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Rhodium
a feeling of discontent at the company’s conduct of affairs. The company was willing on proper terms to hand over the administration to the colonists, and they secured the services of Sir George Goldie to examine the situation and report on what terms the transfer could be made. Sir George visited Rhodesia in 1903–4, and drew up a scheme which included the taking over by Rhodesia of the administrative liabilities incurred by the company, which would thus become a public debt. After consultation between leading Rhodesians and the directors of the company the scheme was abandoned, the Rhodesians considering the financial burden proposed too great for an infant colony. The company therefore continued the administration, devoting attention to the development of agriculture and mining. The two railway systems were linked together by a line from Bulawayo to Salisbury, and several short lines to mining properties were built. From Bulawayo the main line was continued to the Wankie coalfields, thence to the Zambezi, bridged in 1905 just below the Victoria Falls. From the Zambezi the line went north-east, so as to render accessible the mineral wealth of Barotseland and that of Katanga on the Rhodesian–Congo frontier. Although Rhodesia was affected by the commercial depression which prevailed in South Africa for some years after the close of the war, its industries showed considerable vitality. In 1906 the gold output exceeded 500,000 oz., and in the financial year 1905–6 the revenue of Southern Rhodesia slightly exceeded the expenditure.
Only once (1895–96) in the first fifteen years following the settlement of the country had the company’s annual revenue exceeded the amount expended in the same period. As a commercial undertaking, the company therefore was during this period of no pecuniary advantage to the shareholders. This was due in part to unforeseen and unavoidable causes, but it is also true that the founders of the company had other than commercial aims. Rhodes’s chief ambition was to secure the country for Britain and to open it up to the energies of her peoples, and he succeeded in this aim. He acted more quickly, and in many ways more effectively, than the imperial government would have been able to act had it at the outset taken over the country. To the sturdy colonists Rhodes made available a land rich not only in gold, but in coal and other minerals, and with very great agricultural and pastoral resources, and all this was done without the cost of a penny to the imperial exchequer. Despite all drawbacks, an area (reckoning Southern Rhodesia only) considerably larger than that of the United Kingdom had in less than twenty years been endowed with all the adjuncts of civilization and made the home of thousands of settlers.
The progress made by the country in the five years 1906–10 demonstrated that the faith Rhodes and his colleagues had placed in it was not ill-founded. Although the white population increased but slowly, in all other respects healthy development took place, the element of speculation which had characterized many of the first attempts to exploit the land being largely eliminated. In 1906 Lord Selborne (the high commissioner) visited Rhodesia. He inquired into the various grievances of the settlers against the Chartered Company; held an indaba with Matabele indunas in the Matoppo Hills, and at Bulawayo had a conference with Lewanika, the paramount chief of the Barotse. In 1907 Dr Jameson and other directors of the Chartered Company travelled through Rhodesia, and the result was to clear up some of the matters in dispute between the settlers and the company. Southern Rhodesia had become self-supporting, and the essentially temporary nature of the existing system of government was recognized. But the company held that the time was not yet ripe for Southern Rhodesia to become a self-governing colony. The directors, however, adopted a more liberal land policy, the increased attention given to agriculture being a marked and satisfactory feature of the situation. Mining and railway development were also pushed on vigorously.
The movement for the closer union of the British South African colonies excited lively interest in Southern Rhodesia. The territory, not possessing self-government, could not take part in the national convention which met at Durban in October 1908 on equal terms with the delegates of the Cape, &c. It was, however, represented by three delegates on the understanding that Rhodesia would not, for the time being at least, be included in any agreement which might be reached. The convention resulted in the union (on the 31st of May 1910) under one government of the Cape, Transvaal, Natal and Orange River colonies. The position of Rhodesia with respect to the Union was set forth in the South Africa Act 1909. It provides that “the king, with the advice of the Privy Council, may on addresses from the Houses of Parliament of the Union admit into the Union the territories administered by the British South Africa Company on such terms and conditions as to representation and otherwise in each case as are expressed in the addresses and approved by the king.”
