Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/196

 cessions from that day. It was by this time clear that Lord Salisbury's government would not undertake a protectorate over the northern territories. Rhodes asked whether a chartered company, roughly modelled on the old East India Company, would be acceptable, and was told that it would, and after much manoeuvring on the part of soi-disant claimants to concessions the charter incorporating the British South Africa Company was granted on 13 July 1889. The territory under the new company's control which the company was empowered to develop lay to the north of the Transvaal and Bechuanaland, and vaguely extended to the Zambesi. It was soon named Rhodesia after the projector of the great scheme.

Meanwhile Rhodes was developing his material interests in the south. By 1885 the De Beers Mining Company, after a period of pecuniary embarrassment, had grown by the absorption of additional claims to be an enterprise of importance with a capital of 84,000l., while the Kimberley Mine, practically controlled by Barnato represented an even larger and a rival amalgamation. But the permanence of the diamond industry was still regarded as doubtful. The assistance of the Cape government, confidently expected, had been refused to the mining board. Diamonds were sinking in value. Only a final amalgamation could save the industry, the question being whether the De Beers or the Barnato Company should be supreme. Bamato's financial position was the stronger, and his ability at least equal to Rhodes's. But he had failed to secure the important interests of the Compagnie Fran9aise in the Kimberley Mine. On 6 July 1887 Rhodes sailed for Europe, obtained the necessary financial support in London, and going to Paris bought the entire assets of the French company for 1,400,000l. Barnato challenged the right of purchase ; there was bickering and imminent litigation, when Rhodes appeared to weaken. He offered the French company shares to Barnato at cost price, taking payment in Kimberley mining shares ; Barnato believed the day to be his. But the holding in the Kimberley Mine thus acquired was used by Rhodes to obtain other shares, until at last he had secured a controlling interest in the mine ; and on 13 March 1888 both companies were amalgamated by the style of De Beers Consohdated Mines, with Rhodes as its chairman and virtual ruler. The trust deed which defined the powers conferred on its holders was singular. Barnato had desired a trust deed limiting the activities of the company to diamond mining. Rhodes declared that the company should be legally capable of carrying out any business not in itself unlawful. There was a fresh encounter between the two men, who measured their wits against each other through a whole night, and Rhodes prevailed. The trust deed empowered De Beers Consolidated Mines to increase its capital as it could, to acquire what it could, and where it could. It could 'acquire tracts of country' in Africa or elsewhere together with any rights that might be granted by the valuers thereof, and spend thereon any sums deemed requisite for the maintenance and good government thereof. 'Since the time of the East India Company,' said Mr. (now Chief Justice Sir) James Rose-Innes during the litigation with shareholders which followed, 'no company has had such power as this. They-are not confined to Africa ; they are authorised to take any steps for the good government of any country. If they obtain a charter from the secretary of state, they could annex a portion of territory in Central Africa, raise and maintain a standing army, and undertake warlike operations.' Such was the corporation — the largest in the world — of which Rhodes found himself the master at thirty-six. At the same time Rhodes acquired large stakes in the gold mines of the Rand on the discovery of a reef there. His partner, Mr. Rudd, proceeded from Kimberley and obtained on their joint behalf interests in a gold-mining corporation which was soon known as the Consolidated Goldfields of South Africa.

Rhodes's energetic interest in the organisation of the Chartered Company was not diminished by his other activities. By arrangement with the Cape government the British South Africa Company undertook the construction of a railway line northwards from Kimberley to Fourteen Streams, then subsequently to the British Bechuanaland border and on to Vryburg. With a view to the occupation of the new territories a pioneer expedition was arranged in London with Mr. F. C. Selous, the famous hunter and explorer, while Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, relinquishing in 1890 a large medical practice at Kimberley which he had carried on since 1878, spent months of daring and adroit diplomacy in Lobengula's kraal, preparing the king for the establishment of Englishmen in Matabeleland and Mashonaland. On 11 Sept. 1890, after many hardships