Three Autograph Letters Signed (all 'J Rose Innes') from Sir James Rose Innes, and one letter from his wife ('Jessie Rose Innes'), all to Lady Bower.

All items good, on aged paper, with Lady Rose-Innes' letter in its envelope. Bower and Rose-Innes had worked together when the former was Imperial secretary to the High Commissioners for Southern Africa at the time of the Jameson Raid. Rose-Innes three letters are dated 17 October 1935 (12mo, 4 pp), 9 July 1936 (12mo, 4 pp) and 13 April 1939 (12mo, 4 pp). All are closely and neatly written. In the first letter Rose-Innes describes a journey 'through the S. Western Districts, through which I had so often travelled by post cart & private cart, another part was by roads which I travelled, as a small boy, in an oxwaggon, & yet other parts were quite strange'. The journey covered 'about 1200 miles, with breaks of a week in one case, & several days in others', and it 'brought home vividly [...] the difference between S. Africa 50 years ago & S. Africa now. When I was a boy there were practically no railways, hardly any telegraphs, & very few posts'. Continues with reminiscences. The second letter is in response to 'a touching letter of sympathy' and in it Rose-Innes commends 'submission' to the will of the 'Omnipotent Creator'. 'The papers will have told you about Sir Lionel Phillips' death. He was just about my age. He played a part in some very important episodes in S African history - & was a kindly cultured man'. In the third letter Rose-Innes makes a telling comment, bearing in mind that his daughter was the wife of Count Helmuth von Moltke: 'It seems sometimes as if the old world - the world of our youth & middle age,with its standards of right & wrong, and its decencies, is just tumbling about our ears. When rulers & nations have lost all regard for the truth - I mean by nations, the Governors of nations - and when the youth of half Europe are being trained to [hold] that the State is a Divinity, the outlook is not cheerful'. Lady Rose-Innes' letter (12mo, 4 pp), dated 23 August 1937, contains a great deal of personal information.