298 " MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE ! " 



had come back from the Transvaal with the Balkis 

 proposition in his pocket. They had not struck the right 

 place in the Transvaal, as it happened, but McMurdo 

 foresaw the prospects of the whole country and it was he 

 who obtained the concession for the Delagoa Bay Railway 

 from the Portuguese Government. 



This railway was all but completed when McMurdo 

 died suddenly, and, as may be remembered, the Portuguese 

 thereupon tried to evade their liabilities. 



Mrs McMurdo, however, had considerable interest with 

 the American Government, and an arbitration case re- 

 sulted which lasted over many years. Meanwhile the 

 late Colonel's managing clerk had married the widow, 

 and obtained good appointments in the American Consular 

 Service. The arbitration dragged on until the good 

 lady died, and, I think, there was no profit in the 

 award to her then disconsolate husband, but he has 

 since become an American ambassador, unless I am 

 greatly mistaken. 



It is indeed strange to think now what the Transvaal 

 was in the eighties before the gold had been discovered, 

 and what events have happened consequent on that 

 discovery. Effodiuniur opes irritamenta Malorum, as we 

 used to read in Latin text-books, and no greater truth 

 was ever enunciated. Still, all was for the best. The Boers 

 would still have been a pastoral race, living happily 

 no doubt on the land, but men like General Botha 

 and General Smuts would have lived and died without 

 any opportunity to develop their talents. Yes, I suppose 

 it has been all for the best, and yet, had there been no 

 Delagoa Bay Railway Mr Winston Churchill would 

 never have escaped from the Transvaal. That gives 

 food for thought. 



The return of Lord Salisbury's Government in absolute 

 unassailable strength was bad business for St Stephen's 

 Review. We were nothing if not a fighting paper, and 

 there remained nothing to fight. Lord Randolph resigned 

 his office at the end of that year and on ist January 1887 



