Omaha daily bee., 1902-03-27

10 the famous Jameson raid, calling 1t the
Unhappy raid which obscured 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 fedora
tlon 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 alternative was the national
system or, rather, the welter and chaos
you sec in South Africa today. II the
Transvaal, arming to the teeth. continued
this condition, then also every man in our
colony Of Natal must similarly arm. 1t is
no longer possible that a chessboard OF
little armed nations can be permitted to
menace the peace and orderly progress Of
the entire world. You have got this in
South Africa, we have got It in the Balkan
peninsula, and, therefore, war clouds gather
at all times over central and eastern Eu-
rope. Rhodes saw this, he saw that indie
pendence' on the Kruger plan was incom-
patible with individual freedom, that Il in
volved all-round militarism.
Then, again. he had great financial in
terests in the Transvaal, and these gave the
moral right to effect a revolution IL he
could. Here was a so-called republic re-
fuslng to a majority OF its community the
franchise. while levying taxes at the rate
of $50 per capita per annum and turning
two-thirds Of this misbegotten revenue into
munitions Of war. Kruger aimed at arm
ing all the Dutch in South Africa with the
gold he levied from the Rand miners.
Aims 10 Destroy KruEerism.
II don't want to discuss the ethics of or
the cause of that war, but l want to make
IL clear that my friend wanted, by the
help Of a coup d'etat, to destroy Krugerism
and secure for the Transvaal the same
political conditions, namely, equal rights
for all white men, as obtain in Cape Colony
and Natal.
He failed, the raid failed. DR.. Jameson
upset my applicant as Rhodes phrased it,
and the abortive raid represented Rhodes
himself to all mankind in a false light.
Let me tell you a touching little incident
which pleasantly reflects my friend as l
see him. / was in Rhodesia with him the
year after the raid. His house at Cape
town, which contained the collection of a
lifetime and which, as Rhodes never mar
ried, was almost as near and dear to him
as a wife and family, was burned to the
ground. Coming on top of the raid, the
rinderpest, the Matabele war, this culmi-
mating trouble alarmed his friends for him,
and l was asked by wire from Capetown to
break 1t to him. I said to him as we were
riding on the veldt:
"'Can you bear to hear Of another great
disaster which has overtaken you?
Rhodes is a man of great nerve, but he
turned very pale and said: What is It
now?'
1T said, Your home is burned
"'oh, thank Cod he said, II feared poor
NJ IT., lIor,agopN Had The doctor
had been very i'll in prison and we were
both anxious about him"
Passing to the expected death Of his
friend, Lord Grey said:
Considers the World Poorer.
9Th world will be poorer, no one will
dream such dreams and try to draw them
on a map, no one living perhaps will try as
he would have tried to federate our empire
on the American system. Rosebery, yes, he
will try; we will many of us try, and we
will succeed. Others can carry on his
work. l am happy that l went to Wash
ington, where these things look at one
fully accomplished. Such men as your
president, Senator Hoar and others l could
name give those who come near them much
encouragement. A great genius goes out
with Rhodes; true, his work will go for
ward in some ways more smoothly per-
haps, because he had inevitably aroused
great a~ntagonism, but We shall not see his
like again, and his passing will, for me
and many others, take much color from our
lives. other nations he once said to me,
will pursue peace, but the two great Eng
disappearing nations standing together can
enjoin it,"
Lord Grey concluded by saying: when
his will is read 1t will be known with what
intention Rhodes, who never wasted a
precious moment on pleasure or self-in-
diligence, had collected a great modern
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