Page:Last Will and Testament of Cecil Rhodes.djvu/128

114 be a good thing for them is not likely to be a bad thing for us.”

To be a Rhodesian, then, of the true stamp you must be a Home Ruler and something more. You must be an Imperialist, not from mere lust of dominion or pride of race, but because you believe the Empire is the best available instrument for diffusing the principles of Justice, Liberty, and Peace throughout the world. Whenever Imperialism involves the perpetration of Injustice, the suppression of Freedom, and the waging of wars other than those of self-defence, the true Rhodesian must cease to be an Imperialist. But a Home Ruler and Federalist, according to the principles of the American Constitution, he can never cease to be, for Home Rule is a fundamental principle, whereas the maintenance and extension of the Empire are only means to an end, and may be changed, as Mr. Rhodes was willing to change them. If, for instance, the realisation of the greater ideal of Race Unity could only be brought about by merging the British Empire in the American Republic, Mr. Rhodes was prepared to advocate that radical measure.

The question that now arises is whether in the English-speaking world there are to be found men of faith adequate to furnish forth materials for the Society of which Mr. Rhodes dreamed:—

We have the clay mould of Mr. Rhodes’s longed-for Society. Have we got the stuff, in the Empire and the Republic, to carve it in marble?

Mr. Rhodes, like David, may have had to yield to a successor the realisation of an ideal too lofty to be worked out by the man who first conceived it.

‘It was in my mind,” said the old Hebrew monarch as he came to die, “to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God. But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars;