Page:Last Will and Testament of Cecil Rhodes.djvu/144

130 to show that the existence of Irish autonomy is compatible with Imperial prosperity and progress.”

Neither Mr. Rhodes’s letter of expostulation nor Mr. Parnell’s letter of explanation and apology is in existence, Mr. Parnell’s letter having been burnt in the fire that destroyed Groote Schuur.

The Parnell correspondence proves one thing conclusively, if nothing else—namely, that the suspicion and distrust excited by Mr. Rhodes’ contribution to the Irish National Fund was absolutely without justification. Nothing could have been straighter and more above-board than the bargain between the two men, and the aim and object of that deal was not, as Mr. Rhodes’s assailants pretended and still pretend, to assist in a separatist movement intended to break up the Empire; its aim was exactly the reverse—namely, to confine the movement for local self-government in Ireland within the limits of a federal system, and make it the stepping-stone to that federation which is the condition of the continued existence of our Empire.

Mr. Rhodes’s second contribution to British political funds took place three years after the subscription to Mr. Parnell. The correspondence which took place in 1891 did not appear till 1901, when it was extracted from Mr. Rhodes by the extraordinary blunder of the editor of the Spectator, who, hearing from a correspondent signing himself “C. B.” that Mr. Rhodes had given Mr. Schnadhorst a contribution to the funds of the Liberal Party, on condition that its leaders should not urge or support our retrogression from Egypt, jumped to the remarkable conclusion that this fact explained the greatest of all mysteries in regard to Mr. Rhodes, the mystery why the Liberals on the South African Committee allowed him to get off so very easily. The absurdity of this is apparent from the fact that it was not Mr. Rhodes but Mr. Chamberlain who was let off easily by the South African Committee, and that the Liberals assented to the whitewashing of Mr. Chamberlain on condition that they might be allowed to pronounce sentence of major excommunication upon Mr. Rhodes. Nevertheless, the Spectator, floundering still more hopelessly into the morass, declared that if the transactions recorded were correct, the Liberal leaders were at the mercy of Mr. Rhodes.