The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1902-03-27
EARL GREY's ESTIMATE.
Views of the Remarkable Career of
Rhodes Presented by an Intimate
E,.io

Rhodes Presented by an Intimate
Friend
BY Exclusive Wire from The Associated Press.
| New York. March 26--Earl Grey, be-
| fore sailing for England. gave to the
| Associated Press an interview concern
ing Cecil Rhodes, the earl having re-
| ceived cablegrams from South Africa
which led him to believe that Mr..
Rhodes had but few days to live.
Lord Grey knew the famous South
African leader intimately. having
served with him on the board of the
British South African company and
the intimacy grew when the earl was
governor of Rhodesia
Lord Grey said:
Cecil Rhodes is the only eXemplar,
perhaps. in our generation of the ideal
lists who in the days of Elizabethan
adventure made the Anglo-Saxon the
predominant partner in the worlds
firm. I need not call up their names
and titles
Admirals all, they went their way.
To the cottage under the hill.
"They We're all after their kind, both
the admiration and the terror of their
all of them, from Drake to Robert
Give. terror rather than admiration,
was the keynote they struck. The con-
serva tive forces are those which nat
urally are in control of governments.
We never know what he will do next
said Il friend TO me of Rhodes. Some
thing big, some great development that
might involve, perhaps, change in the
very constitution of our empire. The
world, at least its governors. do not
much like such men as these, who keep
them awake at night and so the great
est Englishman of our day has come
TO he looked upon, and not by tile
British mandarin only, with somewhat
mixed feelings.
Admired American Nation.
One thing | should like especially to
point out. He had never failing con-
fidence in the growth of the federal
principle of government He admired
the American nation enormously, but
for this strange and detached reason,
he believed that you owed your pro-
digious, orderly development to the
splendid construction of your constitu-
ton. ] personally have always opposed
house of commons l left Mr.. Gladstone's
party over this issue. Rhodes. how
ever, never wearied of assuring me that
I ought to have gone forward. that in
this direction alone was safety, that
the Irish were building better than they
at all knew; that their demand was on
all fours with the American state right
platform, and that in the very rapidity
A n Oh,
promise of safety He gave, you may
recall, e1O,0OO to Mr.. Parnell. This gift
was rock of offence to the best Whie
element In our country-for example,
TO the Spectator. but Rhodes believed
with Sir Hercules Robinson that Ire
land would make one or two orderly
states of federal union; he saw that
the federation of Canada had been
agreeably arranged and that in the
Canadian settlement race problem
had been preserved; the time for Aus
tralian federation was now at hand:
that peaceful (as he thoughD feder-
alton of South Africa was inevitable,
and that with certain notifications IN
our second chamber so that it might
evolve as an imperial senate, the fed
Grafton of these various components
cured, and in our time"
The Jameson Raid.
Earl Gray then turned the Iconver-
satloh to the famous Jameson raid,
calling it the unhappy raid which OBJ
scured my friends bright light"
But let us be fair to him." continued
LORD Grey Rhodes, in the first place,
was premier in Cape Colony; he knew
that Kruger would fight to the death
any federation of South Africa under
our flag. He knew that either South
Africa must come under the Dutch flag
or the English flag, or that the alter
native was the national SYSTEM or
rather. the welter and chaos you see i'm
South America today. II the Trans
Naal, arming to the teeth. continued
thls condition of preparation then also,
every man in our colony of Natal must
similarly arm. 1t rs no longer possible
that chess board of little armed ma
tionS' can be permitted; they menace
the peace and orderly progress of the
entire world, You have got this I'm
South America: we have got 1t in the
Balkan peninsula and therefore war
clouds gather at all times over Central
and Eastern Europe. Rhodes saw this;
he saw that independence ON the Kru-
ger plan was incompatible with indiv-
idual freedom; thai It involved an |
around militarism.
Then again he had great financial |
interests i'm the Transvaal these gave |
him the moral right TO effect a revolu- |
tion II he could. Here was so-calleG |
republic refusing TO a majority of its |
community the franchise while leVylng |
taxes at the rate of ninety dollars per |
capita per annum, and turning two
thirds of this mlsbegotten revenue into |
Of war. Kruger aimed at |
armlng all the Dutch I'm South Africa |