A COMPLEX PERSONALITY
Rhodesia and its annexation was but the development of a vast scheme of
conquest that had its start in the wonderful brain of the individual who
by that time had become to be spoken of as the greatest man South Africa
had ever known. Long before this Cecil Rhodes had entered political life
as member of the Cape Parliament. He stood for the province of Barkly
West, and his election, which was violently contested, made him master of
this constituency for the whole of his political career. The entry into
politics gave a decided aim to his ambitions and inspired him to a new
activity, directing his wonderful organising faculties toward other than
financial victories and instilling within him the desire to make for
himself a name not solely associated with speculation, but one which would
rank with those great Englishmen who had carried far and wide British
renown and spread the fame of their Mother Country across the seas.
Rhodes' ambitions were not as unselfish as those of Clive, to mention only
that one name. He thought far more of himself than of his native land in
the hours when he meditated on all the advantages which he might obtain
from a political career. He saw the way to become at last absolutely free
to give shape to his dreams of conquest, and to hold under his sway the
vast continent which he had insensibly come to consider as his private
property. And by this I do not mean Rhodesia only--which he always spoke
of as "My country"--but he also referred to Cape Colony in the same way.
With one distinction, however, which was remarkable: he called it "My old
country," thus expressing his conviction that the new one possessed all
his affections. It is probable that, had time and opportunity been granted
him to bring into execution his further plans, thereby to establish
himself at Johannesburg and at Pretoria as firmly as he had done at
Kimberley and Buluwayo, the latter townships would have come to occupy the
same secondary importance in his thoughts as that which Cape Colony had
assumed. Mr. Rhodes may have had a penchant for old clothes, but he
certainly preferred new countries to ones already explored. To give Rhodes
his due, he was not the money-grubbing man one would think, judging by his
companions. He was constantly planning, constantly dreaming of wider areas
to conquer and to civilise. The possession of gold was for him a means,
not an aim; he appreciated riches for the power they produced to do
absolutely all that he wished, but not for the boast of having so many
millions standing to his account at a bank. He meant to become a king in
his way, and a king he unquestionably was for a time at least, until his
own hand shattered his throne.
His first tenure of the Cape Premiership was most successful, and even
during the second term his popularity went on growing until the fatal
Jameson Raid--an act of folly which nothing can explain, nothing can
excuse. Until it broke his political career, transforming him from the
respected statesman whom every party in South Africa looked up to into a
kind of broken idol never more to be trusted, Rhodes had enjoyed the
complete confidence of the Dutch party. They fully believed he was the
only man capable of effecting the Union which at that time was already
considered to be indispensable to the prosperity of South Africa. Often he
had stood up for their rights as the oldest settlers and inhabitants of
the country. Even in the Transvaal, notwithstanding the authority wielded
then by President Kruger, the populace would gladly have taken advantage
of his services and of his experience to help them settle favourably their
everlasting quarrels with the Uitlanders, as the English colonists were
called.
Had Cecil Rhodes but had the patience to wait, and had he cared to enter
into the details of a situation, the intricacies of which none knew better
than he, it is probable that the annexation of the Transvaal to the
British Empire would have taken place as a matter of course and the Boer
War would never have broken out. Rhodes was not only popular among the
Dutch, but also enjoyed their confidence, and it is no secret that he had
courted them to the extent of exciting the suspicions of the ultra-English
party, the Jingo elements of which had openly accused him of plotting with
the Dutch against the authority of Queen Victoria and of wishing to get
himself elected Life President of a Republic composed of the various South
African States, included in which would be Cape Colony, and perhaps even
Natal, in spite of the preponderance of the English element there.
That Rhodes might have achieved such a success is scarcely to be doubted,
and personally I feel sure that there had been moments in his life when
the idea of it had seriously occurred to him. At least I was led to think
so in the course of a conversation which we had together on this subject a
few weeks before the Boer War broke out. At that moment Rhodes knew that
war was imminent, but it would be wrong to interpret that knowledge in the
sense that he had ever thought of or planned rebellion against the Queen.
Those who accused him of harbouring the idea either did not know him or
else wished to harm him. Rhodes was essentially an Englishman, and set his
own country above everything else in the world. Emphatically this is so;
but it is equally true that his strange conceptions of morality in matters
where politics came into question made him totally oblivious of the fact
that he thought far more of his own self than of his native land in the
plans which he conceived and formulated for the supremacy of England in
South Africa. He was absolutely convinced that his election as Life
President of a South African Republic would not be in any way detrimental
to the interests of Great Britain; on the contrary, he assured himself it
would make the latter far more powerful than it had ever been before in
the land over which he would reign. By nature something of an Italian
_condottieri_, he considered his native land as a stepping-stone to his
own grandeur.
