262	ENGLISH    SAGA
whole world can see that we can make the best goods in this
country, and the countries of the world therefore establish
against us, not protective tariffs, but prohibitive tariffs....
"The question of the day is the tariff question and no
one tells the people anything about it... These islands can
only support six millions out of their thirty-six millions.
... We cannot afford to part with one inch of the world's
surface which affords a free and open market to the manu-
factures of our countrymen."^1
"When I came back to England the first time, I went up
the Thames, and what did I find they were doing?... for
whom were they making? They were making for the world.
Of "course, Cobdenism was a most beautiful theory, and it
is right that you should look to the world; but the human
beings in the world will not have that. They will want to
make their own things; and if they find that England can
make them best they will put on their protective duties;
and if they keep on doing that they will beat you in the
end."
For a short while Rhodes made empire a fashion. It became
the craze of society ladies and the theme of musiohall choruses.
When Gladstone wished to evacuate Uganda in 1893 he was
warned by his chief election agent that the price for doing
.so would be his own evacuation of Downing Street. The
speeches which Rhodes made to his shareholders were listened
to by breathless thousands and read by millions. Yet even he
could not stir the sound, prosperous men who controlled the
nations trade and financial policy into constructive action or
arouse the Westminster politicians from their dream of the
parish pump and their eternal talk of municipal trams and three
acres and a cow.
While Rhodes strove to expand South Africa he sought to
unite her. His dream was of a single nation from the Block
House at Table Mountain to the Great Lakes. He did not sToare
the vulgar hope of the Cape patriots of subordinating the Dutch
to the English. He liked the sturdy Dutch farmers and honoured
the old Dutch culture of the Cape. "The Dutch," he said,, "are
the coming race in South Africa and they must have their share
in running the country.'* He made friends with them, studied
^l& £ Jkfitfliw, Rhodes, 174.