It is a curious thing that England’s colonising powers, which are so remarkable, took such a long time to work their way in South Africa.  At least it would have been a curious thing if one did not remember that among the first white men who arrived there Englishmen were much in the minority.  And of those Englishmen who were attracted by the enormous mineral wealth which the country contained, a good proportion were not of the best class of English colonists.  Many a one who landed in Table Bay was an adventurer, drawn thither by the wish to make or retrieve his fortune.  Few came, as did Rhodes, in search of health, and few, again, were drawn thither by the pure love of adventure.  In Australia, or in New Zealand or other colonies, people arrived with the determination to begin a new life and to create for themselves new ties, new occupations, new duties, so as to leave to their children after them the result of their labours.  In South Africa it was seldom that emigrants were animated by the desire to make their home in the solitudes of the vast and unexplored veldt.  Those who got rich there, though they may have built for themselves splendid houses while they dwelt in the land, never looked upon South Africa as home, but aspired to spend their quickly gained millions in London and to forget all about Table Mountain or the shafts and factories of Johannesburg and Kimberley.

To such men as these England was a pretext but never a symbol.  Their strange conception of patriotism jarred the most unpleasantly on the straightforward nature of Sir Alfred Milner, who had very quickly discerned the egotism that lay concealed beneath its cloak.  He understood what patriotism meant, what love for one’s own country signified.  He had arrived in South Africa determined to spare neither his person nor his strength in her service, and the man who was repeatedly accused both by the Dutch and by the English party in the Colony of labouring under a misconception of its real political situation was the one who had from the very first appreciated it as it deserved, and had recognised its damning as well as its redeeming points.

Sir Alfred meant South Africa to become a member of the British Empire, to participate in its greatness, and to enjoy the benefits of its protection.  He had absolutely no idea of exasperating the feelings of the Dutch part of its population.  He had the best intentions in regard to President Kruger himself, and there was one moment, just at the time of the Bloemfontein Conference, when a modus vivendi between President Kruger and the Court of St. James’s might have been established, notwithstanding the difficult question of the Uitlanders.  It was frustrated by none other than these very Uitlanders, who, fondly believing that a war with England would establish them as absolute masters in the Gold Fields, brought it about, little realising that thereby was to be accomplished the one thing which they dreaded—­the firm, just and far-seeing rule of England over all South Africa.