sown his Republican wild oats and come home to stay is rightly looked to by a Governor for some better proofs of filial loyalty than that of always passing up his plate for more; and the fatted calf is replaced, as in time it must have been in the parable, by cold mutton rigidly shared with the loyalist brother.
Of course, after the falling on necks and feasting, after the best robe and the ring, the change to a Government House ordinary strikes a chill. It is the prodigal's turn to cry favouritism. There is a calling of such names as official pedant,' and (how does it run?) 'racial autocrat,' and 'callous satrap.' Such terms must provoke a smile from all who have any personal knowledge of Milner. That sympathetic charm to which statesmen of both parties bore witness in sending him forth from London eight years ago was not a thing to lose its quality in shipment across the Line, as perishable wines do. The soundness and bouquet were all there when the vintage was landed. To the last, occasions for delicacy or fine human feeling were to him opportunities; witness, for instance, the obsequies of Paul Kruger. The changed relation with the Dutch is not denied; but it was a corollary, not an aggravation, of the changed policy.
From the moment when Milner pronounced for intervention there was but one merging issue in party politics, and the King's representative was ipso facto a partisan. If history justifies Abraham Lincoln on the broad issue of the American Civil War, it will scarcely waver because his name was execrated by Southern planters. As mere Governor, Milner might have dined the Dutch, and read the King's Speech, and ridden to hounds with the most popular of them, as, indeed, he did. As High Commissioner he held an office unique in the Empire and at a unique juncture. Instead of amiably eliminating the Imperial factor to salvoes of the Afrikander Bond, it fell to him to assert that factor as the one untried key to the problem. Events made him the agent—nay, the tutor—of the
