that someone coming after Mr. Rhodes may prosper exceedingly in founding the great Order of which Mr. Rhodes did dream.
- ↑ Mr. Rhodes, in laying the foundation stone of a Presbyterian chapel at Woodstock, near Cape Town, in 1900, expressed himself as follows:—“You have asked me to come here because you recognise that my life has been work. Of course I must say frankly that I do not happen to belong to your particular sect in religion. We all have many ideals, but I may say that when we come abroad we all broaden. We broaden immensely, and especially in this spot, because we are always looking on that mountain, and there is immense breadth in it. That gives us, while we retain our individual dogmas, immense breadth of feeling and consideration for all those who are striving to do good work, and perhaps improve the condition of humanity in general. . . . The fact is, if I may take you into my confidence, that I do not care to go to a particular church even on one day in the year when I use my own chapel at all other times. I find that up the mountain one gets thoughts, what you might term religious thoughts, because they are thoughts for the betterment of humanity, and I believe that is the best description of religion, to work for the betterment of the human beings who surround us. This stone I have laid will subsequently represent a building, and in that building thoughts will be given to the people with the intention of raising their minds and making them better citizens. That is the intention of the laying of this stone. I will challenge any man or any woman, however broad their ideas may be, who object to go to church or chapel, to say they would not sometimes be better for an hour or an hour and a half in church. I believe they would get there some ideas conveyed to them that would make them better human beings. There are those who, throughout the world, have set themselves the task of elevating their fellow-beings, and have abandoned personal ambition, the accumulation of wealth, perhaps the pursuit of art, and many of those things that are deemed most valuable. What is left to them? They have chosen to do what? To devote their whole mind to make other human beings better, braver, kindlier, more thoughtful, and more unselfish, for which they deserve the praise of all men.”
- ↑ I have been somewhat severely taken to task by Mr. Bramwell Booth for what he regards as my failure to do full justice to the religious side of Mr. Rhodes’s character. By way of making amends, I quote the following extracts from the remarks made by the General and by Mr. W. Bramwell Booth himself after Mr. Rhodes’s death. General Booth, writing in the War Cry of April 5th, 1902, said:
In the course of my wanderings I have been privileged to meet with many of the class of individuals who are said to be the moving spirits of the world, but very few outside the pale of Christian and philanthropic circles have impressed and interested me more than did Cecil Rhodes.
The first time we met was on the occasion of my first visit to South Africa. Mr. Rhodes was then Premier of Cape Colony. That was in the year 1891. He received me at the Parliament Buildings.
We understood one another at once, and plunged into a discussion of my proposal for the founding of “An Over-the-Sea Colony.” “Our objects, you see, differ,” said he. “You are set on filling the world with the knowledge of the Gospel. My ruling purpose is the extension of the British Empire.” Then, laying his finger on a great piece of the map showing the country, part of which was then known as Mashonaland, but which is now called after his name, he went on to say, “If this part of South Africa would suit you, I can give you whatever extent of land you may require.”
Years passed away. In 1895 I was once more in South Africa. “If,” said Mr. Rhodes, “the gold turns out to be a success, the markets will be all right for the corn and vegetables and fruit which you and your colony will produce. And if you think the locality will be suitable, you had better send some capable officers to survey the country. They can select the district most likely to answer your purposes, and you shall have what land is necessary.”
This offer Mr. Rhodes made in the most deliberate manner twice over. Of course, he knew what I wanted to do. I wanted the country for the people, and he wanted the people for the country. So far, we were one, perhaps not much further.
As the interview closed, something was said by me bearing on his spiritual interests. I forget what I said, but it was something straight, personal, and it was understood by him at once. While he did not assent to my remarks by any passing pretensions to religion, he was serious and thoughtful, and when I said I should pray for him, he responded, “Yes, that was good.” Prayer, he considered, was useful, acting as a sort of time-table, bringing before the mind the duties of the day, and pulling one up to face the obligations for their discharge. A little incident that occurred some years afterwards showed that my remarks made an indelible impression on his mind.
Our next meeting was in England. In company with Lord Loch he wanted to see the Hadleigh Farm Colony, and an appointment was made for a visit. He specially desired that I should accompany him, and, of course, I gladly agreed. My son (the chief of the staff) was with us. We went down together.
After the journey down we lunched together, and wandered over the colony and discussed its principal features. Mr. Rhodes was interested in everything. Nothing struck me more than his inquiring spirit. “What is this?” and “What is it for?” and “How does it answer?” or “Who is this?” “Where does he come from?” “What is he doing?” “What are you going to do with him?” were the questions constantly on his lips, and to say that he was interested is saying very little. The whole thing evidently took a strong hold of him.
That night Colonel Barker accompanied him to his hotel, where he again talked over the things he had seen, and assured the Colonel that he would see all the social work we had in the way of shelters and elevators, and homes, and everything else of the kind before he returned to Africa.
In 1899 Mr. Rhodes made a speech at the Mansion House in support of the army. He said: “The work of your organisation is a practical one. (Loud applause). The Cabinet, of which I was a member, was appealed to for a contribution for the army in that part of the world. Statistics were called for, and we gathered that you offered homes for waifs and strays, and those, perhaps, who had fallen in the colony, and who, when released from prison, had another chance in life through the medium of your organisation. We learnt that they were provided with a home when they left the prison, and obtained a fresh start in life. The practical view which Parliament took of that work was to vote a grant in their favour, and that vote has been continued ever since.