For a good many years he had chosen his best friends among Dutchmen of
influence in the Cape Colony and in the Transvaal. He flattered, courted
and praised them until he quite persuaded them that nowhere else would
they find such a staunch supporter of their rights and of their claims.
Men like Mr. Schreiner,[A] for instance, trusted him absolutely, and
believed quite sincerely that in time he would be able to establish firm
and friendly relations between the Cape Government and that of the
Transvaal. Though the latter country had been, as it were, sequestrated by
friends of Rhodes--much to their own profit--Mr. Schreiner felt convinced
that the Colossus had never encouraged any plans which these people might
have made against the independence of the Transvaal Republic. Rhodes had
so completely fascinated him that even on the eve of the day when Jameson
crossed the Border, Mr. Schreiner, when questioned by one of his friends
about the rumours which had reached Cape Town concerning a projected
invasion of the Transvaal by people connected with the Chartered Company,
repudiated them with energy. Mr. Schreiner, indeed, declared that so long
as Mr. Rhodes was Prime Minister nothing of the kind could or would
happen, as neither Jameson nor any of his lieutenants would dare to risk
such an adventure without the sanction of their Chief, and that it was
more to the latter's interest than to that of anyone else to preserve the
independence of the Transvaal Republic.
[A] Now High Commissioner for the Union of South Africa.
[Illustration: THE RT. HON. W.G. SCHREINER.]
Talking of Mr. Schreiner reminds me of his sister, the famous Olive
Schreiner, the author of so many books which most certainly will long rank
among the English classics. Olive Schreiner was once upon terms of great
friendship with Mr. Rhodes, who extremely admired her great talents. She
was an ardent Afrikander patriot, Dutch by sympathy and origin, gifted
with singular intelligence and possessed of wide views, which strongly
appealed to the soul and to the spirit of the man who at that time was
considered as the greatest figure in South Africa.
It is not remarkable, therefore, that Rhodes should fall into the habit
of confiding in Miss Schreiner, whom he found was "miles above" the
people about him. He used to hold long conversations with her and to
initiate her into many of his plans for the future, plans in which the
interests and the welfare of the Cape Dutch, as well as the Transvaalers,
used always to play the principal part. His friendship with her, however,
was viewed with great displeasure by many who held watch around him.
Circumstances--intentionally brought about, some maintain--conspired to
cause a cooling of the friendship between the two most remarkable
personalities in South Africa. Later on, Miss Schreiner, who was an ardent
patriot, having discovered what she termed and considered to be the
duplicity of the man in whom she had so absolutely trusted, refused to
meet Cecil Rhodes again. Her famous book, "Trooper Peter Halkett of
Mashonaland," was the culminating point in their quarrel, and the break
became complete.
This, however, was but an incident in a life in which the feminine element
never had any great influence, perhaps because it was always kept in check
by people anxious and eager not to allow it to occupy a place in the
thoughts or in the existence of a man whom they had confiscated as their
own property. There are people who, having risen from nothing to the
heights of a social position, are able to shake off former associations:
this was not the case with Rhodes, who, on the contrary, as he advanced in
power and in influence, found himself every day more embarrassed by the
men who had clung to him when he was a diamond digger, and who, through
his financial acumen, had built up their fortunes. They surrounded him day
and night, eliminating every person likely to interfere; slandering,
ridiculing and calumniating them in turns, they at last left him nothing
in place of his shattered faiths and lost ideals, until Rhodes became as
isolated amidst his greatness and his millions as the veriest beggar in
his hovel.
It was a sad sight to watch the ethical degradation of one of the most
remarkable intelligences among the men of his generation; it was
heartrending to see him fall every day more and more into the power of
unscrupulous people who did nothing else but exploit him for their own
benefit. South Africa has always been the land of adventurers, and many a
queer story could be told. That of Cecil John Rhodes was, perhaps, the
most wonderful and the most tragic.
Whether he realised this retrogression himself it is difficult to say.
Sometimes one felt that such might be the case, whilst at others it seemed
as if he viewed his own fate only as something absolutely wonderful and
bound to develop in the future even more prosperously than it had done in
the past. There was always about him something of the "tragediante,
comediante" applied to Napoleon by Pope Pius VII., and it is absolutely
certain that he often feigned sentiments which he did not feel, anger
which he did not experience, and pleasure that he did not have. He was a
being of fits and starts, moods and fancies, who liked to pose in such a
way as to give others an absolutely false idea of his personality when he
considered it useful to his interests to do so. At times it was evident he
experienced regret, but it is doubtful whether he knew the meaning of
remorse. The natives seldom occupied his thoughts, and if he were reminded
in later years that, after all, terrible cruelties had been practised in
Mashonaland or in Matabeleland, he used simply to shrug his shoulders and
to remark that it was impossible to make an omelette without breaking some
eggs. It never occurred to him that there might exist people who objected
to the breaking of a certain kind of eggs, and that humanity had a right
to be considered even in conquest.
