surprise—the leadership of Dr. Jameson, which, after one great and fruitful voyage, seems likely to be scuttled in port by one of these petty local rivalries which are the curse of English politics in South Africa, Nor, in describing as a fluke certain Acts passed by the preceding Sprigg Ministry, would I detract from the credit due to the Dutch members, my late Parliamentary colleagues, for their ultimate sacrifice, no easy one, to expediency and moderation. But my point is—and no one who knows the Cape lobbies and Cape constituencies will contest it—that these successive triumphs of the statesmanship of the odd-man-out on poll or division list amounted to a series of flukes, a run of luck, on which a betting man would not have cared without heavy odds to risk his money. Such a run might come off—it did come off; but in Milner's view it was not a thing on which he could advise the Home Government beforehand to stake vital interests.
It may be said, if the advice was a mistake, it was a double mistake to advise publicly; it certainly was so, if Milner had been troubling about personal prestige. He knew the Suspension Movement was a forlorn hope; backed by his name, one to conjure with among the doubtful, it just might succeed: failure must mean rebuff. He knew that, and chose to shoulder the responsibility. That mistake at least was characteristic.
The next controversy, since it still burns in England, must detain us rather longer. Is Chinese Labour a mistake? Nothing went so near to shake or strain that peculiar personal authority which Milner had come to wield throughout the Empire as when he nailed the yellow colours to his mast. One consideration may save our breath upon this tortured issue: it is that Milner stands to be judged by the event, and the event is month by month unfolding itself. Either, as some say, Chinese labour is an expedient which the Transvaal will abandon after a brief experience; in that case, it is superfluous to ponder what might be its ultimate effects socially, while economically it will have served its turn
