This
attitude on the part of each man would simply have been ridiculous under
ordinary circumstances, but at a time when such grave interests were at
stake, and when the future of so many people was liable to be compromised,
it became criminal.

In sharp contrast to it stood the conduct of Sir Alfred Milner, who was
never influenced by his personal feelings or by his vanity where the
interests of his country were engaged. During the few months which
preceded the war he was the object of virulent hatred on the part of most
of the white population of the Colony. When the first disillusions of the
war brought along with them their usual harvest of disappointments the
personality of the High Commissioner appeared at last in its true light,
and one began to realise that here was a man who possessed a singularly
clear view on matters of politics, and that all his actions were guided by
sound principles. His quiet determination not to allow himself to be
influenced by the gossip of Cape Town was also realised, and amid all the
spite shown it is to his honour that, instead of throwing up the sponge,
he persevered, until at last he succeeded in the aim which he had kept
before him from the day he had landed in Table Bay. He restored peace to
the dark continent where no one had welcomed him, but where everybody
mourned his departure when he bade it good-bye after the most anxious
years he had ever known.

When Sir Alfred accepted the post of Governor of the Cape Colony and
English High Commissioner in South Africa, he had intended to study most
carefully the local conditions of the new country whither fate and his
duty were sending him, and then, after having gained the necessary
experience capable of guiding him in the different steps he aspired to
take, to proceed to the formidable task he had set for himself. His great
object was to bring about a reconciliation between the two great political
parties in the Colony--the South African League, with Rhodes as President,
and the Afrikander Bond, headed by Messrs. Hofmeyr (the one most in
popular favour with the Boer farmers), Sauer and Schreiner.

In the gigantic task of welding together two materials which possessed
little affinity and no love for each other, Sir Alfred was unable to be
guided by his experience in the Motherland. In England a certain
constitutional policy was the basis of every party. At the Cape the
dominating factors were personal feelings, personal hatreds an