a man with a prestige
such as no one who has not lived in South Africa can realise, and,
furthermore, enabled him to catch here and there scraps of news respecting
the money markets of the world, a proper understanding and use of which
could be of considerable financial value. A cup of tea at Groote Schuur
was sufficient to bring about more than one political conversion.

Once started the South African League soon became a power in the land, not
so strong by any means as the Afrikander Bond, but far more influential in
official, and especially in financial, circles. Created for the apparent
aim of supporting British government in Cape Colony, it found itself
almost from the very first in conflict with it, if not outwardly, at least
tacitly. After his rupture with the Bond consequent upon the Raid, Rhodes
brought considerable energy to bear upon the development of the League. He
caused it to exercise all over the Colony an occult power which more than
once defied constituted authority, and proved a source of embarrassment to
British representatives with greater frequency than they would have cared
to own. Sir Alfred Milner, so far as I have been able to see, when taking
the reins, had not reckoned upon meeting with this kind of government
within a government, and in doing so perhaps did not appreciate its
extent. But from the earliest days of his administration it confronted
him, at first timidly, afterwards with persistence, and at last with such
insolence that he found himself compelled to see what he could do to
reduce to impotence this organisation which sought to devour him.

The problem which a situation of the character described thrust upon Sir
Alfred was easier to discuss than to solve. The League was a power so wide
that it was almost impossible to get rid of its influence in the country.
It was controlled by Rhodes, by De Beers, by the Chartered Company, by the
members in both Houses who were affiliated to it, by all the great
financial establishments throughout South Africa--with but a solitary
exception--by the principal industrial and agricultural enterprises in the
country. It comprised political men, landowners, doctors, merchants,
ship-owners, practically all the colonists in Rhodesia, and most of the
English residents of the Transvaal. It controlled elections, secured
votes, disposed of important posts, and when it advised the Governor the
Legislature had to take its remarks into consideration whether or