nding that which lies under the
surface of history fail to take into account is the peculiar, almost
invidious position and the loneliness in which Sir Alfred had to stand
from the very first day that he landed in Table Bay. He could not make
friends, dared not ask anyone's advice, was forced always to rely entirely
upon his own judgment. He would not have been human had he not sometimes
felt misgivings as to the wisdom of what he was doing. He never had the
help of a Ministry upon whom he could rely or with whom he could
sympathise. The Cabinet presided over by Sir Gordon Sprigg was composed of
very well-intentioned men. But, with perhaps one single exception, it did
not possess any strongly individualistic personage capable of assisting
Sir Alfred in framing a policy acceptable to all shades of public opinion
in the Colony, or even to discuss with him whether such a policy could
have been invented. As for the administration of which Mr. Schreiner was
the head, it was distinctly hostile to the policy inaugurated by Mr.
Joseph Chamberlain, which Sir Alfred represented. Its members, indeed, put
every obstacle in the Governor's way, and this fact becoming known
encouraged a certain spirit of rebellion among the Dutch section of the
population. Neither one Ministry nor the other was able to be of any
serious use to Milner, who, thus hampered, could neither frame a programme
which accorded with his own judgment nor show himself in his true light.

[Illustration: VISCOUNT MILNER]

All these circumstances were never taken into consideration by friends or
foes, and, in consequence, he was made responsible for blunders which he
could not help and for mistakes which he was probably the first to
deplore. The world forgot that Sir Alfred never really had a free hand,
was always thwarted, either openly or in secret, by some kind of
authority, be it civil or military, which was in conflict with his own.

It was next to an impossibility to judge a man fairly under such
conditions. All that one could say was that he deserved a good deal of
praise for having, so successfully as he did, steered through the manifold
difficulties and delicate susceptibilities with which he had to contend in
unravelling a great tangle in the history of the British Empire.

The Afrikander Bond hated him, that was a recognised fact, but this hatred
did Sir Alfred more good than anything else. The attacks directed against
him were so mean that they only won