Page:Last Will and Testament of Cecil Rhodes.djvu/165

Rh for all our concessions there; that is, the land and minerals north of the Zambesi belong to the Chartered Company, with one exception, the small piece termed the Nyassaland Protectorate. Even in that, however, we have considerable rights as to the minerals and land, in return for the property we took over from a Scotch company called the Lakes Company. We have, however, been relieved from the cost of administration of the Nyassaland Protectorate. Her Majesty’s Government and the British people have at last felt it their duty to pay for the administration of one of their own provinces, and I think we have a very fair reply to the Little Englanders, who are always charging us with increasing the responsibilities of Her Majesty’s Government, and stating that the ‘Charters,’ when in difficulty, always appeal to the mother country. Our reply must be that the boot is on the other leg. For four years we have found the cost of administration of one of your own provinces, and we are proud to think that we have yearly paid into Her Majesty’s Treasury a sum for the administration of one of our own provinces, because Governments were unable to face the House of Commons to ask them to contribute to their obligations.

“Well, that is the position north of the Zambesi; and I may say, in reference to that part of our territory, that there are very promising reports from it. It is a high plateau, fully mineralised, and every report shows that the high plateau is a part where Europeans can live. If we pass from that to the South, we first come to Matabeleland and Mashonaland. There we have had great difficulties in the past. We had a Charter, but not a country. We had first to go