om the very beginning it might have taken place sooner, and perhaps
the Boer War altogether avoided.

It is a curious thing that England's colonising powers, which are so
remarkable, took such a long time to work their way in South Africa. At
least it would have been a curious thing if one did not remember that
among the first white men who arrived there Englishmen were much in the
minority. And of those Englishmen who were attracted by the enormous
mineral wealth which the country contained, a good proportion were not of
the best class of English colonists. Many a one who landed in Table Bay
was an adventurer, drawn thither by the wish to make or retrieve his
fortune. Few came, as did Rhodes, in search of health, and few, again,
were drawn thither by the pure love of adventure. In Australia, or in New
Zealand or other colonies, people arrived with the determination to begin
a new life and to create for themselves new ties, new occupations, new
duties, so as to leave to their children after them the result of their
labours. In South Africa it was seldom that emigrants were animated by the
desire to make their home in the solitudes of the vast and unexplored
veldt. Those who got rich there, though they may have built for themselves
splendid houses while they dwelt in the land, never looked upon South
Africa as home, but aspired to spend their quickly gained millions in
London and to forget all about Table Mountain or the shafts and factories
of Johannesburg and Kimberley.

To such men as these England was a pretext but never a symbol. Their
strange conception of patriotism jarred the most unpleasantly on the
straightforward nature of Sir Alfred Milner, who had very quickly
discerned the egotism that lay concealed beneath its cloak. He understood
what patriotism meant, what love for one's own country signified. He had
arrived in South Africa determined to spare neither his person nor his
strength in her service, and the man who was repeatedly accused both by
the Dutch and by the English party in the Colony of labouring under a
misconception of its real political situation was the one who had from the
very first appreciated it as it deserved, and had recognised its damning
as well as its redeeming points.

Sir Alfred meant South Africa to become a member of the British Empire, to
participate in its greatness, and to enjoy the benefits of its protection.
He had absolutely no idea of exasperating the feelings of the Dutch p