Neither could Rhodes ever see in political matters the necessities of the moment often made it the duty of a statesman to hurl certain facts into oblivion and to reconcile himself to new circumstances.
That he did disparage Sir Alfred Milner is unfortunately certain.

I sincerely believe that the war would never have dragged on so long had not Rhodes contrived to convey to the principal Boer leaders the impression that while Sir Alfred Milner remained in South Africa no settlement would be arrived at with the British Government, because the High Commissioner would always oppose any concessions that might bring it to a successful and prompt issue.

Of course Cecil Rhodes never said this in so many words, but he allowed people to guess that such was his conviction, and it was only after Sir Alfred had I left the Cape for Pretoria that, by a closer contact with the Boers themselves, some of the latter's prejudices against him vanished.
At last did the sturdy Dutch farmers realise that if there was one man devoid of animosity against them, and desirous of seeing the end of a struggle which was ruining a continent, it was Sir Alfred Milner.

They also discovered another thing concerning his political views and opinions--that he desired just as much as they did to destroy the power and influence of those multi-millionaires who had so foolishly believed that after the war's end they would have at their disposal the riches which the Transvaal contained, so that, rather than becoming a part of the British Empire, it would in reality be an annexe of the London and Paris Stock Exchanges.
As events turned out, by a just retribution of Providence, the magnates who had let greedy ambition master them lost most of the advantages which they had been able to snatch from President Kruger.

Whether this would have happened had Rhodes not died before the conclusion of peace remains an open question.