And, after all, was this annexation of the dominions of poor Lobengula a
conquest? If one takes into account the strength of the people who
attacked the savage king, and his own weakness, can one do else but regret
that those who slaughtered Lobengula did not remember the rights of mercy
in regard to a fallen foe? There are dark deeds connected with the
attachment of Rhodesia to the British Empire, deeds which would never have
been performed by a regular English Army, but which seemed quite natural
to the band of enterprising fellows who had staked their fortunes on an
expedition which it was their interest to represent as a most dangerous
and difficult affair. I do not want to disparage them or their courage,
but I cannot help questioning whether they ever had to withstand any
serious attack of the enemy. I have been told perfectly sickening details
concerning this conquest of the territory now known by the name of
Rhodesia. The cruel manner in which, after having wrung from them a
concession which virtually despoiled them of every right over their native
land and after having goaded these people into exasperation, the people
themselves were exterminated was terrible beyond words. For instance,
there occurred the incident mentioned by Olive Schreiner in "Trooper Peter
Halkett of Mashonaland," when over one hundred savages were suffocated
alive in a cave where they sought a refuge.
Personally, I remain persuaded that these abominable deeds remained
unknown to Mr. Rhodes and that he would not have tolerated them for one
single instant. They were performed by people who were in possession of
Rhodes' confidence, and who abused it by allowing the world to think that
he encouraged such deeds. Later on it is likely that he became aware of
the abuse that had been made of his name and of the manner in which it had
been put forward as an excuse for inexcusable deeds, but he was far too
indolent and far too indifferent to the blame of the world, at these
particular moments to disavow those who, after all, had helped him in his
schemes of expansion, and who had ministered to his longing to have a
kingdom to himself. Apart from this, he had a curious desire to brave
public opinion and to do precisely the very things that it would have
disapproved. He loved to humiliate those whom he had at one moment thought
he might have occasion to fear. This explains the callousness with which
he made the son of Lobengula one of his gardeners, and did not hesitate to
ask him one day before strangers who were visiting Groote Schuur in what
year he "had killed his father." The incident is absolutely true; it
occurred in my own presence.
At times, such as that related in the paragraph above, Rhodes appeared a
perfectly detestable and hateful creature, and yet he was never sincere
whilst in such moods. A few moments later he would show himself under
absolutely different colours and give proof of a compassionate heart.
Generous to a fault, he liked to be able to oblige his friends, or those
who passed as such, while the charitable acts which he was constantly
performing are too numerous to be remembered. He had a supreme contempt
for money, but he spoiled the best sides of his strange, eccentric
character by enjoying a display of its worst facets with a "cussedness" as
amusing as it was sometimes unpleasant. Is it remarkable, then, that many
people who only saw him in the disagreeable moods should judge him from an
entirely false and misleading point of view?
Rhodes was a man for whom it was impossible to feel indifference; one
either hated him or became fascinated by his curious and peculiar charm.
This quality led many admirers to remain faithful to him even after
disillusion had shattered their former friendship, and who, whilst
refusing to speak to him any more, yet retained for him a deep affection
which not even the conviction that it had been misplaced could alter. This
is a remarkable and indisputable fact. After having rallied around him all
that was honest in South Africa; after having been the petted child of all
the old and influential ladies in Cape Town; after having been accepted as
their leader by men like Mr. Schreiner and Mr. Hofmeyr, who, clever though
they were, and convinced, as they must have been, of their personal
influence on the Dutch party and the members of the Afrikander Bond, still
preferred to subordinate their judgment to Rhodes'; after having enjoyed
such unparalleled confidence, Rhodes had come to be spurned and rejected
politically, but had always kept his place in their hearts. Fate and his
own faults separated him from these people of real weight and influence,
and left him in the hands of those who pretended that they were attached
to him, but who, in reality, cared only for the material advantages that
their constant attendance upon him procured to them. They poisoned his
mind, they separated him from all those who might have been useful to him,
and they profited by the circumstance that the Raid had estranged him from
his former friends to strengthen their own influence upon him, and to
persuade him that those who had deplored the rash act were personal
enemies, wishful for his downfall and disgrace.