chemes that can be
ascribed to the same quality in his character as that which made him so
essentially an Empire Maker. It was a project of world-wide importance,
and destined to set the seal to the paramount influence of Great Britain
over the whole of Africa. It was a work which, without Rhodes, would never
have been accomplished. He was right to feel proud of having conceived it;
and England, too, ought to be proud of having counted among her sons a man
capable of starting such a vast enterprise and of going on with it despite
the violent opposition and the many misgivings with which it was received
by the general public.

CHAPTER VII.

RHODES AND THE AFRIKANDER BOND

To return to the subject of the negotiations which undoubtedly took place
between Rhodes and the leaders of the Afrikander Bond during the war, I
must say that, so far as I know, they can rank among the most
disinterested actions of his life. For once there was no personal interest
or possible material gain connected with his desire to bring the Dutch
elements in South Africa to look upon the situation from the purely
patriotic point of view, as he did himself.

It would have been most certainly to the advantage of everybody if,
instead of persisting in a resistance which was bound to collapse, no
matter how successful it might appear to have been at its start, the
Boers, together with the Dutch Afrikanders, had sent the olive branch to
Cape Town. There would then have been some hope of compromise or of coming
to terms with England before being crushed by her armies. It would have
been favourable to English interests also had the great bitterness, which
rendered the war such a long and such a rabid one, not had time to spread
all over the country. Rhodes' intervention, which Sir Alfred Milner could
not have refused had he offered it, backed by the Boers on one side and by
the English Progressive party in the Colony on the other, might have
brought about great results and saved many lives.

No blame, therefore, ought to attach to Cecil Rhodes for wishing to
present the Boer side of the case. It would, indeed, have been wiser on
the part of Mr. Hofmeyr and other Bond leaders to have forgotten the past
and given a friendly hand to the one man capable of unravelling the
tangled skein of affairs.

At that period, whilst the siege of Kimberley was in progress, it is
certain that serious consideration was given to this question of common
action