Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1902-09-18
Cecil Rhodes.

were sor6ly Cecll
Rhodes. who dreamed q dream of a
great South African empire, dominated
by an ~oligarchy of London ~plutocrats
from which they could draw unlimited
supplies, died a broken hearted man
before he was fifty years old. He lived
long enough to see the schemes of q
lifetime shattered by men he despised.
He believed the handspring of human
action to be wholly gross and material.
He did not believe 10 right and wrong.
He was without moral sense as some
men are without the sense of sight.
In his eyes the man was right who
succeeded and the man was wrong who
failed. When Chinese Gordon in
formed him that he had refused an
enormous sum from an Eastern Prince
on the grounds of morality, he laughed
at his scruples and told him that he
vas wrong; that . man could not do
anything without money. When
Joseph Chamberlain asked him If the
Beers would fight, he replied: mo,
they would prefer to be bought"
Like Charles the Second, he did not
believe that man lived upon the face
OF the earth that has not his price.
The mar who could not be bought he
did not understand. 1t was this that
brought ruin to all his plans. He be-
lieved that when a British Army ap-
peared in South Africa the Boer would
prefer the safety Of his person and
property to the hazard of war against
discipline and overwhelming numbers,
in which his personal sacrifices must
be great even If he won. He did not
believe that they would permit their
houses to be burned, their farms to be
devastated, their horses stolen, their
wives and children starved and slaugh-
tered for the chimera Of independence.
He did not believe that a race of men
existed upon the earth who would
sacrifice houses and lands, wives and
children, for liberty-that will-o'-the-
wisp of impractical minds. The Beers
were such a race. They had been bred
free men; their love of country and
their fear of God we're stronger in
fuences with them than their love OF
money.
Mr.. Chamberlain and the British
ministry were induced to take the
view of Cecil Rhodes rather than that
of Sir William Butler. The wal that
was to have been begun in October,
the South African month of May, and
ended in April, the South African
month Of October, in its completion
took a little owe thirty months, and
extended over a larger area than at
the beginning. England's losses were
enormous. She added to her bonded
debt quite a billion Of dollars. Her
people are taxed as they have never
been taxed before. In her extremity
she has once more placed a tax upon
bread, and her wisest men SILVER at
the thought of the bread riot. The
holders of her bonds, on account OF
their depreciation, haye lost a sum
almost as great as that expended in
carrying on the a Over one hun
dred thousand OF her soldiers have
either been killed or wounded or died
from disease contracted in the army.
England's army no longer excites the
fear of any nation. The men she sends
to the firing line are not the men she
sent forth to battle a hundred years
ago, nor aver SO good as she sent to
the Crimea.
The REGISTER long ago pointed out
that England sacrificed her fighting
power when she sacrificed her rural
population to the golden calf. Her
attempt TO grab the territory of the
two little Boer Republics has proved
to be one Of the most disastrous events
in her history. The lame Of Cecil
Rhodes, instead Of being associated
with that Of a great empire In the day
Of its greatest power, will be con.
nected with the time when England
began to visibly decay. He will live
in history, not as one Of the great con.
structive statesmen of the world, but
as the man who compelled England to
levy a tax on the bread Of her people
, to support her in a most unrighteoue
, cause. He aimed to accomplish for
himself and England, by the unscrupu-
lous use Of money, what Napoleon tried
to accomplish for himself and France
by the INSCRIPTIONS use of force. As
empire builders both failed.
Napoleon's ability as a soldier saves
his name from oblivion; it 10 doubtful
} If Rhodes will prove equally fortunate.
When he recedes far enough into the
! past for men to view him In perspec.
tive, it will be found that he was in NO
sense a broad-minded man; that hii
shrewdness was the shrewdness Of
cunning, He believed that by estab'
, fishing scholarships at Oxford for the