EMPIRE BUILDER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22628, 16 January 1937, Page 4 (Supplement)

EMPIRE BUILDER

STORY OF CECIL RHODES Perhaps there never was a groat personality about whom it is more difficult to give «a direct answer to the question,' "Wasiie a good man?" than Cecil Rhodes. An ideal biographer has been found in a South African, Mr. J. E, S. Green, whose book, "Rhodes Goes North," is really a history of the colonisation of South Africa in Rhodes' time.

Mr. Green has not a trace of hypocrisy in him —he knows that the highsounding virtues, imperialism, patriotism and colonisation, are, to a Very great extent, actuated by self-interest. Gold, and (he desire for power, are often at the bottom of them all. He knows that many white men were out to trade on the ignorance of the black; to dispossess the native of his land; and that the black man endeavoured to take as much and give as little as he could.

He summarises Rhodes' attitude thus: "They (the Bamangwato), might object, but how could raw savages be expected to know what was good for them? One day they would be gratefid —when the stuffing had been knocked out of them. They might not be so happy, but no sentimental regard for the happiness of a black tribe must be allowed to stay for one moment the triumphant march of material progress."

Cecil Rhodes' position was a curious one. He was Premier of Ca]>e Colony, the official head of Constitutional Government, and at the same time the chief power of a great chartered company, which, as often as not, defied constitutional authority, and added to its wealth and power by private raids into native territory, penetrating and occupying them by a mixture of guile, force and bluff. Rhodes was lucky in having a man after his own heart at the head of the Imperial Government. "Take all you can get," advised Lord Salisbury, "and ask me afterward." The advice exactly suited the gambler in Cecil Rhodes. If all went well, he had the backing of England. If trouble came, England could repudiate him, and Rhodes asked for no better bargain. He found an ideal lieutenant in Dr. Jameson, a busy little doctor, with tact and charming manners, who could hoodwink a serpent, and beguile the unfortunate native chiefs into believing anything. But even more important to Rhodes' schemes, was Selous, a mighty hunter and authority on Mashonaland, 11 man of honesty and integrity, in whom the chiefs had faith and trust.

For him and his work, Mr. Green has nothing but admiration. Rhodes is shown as a dreamer, a material idealist with an immense belief in himself, a man who all his. life pursued and acquired wealth, but who only loved it tor the power it brought him. The book is remarkable for its lack of partisanship. ".Rhodes Goes North," by J. lv S. Green. (Bell) GAY AND CHARMING

SIR FREDERICK KEEBLE'S WIT "Polly and Freddie," Sir Frederick Keeble's autobiography, is a delightful book. The author gives us a fine description of his boyhood life as "young Freddie," and demonstrates the store of wisdom imparted to him by "Polly" —the grown-up young lady next door of whom he draws a most attractive portrait.

Sir Frederick sets out "to write a book that everyone would read, or, at all events, say they had." His outlook on life is charming, his views unconventional, and set in piquant phrase. Concerning his school days, he states that, if the Freudian's are correct, ho ought to have thrown a fit every time lie saw a cane-bottomed chair. He tells a little of his undergraduate days as Frederieko; enough, to make us wish for a great deal more—-"if you had half as much nonsense in you as old Concky has, you'd have far more sense than you've got." He tells even less of his life's work in natural history—".My investigations did much to rehabilitate the barnacle in the eyes of cultivated people." His opinion is "how little thinking most educated people do in the course of their lives, and how little they count in the real world." He then proceeds to set out one of the most charming pictures that has been painted in recent years—his life with his wife Jennifer, his daughter Alice, and his grand-child-ren .

Sir Frederick bewails the fact that grandchildren do not come one generation earlier. "Being a grandfather is better than getting a peerage —it's like the garter —no jolly merit about it." The book ends with his exposition to his grandchildren of some of tho wonders of /.oology and of botany. "Polly and Freddie," Sir Frederick Keeble's Autobiography (Heinemann). BOTANY OF AUCKLAND Tho series of articles on the botany of Auckland, by Professor Arnold Wall and Miss Lucy Crninvell, which appeared in the New Zealand Herald recently, is now published in pamphlet form under this title. A number of photographs, in addition to those which accompanied the articles, have been added. A map of the district is included also.

The most important addition, however, is a complete list of the plants of the Auckland area with their scientific and popular names, both Maori and English, short descriptions of the habitat of each one, and indications of particular localities in the ease of the rarer species. The little book should prove very useful to members of Field and Tramping Clubs, classes of school-children working in the field, students of botany, and to the lovers of nature in general and of our glorious native flora iu particular.