Art. 12.-THE FUTURE OF RHODESIA.

I. FOR THE CHARTER.

IN considering the question of Chartered Company Rule in Rhodesia, it will save time and simplify argument if we assume certain grounds as common-that Cecil Rhodes was a patriot who desired to strengthen and extend the British Empire; that his main object in securing the North was to redress the balance of South Africa and make it predominantly British; that both the Cape Colony and the Imperial Government refused to undertake the work of occupying and administering the country; that there was imminent danger of an occupation either by the Transvaal Boers or by Germany when Rhodes intervened; that his device of rule by Chartered Company was the only practical course left to him; that Joint Stock Companies, however anomalous the practice may seem to be, have, as a matter of fact, acquired, civilised and administered a large part of the British Empire; and that in the present case of Rhodesia the British South Africa Company have acquired, settled and governed a very great territory, and in a space of twenty-five years brought it into the condition of a prosperous self-governing State under the British flag. I also take it as admitted that in this work they have received no financial or other assistance from the Imperial Government. And lastly, I take it as common ground that the shareholders, mainly British, who at the beginning numbered 16,000 and now number upwards of 40,000, and whose capital, originally a million sterling, had by 1912 increased to nine millions sterling, have never drawn a single dividend.

This point I dwell upon for a moment as important. The shareholders, who are at present more numerous than the colonists, naturally looked-and still lookfor some return upon their money. While the colonists, who number about thirty thousand, sometimes rage against the Company for considering the interests of Throgmorton Street, the shareholders can point to the millions which have been expended on the development of the country and for the benefit of the settlers, without a return, so far, of a single penny in the shape of profit.

The shareholders have loyally supported the colonists through a series of misfortunes that might have been expected to sink any enterprise and ruin any struggling colony-the Matabele War, the Jameson Raid, Rinderpest, the Matabele and Mashonaland Rebellions, the South African War, and the East Coast Fever. These great calamities tested the heroism and proved the grit of the settlers; but they also tested the grit, and I might almost add the heroism of the shareholders, who loyally supported the Directors through all these trying times with fresh capital given without complaint.

And there is one other position which I take as granted by both sides. Rhodes obtained the concessions by which settlement was permitted; the Company which held these concessions placed the settlers in the country, financed and organised the march of the pioneers, provided arms and police to protect them against the natives, connected them with civilisation, gave them grants of land, guaranteed their titles, and kept the community going through the troubles I have mentioned. Just as there could have been no Cape Colony without the backing of the Dutch East India Company, and no British India without the capital and enterprise of the British East India Company, so there could have been no Rhodesia without the British South Africa Company. We need not then enquire whether the Company has justified the twenty-five years of its existence. A territory larger than Germany, France, and the Low Countries combined, brought under the British flag, settled with British colonists, and provided with security of property and life, and the machinery of civilisation-this is sufficient answer to that question. What we have to consider is (1) specific criticisms of the Company in the past, and (2) the justification for the continuance of Company rule in the immediate future.

As to specific criticisms, they relate mainly to the past acts and policy of the Company-the early alienation of land in large blocks to other companies; the Company's claims upon the mineral industry; and the high railway rates. Now alienation of land in large blocks is a charge made against the government of most new countries. We hear it made in Canada, in

the United States, in Australia, and in New Zealand. In most of these countries it is commonly used as a 'plank' in Opposition platforms. And in Rhodesia the defence is at least as good as could be advanced by other sinners in this respect. The Administration, in its early stages, had to face the enormous expenditure due to the want of communications and the vast extent of the country, into which everything had to be imported at almost prohibitive rates; and it had also to meet the heavy drain entailed by a series of unexampled misfortunes. In these circumstances its resources were insufficient for the development of one of its assets, the land. On the other hand, this land-or the great bulk of it could not be developed by the individual settler, there being only a handful of colonists, and settlement by immigration being a slow and laborious process. To induce colonists to settle in a remote, undeveloped, and almost unknown land, where initial costs were enormous, and markets and communications as yet undeveloped, was obviously an almost impossible task.

