guests
tactlessly remarked, "But surely you need not have done so, Mr. Rhodes? It
was tacitly admitting that you had been a party to their enterprise!" he
retorted immediately, "And if I choose to allow the world to think that
such was the case, what business is it of yours?" I thought the man was
going to drop under the table, so utterly flabbergasted did he look.

It is, of course, extremely difficult to know what was the actual part
played by Rhodes in the Raid. He carried that secret to the grave, and it
is not likely that his accomplices will ever reveal their own share in the
responsibility for that wild adventure. My impression is that the idea of
the Raid was started among the entourage of Rhodes and spoken of before
him at length. He would listen in silence, as was his wont when he wished
to establish the fact that he had nothing to do with a thing that had been
submitted to him. Thus the Raid was tacitly encouraged by him, without his
ever having pronounced himself either for or against it.

Rhodes was an extremely able politician, and a far-seeing one into the
bargain. He would never have committed himself into an open approval of an
attempt which he knew perfectly well involved the rights of nations. On
the other hand, he would have welcomed any circumstance which would result
in the overthrow of the Transvaal Republic by friends of his. His former
successes, and especially the facility with which had been carried out the
attachment of Rhodesia to the British Empire, had refracted his vision,
and he refused--or failed--to see the difficulties which he might
encounter if he wanted to proceed for the second time on an operation of
the same kind.

On the other hand, he was worried by his friends to allow them to take
decisive action, and was told that everyone in England would approve of
his initiative in taking upon himself the responsibility of a step, out of
which could only accrue solid advantage for the Mother Country.

Rhodes had been too long away from England, and his sojourns there during
the ten years or so immediately preceding 1895 had been far too short for
him to have been able to come to a proper appreciation of the importance
of public opinion in Great Britain, or of those principles in matters of
Government which no sound English politician will ever dare to put aside
if he wishes to retain his hold. He failed to understand and to appreciate
the narrow limit which must not be overstepped; he