“I have been told by Mr. Bramwell Booth that you meet here at times with opposition. I have even been told by members of other organisations that they object to the details of your methods. I have been told that objection has been taken to the use of the bands, and military titles of your officers, but I do know this, that in my own Church there are many disputes as to details—(a laugh)—disputes as to the use of incense, the use of the confessional, the lighting and non-lighting of candles, and as to the wearing of embroidered garments—(laughter)—but, after all (and Mr. Rhodes waved his hand as to emphasise his contempt for these narrowminded objectors), let us put these details aside. (Loud applause.)
“What do we recognise? We recognise this, that they are not doing the work of the ordinary human being. Be he an officer of this organisation, a minister of my Church, or a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, they all have a higher object. They give their whole lives for the bettering of humanity. I can simply give you my word that, living in a remote portion of Her Majesty’s dominions, I gladly give my testimony to the good and practical work which you do in that part of the world that I have adopted as my home.” (Loud and continued applause.)
Mr. W. Bramwell Booth, writing in the War Cry, adds his testimony as follows:—
But it was during that day on the colony that I really got a glimpse of the true man. He was down with us at the General’s invitation. They had met before in South Africa, and Mr. Rhodes was evidently much taken with the General. I have heard it said that he was a silent, taciturn man, cold, stiff, and difficult to talk to. I saw nothing of the sort. Before we had been seated for five minutes in the railway carriage on the outward journey, he and the General were talking as hard as they could go about the poor and the miserable of the world, about South Africa and the native races, about the prospects of our work in Rhodesia—it was before this awful war—and the chances of our getting help to do something for the peoples on the Zambesi. Mr. Rhodes seemed to enter fully into the General’s ideas as to the value of the people to the country before all else, and the importance of caring for their moral and spiritual, as well as their material well-being. After a while, the General proposed prayer, and, kneeling down in the compartment, sought God’s blessing on our visitor. Mr. Rhodes bowed his head, and closed his eyes with much reverence; and when the General took his seat again, held out his hand to him in the midst of a silence, which to me seemed eloquent of thoughts too deep for words. Later in the day I had a close talk with him about eternal things. I have no idea what religious training or experience he may have had in the past, but one thing was quite clear to me, he had a lofty conception of duty, and while conscious of his great influence, knew that it was bestowed on him in the providence of God, to Whom he was accountable for all.
Mr. Rhodes was delighted with his day at Hadleigh, and said so. He went everywhere, saw everything, asked innumerable questions, interviewed officers and colonists, tasted the soup, challenged the price of the coal, offered his advice on the value of certain fruit trees, and chaffed me unmercifully about an old portable engine which ought, no doubt, to have been disposed of long ago, but which our poverty had induced us to keep going. He was much impressed by some of the colonists, and could not believe at first that these fine brawny fellows could ever have been what, alas! we knew only too well to have been the case. The General requested him to speak to one or two, and he was delighted, and showed it in the most unaffected manner.
When we were separating that night at Liverpool Street Station, he said to me, “Ah! You and the General are right; you have the best of me after all. I am trying to make new countries; you are making new men.”
- ↑ Mr. Rhodes was emphatically of opinion that they were all good in their way. The Rev. A. P. Loxley, writing to the Times, says:—“When so much is being said as to Mr. Rhodes’s attitude towards religion it is worth remembering what he did and said with regard to education in Rhodesia. His plan was (and it had the Bishop’s full approval) that for half an hour every morning the ministers of each Church or denomination should come and teach their special dogmas to the children of the members of their congregation. Presiding at the prize-giving of St. John’s, Bulawayo, last autumn, he said:—‘In England a Board school is not bound to have any religion. I think it is a mistake, just as I think it is a mistake in Australia that they have excluded history and religion from their schools. I think it is an absolute mistake, because, after all, the child at school is at that period of its life when it is most pliable to thoughts, and if you remove from it all thought of religion I do not think you make it a better human being. There is no doubt but that it is during the period of youth that you get those impressions which afterwards dominate your whole life. I am quite clear that a child brought up with religious thoughts makes a better human being. I am quite sure to couple the ordinary school teaching with some thoughts of religion is better than dismissing religion from within the walls of the school.’”—Natal Diocesan Magazine.
- ↑ On this subject Mr. B. F. Hawksley, Solicitor to Mr. Rhodes, writes:—“It is quite true that Mr. Rhodes associated my friend Mr. W. T. Stead with those upon whom he has imposed the task of carrying out his aspirations. In the far back days when Mr. Stead expounded in the Pall Mall Gazette the common interests of the English-speaking peoples his acquaintance was sought by Mr. Rhodes—an acquaintanceship which ripened into a close intimacy and continued to the last. Mr. Rhodes recognised in Mr. Stead one who thought as he did, and who had a marvellous gift enabling him to clothe with a literary charm ideas they both held dear—even as the diamond-cutter will by his work expose the brilliancy of the rough diamond. As Mr. Rhodes frequently said to me and to others, including Mr. Stead himself, the friendship of the two men was too strong to be broken by passing differences on the South African war. The removal of Mr. Stead’s name from Mr. Rhodes’s testament arose from other causes quite appreciated by Mr. Stead, and which did honour alike to both men. More it is unnecessary for me to say, except that I shall be grateful if this plain statement can receive the widest publicity.”