The urgent need was to get a stream of capital applied to the development of the land; and the Company's capital was, as we have seen, diverted to other purposes by the harsh dictates of necessity. It had to build railways and roads, public offices and schools, to erect telegraph lines, to organise police and finance wars, and to stem the tide of great epidemics. The drain was so great that Rhodes mortgaged his personal income to this great task of what I may call creating the machinery of civilisation. The development of the land demanded fresh resources; and the only way to obtain these resources at that time was to allot large tracts of land to joint stock companies on the understanding that they would expend capital in Rhodesia. The object was to get development under way in the shortest possible time; and, if the policy did not achieve its object, it may at least be said that the object was at that time not achievable. The country had first to get through its almost fatal maladies of childhood before the land could be profitably developed, whatever method of development were adopted. Now that these troubles have been overcome, the policy of the Company has been changed; and the land will be gradually freed by purchase from the

grip of such companies as are unable to develop their territories. For the early policy of wholesale alienation the Company substituted a scheme by which land may be bought by the settler on a deferred instalment system, so that his capital is available for the development of his holding.

As to the Company's mining policy, the defence is also historical. When Rhodes asked for the financial support of a joint stock enterprise for a work which ought to have been undertaken by the Imperial Government, he had to offer some prospect of return on the capital subscribed. The land was obviously an asset which could not be realised in the immediate future; but Rhodesia was generally thought to be a highly mineralised country, and Rhodes offered his shareholders the prospect of a half-share in all mining enterprises-that is to say, half of the claims pegged out by prospectors and half the resulting vendor scrip. The proposal was not unreasonable, considering that the mining concessions were the property of the Company; but in practice it was found to check sound enterprise and encourage overcapitalisation. By 1903 the claim was abated to 30 per cent., and by 1907 the Company had substituted an easy and moderate royalty basis calculated on what the mines could fairly afford to pay. This grievance, certainly, is a grievance of the past.

The same may be said of the railways. Rhodesia is a high interior plateau approached either by the route from the Cape, some 1700 miles long, through the wilderness of Bechuanaland; or by the steep grades of the Beira Railway-a line built through a most unhealthy and difficult country-with some 700 miles of haulage to Bulawayo. Steep gradients, long distances, and heavy capital expenditure must involve high freights, unless the traffic is relatively large. But in Rhodesia the traffic has been relatively small, and until recently it has been nearly all one way. The laden wagons had to be hauled up the steep gradients from Beira or over the unproductive leagues of Bechuanaland, and then returned empty to the coast. These conditions and certain necessary rate arrangements with the Union system have kept rates high in the past, otherwise the Chartered Company, which had to guarantee debenture interest on the

2500 miles of railway with which it has provided Rhodesia, would have found itself in the bankruptcy court. But, with the growth of Rhodesian trade and the improvement of returns, rates are being progressively lowered, so that this grievance also is vanishing, so far as it ever can vanish in a country like South Africa, which is doomed by nature to heavy expenses of transport.

Besides these three substantial grievances there is the vaguer objection against Company government, well enough summed up in the phrase 'commercial taint.' This commercial taint, I might reply, has a pervasive flavour; it has been found by delicate and critical palates in most of the governments of the world, and has been even known to sour the pure milk of English Liberalism. I waive that point, as well as the reply that the anti-Charter Opposition, with its cry, 'the good things of the South,' cannot be acquitted of a commercial motive; and I admit frankly, as most men do, and as the Company certainly does, that Company government is an anomaly. Let me put it in this way. As soon as the people of Southern Rhodesia are able to take over the responsibilities and liabilities of the Administration, no one will stand in the way of their doing so. This certainly was the faith of Cecil Rhodes. 'When our territory becomes filled with white people,' he said in his first speech to the shareholders, 'there is one thing that we shall insist on-namely, self-government.' And the Company has, without pressure from outside, taken a series of steps in that direction. In 1898 Southern Rhodesia received its constitution, with four elected representatives against five official members on its Legislative Council. In 1903 and 1911 further steps were taken in this direction of increased popular control over legislation; and now in 1914 Southern Rhodesia has a council of 18 members, twelve popularly elected against six representatives of the Administration a two to one majority for the people. The Company still, of course, retains, as all governments do, the exclusive right to propose money votes. In the homely metaphor applied by Rhodes in 1898, so long as it pays the piper, it must continue to set the tune. Let us for a moment return to that speech ('Life and Speeches,' pp. 679-681).