After his rupture with the Bond consequent upon the Raid, Rhodes brought considerable energy to bear upon the development of the League.

He caused it to exercise all over the Colony an occult power which more than once defied constituted authority, and proved a source of embarrassment to British representatives with greater frequency than they would have cared to own.

Sir Alfred Milner, so far as I have been able to see, when taking the reins, had not reckoned upon meeting with this kind of government within a government, and in doing so perhaps did not appreciate its extent.

But from the earliest days of his administration it confronted him, at first timidly, afterwards with persistence, and at last with such insolence that he found himself compelled to see what he could do to reduce to impotence this organisation which sought to devour him.
The problem which a situation of the character described thrust upon Sir Alfred was easier to discuss than to solve.

The League was a power so wide that it was almost impossible to get rid of its influence in the country.
It was controlled by Rhodes, by De Beers, by the Chartered Company, by the members in both Houses who were affiliated to it, by all the great financial establishments throughout South Africa--with but a solitary exception--by the principal industrial and agricultural enterprises in the country.