1906-7. TiiANSACTIONS. 65 



a good man in the usually accepted sense of the term. I do claim 

 that he was a great man, and a very great man, and as such he 

 must be tried by the standards we apply to his equals in the court 

 of history. " 



F. Edmund Garratt (Contemporary Review, June, 1902, 

 775), referring to the purchases by Rhodes of supporters and 

 agents, wrote that: — 



' The atmosphere it created was demoralizing and sometimes 

 froze the support of men of more scrupulousness. " 



And Howard C. Hillegas (Oom Paul's People, p. 170) not a 

 friend of Rhodes but an American historian of the period, wrote : — 



''Mr. Rhodes did not consider it of sufficient importance to 

 inquire concerning the justice of the Uitlanders claims * * * 

 To Mr. Rhodes the end was sufficient excuse for the means. " * * 



Mr. Chamberlain took the same view as the Poet Laureate. 

 In the House of Commons he said : — 



" I am perfectly convinced that while the fault of Mr. Rhodes 

 is about as great a fault as a politician or statesman can commit, 

 there has been nothing proved, and in my opinion there exists 

 nothing which affects Mr. Rhodes' personal position as a man of 

 honour (a). 



Murder and lying when committed by a cosmic hero, do not 

 affect his personal honour. Machiavelli said nothing worse than 

 that. 



Now these are our national heroes ; and they force us to admit 

 that morality is not an essential ingredient in the man we delight 

 to worship and build monuments to. Did you ever read Carlyle's 

 essay upon the proposal to erect a brass statue to Hudson, the 

 great Enghsh railway king, who ''set all the towns of Britain a 

 dancing, " and who made dying railways " blossom into umbra- 

 geous flowery scrip to enrich" his worshippers? Read it to- 

 morrow. The advice from Chelsea is not to build a brass column 

 to such a man, but to dig a coal-shaft to him, " there to bury him 

 and his memory that men might never hear nor speak of him 

 more. " Carlyle is splendid. He seeks, he says : — 



"To admonish the misguided citizens, subscribers to the 

 next brazen monster, or sad sculptural solecism, the emblems of 

 far sadder moral ones; and exhort them, three successive times, to 

 make warming-pans of it and repent; or failing that, finding them 

 obstinate, to say with authority: 'well, then, persist; set-up your 



(a) The Times, 27th July, 1897. 

 5 



