The Raid indirectly killed Rhodes and directly obliterated his political reputation.  It lost him, too, the respect of all the men who could have helped him to govern South Africa wisely and well.  It deprived him of the experience and popularity of Mr. Schreiner, Mr. Merriman, Mr. Sauer and other members of the Afrikander Bond who had once been upon terms of intimacy and affection with him.

It must never be forgotten that at one period of his history Rhodes was considered to be the best friend of the Dutch party; and, secondly, that he had been the first to criticise the action of the British Government in regard to the Transvaal.  At the very moment when the Raid was contemplated he was making the most solemn assurances to his friends—­as they then believed themselves to be—­that he would never tolerate any attack against the independence of the Boers.  If his advice had been taken, Rhodes considered that the errors which culminated at Majuba with the defeat of the British troops would have been avoided.  He caused the same assurances to be conveyed to President Kruger, and this duplicity, which in anyone less compromised than he was in regard to the Dutch party might have been blamed, was in his case considered as something akin to high treason, and roused against him sentiments not only of hatred, but also of disgust.  When later on, at the time of the Boer War, Rhodes made attempts to ingratiate himself once more into the favour of the Dutch he failed to realise that while there are cases when animosity can give way before political necessity, it is quite impossible in private to shake hands with an individual whom one despises.  And that such persons as Mrs. van Koopman or Mr. Schreiner, for instance, despised Rhodes there can be no doubt.

They were wrong in doing so.  Rhodes was essentially a man of moods, and also an opportunist in his strange, blunt way.  Had the Dutch rallied round him during the last war it is certain that he would have given himself up body and soul to the task of trying to smooth over the difficulties which gave such an obstinate character to the war.  He would have induced the English Government to grant to all rebel colonists who returned to their allegiance a generous pardon and reinstatement into their former rights.

Even while the war lasted it is a fact that, in a certain sense, Rhodes’ own party suspected him of betraying its interests.  I feel almost sure that Sir Alfred Milner did not trust him, but, nevertheless, he would have liked Rhodes as a coadjutor.  If the two men were never on sincerely cordial terms with one another it was not the fault of the High Commissioner, who, with that honesty of which he always and upon every occasion gave proof, tried to secure the co-operation of the great South African statesman in his difficult task.  But Rhodes would not help Sir Alfred.  But neither, too, would he help the Dutch unless they were willing to eat humble pie before