was
to widen the Empire and keep the Germans and Boers from annexing
territory that he believed should be British. This was Rhodes the
imperialist at work. The other aspect was the purely commercial side and
revealed the same shrewdness that had registered so successfully in the
creation of the Diamond Trust at Kimberley. This was Rhodes the business
man on the job.

The Charter itself was a visualization of the Rhodes mind and it matched
the Cape-to-Cairo project in bigness of vision. It gave the Company the
right to acquire and develop land everywhere, to engage in shipping, to
build railway, telegraph and telephone lines, to establish banks, to
operate mines and irrigation undertakings and to promote commerce and
manufacture of all kinds. Nothing was overlooked. It meant the union of
business and statesmanship.

Under the Charter the Company was given administrative control of an
area larger than that of Great Britain, France and Prussia. It divided
up into Northern and Southern Rhodesia with the Zambesi River as the
separating line. Northern Rhodesia remains a sparsely settled
country--there are only 2,000 white inhabitants to 850,000 natives--and
the only industry of importance is the lead and zinc development at
Broken Hill. Southern Rhodesia, where there are 35,000 white persons and
800,000 natives, has been the stronghold of Chartered interests and the
battleground of the struggle to throw off corporate control. It is the
Rhodesia to be referred to henceforth in this chapter without prefix.

The Charter is perpetual but it contained a provision that at the end of
twenty-five years, (1914) and at the end of each succeeding ten years,
the Imperial Government has the power to alter, amend or rescind the
instrument so far as the administration of Rhodesia is concerned. No
vital change in the original document has been made so far, but by the
time the next cycle expires in 1924 it is certain that the Company
control will have ended and Rhodesia will either be a part of the Union
of South Africa or a self-determining Colony.

The Company is directed by a Board of Directors in London, but no
director resides in the country itself. Thus at the beginning the
fundamental mistake was made in attempting to run an immense area at
long range. With the approval of the Foreign Office the Company names an
Administrator,--the present one is Sir Drummond Chaplin,--who, like the
average Governor-General, has little to say. The