1911, I, 422-423). What a disaster for the world that Lord Lothian, in March 1936, was
not able to take to heart his own words written twenty-five years earlier!
18. As a matter of fact, one American Rhodes Scholar was a Negro; the experiment
was not a success, not because of any objections by the English, but because of the
objections of other American Rhodes Scholars.
19. L. Curtis, Dyarchy (Oxford, 1920), liii-liv.
20. The Commonwealth of Nations (London, 1916), 16, 24.
21. The Commonwealth of Nations (London, 1916), 181. See also The Problems of the
Commonwealth (London, 1915), 18-19.
22. The quotations from Curtis will be found in The Commonwealth of Nations
(London, 1916), 181 and 176; also The Problem of the Commonwealth (London, 1915),
18-19; the quotation from Dove is in a long letter to Brand, dated 9 September 1919, in
Letters of John Dove, edited by R. H. Brand (London, 1938), 96-106; Philip Kerr's
statement will be found in L. Curtis, Dyarchy (Oxford, 1920),73. See also Kerr's speech
at King's College in 1915, published in The Empire and the Future (London, 1916); he
attacks jingo-imperialism, racial superiority, and national conceit as "Prussian heresy"
and adds: "That the spirit of Prussia has brooded over this land is proved by the shortest
examination of the history of Ireland." He then attacks the Little Englanders and
economic or commercial imperialism, giving shocking examples of their effects on native
lives and cultures. He concludes: "The one thing you cannot do, if you are a human
being, is to do nothing. Civilization cannot stand on one side and see native tribes
destroyed by so-called civilized looters and marauders, or as the result of the free
introduction of firearms, drink, and other instruments of vice. He decides that Britain, by
following a middle ground, has "created not an Empire but a Commonwealth" and
defines the latter as a community activated by the spirit "Love thy neighbor as thyself."
( The Empire and the Future, 70-86). George R. Parkin expresses similar ideas in the
same volume on pp. 95-97. Kerr had expressed somewhat similar sentiments in a speech
before the Canadian Round Table in Toronto, 30 July 1912. This was published by
Glazebrook as a pamphlet (Toronto, 1917).
23. The quotations from A. L. Smith are from The Empire and the Future (London,
1916), 29-30.
Chapter 8
1. The success of the Group in getting the foreign policy they wanted under a Liberal
government may be explained by the pressure from without through The Times and the
assistance from within through Asquith, Grey, and Haldane, and through the less obvious
but no less important work of persons like Sir Eyre Crowe and above all Lord Esher.
2. During this period Lord Esher played a vital but still mysterious role in the
government. He was a strong supporter of Milner and his Group and was an influential
adviser of Lloyd George. On 12 November 1917, he had a long walk with his protege,
Hankey, in Paris and "urged the vital importance of sending Milner as Ambassador,
Minister-Plenipotentiary, call him what you will. Henry Wilson cannot stand alone."
Later the same day he spoke to Lloyd George: "I urged most strongly that he should send
Milner here, on the ground that he would give stability where there is none and that his
presence would ensure Henry Wilson getting 'information.' this I urged specially in view
of the future as of the present. Otherwise we might one day find the Italian position
reproduced in France. He finds Milner almost indispensable, but he will seriously think
of the proposal." Milner was sent to Paris, as Esher wished, four months later. On 2
February 1918, Esher had another conversation, in which Lloyd George spoke of putting
Milner in Derby's place at the War Office. The change was made two months later.
( Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher [4 vols., London, 1938], 158-159 and
178.)
3. Zimmern was unquestionably one of the better minds in the Milner Group, and his
ideas were frequently closer to Milner's than those of others of the inner circle. Although
Zimmern agreed with the others in 1919 about the severity of the treaty, his reasons were
quite different and do credit to both his integrity and his intelligence. He objected to the
severity of the treaty because it was a breach of the pre-armistice commitments to the
Germans; at the same time he wanted a continuation of the alliance that had won the war
and a strong League of Nations, because he had no illusions about converting the
Germans to peaceful ways in the near future. The inner circle of the Milner Group were
against a severe treaty or a strong League or an alliance with France because they
believed that Germany could be converted to the British way of thinking and acting and
because they wanted to rebuild Germany as a weapon in a balance-of-power system
against "Russian bolshevism" and "French militarism." Part II of Europe in
Convalescence (New York, 1922) remains to this day the most brilliant summary
available on what went wrong in 1919.
Chapter 9
1. In June 1908, in a speech to the Royal Colonial Institute, Milner said: "Anything
like imperial federation—the effective union of the self-governing states—is not, indeed
as some think, a dream, but is certainly at present little more than an aspiration" (Milner,
The Nation and the Empire [Boston, 1913], 293). In 1891 Sir Charles Tupper said: "Most
people have come to the conclusion stated by Lord Rosebery at the Mansion House, that
a Parliamentary Federation, if practicable, is so remote that during the coming century it
is not likely to make any very great advance." In 1899, Rosebery said: "Imperial
Federation in any form is an impossible dream." See H. D. Hall, The British
Commonwealth of Nations (London, 1920), 70-71. In October 1905, Joseph Chamberlain
said: "You cannot approach closer union by that means." Philip Kerr in 1911 spoke of
federation as "the ill-considered proposals of the Imperial Federation League" ( The
Round Table, August 1911, 1, 374). By this last date, only Lionel Curtis, of the Milner
Group, had much faith in the possibility of federation. This is why his name alone was
affixed, as editor, to the two volumes published by the Group in 1916.
2. On the secret group of 1903-1905, see H. D. Hall, The British Commonwealth of
Nations (London, 1920). The group was clearly made up of members of the Cecil Bloc
and Milner Group. On its report, see the Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute for
1905, appendix; W. B. Worsfold, The Empire on the Anvil (London, 1916); and R. Jebb,
The Imperial Conference (London, 1911), Vol. II. Lyttleton's dispatch is Cond. 2785 of
1905. Kerr's remark is in The Round Table (August 1911), I, 410.
3. This opinion of the important role played by Milner in the period 1916-1921
undoubtedly originated from Geoffrey Dawson, but it was shared by all the members of
the Kindergarten. It is stated in different words by Basil Williams in The Dictionary of