Evening star., 1940-12-22
Lothian's Work Seen Directed
At British>American Union
Carrying Forward of Rhodes Dream, He Believed,
Was the Only Way to Impose
Peace on World
By FeHr Morley.

working amicably together. can impose
peace on the world" The verb was
chosen carefully.
Those quotations give additional sig
nificance to Lord Lothians last speech,
in which Cecil Rhodes own thoughts
were faithfully presented to the Ameri-
can people. Toward the end of his al
most posthumous address Lord Lothian
wrote:
The more people think about the
future the more they are drawn to the
conclusion that all real hope depends
upon some form of cooperation be-
tween the United States and the Brit
ish Commonwealth of Nations Even
If we win a total victory there will be
no chance of Immediately creating
an effective new League of Nations
There will be nothing in Europe out
OF which to make it. . The only
nucleus round which stable and
peaceful and democratic world can be
built after this war is if the United
States and Great Britain possess be-
tween them more aeroplanes and
ships of war and the key positions of
world power, such as l have described,
than any possible totalitarian rival.
In his last days, as in his formative
years, Philip Kerr followed the trail
which Cecil Rhodes had blazed. And in
the years between he was equally loyal
to the great master. AS editor of the
Round Table, as secretary of the Rhodes
trust, which administers the famous
scholarships; as an official endeavoring
to unity India as South Africa had been
unifled-in these and other important
posts Lord Lothian was consistently true
to that tradition of liberal imperialism
which has done much to build, and more
to maintain, the British Empire.
Another Parallel.
In still another instance, perhaps the
most interesting of all, the parallel holds
Both Cecil Rhodes and Lothian de-
sired Anglo German as we'll as Anglo
American cooperation. The former
sincerely admired Kaiser Wilhelm, visited
MIN in Berlin and provided for German,
as well as American and Dominion,
Rhodes scholars in his will. Lothian in
his turn befriended Germany after the
last war, visited Hitler and was for
time so warm in his praise of the Feuhrer
as to be labeled by many as an ZAP
peaser.'
After the outbreak of the war, and his
appointment as Ambassador to this
country. Lothian became bitterly anti
Nazi. His last speech was built around
the argument that the United States
would assuredly be attacked by Germany
| should Great Britain be defeated. But
well recall a conversation: with him in
London in 1887 in which he found much
to admire in Hitler and the Fuehrer 5
claim for Lehensraum mot unreasonable
Spengler's Comment.
To Oswald Spengler the great Ger
man philosopher, Cecil Rhodes was f:
ure of epic Importance and interest. l.
The Decline of the West" published
shortly after the close of the last war,
Spengler defined Rhodes as a precursor
of that new type of Caesar whose advent
he predicted before he ever heard the
name of Hitler. I'm our German world, "
said Spengler, the spirits of Alaric er1
Theodoric will come again-there is a
first hint of them in Cecil Rhodes"
Lord Lothian, of course was not as
dynamic a leader as was Cecil Rhodes
He was too cultured, too kindly and too
/ gentle to have the ruthless driving force
which Rhodes possessed But Lothian
was of the type which builds successfully
| after the architect has conceived the
project And his accomplishment in
bringing toward actuality the Anglo
American union of which Rhodes
dreamed will not be underestimated by
history
Rhodes died untimely at the age of 40.
Lord Lothian, the most able of his dis
ciples, was struck down scarcely less pre-
| maturely at So. The significance of his
last speech, which was undoubtedly ap-
| proved beforehand by Secretary Hull, if
not the President, has been overshad-
owed by the tragic coincidence of the
speakers death
That death has checked much of the
! objective criticism which might other
wise have been directed at Lothian g
| official proposal of wartime alliance
leading to Anglo American union. But
1t has also stopped in midcourse the
builder who was of all living Englishmen
most competent to carry that tremendous
project on to definite achievement.
,..,-U4~~-~,rr~p.