ve influence of a tax was withheld. The underlying motive was
nothing but the desire to avoid the tax on diamonds, which every
reasonable person claimed and considered to be a source of revenue of
which the Government had no right to deprive itself. While Rhodes lived
the legislation introduced and maintained by his powerful personality
revealed the policy of compromise which he always pursued. He was
eminently practical and businesslike. He said to the members of the Bond,
"Don't you tax diamonds and I won't tax dop," as the Cape brandy is
called. The compact was made and kept in his lifetime.

When Rhodes was dead and a big democratic British element had come into
the country after the war, those in power began wondering how it was that
diamonds, which kept in luxury people who did not live in the country and
consequently had no interest whatever in its prosperity, were not taxed.
The Ministry presided over by Sir Gordon Sprigg shared this feeling, and
in consequence found itself suddenly forsaken by its adherents of the day
before, and the Rhodesian Press in full cry against the Government. Sir
Gordon Sprigg was stigmatised as a tool of the Bond and as disloyal to the
Empire after the fifty years he had worked for it, with rare
disinterestedness and great integrity. Nevertheless, the Ministry declared
that, as there existed an absolute necessity for finding new resources to
liquidate the expenses contingent on the war, it would propose a tax on
diamonds and another one on dop.

The exasperation of the Rhodesian party, which was thus roused, was the
principal reason why the agitation for the suspension of the Constitution
in Cape Colony was started and pursued so vigorously in spite of the small
chance it had to succeed. His support of this agitation may be called the
death-bed effort of Rhodes. When he was no longer alive to lend them his
strong hand, the Rhodesian party was bound to disperse. They tried in vain
to continue his policy, but all their efforts to do so failed, because
there was nothing really tangible for them to work upon.

With Cecil Rhodes came to an end also what can be called the romantic
period of the history of South Africa, that period during which fortunes
were made and lost in a few days; when new lands were discovered and
conquered with a facility and a recklessness that reminded one of the
Middle Ages. The war established an equilibrium which but for it would
have taken years to be reached.