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1877:
Cecil Rhodes,
"Confession of Faith"
[SAC editor has added bold face and hypertext links]
Rhodes originally wrote this on June 2, 1877, in Oxford.
Later, that year in Kimberley, he made some additions and changes. What follows
is that amended statement. The spelling and grammar errors were in the original.
It often strikes a man to inquire what is the chief good in life; to
one the thought comes that it is a happy marriage, to another great wealth, and
as each seizes on his idea, for that he more or less works for the rest of his
existence. To myself thinking over the same question the wish came to render
myself useful to my country. I then asked myself how could I and after reviewing
the various methods I have felt that at the present day we are actually limiting
our children and perhaps bringing into the world half the human beings we might
owing to the lack of country for them to inhabit that if we had retained America
there would at this moment be millions more of English living. I contend that we
are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the
better it is for the human race. Just fancy those parts that are at present
inhabited by the most despicable specimens of human beings what an alteration
there would be if they were brought under Anglo-Saxon influence, look again at
the extra employment a new country added to our dominions gives. I contend that
every acre added to our territory means in the future birth to some more of the
English race who otherwise would not be brought into existence. Added to this
the absorption of the greater portion of the world under our rule simply means
the end of all wars, at this moment had we not lost America I believe we could
have stopped the Russian-Turkish war by merely refusing money and supplies.
Having these ideas what scheme could we think of to forward this object. I look
into history and I read the story of the Jesuits I see what they were able to do
in a bad cause and I might say under bad leaders.
At the present day I become a member of the Masonic order I see the wealth and
power they possess the influence they hold and I think over their ceremonies and
I wonder that a large body of men can devote themselves to what at times appear
the most ridiculous and absurd rites without an object and without an end.
The idea gleaming and dancing before ones eyes like a will-of-the-wisp at last
frames itself into a plan. Why should we not form a secret society with but one
object the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule for the recovery of the United States for
the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire. What a dream, but yet it is
probable, it is possible. I once heard it argued by a fellow in my own college,
I am sorry to own it by an Englishman, that it was good thing for us that we
have lost the United States. There are some subjects on which there can be no
arguments, and to an Englishman this is one of them, but
even from an American’s
point of view just picture what they have lost, look at their government, are
not the frauds that yearly come before the public view a disgrace to any country
and especially their’s which is the finest in the world. Would they have
occurred had they remained under English rule great as they have become how
infinitely greater they would have been with the softening and elevating
influences of English rule, think of those countless 000’s of Englishmen that
during the last 100 years would have crossed the Atlantic and settled and
populated the United States. Would they have not made without any prejudice a
finer country of it than the low class Irish and German emigrants? All this we
have lost and that country loses owing to whom? Owing to two or three ignorant
pig-headed statesmen of the last century, at their door lies the blame. Do you
ever feel mad? do you ever feel murderous. I think I do with those men. I bring
facts to prove my assertion. Does an English father when his sons wish to
emigrate ever think of suggesting emigration to a country under another flag,
never—it would seem a disgrace to suggest such a thing I think that we all think
that poverty is better under our own flag than wealth under a foreign one.
Put your mind into another train of thought. Fancy Australia discovered and
colonised under the French flag, what would it mean merely several millions of
English unborn that at present exist we learn from the past and to form our
future. We learn from having lost to cling to what we possess. We know the size
of the world we know the total extent. Africa is still lying ready for us it is
our duty to take it. It is our duty to seize every opportunity of acquiring more
territory and we should keep this one idea steadily before our eyes that more
territory simply means more of the Anglo-Saxon race more of the best the most
human, most honourable race the world possesses.
To forward such a scheme what a splendid help a secret society would be a
society not openly acknowledged but who would work in secret for such an object.
