maintained itself for two centuries and a half with ever increasing territory and authority until it became a great military Empire.  Other examples of lower degree are the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Borneo Company.  The De Beers Company provided out of its abundance large sums for exploration and settlement in South Africa and for the furtherance of the Imperial idea, and it is said that Rhodes spent the whole of one night in arguing with some of the materialistic magnates of Kimberley, before he could induce them to consent to the employment of the resources of the Company in the advancement of his schemes of Empire.  He found, however, that these could not be satisfactorily promoted by a Company whose primary interests were commercial rather than imperial; and in 1888 he obtained a charter for the British South Africa Company, an offshoot of the De Beers Company, formed for the purpose of extending the British Empire towards the Equator.

The question of the defences of Kimberley engaged the attention of the De Beers Company some years before the outbreak of the war.  Its vulnerability to attack from the Orange Free State, the border of which ran close to the town, was obvious; and in 1896 a depot of arms and ammunition was formed.  A military plan of the place was sent to the Imperial authorities and a defence force was also organized.  This, however, had in 1899 ceased to exist owing chiefly to the action of Mr. Schreiner, at that time the Premier of the Cape Colony, who in June refused, with complacent optimism, to furnish it with arms, saying that, “there is no reason for apprehending that Kimberley is in danger of attack,” and that “the fears of the citizens are groundless and their anticipations without foundation.”  A battery of artillery was, however, surreptitiously brought up from King Williamstown.

The policy of Schreiner during the months preceding the war is obscure.  While refusing help to Kimberley he was allowing munitions of war, which were way billed as pianos and hardware, to pass through the Cape Colony to the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.  He does not appear to have been actively disloyal to the Imperial Government and in his own way he probably did his best to keep the peace.  His mind was cast in a mould which is not uncommon in the British Empire but which is rarely found outside it.  He was more anxious to stand well with its enemies, and like the Unjust Steward to have a claim to a place in their houses, if they were successful, than to work for its security.  It was with great difficulty that Sir A. Milner as late as September 18 obtained his consent to the dispatch of a few regulars to Kimberley to form the backbone of a defensive force.  He seems to have retained almost to the end, in spite of all indications to the contrary, the belief that the war would be averted or at least that the Orange Free State would not join in it.  Yet in this he erred in good company.  Mr. Balfour said that if on September 28 he had been asked whether war with the Orange Free State was a probable contingency he would have replied that war with Switzerland was one equally probable; and Lord Lansdowne declined before September 23 to discuss with Lord Roberts the question of operations in the Free State.  Buller, with surer insight, had foreseen the alliance as far back as 1881.