An African Adventure

ament to a close without a sharp division. Moreover, he man?uvered his force

ght and there were endless demands on him. The best opportunities that we had for talk were at meal-time. One evening I dined with him in the House restaurant. When we sat down we tho

know Cre

ed to him yeste

if I asked him t

the Prime Minister got up, walked over to Cr

oric industrial upheaval in the Rand in what Smuts denounced as a "Syndicalist Conspiracy." Riot, bloodshed, and confusion reigned for a considerable period at Johannesburg and large bodies of troops had to be called out to restore order. At the very mo

Cresswell over he s

llow but I came near se

bly discussed various topics until the go

th of Parliament arose, Cresswell and some of his adherents voted with Smuts. I tell this little story to show that the

st spoke about Nationalism. He said: "The war gave Nationalism its death

Nationalism?"

that will soon merge into a new Internationalism. What seems to be at this moment an orgy of Nationalism in South Africa

uture?" I asked h

elop along economic and not purely sentimental lines. The New Internationalism will not s

nations. Why should the currency of the country depreciate or rise with the fortunes of war

uggested that perhaps the fall in exchange had something to do with it, whereupon he said: "Yes, I t

ject of individualism,

nberg commanded the only army in the war. It was a product of nationalism. The individualism of the Anglo

that I had seen in the making. I heard him speak at a Russian Fair in London. The whole burden of his utterance was the hope that the Slav would achieve discipline and organization. At that time Ru

rather wistfu

ther Bolshevism is advancing or subsiding. There comes a time when the fiercest fires die down. But the best way

trative life. It was far different out at Groote Schuur, the home of the Prime Minister, located in Rondebosch, a suburb about nine miles from Capetown. In the open country that he loves, and in

this shrine of achievement. Here Rhodes came to live upon his accession to the Premiership of the Cape Colony; here he fashioned the British South Africa Company which did for Rhodesia what the East India Company did for India; here came

hout the Colony and which is not surpassed in grace or comfort anywhere. When Rhodes acquired it in the eighties the grounds were comparatively limited. As his power and fortune increased he bought up all the surrounding country unt

e loved it for its vastness and its solitude. On the back stoep, which is the Dutch word for porch, he s

hat on the first night I went out the Prime Minister took me through the house himself. It has been contended by Smuts' enemies that he was a "creature of Rhodes." I discovered that Smuts

s charm and atmosphere here. To see it is to get a fresh and intimate realization of the

at Rhodes marked with crimson ink and about which he made the famous utterance, "It must be all red." Hanging on the wall in the billiard room is the flag with Crescent and Cape device that he had made to be carr

es' favorite flowers), with a new moon peeping overhead that I got the real mood of the man. Pointing to the faint

"it's the man th

d the country and he sniffed the scent of the gardens the anxiety and preoccupation fell away. He almost becam

in England. I asked him to tell me what he thought

ism. It is easy to trace the stages. The Holy Roman Empire was a phase of Nationalism. That was Catholic. Then came the development of Nationalism, beginning wit

es,-Turkey, Germany, Russia and Austria,-have crumbled. The war jolted them from their high estate. It sta

ought the peoples together. The League of Nations is a faint and far-away evidence of this solidarity. It merely point

to a subject not without inte

traditions. Take the Presidency of the United States. A man waits for four months before he is inaugurated. The incumbent may work untold mischief in the meantime. It is all due to the fact that in th

e old pre-war British Empire, for example, is gone in the sense of colonies or subordinate nations clustering around

a and the futur

ica will give the League the peace temper. You Americans are a pacific people, slow to war but terrible and irresistible when you once get at i

the mountains and all around was a fragrant stillness broken only by the quick, almost passionate speech of this seer and thinker, animate with an inspiring ideal of public service, whose mind leaped from the high place

ndslide that overwhelmed the Wilson administration and with it that well-known Article X, but I do know that he genuinely hopes that the United St

cteristic of him that he has no desire to see skyscrapers and subways. His primary interest is in the great farms of the West. "Your people," he once said to me

shington, and is familiar with Irving, Poe, Hawthorne and Emerson. One reason why he admires the first American President is because

er and a Boer, and most peopl

African Major, fresh from the Transvaal, brought him a box of home delicacies. The principal feature of this package was a piece of what the Boers call "biltong," which is dried venison. The Major gave the package to an imposing servant in livery at the Savoy Hotel, where the General lived, to be

e annals of the Boer. Kruger was the dour, stolid, canny, provincial trader. The only time that his interest ever left the confines of

was beaten and to rebuild out of the ruins. Even the Nationalists trusted him and they do not trust Smuts. It is the old story of the proph

Smuts was in a conference with some of his countrymen who were not altogether friendly to him. He had just remarked on the long drou

a drought. I looked out t

he is the most cosmopolitan. Nor is this due entirely to the fact that he went to Cambridge where he left a record for scholarship, and speaks English with a decided

s gathered in Vereeniging to discuss the Peace Terms with Kitchener in 1902, Smuts, who commanded a flying guerilla column, was besieging the little mining town of O'okiep. He received a summo

in England and Clemenceau in France. Among world statesmen the only mind comparable to his is that of Woodrow Wilson. They have in common a high intell

Smuts and Lloyd George. I have seen them both in varying circumsta

th Africa. Each man is an inspired orator who owes much of his advancement to eloquent tongue. Their platform manner is totally different. Lloyd George is fascinatingly magnetic in and out of the spotlight while Smuts is more coldly

persuasive, and what is more important, has the quality of permanency. Long after you have left his presence the

Dooley and a collection of the Speeches of Abraham Lincoln. He has books read for him and with a R

hington to Tolstoi. History, fiction, travel, biography, have all come within his ken. I told him I proposed to go from Capetown to the Congo an

e common in America. I replied that down in Kentucky where I was born one of the fa

Chandler Harris' books." Then he proceeded to te

ered beautiful. When I remarked that I thought Heine was the aut

miliarity with literature. He feels perhaps like the late Charles Frohman who, on being asked if

ment and answered, "Nothing except public documents. It's a good thing that I was a

derstands a good deal more French than he professes. His widely proclaimed ignorance of the language has stood him in good stead because it has enabled him to hear a great many things that were n

ot exactly a statesman as Disraeli and Gladstone were. Smuts has the unusual com

osed. No man was better qualified to voice the sentiment of the "small nation." Born of proud and liberty-loving people,-an infant among the giants-h

rgely to the mental power-plant that drove the work. Lloyd George had to consider the chapter he wrote in the great instrument as something in the nature of a campaign document to be

aroused and indignant Italy raging with revolt-all the chaos that spells "peace" today. He saw the Treaty as a new declaration of war instead of an antidote for discord. His judgment, sadly enough, has been confirmed. A deranged universe shot through with

the terms uneconomic and therefore unsound, but it was worth taking a chance on interpretation, a desperate vent

sailles, he took a long solitary walk in the Champs Elysee, loveliest of Paris parades. Returning to his hotel he said to his secretary, Captain E. F. C. Lane, "I h