I contend that there are at the present moment numbers of the ablest men in the
world who would devote their whole lives to it. I often think what a loss to the
English nation in some respects the abolition of the Rotten Borough System has
been. What thought strikes a man entering the house of commons, the assembly
that rule the whole world? I think it is the mediocrity of the men but what is
the cause. It is simply—an assembly of wealth of men whose lives have been spent
in the accumulation of money and whose time has been too much engaged to be able
to spare any for the study of past history. And yet in hands of such men rest
our destinies. Do men like the great Pitt, and Burke and Sheridan not now to
exist. I contend they do. There are men now living with I know no other term the
[Greek term] of Aristotle but there are not ways for enabling them to serve
their Country. They live and die unused unemployed. What has the main cause of
the success of the Romish Church? The fact that every enthusiast, call it if you
like every madman finds employment in it. Let us form the same kind of society a
Church for the extension of the British Empire. A society which should have
members in every part of the British Empire working with one object and one idea
we should have its members placed at our universities and our schools and should
watch the English youth passing through their hands just one perhaps in every
thousand would have the mind and feelings for such an object, he should be tried
in every way, he should be tested whether he is endurant, possessed of
eloquence, disregardful of the petty details of life, and if found to be such,
then elected and bound by oath to serve for the rest of his life in his County.
He should then be supported if without means by the Society and sent to that
part of the Empire where it was felt he was needed.
Take another case, let us fancy a man who finds himself his own master with
ample means of attaining his majority whether he puts the question directly to
himself or not, still like the old story of virtue and vice in the Memorabilia a
fight goes on in him as to what he should do. Take if he plunges into
dissipation there is nothing too reckless he does not attempt but after a time
his life palls on him, he mentally says this is not good enough, he changes his
life, he reforms, he travels, he thinks now I have found the chief good in life,
the novelty wears off, and he tires, to change again, he goes into the far
interior after the wild game he thinks at last I’ve found that in life of which
I cannot tire, again he is disappointed. He returns he thinks is there nothing I
can do in life? Here I am with means, with a good house, with everything that is
to be envied and yet I am not happy I am tired of life he possesses within him a
portion of the [Greek term] of Aristotle but he knows it not, to such a man the
Society should go, should test, and should finally show him the greatness of the
scheme and list him as a member.
Take one more case of the younger son with high thoughts, high aspirations,
endowed by nature with all the faculties to make a great man, and with the sole
wish in life to serve his Country but he lacks two things the means and the
opportunity, ever troubled by a sort of inward deity urging him on to high and
noble deeds, he is compelled to pass his time in some occupation which furnishes
him with mere existence, he lives unhappily and dies miserably. Such men as
these the Society should search out and use for the furtherance of their object.
(In every Colonial legislature the Society should attempt to have its members
prepared at all times to vote or speak and advocate the closer union of England
and the colonies, to crush all disloyalty and every movement for the severance
of our Empire. The Society should inspire and even own portions of the press for
the press rules the mind of the people. The Society should always be searching
for members who might by their position in the world by their energies or
character forward the object but the ballot and test for admittance should be
severe)
Once make it common and it fails. Take a man of great wealth who is bereft of
his children perhaps having his mind soured by some bitter disappointment who
shuts himself up separate from his neighbours and makes up his mind to a
miserable existence. To such men as these the society should go gradually
disclose the greatness of their scheme and entreat him to throw in his life and
property with them for this object. I think that there are thousands now
existing who would eagerly grasp at the opportunity. Such are the heads of my
scheme.
For fear that death might cut me off before the time for attempting its
development I leave all my worldly goods in trust to S. G. Shippard and the
Secretary for the Colonies at the time of my death to try to form such a Society
with such an object.
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On September 19, 1877, Rhodes drafted his first will; at that
time, he had an estate of only about £10,000. (Although he changed his will
quite a number of times in years following, the objective remained the same.
After his death, the directors of the Rhodes Trust set up the Rhodes
Scholarships as the best way to achieve his objectives.) The first clause of the
1877 will bequeathed his wealth as follows:
To and for the establishment, promotion and development of a Secret Society, the
true aim and object whereof shall be for the extension of British rule
throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United
Kingdom, and of colonisation by British subjects of all lands where the means of
livelihood are attainable by energy, labour and enterprise, and especially the
occupation by British settlers of the entire Continent of Africa, the Holy Land,
the Valley of the Euphrates, the Islands of Cyprus and Candia, the whole of
South America, the Islands of the Pacific not heretofore possessed by Great
Britain, the whole of the Malay Archipelago, the seaboard of China and Japan,
the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the
British Empire, the inauguration of a system of Colonial representation in the
Imperial Parliament which may tend to weld together the disjointed members of
the Empire and, finally, the foundation of so great a Power as to render wars
impossible and promote the best interests of humanity.
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