The more recent events connected with the Jameson raid into the Transvaal may also be cited. Of the raid itself there is little to be said. It was, in truth, one of the most discreditable as well as mischievous events in recent colonial history, and its character was entirely unrelieved by any gleam either of heroism or of skill. Those who took a direct part in it were duly tried and duly punished. A section of English society adopted on this question a disgraceful attitude, but it must at least be said in palliation that they had been grossly deceived, one of the chief and usually most trustworthy organs of opinion having been made use of as an organ of the conspirators. A more difficult question arose in the case of the statesman who had prepared and organized the expedition against the Transvaal. It is certain that the actual raid had taken place without his knowledge or consent, though when it was brought to his knowledge he abstained from taking any step to stop it. It may be conceded also that there were real grievances to be complained of. By a strange irony of fate some of the largest gold mines of the world had fallen to the possession of perhaps the only people who did not desire them; of a race of hunters and farmers intensely hostile to modern ideas, who had twice abandoned their homes and made long journeys into distant lands in search of solitude and space and of a home where they could live their primitive, pastoral lives, undisturbed by any foreign element. These men now found their country the centre of a vast stream of foreign immigration, and of that most undesirable kind of immigration which gold mines invariably promote. Their laws were very backward, but the part which was most oppressive was that connected with the gold-mining industry which was almost entirely in the hands of the immigrants, and it was this which made it a main object to overthrow their government. The trail of finance runs over the whole story, but it may be acknowledged that, although Mr. Rhodes had made an enormous fortune by mining speculations, and although he was largely interested as a financier in overturning the system of government at Johannesburg, he was not a man likely to be actuated by mere love of money, and that political ambition closely connected with the opening and the civilisation of Africa largely actuated him. Whether the motives of his co-conspirators were of the same kind may be open to question. What, however, he did has been very clearly established. When holding the highly confidential position of Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, and being at the same time a Privy Councillor of the Queen, he engaged in a conspiracy for the overthrow of the government of a neighbouring and friendly State. In order to carry out this design he deceived the High Commissioner whose Prime Minister he was. He deceived his own colleagues in the Ministry. He collected under false pretences a force which was intended to co-operate with an