Rhodes Scholars BENEFITS EXTENDED TO NEW DOMINIONS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28805, 28 January 1959, Page 10

Rhodes Scholars BENEFITS EXTENDED TO NEW DOMINIONS

IBy DONALD McLACHLAN in the "Daily Telegraph.”) (Reprinted by Arrangement.)

It was out on the veldt in 1877 that Cecil Rhodes, then only 24, made the first draft of his ambitious will. His wealth, not yet won, was bequeathed to a trust which would work for “the extension of British rule throughout the world.” By April, 1902, when the final will was published, the massive conception had been fined down to more sophisticated form. It left the Rhodes Trustees free to use their millions in new ways suggested by the spirit of the age—not least by hundreds of former Rhodes Scholars overseas, who are now in positions where they select and advise new generations.

So there is nothing surprising in the decision to give fresh scholarships to Ceylon, Ghana, Nigeria, and the Malayan and Caribbean regions. Or in the belief that Rhodes’s vision' of an Oxford training as the inspiration of political and social leadership in the new nations overseas should embrace the multi-racial Commonwealth. Liberal on Colour From earliest days the trustees have been liberal on race and colour. In 1907 American Rhodes Scholars from the South heard with alarm that Pennsylvania had elected a negro to join them. Protests, never . strong or well organised, faded out. The founder’s wish that no-one should be disqualified “on account of race or religious opinions’’ has, it seems, never been questioned again. '

Nor is the welcome overseas for the new gift in any doubt. Opinion in the far-flung, influential Rhodes community in North America, Australasia and Africa was sounded in advance. If there is criticism in the new “constituencies” it will not come from men now in power there. They are pleased to join a clqb where India, Pakistan, Jamaica and Malta are already members. They will accept that selection of their men should be by bodies independent of Government influence. If accused, as they may be. of succumbing to an ingenious form of imperialism, they Can retort that former Rhodes Scholars include not only a Manley in Jamaica but also a Mintoff in Malta.

If the Trustees hesitated at all before taking this step, it was because Oxford’s capacity is stretched to the limit. Ever since Rhodes’s will astonished the Oxford of 1902 with its offer of 200 students from remote parts, this problem has presented itself —and been surmounted—again and again. , Colleges Independent The Rhodes Trustees have no power to promise places; colleges remain proudly* independent in their choosing; the prodigy from the Middle West or Rhodesia measures himself against all comers seeking a place. His Only privileges are that he submits to no written examination and receives £750 a year. Oxford manages to accommodate about 170 Scholars at a time. It is 55 years since the first winners—South Africans and Germans—were admitted The three Germans, it is recalled, appeared at Brasenose in top-hats, frock coats and patent leather boots to be greeted by a mentor muddy and bedraggled fpom the golf links.

In that time the imperial idea has undergone vast and swift changes; but the essential purpose of Rhodes has survived—to pick “the'best men for the world’s fight,” to form a community of imperial leaders with roots in Oxford and the political traditions of Westminster.

Has the policy of the Rhodes Trustees and selectors justified itself? So far it has produced no political leader of world stature; indeed, comparatively few Rhodes Scholars have been tempted by Cabinet office. They lead from humbler but little less influential positions. None has won wealth on the Rhodes scale: but the .head of the rich and generous Rockefeller Foundation is- a former scholar. So is Senator Fulbright, whose idea it was that released millions of dollars for Americans to visit and work in this country. Like the Commonwealth Fund which sends our students to the United States, it was inspired by the Rhodes example. Achievements of Scholars I can And only some 50 knights among former Scholars. But there is an Order of Merit, a Nobel Prize (shared), two Heads of Houses at Oxford, some 30 heads of universities and places of higher education (many of them in the United States). Indeed, it is in academic life and in the law that the scholars predominate; and within that hierarchy the arts take precedence over the sciences.

In journalism and broadcasting, too, the Rhodes Scholars make their mark. They have edited the “Christian , Science Monitor,” “Harper’s Magazine,” “Fortune.” and our own “Independent Television News.”

From Rhodes House, where the reports and letters and messages flow in. one has the picture of an overseas community, of 3000 educated. well-placed men. in generations now spanning an adult life, with links not only to Oxford and Britain but also from one Commonwealth country to another. One example: the Cana-

dian Foreign Service has many Rhodes Scholars in key posts. Who can tell what this influ. ence has meant in capitals like Delhi or Washington? Who can assess, too, the immense influence of Oxford ways of teaching, writing and living brought by Rhodes Scholars to English-speaking universities all over the world, especially in the United States’’ Such fruits come only slowly. Would Rhodes be satisfied with the use made of his ideas and his money? The question has been thrashed out again and again by the trustees, in meetings of old 'scholars overseas, during the journeys of the general secretary, Lord Elton. It is really the

question how and where leadership in a democracy is best exercised. At one time Rhodes thought of forming a secret society. His trustees have formed instead an open community. I fancy they are, in action, very much the same thing. The Commonwealth, in its present experimental, expanding stage, needs just the kind of public-spirited conspiracy that I believe Rhodes had in mind. We can only hope that the admission of Africans, Malayans and West Indians has not come too late for them to appreciate what he called, in his Victorian language, “the advantage to the Colonies as well as England of the retention of the unity of the Empire.”