That part of his history was more or less familiar to me, but I did not interrupt.
“One day it occurred to me that here in Canada we had a case parallel to the state of affairs in the Diamond Fields before the Kimberley amalgamation. Why not repeat Cecil Rhodes’ methods? Just as he regulated the price of diamonds, I could regulate the price of platinum if I could get control of the Canadian mines, for they were by far the most important in the world.
“Again, I knew nothing of platinum, just as I had known nothing of lumber; but I was able to pay for the best advice, to pay for secrecy as well; and to judge the experts, I had my knowledge of men to help me. I got the best men, I chose only men whom my insight enabled me to pick out; and I began to buy up claims quietly under their guidance. Here again psychology came in. I could tell at a glance when a man was a “quitter” and when a miner would refuse to sell. I could gauge almost to a sovereign the price that would prove the breaking-strain for any particular owner. I can’t tell you how it is done; it is partly inborn, perhaps, partly acquired; but I know that my knowledge is quite incommunicable.
“To make a long story short, I had acquired a very fair percentage of the valuable ground when suddenly I discovered that five other men had been struck with the same idea; and that prices were rising beyond anything I could hope to pay. It was a case for amalgamation; but I did not see my way through it quite so simply. Two of them I knew to be honest. One of them I could not trust, although he had hitherto never shown any signs of crookedness; but I knew his breaking-strain, and I knew also that the temptations to which he would be exposed under any amalgamation scheme would be too great for him. He had to be eliminated. The other two were weak men who could be dealt with easily enough. I needn’t give you the details. I approached the two honest men, combined with them, and with the joint capital of the three of us I bought out the third competitor. The other two we dealt with separately, buying out the one and taking the other in along with us. My partners trusted me with the negotiations, again because I knew men and their motives.
“And that was how I made my first million. Remember, I knew nothing about the materials I had handled in the making of it. I never took the slightest interest in the things themselves—and I took very little interest in the money either, for my tastes are simple. What did interest me was the psychology of the thing, the probing among the springs and levers of men’s minds, and the working out of all the complex strains and stresses which form the background of our reason and our emotions. The million was a mere byproduct of the process.
“But with the million there came another interest. Up to that time I had applied my methods to individual cases; but it struck me, after the strain of the amalgamation negotiations was over, that my generalisations were capable of a wider application. I took up the study of political affairs over here; and I found that my principles enabled me to gauge the psychology of masses even more easily than those of individuals. As a practical test, I stood for Parliament; and got elected without any difficulty. Of course one of the Parties was glad to have me—a millionaire isn’t likely to go a-begging at their door for long—but you may remember that I won that election by my own methods. The Party machines tried to copy them, of course, at a later date; but they failed hopelessly because they were merely repeating mechanically some operations which I had designed for a special case.
“I took very little interest in politics, though. I had no sympathy with the usual methods of the politicians; and at times I revolted against them effectually.”
He was evidently thinking of the two episodes which had gained him the nickname of the Wrecker.
“When I began, I think I told you that the element of risk enters largely into one’s pleasures; and I believe that holds good in politics. The work of a politician, and especially of a Cabinet Minister, is largely in the nature of a gamble. To most of them, politics is an empirical science; for they have little time to study the basis of it. I’ll do them the justice to say that I don’t think it is a mere matter of clinging to their salaries which keeps them in office; it’s mainly that they enjoy the feeling of swaying great events. With an Empire like ours, the stakes are tremendous; and there’s a certain sensation to be got out of gambling on that scale. Mind you, I doubt if they realise themselves that this is what they enjoy in the political game; but it is actually what does sway them to a great extent.
“Now so long as it’s a mere question of some parochial point, I don’t mind their enjoying their sensations. It matters very little in the long run whether one Bill or another passes Parliament; and if they fight over minor questions, I don’t care. But twice in my political career I saw that the Party game was threatening trouble on bigger lines. The Anglo-Peruvian agreement and the Malotu Islands question were affairs that cut down to the bedrock of things; and I couldn’t stand aside and see them muddled in the usual way. I had to assert myself there, whether I liked it or not. And when I did intervene, my mental equipment made the result
