The following is written by a lady now resident as a farmer's wife in South Rhodesia, and gives accurately the various pros and cons and the prospect of success to-day in that colony.
"Do not resign your position as any kind of brass hat to come out here, if making money is your aim and object. Even our wealthiest farmers are not on the way to being plutocrats. After all, we are 6000 miles from our best market. But should fate or fortune land you here, you who love the sky and the open road, and the starry solitudes of an African night, the clear-cut outline of granite hills against a sapphire sky and the fragrance of a flower-jewelled veld, the whirr of startled birds and the crash of game as it bounds through the bush, I think you would find it difficult to return to the troglodyte life of London.--ETHEL COLQUHOUN JOLLIE." ("The Field," April 6th, 1918.)
When the boom in "Things Rhodesian" was at its height, some truth of the real state of affairs seemed to have reached British investors. Henry Labouchere doubtless got hold of a good deal of perfectly correct information and much that was decidedly otherwise. With his characteristic audacity in exposing all shams he, in a series of articles in "Truth," ruthlessly attacked the Chartered Company and all exploiters and "boomers" of the new territory. Much of what he wrote was the truth, but with it all, most of his criticisms were too scathing and hopelessly inaccurate. Amongst those classed as rascals who came under the lash of his pen was Fred Selous, a man who knew no more about business than a child, and who was not associated in the smallest degree with any financier, and who had never written one word about the country he was not prepared to substantiate. To those who knew Selous and his perfect immunity from all stock-dealing transactions the whole thing was simply ridiculous, but the Great Public, after all, is too often prone to believe any libel if it is constantly repeated. In consequence Selous was much depressed by these attacks and resented them bitterly, for he knew he was wholly innocent, yet being advised that he would not advance his position by replying in the newspapers he resolved to bide his time and reply to them _in toto_ in a work he had under preparation ("Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia").