Commissioner for German Refugees in 1936-1938, with R. M. Makins (member of All
Souls and the Milner Group and later British Minister in Washington) as his chief British
subordinate. He is president of the British North Borneo Company, of which Dougal
Malcolm is vice-president.
Ian Malcolm (Sir Ian since 1919), a brother of Neill Malcolm, was an attache at
Berlin, Paris, and Petersburg in 1891-1896; and M.P. in 1895-1906 and again 1910-1919;
assistant private secretary to Lord Salisbury (1895-1900); parliamentary private secretary
to the Chief Secretary for Ireland (George Wyndham) in 1901-1903; Secretary to the
Union Defence League, organized by Walter Long, in 1906-1910; a Red Cross officer in
Europe and North America (1914-1917); on Balfour's mission to the United States in
1917; private secretary to Balfour during the Peace Conference (1919); and British
representative on the Board of Directors of the Suez Canal Company. He wrote Walter
Long's biography in the Dictionary of National Biography.
4. See W. B. Worsfold, The Reconstruction of the New Colonies under Lord Milner (2
vols., London, 1913), II, 207-222 and 302-419.
5. The last quotation is from Dyarchy (Oxford, 1920), liii. The other are from The
Problem of the Commonwealth (London, 1915), 18, and 200-219.
6. Fisher was one of the most important members of the Milner Group, a fact which
would never be gathered from the recent biography written by David Ogg, Herbert
Fisher, 1865-1940 (London, 1947). He was associated with members of the Group, or
persons close to it all his life. At New College in the period 1884-1888, he was a student
of W. L. Courtney, whose widow, Dame Janet Courtney, was later close to the Group. He
became a Fellow of New College in 1888, along with Gilbert Murray, also a member of
the Group. His pupils at New College included Curtis, Kerr, Brand, Malcolm, and
Hichens in the first few years of teaching; the invitation to South Africa in 1908 came
through Curtis, his articles on the trip were published in The Times. He sailed to India in
1913 with Herbert Baker of the Group (Rhodes's architect). He refused the post of Chief
Secretary for Ireland in 1918, so it was given to Amery's brother-in-law; he refused the
post of Assistant Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in December 1918, when Robert
Cecil resigned. He played a certain role in drafting the Montagu-Chelmsford Report of
1919 and the Government of Ireland Bill of 1921, and piloted the latter through
Commons. He refused the post of Ambassador to Washington in 1919. Nevertheless, he
did not see eye to eye with the inner core of the Group on either religion or protection,
since he was an atheist and a free-trader to the end. His book on Christian Science almost
caused a break with some members of the Group.
7. H. H. Henson, Memoirs of Sir William Anson (Oxford, 1920), 212.
8. Cecil Headlam, ed., The Milner Papers, 1897-1905 (2 vols., London, 1931-1933),
II, 501.
9. R. H. Brand, The Union of South Africa (Oxford, 1909), 39.
10. Smuts was frequently used by the Milner Group to enunciate its policies in public
(as, for example, in his speeches of 15 May 1917 and 13 November 1934). The fact that
he was speaking for the Milner Group was generally recognized by the upper classes in
England, was largely ignored by the masses in England, and was virtually unknown to
Americans. Lord Davies assumed this as beyond the need of proof in an article which he
published in The Nineteenth Century in January 1935. He was attacking the Milner
Group's belief that British defense could be based on the Dominions and the United
States and especially on its efforts to reduce the League of Nations to a simple debating
society. He pointed out the need for an international police force, then asked, "Will the
Dominions and the United States volunteer as special constables? And, if they refuse,
does it mean that Great Britain is precluded from doing so? The reply of The Round
Table is 'yes,' and the most recent exposition of its policy is contained in the speech
delivered by General Smuts at the dinner given in his honor by the Royal Institute of
International Affairs on November 13"— The Nineteenth Century (January 1935), CXVII,
51.
Smuts's way in imperial affairs was much smoothed by the high opinion which Lord
Esher held of him; see, for example, The Journals and Letters of Reginald Viscount Esher
(4 vols., London, 1938), IV, 101, 224, and 254.
11. Lord Oxford and Asquith, Memories and Reflections 1852-1927 (2 vols., Boston,
1928), I, 213-214. Asquith was a member of the Cecil Bloc and of "The Souls." He was a
lifelong friend of both Balfour and Milner. It was the former who persuaded Asquith to
write his memoirs, after talking the matter over privately with Margot Asquith one
evening while Asquith himself was at Grillions. When Asquith married Margot Tennant
in 1894, the witnesses who signed the marriage certificates were A. J. Balfour, W. E.
Gladstone, Lord Rosebery, Charles Tennant, H. J. Tennant, and R. B. Haldane. Asquith's
friendship with Milner went back to their undergraduate days. In his autobiography
Asquith wrote (pp. 210-211): "We sat together at the Scholar's table in Hall for three
years. We then formed a close friendship, and were for many years on intimate terms and
in almost constant contact with one another. . . . At Oxford we both took an active part at
the Union in upholding the unfashionable Liberal cause.... In my early married days
[1877-1885] he used often to come to my house at Hampstead for a frugal Sunday supper
when we talked over political and literary matters, for the most part in general
agreement." For Milner's relationship with Margot Tennant before her marriage to
Asquith in 1894, see her second fling at autobiography, More or Less about Myself
(London, 1932). On 22 April 1908, W. T. Stead wrote to Lord Esher that Mrs. Asquith
had three portraits over her bed: Rosebery, Balfour, and Milner. See The Journals and
Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher (4 vols., London, 1938), 11, 304.
Chapter 5
1. The Times's obituary on Milner (14 May 1925), obviously written by a person who
knew the situation well (probably either Dawson or Amery), said; "He would never in
any circumstances have accepted office again.... That he always disliked it, assumed it
with reluctance, and laid it down with infinite relief, is a fact about which in his case
there was never the smallest affectation." It will be recalled that Milner had refused the
Colonial Secretaryship in 1903; about six years later, according to The Times obituary, he
refused a Unionist offer of a Cabinet post in the next Conservative government, unless
the party would pledge itself to establish compulsory military training. This it would not
do. It is worth recalling that another initiate, Lord Esher, shared Milner's fondness for
compulsory military training, as well as his reluctance to hold public of flee.
2. E. Garrett, The Empire and the Century (London, 1905), 481. Eight years later in
1913, in the introduction to a collection of his speeches called The Nation and the Empire