The San Francisco call., 1896-05-10
Proof That Thieves Fell Out Over
the Division of Plunder in
the Transvaal.
CHARTERED CoMPANY's ACTS.
Instead of Facing the Disgraceful Dis
closures Cham berlain Shields
the PlotterS.
copyright. 1896, by the New York Times.l


LONDON, ENG, May 9.-Almost every
commentator on yesterdays debate in the
House of Commons brings mention of
Warren Hastings into his remarks. 1t is
natural enough allusion, for there is no
other passage in the big story of the
British empire that has been made which
so fits with his modern instance.
Apparently the similarity has to extend
still further, for the famous impeachment
proceedings against the Governor-General
of India lasted, in one form or another, for
seven years. and, judging by the gimpses
vouchsafed us into the Ministerial mind,
the Cecil Rhodes affair is planned to string
itself out over a scarcely shorter period.
From the point of view of oratory, which
is all any one thinks of now with reference
TO the Hastings trial, 1 fear the nineteenth
century will come out badly in comparison
with its predecessor. There is no Burke,
Fox or even Sheridan now to snatch i'm
mortality for himself out OF this morass OF
stock iobbing treason.
Old Sir William Harcourt made the best
speech of his life last night, and now that
Gladstone is gone there is no other man in
the House who could have risen anywhere
so near to the plane of parliamentary
usages of a hundred years ago; but when
he took his seat the debate was brought
down with jerk to the most up-to-date of
modern levels. There it will remain.
Chamberain's glib defense of himself
rather puzzled the House that listened to
IT. Now, upon reflection it is seen TO be
also the defense -ot Rhodes and his fellow
conspirators, ana it is not liked. By Mon
day, imagine, it will come to be hated
by the men who to-day are still wavering
in Judgment on it. 1t will not be surpris-
ing if, before the end of next week, it
should be practically repudiated by the
acts of the Government and explained
away by Chamberlain himself.
He began last January by resolute action
against Rhodes and the chartered COM
pany. When it could not be proved that
they had done anything literally culpable,
even while he accepted thei- assurances OF
personal innocence, he insisted that they
had forfeited public confidence and ne
pledged himself by speech and deed alike
to see Justice done.
Now we are in May, and these men are
admittedly proven to have guilty knowl-
edge of the plot against the Transvaal, to
have organized and paid for Jameson's
raid, to have lied to her Majesty's Gov
eminent and to have been false to every
obligation as subjects and as men. Cham
berlain, however, has quite outgrown his
stern midwinter mood.
Although the Commons contains now
no orator like Burke or Fox, it contains
500 or more men who do not sit for rotten
boroughs, and who have constituents who
read the papers every day.
These constituents have read during
the last week with astonishment Kruger's
first batch of revelations as to the base
ness, venality and disloyalty of the
chartered company leaders who were rep
resenting Great Britain in South Africa
To-day comes another installment of
these extraordinary proofs and next wee k
we are promised more, showing conclu-
sively how the thieves fell out about the
division of their expected pIunder and
how this alone prevented the comsum-
nation of the crime which they all had in
mind. These things are being read, dis
cussed and digested by millions OF Eng
lishmen. They are rejognized everywhere
as staining the English name with the
foulest kind of dishonor and consciousness
of this cannot be allayed by subsidized
press pleadings or obscured by ministerial
indirection.
Cecil Rhodes should have been stricken
from the Queens Privy Council eight
days ago, the charter of the South African
Company and its assets should have been
impounded and every one of its agents
and officials should have been suspended
from official place. That would have been
the very least that the Government could
do in the face of these disgraceful dis
closures; yet we see instead Chamberlain
urging people 10 remember how good a
man Rhodes used to be, naming remote
dates for possible inquiry into the scan
dal, which will make the whole thing a
farce, and meanwhile moving not finger
to remove this blot from the national
escutcheon. If l know anything about the
English people, they will not submit in
patience to this. / am told that Rhodes
and Belt, the latter a Hamburg Jewish
German subject, whose prominence in the
conspiracy gives it quaint turn, are to
plead that it was all done for the expan-
sion of the British empire, and they are
also said to have offered the Transvaal
authorities S12, SOC, 600 to quash the trial al
Pretoria and let all go free.
Our understanding here is that the ag-
gregate of lines ultimately imposed Will
not reach anything like this sum, but
Kruger properly declined to make money
in this way or to deal with anybody ex-
cept the British imperial authority.
Rumors of Lord Salisbury's ill-health
are about again, and have even heard a
circumstantial story that the Duke OF
Devonshire is going to take over the For
eign Office, but am quite unable to say
what likelihood there is that the report is