Established 1866. The Marlborough Express. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 1902. THE LATE CECIL RHODES.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVI, Issue 77, 3 April 1902, Page 2

Established 1866. The Marlborough Express. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 1902. THE LATE CECIL RHODES.

<* Our estimate of Cecil Rhodes's character, published two or three days before the death of the great South African Empire-builder was reported, has been fully verified by the terms of his will, now made public. We asserted that with Mr Cecil Rhodes the making of money was not a means to extravagant personal luxury, and it is now evident that the millionaire regarded himself as a trustee for the public, for not only has he willed the huge sum of £100,000 to Oriel College, at his Alma Mater, Oxford, but he is further reported to haVe left no less than a million sterling to develop a great scheme of Imperial education, one prominent and notable feature being the provision of many colonial scholarships. His magnificent country seat at Groate Schur, a few miles from Capetown, with its superb zoological and botanical collections, has been left to the city and citizens of Capetown, and no doubt when the full details of his testamentary benefactions are made known other public-spirited donations will be chronicled. There can be no two opinions as to the grievous loss which has been sustained through the untimely death of Mr Rhodes by the South African colonies and by the Empire at large. The full extent of the effect of his death upon tbe affairs of the South African Chartered Company and the state of Rhodesia cannot at present be readily estimated, for Mr Rhodes was a man of such commanding ability as a financier, an organiser, and administrator, that the controllers of the infant state must sorely miss his counsel and control. In South Africa he will be remembered as the man who by his cour--1 age and perseverance prevented the now flourishing colony of British Bechuanaland from falling under the effete and trade-withering control of Paul Kruger; and his one great mistake —the Jamieson Raid—will be forgotten amidst the long record of his 1 triumphs. ■ -