pe Town up through Bechuanaland and through the new territories
Rhodes drove a long railway line. It was a business enterprise, but for
him it was also a great imaginative conception, a link of empire, and
he dreamed of the day when it should be continued to join the line
which was being pushed up the Nile from Cairo through the hot sands of
the Soudan.

But Rhodes's final and most unhappy venture was the attempt to force,
by violent means, a solution of the Transvaal problem. He hoped that
the Uitlanders might be able, by a revolution, to overthrow Kruger's
government, and, perhaps in conjunction with the more moderate Boers,
to set up a system of equal treatment which would make co-operation
with the other British colonies easy, and possibly bring about a
federation of the whole group of South African States. He was too
impatient to let the situation mature quietly. He forced the issue by
encouraging the foolish Jameson Raid of 1895. This, like all wilful
resorts to violence, only made things worse. It alienated and angered
the more moderate Boers in the Transvaal, who were not without sympathy
with the Uitlanders. It aroused the indignation of the Cape Colony
Boers, and embittered racial feeling there. It put the British cause in
the wrong in the eyes of the whole world, and made the Boers appear as
a gallant little people struggling in the folds of a merciless
python-empire. It increased immensely the difficulty of the British
government in negotiating with the Transvaal for better treatment of
the Uitlanders. It stiffened the backs of Kruger and his party. The
German Kaiser telegraphed his congratulations on the defeat of the Raid
'without the aid of friendly powers,' and the implication that this aid
would be forthcoming in case of necessity led the Boers to believe that
they could count on German help in a struggle with Britain. So every
concession to the Uitlanders was obstinately refused; and after three
years more of fruitless negotiation, during which German munitions were
pouring into the Transvaal, the South African War began. It may be that
the war could have been avoided by the exercise of patience. It may be
that the imperialist spirit, which was very strong in Britain at that
period, led to the adoption of a needlessly high-handed tone. But it
was neither greed nor tyranny on Britain's part which brought about the
conflict, but simply the demand for equal rights.

The war was one in which all the appea