It is that Cecil Rhodes, whilst being essentially an Empire Maker, was not an Empire Ruler.

His conceptions were far too vast to allow him to take into consideration the smaller details of everyday life which, in the management of the affairs of the world, obliges one to consider possible ramifications of every great enterprise.

Rhodes wanted simply to sweep away all obstacles without giving the slightest thought to the consequences likely to follow on so offhand a manner of getting rid of difficulties.
In addition to this disregard of vital details, there was a tinge of selfishness in everything which Rhodes undertook and which gave a personal aspect to matters which ought to have been looked upon purely from the objective.

The acquisition of Rhodesia, for instance, was considered by him as having been accomplished for the aggrandisement of the Empire and also for his own benefit.

He sincerely believed that he had had nothing else in his mind when he founded the Chartered Company, than the desire to conquer a new country and to give it to England; but he would certainly have felt cruelly affronted if the British Government had ever taken its administration into its own hands and not allowed Rhodes to do exactly what he pleased there.