The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 1902. THE BEQUEST OF CECIL RHODES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 83, 9 April 1902, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 1902. THE BEQUEST OF CECIL RHODES.

For the cause that lacks assistance

For the wrong that needs resistance

For the future in the distance

And the good that wo can do.

The great legacy which Cecil Rhodes has left is far more than" a splenflid and imposing gift to the nation. It is characteristic of the man that he should strive to the end, and even beyond' the limits' of his own life, to perpetuate the great ideal that shaped his own career. Throughout his life he was always a curious ; commentary upon the popular conception of millionaires. He understood 'thoroughly both the worthlessness and the value of enormous wealth. No rich man ever thought so little of money for its own sake; no man ever appreciated more keenly the power that wealth confers. Without it, ,as he told Gordon, great ideas are barren and ineffectual; and he strove always to utilise it for the realisation of his vast patriotic ambitions. Beside the magnificence of his great conception the town halls and free libraries of Mr Andrew Carnegie dwindle to very humble proportions: and even a Socialist may leai'n to think better of millionaires throug-h reading Cecil Rhodes' will. Even in the hour and article of death the foremost thought in his mind was the future of that national ideal with which he had so completely identified himself and his personal interests; and his last, conscious desire .was to help his people in some practical way towards the attainment of that permanent Imperial unity and power vvliich had been the focus of all his energies and the object of all his exertions. No [toman ever believed more firmly and fervently in the destiny of the City of the Seven Hills than Cecil Rhodes in the future of the British Empire. There is something almost heroic in the tenacity with which this keen, shrewd man of business, the man who amalgamated De Beer* and helped to open the Hand and fought. the Matubelc and colonised Rhodesia, clung- through evil and good report,, and through all the ceaseless struggles and changes of an eventful life to his great ideal of patriotic devotion. The means which Cecil Rhodes has 1 alien tv help on tli<> Imperialistic movement in which he so firmly believed are no less novel than impressive. He knew that even with the

aid of wealth no «reaT work can ever be carried our without men willing and able to undertake it. and inspired by :> deep conviction of its necessity and value. All his life he had trained faithful friends and followers to do his will by the influence, of his-per-sonal character, and the inspiration of his impd not:?, emotions. How was the great work to be carried on when that source of energy was closed? A smaller, weaker man -might have striven to promote his ends by entorcin<r hi« wishes with restrictions, with & ■ regulations, with limitations that would in the last resort only cripple his work and defeat his purpose. But Cecil Rhodes understood men too well to make this mistake. Take a man,

sound in mind and body, and train him according to the best traditions of his race till his physical and mental 1 powers are fit for the strain .of an I arduous ambition, g-ive him a great idea to inspire him, and leave the rest to him. This, in brief, is the view that C*?cil Rhodes took of the means best fitted for the promulgation of his gospel of Imperialism. So devoutly did.he hold his faith that lie was convinced that the well-trained, healthy Englishman must learn the doctrines of ! patriotic Imperialism, as it were, b«y instinct; he will turn' towards the «reat ideal of his race as simply and naturally as a flower turns toward the si!n- Only let him come to Khglaud, let him steep himself for a few of the best and most impressionable years of his life in her historical traditions, let him have the best that academic culture and intellectual

training1 and social life among men of his own type can afford; then he will be fit for the great work. He vvil] need no guide to show him the

way. and 1,0 preacher to rouse his conscience or his sense of duty. , T.n the hands of men.so trained and .so inspired, Cecil Rhodes believed that the dream of his life would find ultimate realisation; and even those

who ha^e little sympathy with his purpose must be impressed by the dignity of his conception of- patriotic duty, "and the far-sighted resolution with which he faced the future, confident in the belief that his work cotild never fail.

There is one phase of Cecil Erodes' character to which certain details of his will direct renewed attention. He believed absolutely in the value ,of

work. Without ceaseless effort he believed that nothing of any perman- i ent value could be achieved; and he did his best to illustrate his theories in his own life. . ''Labour! " says Zola, "Remember that it is fhe unique- natural law of the world, the regulator which leaxis organised matter to its unknown goal. Life has no other meaning, no other raison d'etre; we only appear on this earth that.we may contribute our share of labour and disappear." This is the spirit that drove Rhodes himself, when a young man, to travel the thousands of miles between Kirn■ ■ ■ berley and Oxford to study in the in--1 tervals of his empire-founding, and to fit himself, as best he could, in mind and spirit, for his great career. No lover of luxury and ease shall inherit his wealth; even his brothers shall not live in his house unless they are prepared to share 'in the toil which is the most inevitable and most ennobling lot of man. And the young men who are to come after him and to take up his work must be prepared to work and to train their minds through years' of study, before they can be deemed fit for their destiny. This is the principle of life that the career of Cecil Rhodes most plainly illustrates; and it is this lesson for which the youngmen of the great Teutonic race, be they English or American or German, who inherit his bounty, will have most reason to be grateful; and It' is the lesson which, whether his ideal be dream or reality, Ac dead man will* always teach from his grave on the lonely hillside where he watches, even in death, over the great heritage that he created for the race that he loved so well.