colonies would have to be represented in the Imperial Parliament, which would thus
become really Imperial. One great difficulty, no doubt, is that, if this body were to be
really effective as an instrument of Imperial Policy, it would require to be reduced in
numbers.... The reduction in numbers of British members might no doubt be facilitated
by the creation of local legislatures.... The time is ripe to make a beginning.... I wish
Rosebery, who could carry through such a policy if any man could, was less pessimistic.”
The idea of devolving the local business of the imperial parliament upon local
legislative bodies for Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland was advocated in a book by
Lord Esher called After the War and in a book called The Great Opportunity by Edward
Wood (the future Lord Halifax). These books, in their main theme, were nothing more
than a restatement of this aspect of the imperial federation project. They were
accompanied, on 4 June 1919, by a motion introduced in the House of Commons by
Wood, and carried by a vote of 187 to 34, that "the time has come for the creation of
subordinate legislatures within the United Kingdom." Nothing came of this motion, just
as nothing came of the federation plans.
Milner's ideas on the latter subject were restated in a letter to Parkin on 18 September
1901:
“The existing Parliaments, whether British or Colonial, are too small, and so are the
statesmen they produce (except in accidental cases like Chamberlain), for such big issues.
Until we get a real Imperial Council, not merely a Consultative, but first a Constitutional,
and then an Executive Council with control of all our world business, we shall get
nothing. Look at the way in which the splendid opportunities for federal defence which
this war afforded, have been thrown away. I believe it will come about, but at present I do
not see the man to do it. Both you and I could help him enormously, almost decisively
indeed, for I have, and doubtless you have, an amount of illustration and argument to
bring to bear on the subject, drawn from practical experience, which would logically
smash the opposition. Our difficulty in the old days was that we were advocating a grand,
but, as it seemed, an impractical idea. I should advocate the same thing today as an urgent
practical necessity.”(13)
The failure of imperial federation in the period 1910-1917 forced Parkin and Milner to
fall back on ideological unity as achieved through the Rhodes Scholarships, just as the
same event forced Curtis and others to fall back on the same goal as achieved through the
Royal Institute of International Affairs. All parties did this with reluctance. As Dove
wrote to Brand in 1923, "This later thing [the RIIA] is all right—it may help us to reach
that unity of direction in foreign policy we are looking for, if it becomes a haunt of
visitors from the Dominions; but Lionel's first love has still to be won, and if, as often
happens, accomplishment lessens appetite, and he turns again to his earlier and greater
work, we shall all be the gainers."(14)
This shift from institutional to ideological bonds for uniting the Empire makes it
necessary that we should have a clear idea of the outlook of The Round Table and the
whole Milner Group. This outlook was well stated in an article in Volume III of that
journal, from the pen of an unidentified writer. This article, entitled"The Ethics of
Empire," is deserving of close attention. It emphasized that the arguments for the Empire
and the bonds which bind it together must be moral and not based on considerations of
material advantage or even of defense. This emphasis on moral considerations, rather
than economic or strategic, is typical of the Group as a whole and is found in Milner and
even in Rhodes. Professional politicians, bureaucrats, utilitarians, and materialist social
reformers are criticized for their failure to "appeal convincingly as an ideal of moral
welfare to the ardour and imagination of a democratic people." They are also criticized
for failure to see that this is the basis on which the Empire was reared.
“The development of the British Empire teaches how moral conviction and devotion
to duty have inspired the building of the structure. Opponents of Imperialism are wont to
suggest that the story will not bear inspection, that it is largely a record of self-
aggrandizement and greed. Such a charge betrays ignorance of its history.... The men
who have laboured most enduringly at the fabric of Empire were not getters of wealth
and plunderers of spoil. It was due to their strength of character and moral purpose that
British rule in India and Egypt has become the embodiment of order and justice.... Duty
is an abstract term, but the facts it signifies are the most concrete and real in our
experience. The essential thing is to grasp its meaning as a motive power in men s lives.
[This was probably from Kerr, but could have been Toynbee or Milner speaking. The
writer continued:] The end of the State is to make men, and its strength is measured not in
terms of defensive armaments or economic prosperity but by the moral personality of its
citizens.... The function of the State is positive and ethical, to secure for its individual
members that they shall not merely live but live well. Social reformers are prone to insist
too strongly on an ideal of material comfort for the people.... A life of satisfaction
depends not on higher wages or lower prices or on leisure for recreation, but on work that
calls into play the higher capacities of man's nature.... The cry of the masses should be
not for wages or comforts or even liberty, but for opportunities for enterprise and
responsibility. A policy for closer union in the Empire is full of significance in relation to
this demand.... There is but one way of promise. It is that the peoples of the Empire shall
realize their national unity and draw from that ideal an inspiration to common endeavour
in the fulfillment of the moral obligations which their membership of the Empire entails.
The recognition of common Imperial interests is bound to broaden both their basis of
public action and their whole view of life. Public life is ennobled by great causes and by
these alone.... Political corruption, place-hunting, and party intrigue have their natural
home in small communities where attention is concentrated upon local interests. Great
public causes call into being the intellectual and moral potentialities of people.... The
phrases "national character," "national will," and "national personality" are no empty catchwords. Everyone knows that esprit de corps is not a fiction but a reality; that the
spirit animating a college or a regiment is something that cannot be measured in terms of
the private contributions of the individual members.... The people of the Empire are face
to face with a unique and an historic opportunity! It is their mission to base the policy of
a Great Empire on the foundations of freedom and law.... It remains for them to crown
the structure by the institution of a political union that shall give solidarity to the Empire
as a whole. Duty and the logic of facts alike point this goal of their endeavour.”
In this article can be found, at least implicitly, all the basic ideas of the Milner Group:
their suspicion of party politics; their emphasis on moral qualities and the cement of
common outlook for linking people together; their conviction that the British Empire is
the supreme moral achievement of man, but an achievement yet incomplete and still
unfolding; their idea that the highest moral goals are the development of personality