ty, which in time was a prime cause of the Transvaal War. Hated as
he was by some, distrusted as he remained by almost everybody, yet there
was nothing mean about Cecil Rhodes. Though one felt inclined to detest
him at times, yet one could not help liking and even loving him when he
allowed one to see the real man behind the veil of cynicism and irony
which he constantly assumed.

With Rhodes' death the whole system of Rhodesian politics perished. It
then became relatively easy for Sir Alfred Milner to introduce the
necessary reforms into the government of South Africa. The financial
magnates who had ruled at Johannesburg and Kimberley ceased to interest
themselves politically in the management of the affairs of the Government.
They disappeared one after the other, bidding good-bye to a country which
they had always hated, most of them sinking into an obscurity where they
enjoy good dinners and forget the nightmare of the past.

The Dutch and the English elements have become reconciled, and loyalty to
England, which seemed at the time of the Boer War, and during the years
that had preceded it, to have been confined to a small number of the
English, has become the rule. British Imperialism is no mere phantom: the
Union of South Africa has proved it to have a very virile body, and, what
is more important, a lofty and clear-visioned soul.

CHAPTER X.

AN ESTIMATE OF SIR ALFRED MILNER

The conditions under which Sir Alfred Milner found himself compelled to
shape his policy of conciliation were beset with obstacles and
difficulties. An understanding of these is indispensable to the one who
would read aright the history of that period of Imperial evolution.

The question of the refugees who overwhelmed Cape Colony with their
lamentations, after they had been obliged to leave the Transvaal at
the beginning of the hostilities--the claims of the Rand
multi-millionaires--the indignation of the Dutch Colonists confined in
concentration camps by order of the military authorities--the Jingoes
who thought it would be only right to shoot down every Dutch
sympathiser in the country: these were among the things agitating the
South African public mind, and setting up conflicting claims
impossible of adjustment without bitter censure on one hand or the
other. The wonder is that, amid all these antagonistic elements, Sir
Alfred Milner contrived to fulfil the larger part of the tasks which
he had sketched out for himself befor