Search -
The clash of empires, by Rowland Thirlmere
The clash of empires by Rowland Thirlmere Author:John Walker Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: n THE SYMBOLS OF EMPIRE As there is so little real thoroughness in our grasp of even parochial matters, it is scarcely surprising that our Imperial interes... more »ts are not understood by the majority. Confronted by the slipshod and superficial mental equipment of so many of those who have to handle over-sea problems, one almost despairs of ever awakening the nation to a sense of the realities in which it lives and moves. When I find even those who stand for the quintessence of wisdom—our Radical Ministers—speaking of the managing directors of South African mines as " the mine-owners," I confess to grave misgivings as to the efficacy of my pleading. Public men of the stamp of Lord Alverstone and Lord Halifax, who take the trouble to study colonial questions at close quarters, are extremely rare ; and among the ordinary public it is difficult, if not impossible, to make even the professedly cultured and intelligent understand that British capital, amounting to a sum exceeding our National Debt, is sunk in land that lies south of the Zambesi. Attack any " Randlord," and the British working-man jumps to the conclusion that the victim himself owns a whole mine. He is therefore a popular target, and the masses applaud, little knowing that his existence, as a mere managing director, is ten times more important to our world-position than the existence of twenty cotton-mill managers. As Pliny said, Ex Africasemper aliquid novi ; and, indeed, there is always something new coming from the Cape—some strange and baseless charge made against the captains of the most wonderful industry the world has ever seen. Granting, however, that many mining directors have become magnates, with vast power and responsibility, surely the disposition of the great wealth of Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Beit shows that s...« less