The Butte inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1901-1912, 1902-03-26

the admiration and the terror of their
contemporaries, and / believe that with
all of them from Drake to Robert Give,
terror rather than admiration, was the
keynote they struck.
"The conservative forces are those
| which naturally In control of govern
ments, We never know what he will do
next said a friend to me OF Rhodes.
Something big, some great development
| that might involve perhaps a change In
| the very constitution of our empire.
"The world, at least it's governors, do
not much like such men as these who
| keep them awake at night, and so the
| greatest Englishmen of our days has
come to be looked upon, and not by the
British mandarin only with somewhat
mixed feelings.
zone thing like especially to point to.
He had never falling confidence in the
growth of the federal principle of gov
ernment. He admired the American ma
tion enormously, but for this strange and
detached reason-he believed that you
owed your prodigous orderly develop
ment to the splendid construction of your
constitution.
Opposed to Home Rule.
II personally have always opposed
home rule; being at that time in the
house of commons, / left Mr.. Gladstone's
party over this issue. Rhodes, how
ever, never wearied of assuring me that
l 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
of the proposed change was our best
promise of safety. He gave you Iaay re-
call, 10000 to Mr.. Parnell.
This gift was a rock of offense to the
best whig element in our country-for
example to the Spectator, but Rhodes
believed with Sir Hercules Robinson
that Ireland would make one or two or
derly states of federal union; he saw
that the federation of Canada, had been
agreeably arranged and that In the Ca
madam settlement, race problem had
been solved; that the time for an Aus
tralian federation was now at hand;
that peaceful (as he thought) fedora
tion of South Africa was inevitable and
that with certain notifications In our
second chamber, so that it might evolve
as an imperial senate the federation of
these various components into an i'm
perial union would be secured and in our
time
Lord Grey then turned the conversa-
ton to the famous Jameson raid the un-
happy 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; ha 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 aiterna-
tive was the national system or the
chaos you see in South Africa today.
Forseen the Trouble.
IF the Transvaal ,arming to the teeth
continued this method Of preparation.
then also every man in and out of the
colony of Natal must similarly arm. 1T
is not impossible that chess board of
little armed nations can be permitted;
they menace the peace and orderly pro-
gress of the entire world.
You have got this in 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 inde-
pendence' on the Kruger plan was in
compatible with individual freedom; that
II involved all round militarism
'Then again he had great financial in
terests in the Transvaal; these gave
him the moral right to effect a revolu-
tion II he could Here was a so-called
republic refusing to a majority of its
community the franchise while levying
taxes at the rate of 500 per capita per
annun and turning two-thlrds of this
misbegotten revenue into munitions of
war.
Kruger aimed at arming all the Dutch
in South Africa with the gollNIeyied
in the Rand mines. I don't want to dis
euss the ethics Of our war or the cause
of that war, but I DO want to make it
clear that my friend hoped by an effec-
tive coup d'etat to destroy at a blow
Krugerism and secure for the Trans
vaal the same political conditions.
namely, equal rights for all, which, with
such men as Blaine in Cape Colony and
Natal he failed. The raid failed and DR..
Jameson upset my apple cart as Mr..
Rhodes characterized 1t, and the abor
tive raid presented Rhodes himself to
all mankind In false light"