in the old Greek race, will carry torches, and pass them on to one another, and it will be seen that the torch is the same torch, but each has his own way of carrying it forward.
One digression may be borne with before the lens is focussed for South Africa. My rather cumbrous title was chosen to emphasize the fact that to the thought of both these men it was never the Transvaal question, or the Cape question, or the Rhodesia question, but always the question of South Africa. And, further (this is the digression), the coming South African Union was always, in the thought of both, part of a definite whole: an Empire-State in which a self-governing and locally independent South Africa would be one of the partners, and to which 'British and Dutch alike could, without any sacrifice of their several traditions, unite in loyal devotion.' The quotation is from a passage in a speech of Milner's,[1] which should become a locus classicus of democratic Imperialism. Of such an organic Empire-State, the Empire as it exists was to both men's thought only the magnificent raw material; and, in Milner's words, 'It is a close race between the numerous influences so manifestly making for disruption and the growth of a great, but still very imperfectly realized conception.' To both, therefore, all devices for working that raw material up, and creating organs of that union, all Imperial defence schemes and Imperial fiscal schemes, were a preoccupation behind and beyond the practical politics of the hour.
To the fiscal scheme, which now divides parties, Rhodes's contribution is well known. Whatever may be thought of it—and the present comment is penned, as to the scientific tariff, from the standpoint of a still unconverted insular sceptic, and as to Zollverein, from the standpoint of a Chamberlainite of 1902, persuaded that 'the Colonies must better their offer'—all candid minds must admit the loss to the discussion of a statesman who approached it from the colonial end in
- ↑ Johannesburg, March 31, 1905.
