were listening to
a tissue of lies, told for a purpose, nor guess that they were being made
use of. Under such conditions the only wonder is the few mistakes which
were made. To come back to the Boers' concentration camps, Sir Alfred
Milner was not a sanguinary man by any means, and his character was far
too firm to use violence as a means of government. It is probable that,
left alone, he would have found some other means to secure strict
obedience from the refugees to orders which most never thought of
resisting. Unfortunately for everybody concerned, he could do nothing
beyond expressing his opinion, and the circumstance that, out of a feeling
of duty, he made no protestations against things of which he could not
approve was exploited against him, both by the Jingo English party and by
the Dutch, all over South Africa. At Groote Schuur especially, no secret
was made by the friends of Rhodes of their disgust at the state of things
prevailing in concentration camps, and it was adroitly brought to the
knowledge of all the partisans of the Boers that, had Rhodes been master
of the situation, such an outrage on individual liberty would never have
taken place. Sir Alfred Milner was subjected to unfair, ill-natured
criticisms which were as cunning as they were bitter. The concentration
camps afford only one instance of the secret antagonisms and injustices
which Sir Alfred Milner had to bear and combat. No wonder thoughts of his
days in South Africa are still, to him, a bitter memory!

CHAPTER XI.

CROSS CURRENTS

The intrigues which made Groote Schuur such a disagreeable place were
always a source of intense wonder to me. I could never understand their
necessity. Neither could I appreciate the kind of hypocrisy which induced
Rhodes continually to affirm that he did not care to return to power,
whilst in reality he longed to hold the reins again. It would have been
fatally easy for Rhodes, even after the hideous mistake of the Raid, to
regain his political popularity; a little sincerity and a little truth
were all that was needed. Unfortunately, both these qualities were wanting
in what was otherwise a really gifted nature. Rhodes, it seemed by his
ways, could not be sincere, and though he seldom lied in the material
sense of the word, yet he allowed others to think and act for him, even
when he knew them to be doing so in absolute contradiction to what he
ought to have done himself. He appeared to have insufficie