At last did the sturdy Dutch farmers realise that if there was one man devoid of animosity against them, and desirous of seeing the end of a struggle which was ruining a continent, it was Sir Alfred Milner.  They also discovered another thing concerning his political views and opinions—­that he desired just as much as they did to destroy the power and influence of those multi-millionaires who had so foolishly believed that after the war’s end they would have at their disposal the riches which the Transvaal contained, so that, rather than becoming a part of the British Empire, it would in reality be an annexe of the London and Paris Stock Exchanges.

As events turned out, by a just retribution of Providence, the magnates who had let greedy ambition master them lost most of the advantages which they had been able to snatch from President Kruger.  Whether this would have happened had Rhodes not died before the conclusion of peace remains an open question.  It is certain he would have objected to a limitation of the political power of the concerns in which he had got such tremendous interests; it is equally sure that it would have been for him a cruel disappointment had his name not figured as the outstanding signature on the treaty of peace.  There were in this strange man moments when his patriotism assumed an entirely personal shape, but, improbable as it may appear to the reader, there was sincerity in the conviction which he had that the only man who understood what South Africa required was himself, and that in all that he had done he had been working for the benefit of the Empire.  There was in him something akin to the feeling which had inspired the old Roman saying, “Civis Romanum sum.” He understood far better than any of the individuals by whom he was surrounded the true meaning of the word Imperialism.  Unfortunately, he was apt to apply it in the personal sense, until, indeed, it got quite confused in his mind with a selfish feeling which prompted him to put his huge personality before everything else.  If one may do so, a reading of his mind would show that in his secret heart he felt he had not annexed Rhodesia to the Empire nor amalgamated the Kimberley mines and organised De Beers for the benefit of his native Britain, but in order to make himself the most powerful man in South Africa, and yet at the same time shrewdly realised that he could not be the king he wished to become unless England stood behind him to cover with her flag his heroic actions as well as his misdeeds.

That Rhodes’ death occurred at an opportune moment cannot be denied.  It is a sad thing to say, but for South Africa true enough.  It removed from the path of Sir Alfred Milner the principal obstacle that had stood in his way ever since his arrival at Cape Town.  The Rhodesian party, deprived of its chief, was entirely harmless.  Rhodesian politics, too, lost their strength when he was no longer there to impose them upon South Africa.