and agricultural reform (both close to Milner's heart), he left in 1903 to take an important
position in the administration of Egypt. This appointment was mysteriously canceled
after his return to England because, according to Buchan, he was too young for the task.
It is more than likely that Milner, who had obtained the appointment for him, changed his
mind because of Buchan's rapidly declining enthusiasm for imperial federation. This was
a subject on which Milner and other members of his Group were adamant for many years.
By 1915 most members of the Group began to believe that federation was impossible,
and, as a compromise, took what we know now as the Commonwealth of Nations—that
is, a group of nations joined together by common ideals and allegiances rather than by
fixed political organization. Lionel Curtis remains to this day a fanatical believer in
federation, and some of the decline in his influence after 1922 may be attributed to
inability to obtain federation in the face of world—and above all Dominion—opposition.
The present Commonwealth is in reality the compromises worked out when the details of
the Milner Group clashed with the reality of political facts.
As a result of Buchan's failure to obtain the appointment of Egypt, he continued to
practice law in London for three years, finally abandoning it to become a partner in the
publishing firm of his old classmate Thomas A. Nelson (1906-1916). In 1907 he married
Susan Grosvenor, whose family (Dukes of Westminister) was allied, as we have seen, to
the Wyndhams, Cavendishes, Lytteltons, and Primroses (Earls of Rosebery and Lords
Dalmeny). As a result of this family connection, Buchan wrote a memoir on Lord
Rosebery for Proceedings of the British Academy in 1930 and a book Ol1 the Grosvenor
twins, who were killed in the war.
During the war, Buchan was a correspondent for The Times, wrote Nelson's History of
the Great War in twenty-four volumes (1915-1919), was the military intelligence in
France (1916-1917), and finally was Director of Information for the War Office (1917-
1918). During this period and later, he was a prolific writer of travel, historical, and
adventure stories, becoming eventually, by such works as Greenmantle, The Three
Hostages, and The Thirty-nine Steps, the most famous writer of adventure stories in
Britain. His connection with South Africa gained him the post of official historian of the
South African forces in France. He was a close friend of Lord Haldane and Lord
Rosebery, both of whom can be regarded as members of the Milner Croup. Of Haldane,
Buchan wrote: "What chiefly attracted me to him was his loyalty to Milner. Milner
thought him the ablest man in public life, abler even than Arthur Balfour, and alone of his
former Liberal allies Haldane stood by him on every count." Haldane, with Rosebery,
Asquith, and Edward Grey, had formed the Liberal League to support liberal imperialism,
with which Milner was closely associated.
Buchan was representative of the Scottish universities in the House of Commons for
eight years (1927-1935), Lord High Commissioner for the Church of Scotland in 1933-
1934, president of the Scottish Historical Society (1929-1933), and Chancellor of
Edinburgh University, before he obtained his last post, Governor-General of Canada
(1935 1940).
Basil Williams graduated from New College in 1891 and almost immediately became
clerk in the House of Commons, holding this post for nine years before he went
soldiering in the Boer War. He became Secretary of the Transvaal Education Department,
wrote Volume IV of The Times History of the South African War, and was The Times
special correspondent at the South African Convention of 1908-1919, which made the
Union. A major on the General Staff in 1918-1909, he was later Ford Lecturer at Oxford
(in 1921), Professor of History at McGill (1921-1925), and Professor of History at
Edinburgh (1925-1937). He wrote the very revealing article on Milner in the Dictionary
of National Biography and numerous other works, including Cecil Rhodes (1921), The
British Empire (for the Home University Library, 1928), Volume XI of the Oxford
History of England ( The Whig Supremacy, 1714-1760), Botha, Smuts, and South Africa
(1946), and edited The Makers of the Nineteenth Century (1915-1928).
Lord Basil Blackwood, son and heir of Lord Dufferin, went to Balliol in 1891 but
never graduated, being an adventurer of the first order. Taken to South Africa by Milner,
he was employed in the Judge Advocate's Department for a year (1900-1901), then was
Assistant Colonial Secretary of Orange River Colony for six years (1901-1907). He
became Colonial Secretary of Barbados in 1907 and Assistant Secretary of the Land
Development Commission in England in 1910. He would have been an important
member of the Milner Group but was killed in France in 1917.
Of the major members of the Kindergarten, Robert H. Brand (since 1946 Baron
Brand) stands close to the top. His father was second Viscount Brand, twenty-fourth
Baron Dacre (created 1307), son of a Speaker of the House of Commons (1872-1884),
while his mother was Susan Cavendish, daughter of Lord George Cavendish, and niece of
the seventh Duke of Devonshire. His father, as Governor of New South Wales in 1895-
1899, was one of the original instigators of the federation of the Australian Colonies,
which came into effect in 1900. His older brother, the third Viscount Hampden, was a
lord-in-waiting to the King (1924-1936), while another brother, Admiral Sir Hubert
Brand, was extra equerry to the King (1922) and principal naval aide to the King (1931-
1932). His nephew, Freeman Freeman-Thomas (Baron Willingdon after 1910; Marquess
of Willingdon after 1936), in 1892 married the daughter of Lord Brassey, and became
Governor-General of Canada (1926-1931) and Viceroy of India (1931-1936).
Brand, who has been a Fellow of All Souls since 1901, is chiefly responsible for the
Astor influence in the Milner Group. He went to South Africa in 1902 and was made
secretary of the Inter-colonial Council of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony and
secretary of the Railway Committee of the Central South African Railways, with Philip
Kerr (the future Lord Lothian) as assistant secretary on both organizations. He was
secretary to the Transvaal Delegation at the South African National Convention (1908-
1909) and at once wrote a deliberately naive work published by Oxford University Press
in 1909 with the title The Union of South Africa. In this work there is no mention of the
Kindergarten, and where it is necessary to speak of its work, this is done as if it were
performed by persons unknown to the writer. He says, for example (page 40): "The
Transvaal Delegation alone was assisted throughout the convention by a staff of legal
advisers and experts," and thus dismisses the Kindergarten's essential work. His own
work is passed over in silence, and at the front of the volume is placed a quotation in
Dutch from President Sir John Brand of the Orange River Colony, possibly to mislead the
ordinary reader into believing that there was a family connection between the South
African politician and the author of the book.
Brand's role in the Milner Group after 1910 is too great to be covered adequately here.