so preparing Indians to govern themselves." "I have since looked back on this walk,"
wrote Curtis, "as one of the milestones of my own education. So far I had thought of self-
government as a Western institution, which was and would always remain peculiar to the
peoples of Europe.... It was from that moment that I first began to think of 'the
Government of each by each and of all by all’ not merely as a principle of Western life,
but rather of all human life, as the goal to which all human societies must tend. It was
from that moment that I began to think of the British Commonwealth as the greatest
instrument ever devised for enabling that principle to be realized, not merely for the
children of Europe, but for all races and kindreds and peoples and tongues. And it is for
that reason that I have ceased to speak of the British Empire and called the book in which
I published my views The Commonwealth of Nations."
Because of Curtis's position and future influence, this walk in Canada was important
not only in his personal life but also in the future history of the British Empire. It needs
only to be pointed out that India received complete self-government in 1947 and the
British Commonwealth changed its name officially to Commonwealth of Nations in
1948. There can be no doubt that both of these events resulted in no small degree from
the influence of Lionel Curtis and the Milner Group, in which he was a major figure.
Curtis and his friends stayed in Canada for four months. Then Curtis returned to South
Africa for the closing session of the Transvaal Legislative Council, of which he was a
member. He there drafted a memorandum on the whole question of imperial relations,
and, on the day that the Union of South Africa came into existence, he sailed to New
Zealand to set up study groups to examine the question. These groups became the Round
Table Groups of New Zealand.(2)
The memorandum was printed with blank sheets for written comments opposite the
text. Each student was to note his criticisms on these blank pages. Then they were to meet
in their study groups to discuss these comments, in the hope of being able to draw up
joint reports, or at least majority and minority reports, on their conclusions. These reports
were to be sent to Curtis, who was to compile a comprehensive report on the whole
imperial problem. This comprehensive report would then be submitted to the groups in
the same fashion and the resulting comments used as a basis for a final report.
Five study groups of this type were set up in New Zealand, and then five more in
Australia. (3) The decision was made to do the same thing in Canada and in England, and
this was done by Curtis, Kerr, and apparently Dove during 1910. On the trip to Canada,
the missionaries carried with them a letter from Milner to his old friend Arthur J.
Glazebrook, with whom he had remained in close contact throughout the years since
Glazebrook went to Canada for an English bank in 1893. The Round Table in 1941,
writing of Glazebrook, said, "His great political hero was his friend Lord Milner, with
whom he kept up a regular correspondence." As a result of this letter from Milner,
Glazebrook undertook the task of founding Round Table Groups in Canada and did this
so well that he was for twenty years or more the real head of the network of Milner
Group units in the Dominion. He regularly wrote the Canadian articles in The Round
Table magazine. When he died, in 1940, The Round Table obituary spoke of him as "one
of the most devoted and loyal friends that The Round Table has ever known. Indeed he
could fairly claim to be one of its founding fathers." In the 1930s he relinquished his
central position in the Canadian branch of the Milner Group to Vincent Massey, son-in-
law of George Parkin. Glazebrook's admiration for Parkin was so great that he named his
son George Parkin de Twenebrokes Glazebrook.(4) At the present time Vincent Massey
and G. P. de T. Glazebrook are apparently the heads of the Milner Group organization in
Canada, having inherited the position from the latter's father. Both are graduates of
Balliol, Massey in 1913 and Glazebrook in 1924. Massey, a member of a very wealthy
Canadian family, was lecturer in modern history at Toronto University in 1913-1915, and
then served, during the war effort, as a staff officer in Canada, as associate secretary of
the Canadian Cabinet's War Committee, and as secretary and director of the Government
Repatriation Committee. Later he was Minister without Portfolio in the Canadian Cabinet
(1924), a member of the Canadian delegation to the Imperial Conference of 1926, and
first Canadian Minister to the United States (1926-1930). He was president of the
National Liberal Federation of Canada in 1932-1935, Canadian High Commissioner in
London in 1935-1946, and Canadian delegate to the Assembly of the League of Nations
in 1936. He has been for a long time governor of the University of Toronto and of Upper
Canada College (Parkin's old school). He remains to this day one of the strongest
supporters of Oxford University and of a policy of close Canadian cooperation with the
United Kingdom.
G. P. de T. Glazebrook, son of Milner's old friend Arthur J. Glazebrook and namesake
of Milner's closest collaborator in the Rhodes Trust, was born in 1900 and studied at
Upper Canada College, the University of Toronto, and Balliol. Since 1924 he has been
teaching history at Toronto University, but since 1942 has been on leave to the Dominion
government, engaged in strategic intelligence work with the Department of External
Affairs. Since 1948 he has been on loan from the Department of External Affairs to the
Department of Defense, where he is acting as head of the new Joint Services Intelligence.
This highly secret agency appears to be the Canadian equivalent to the American Central
Intelligence Agency. Glazebrook has written a number of historical works, including a
History of Transportation in Canada (1938), Canadian External Affairs, a Historical
Study to 1914 (1942), and Canada at the Peace Conference (1942).
It was, as we have said, George Parkin Glazebrook's father who, acting in cooperation
with Curtis, Kerr, and Marris and on instructions from Milner, set up the Round Table
organization in Canada in 1911. About a dozen units were established in various cities.
It was during the effort to extend the Round Table organization to Australia that Curtis
first met Lord Chelmsford. He was later Viceroy of India (in 1916-1921), and there can
be little doubt that the Milner Group was influential in this appointment, for Curtis
discussed the plans which eventually became the Government of India Act of 1919 with
him before he went to India and consulted with him in India on the same subject in
1916.(5)
From 1911 to 1913, Curtis remained in England, devoting himself to the reports
coming in from the Round Table Groups on imperial organization, while Kerr devoted
himself to the publication of The Round Table itself. This was an extraordinary magazine.
The first issue appeared with the date 15 November 1910. It had no names in the whole
issue, either of the officers or of the contributors of the five articles. The opening
statement of policy was unsigned, and the only address to which communications could
be sent was "The Secretary, 175 Piccadilly, London, W." This anonymity has been