In Rhodesia itself at this time there was a widespread feeling that there was no urgency as to the territory joining the Union, and the opinion was held by many that a separate existence as a self-governing community would be preferable. A section of the settlers were content for the present to remain under the government of the Chartered Company.
Bibliography.—1. Works dealing with the country before the establishment of British authority: David Livingstone, Missionary Travels (1857)[1]; T. Baines, The Gold Regions of S.E. Africa (1877); R. Gordon Cumming, Five Years of a Hunter’s Life in … S.A. (1850); K. Mauch, Reisen im Inneren von Süd-Afrika, 1865–72 (Gotha, 1874); E. Holub, Seven Years in South Africa (1881); E. Mohr, To the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi (1876); F. C. Selous, A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa (1881), and Travel and Adventure in S.E. Africa (1893); T. M. Thomas, Eleven Years in Central South Africa (N.D. [1872]); L. P. Bowler, Facts about the Matabele, Mashona, &c. (Pretoria, 1889); Rev. D. Carnegie, Among the Matabele (1894).
2. Since the British occupation: Bishop Knight-Bruce, Memories of Mashonaland (1895); J. C. Chadwick, Three Years with Lobengula (1894); D. C. de Waal, With Rhodes in Mashonaland (trans. from Dutch, 1896); W. A. Wells and L. T. Collingridge, The Downfall of Lobengula (1894); A. R. Colquhoun, Matabeleland (N.D. [1894]); C. H. Donovan, With Wilson in Matabeleland (1894); A. G. Lenard, How we made Rhodesia (1896); Lord R. Churchill, Men, Mines and Minerals in S.A. (1895); E. Foa, La Traversée de l'Afrique, (Paris, 1900); F. C. Selous, Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia (the Matabele rising) (1896); R. S. S. Baden-Powell, The Matabele Campaign, 1896 (1897); E. A. H. Alderson, With the Mounted Infantry (in Mashonaland) (1898); S. J. du Toit, Rhodesia Past and Present (1897); H. Hensman, History of Rhodesia (1900); H. P. N. Muller, De Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek en Rhodesia (The Hague, 1896); W. H. Brown, On the South African Frontier (1899).
3. Economics, &c.: P. F. Hone, Southern Rhodesia (1909); the Annual Reports of the British S.A. Co.; C. T. Roberts, The Future of Gold Mining in Mashonaland (Salisbury, Rhodesia, 1898); Southern Rhodesia: Information for Settlers (1907); D. E. Hutchins, Report … on Trees in Rhodesia (Cape Town, 1903); Handbook for Tourists and Sportsmen (1907); A. H. Keane, The Gold of Ophir (1901); C. Peters, The Eldorado of the Ancients (1902); E. de Renty, La Rhodesia (Paris, 1907); Proceedings of the Rhodesian Scientific Association (1899– ) (1st vol., Bulawayo, 1903); The Rhodesian Agricultural Journal (1st vol., Salisbury, Rhodesia, 1903). All treaties, &c., respecting Rhodesia will be found in Hertslett’s Map of Africa by Treaty (1909 ed.). For Blue Books concerning Rhodesia consult the Colonial Office List (annually). The best general map of S. Rhodesia is that published by the administration in 1909–10 (7 sheets on the 1:500000 scale).
For general works including Rhodesia see South Africa, § Bibliography. See also authorities cited under British Central Africa, Barotse, &c.
Rhodium [symbol Rh; atomic weight 102.9 (O=16)], in chemistry, a metallic chemical element found, associated with the other elements of the platinum group, in crude platinum ore, wherein it was discovered in 1803 by W. H. Wollaston (Phil. Trans., 1804, p. 419). It may be obtained from the residues of platinum ore after treatment with aqua regia and removal of the platinum as chlorplatinate. The mother liquors are decomposed by treatment with metallic iron, the precipitate obtained being warmed with concentrated nitric acid and heated in an iron crucible with concentrated caustic potash. The residue thus obtained is mixed with salt and
- ↑ Unless otherwise stated, the place of publication is London.
