inducing the young soldiers in South Africa to join in the raid, and of subsequently justifying their conduct before the War Office, and also for the purpose of being published in the English Press at the same time as the first news of the raid in order to work upon English opinion, and persuade the English people that the raid, though technically wrong was morally justifiable. . . . No reasonable judge can question that in these transactions he was more blamable than those who were actually punished by the law for taking part in the raid, far more blamable than those young officers who were, in truth, the most severely punished and who had been induced to take part in it under false representation of the wishes of the Government at home, and a grossly false representation of the state of things at Johannesburg. The failure of the raid, and his undoubted complicity with its design, obliged Mr. Rhodes to resign the post of Prime Minister, and his directorship of the Chartered Company. . . . But what can be thought of the language of a Minister who volunteered to assure the House of Commons that in all the transactions I have described, Mr. Rhodes, though he had made 'a gigantic mistake,' a mistake perhaps as great as a statesman could make, had done nothing affecting his personal honour?"
What has been thought, and what is thought of the matter, has been largely suppressed by party politicians. The War Enquiry was conducted with secrecy; Cabinet Ministers held their Councils, as it were, with locked doors. An eager desire to conceal the real state of affairs in the
