d this in so many words,
but he allowed people to guess that such was his conviction, and it was
only after Sir Alfred had I left the Cape for Pretoria that, by a closer
contact with the Boers themselves, some of the latter's prejudices against
him vanished.

At last did the sturdy Dutch farmers realise that if there was one man
devoid of animosity against them, and desirous of seeing the end of a
struggle which was ruining a continent, it was Sir Alfred Milner. They
also discovered another thing concerning his political views and
opinions--that he desired just as much as they did to destroy the power
and influence of those multi-millionaires who had so foolishly believed
that after the war's end they would have at their disposal the riches
which the Transvaal contained, so that, rather than becoming a part of the
British Empire, it would in reality be an annexe of the London and Paris
Stock Exchanges.

As events turned out, by a just retribution of Providence, the magnates
who had let greedy ambition master them lost most of the advantages which
they had been able to snatch from President Kruger. Whether this would
have happened had Rhodes not died before the conclusion of peace remains
an open question. It is certain he would have objected to a limitation of
the political power of the concerns in which he had got such tremendous
interests; it is equally sure that it would have been for him a cruel
disappointment had his name not figured as the outstanding signature on
the treaty of peace. There were in this strange man moments when his
patriotism assumed an entirely personal shape, but, improbable as it may
appear to the reader, there was sincerity in the conviction which he had
that the only man who understood what South Africa required was himself,
and that in all that he had done he had been working for the benefit of
the Empire. There was in him something akin to the feeling which had
inspired the old Roman saying, "_Civis Romanum sum._" He understood far
better than any of the individuals by whom he was surrounded the true
meaning of the word Imperialism. Unfortunately, he was apt to apply it in
the personal sense, until, indeed, it got quite confused in his mind with
a selfish feeling which prompted him to put his huge personality before
everything else. If one may do so, a reading of his mind would show that
in his secret heart he felt he had not annexed Rhodesia to the Empire nor
amalgamated the Kimberley min