Page:The empire and the century.djvu/523

 Rhodes's large, yet practical spirit Academic he could not be, for good or evil; but he was equally free from obsessions more likely in a colonial politician. He did not come to economics with a head full of wool or mutton or other vested localisms. He recognised John Bull's burden, recognised the pelican-breast liberality of England's fiscal treatment oi her Colonies since the American loss; and inferred that any Colony earnest to bridge between a producer's policy and the consumer's policy of England should be ready to take the first and the second and the third step before expecting a bargain. That spirit—and it is only the spirit I am discussing—is surely invaluable in a servant or master of colonial electorates. Justly, when displayed in Canada, it excited the Cobden Club to embrace the makers of a preferential tariff. The Canadians were the first to force the door, but Rhodes was before them in hammering at it on behalf of the same principle, which was afterwards in a modified form inserted into the constitution of Rhodesia, and thereby, as Rhodes calculated, stamped upon the future federal constitution of South Africa.

To the scheme of organic union for defence, again, which remains strategically urgent whatever may be done about commerce, Milner contributed a most suggestive word in some remarks to a Transvaal branch of the Navy League. Here, too, the first element to be seized is the Mother Country's pelican-breast liberality, and Milner emphasized the fact that all South Africa, equally with the coast Colonies, depends absolutely on the British navy to keep the seas for its trade and as its first line of defence against invasion.

This Cape Colony and Natal have recognised, not by a localized South African squadron, but by a direct contribution in aid of the British taxpayer. What more obvious for a representative of the Crown than to look forward to the South African Union making much larger strides towards converting the naval dependence into naval partnership? But then—what from a represen-