egard to the Transvaal and its aged
President, Mr. Kruger.

The misfortune of the whole situation, as I have already pointed out, was
that the men who had attempted to play a high game of politics, in reality
understood very little about them, and that instead of thinking of the
interests of the Empire to which they professed themselves to be so deeply
attached, they thought in terms of their personal outlook. Rhodes alone of
those not in official position saw the ultimate aim of all these entangled
politics. But unfortunately, though he had the capacities and experience
of a statesman, he was not a patient man; indeed, throughout his life he
had acted like a big spoiled child, to whom must be given at once whatever
he desires. Too often he acted in the present, marring the future by
thinking only of the immediate success of his plans, and brutally starting
to work, regardless of consequences and of his personal reputation. Though
his soul was essentially that of a financier and he would ride rough-shod
over those who conducted their business affairs by gentler methods, yet at
the same time, by a kind of curious contrast, he was always ready, nay,
eager, to come to the material help of his neighbour--maybe out of
affection for him; maybe out of that special sort of contempt which makes
one sometimes throw a bone to a starving dog one has never seen before.
The greatest misfortune in Rhodes' life was his faculty, too often applied
upon occasions when it were best suppressed, of seeing the mean and sordid
aspects of an action, and of imagining that every man could be bought,
provided one knew the price. He was so entirely convinced of this latter
fact that it always caused him a kind of impatience he did not even give
himself the trouble to dissimulate, to find that he had been mistaken.
This happened to him once or twice in the course of his career.

The English party in the Colony regretted until the end of Rhodes' life
the strange aberration that allowed the Raid, and made him sacrifice his
reputation for the sake of hastening an event which, without his
interference, would almost surely soon have come to pass. The salient
feature of the Raid was its terrible stupidity; in that respect it was
worse than a crime, for crime is forgotten, but nothing can efface from
the memory of the world or the condemnation of history a colossally stupid
political blunder.

After the foolish attempt to seize hold of their country, the