Evening star., 1940-12-22

Lord Loth1anS ashes now rest IN Ar
lington, awaiting the happier day when
they will be restored to the soil from
which his long line springs.
At the services in Washington Cathe-
dral last Sunday this great Ambassador
was honored in manner without prece-
dent for diplomat who dies while on
assignment in foreign land! The
charm Of his personality, the sincerity
of his work for closer Anglo-American
relations, the shock of his wholly unex-
pected passing, the tragic sweep of
events summarized in the speech deliv-
cred for him the very night Of his death
all these were factors behind the great
outpouring of sorrowful tribute to Lord
Lothian's memory.
But the significance of Lord Lothians
place in history, the full meaning of the
message which he sought to deliver as
wartime Ambassador to the United
States, have not been fully analyzed.
Philip Henry Kerr, as he was until in
heritance gave him his titles a decade
ago, was by taste and training liberal
imperialist" OF the school which will al
ways be associated with the names Of
Joseph Chamberlain and Cecil Rhodes.
The liberal imperialists were we'll named.
1t was their settled purpose to extend the
dominion and power of the British En-
pire, particularly in Africa, and then to
maintain through conciliation, good gov
ernment and democratic processes what
had been won by force.
Achievement in Africa.
Born in 1882, Philip Kerr pronounced
Carr was student at oxford University
during the Boer War. And it was not
until 1905 that the future Lord Lothian
went to South Africa to work with Sir
Alfred Miner in building the structure
of new self-governing dominion, COM
parable in importance with either Can
ada or Australia.
Cecil Rhodes had died on March 26,
Boer republics finally acknowledged
British sovereignty. But the sweeping
ideas and dynamic personality of the
great empire builder were still very much
alive in South Africa during the years
that young Philip Kerr was working
there.
The ambitions of Cecil Rhodes were
not limited to establishment of the Union
of South Africa. Among other dreams
he often visuahzed the whole of that
vast continent under the British flag
But federation of the British colonies
and the Boer republics in the southAwas
an important step to larger ends.
Into the practical development of fed
Grafton Philip Kerr. first as civil serv-
ant and then as the editor of a news
paper pledged to the cause of union,
threw himself wholeheartedly And it
was in no small degree due to his activi-
ties that union was actually put through
in 1909, just seven years after the close
of bitter war between the federatine
states This work completed. young Kerr
returned to England to take on other
major tasks.
Unity of English Peoples.
1t was not Lothians habit to talk
much about these formative years in
South Africa. Indeed he scarcely ever
talked about himself, and very seldom
about the broad implications of his ideas
But all who knew him we'll realized that
the successful political union of Boer
and Briton had greatly stimulated his
imagination and led him to regard as
wholly practical much of the roughly
sketched vision of Cecil Rhodes.
In his last speech, read for him in
Baltimore a few hours before his death
Lord Lothian may have seemed to give
the impression that the idea of Anglo
American union had come to him after
the outbreak of the present war. Actu-
ally that huge objective had been shap.
ing in his mind since the early years
OF the century when as young Philip
Kerr. he had worked in South Africa as
a disciple of Cecil Rhodes.
An intimate friend. Mr.. j. G. Nc.
Donald, who in 1928 published a frank
biography of the great imperialist. tells
us that Rhodes dreamed of the govern
ance of the world by the English-speak-
ing races" God, said Rhodes once tc
w. T. Stead, "is manifestly fashioning
the English-speaking race as the chosen
instrument by which He will bring in a
state of society based on justice, liberty
and peace.
And on another occasion Rhodes stated
that "the British Empire and America