Britain's postwar policies and especially the election of 1918. Strangely enough,
Zimmern, although most articulate in this volume, was basically more anti-German than
the other members of the Group and did not share their rather naive belief that the
Germans could be redeemed merely by the victors tossing away the advantages of
victory. Zimmern had a greater degree of sympathy for the French idea that the Germans
should give more concrete examples of a reformed spirit before they were allowed to run
freely in civilized society.(3) Halifax, on the other hand, was considerably more
influenced by popular feeling in 1918 and years later. He shared the public hysteria
against Germany in 1918 to a degree which he later wished to forget, just as in 1937 he
shared the appeasement policy toward Germany to a degree he would now doubtless
want to forget. Both of these men, however were not of the inner circle of the Milner
Group. The sentiments of that inner circle, men like Kerr, Brand, and Dawson, can be
found in the speeches of the first, The Times editorials of the last, and the articles of The
Round Table. They can also be seen in the letters of John Dove. The latter, writing to
Brand, 4 October 1923, stated: "It seems to me that the most disastrous affect of
Poincare's policy would be the final collapse of democracy in Germany, the risk of which
has been pointed out in The Round Table. The irony of the whole situation is that if the
Junkers should capture the Reich again, the same old antagonisms will revive and we
shall find ourselves, willy-nilly, lined up again with France to avert a danger which
French action has again called into being.... Even if Smuts follows up his fine speech, the
situation may have changed so much before the Imperial Conference is over that people
who think like him and us may find themselves baffled.... I doubt if we shall again have
as good a chance of getting a peaceful democracy set up in Germany."
Chapter 9—Creation of the Commonwealth
The evolution of the British Empire into the Commonwealth of Nations is to a very
great extent a result of the activities of the Milner Group. To be sure, the ultimate goal of
the Group was quite different from the present system, since they wanted a federation of
the Empire, but this was a long-run goal, and en route they accepted the present system as
a temporary way station. However, the strength of colonial and Dominion feeling, which
made the ideal of federation admittedly remote at all times, has succeeded in making this
way-station a permanent terminal and thus had eliminated, apparently forever, the hope
for federation. With the exception of a few diehards (of whom Milner and Curtis were the
leaders), the Group has accepted the solution of imperial cooperation and "parallelism" as
an alternative to federation. This was definitely stated in The Round Table of December
1920. In that issue the Group adopted the path of cooperation as its future policy and
added: "Its [ The Round Tables] promoters in this country feel bound to state that all the
experience of the war and of the peace has not shaken in the least the fundamental
conviction with which they commenced the publication of this Review.... The Round
Table has never expressed an opinion as to the form which this constitutional
organization would take, nor as to the time when it should be undertaken. But it has never
disguised its conviction that a cooperate system would eventually break down." In
September 1935, in a review of its first twenty-five years, the journal stated: "Since the
war, therefore, though it has never abandoned its view that the only final basis for
freedom and enduring peace is the organic union of nations in a commonwealth
embracing the whole world or, in the first instance, a lesser part of it, The Round Table
has been a consistent supporter . . . of the principles upon which the British Empire now
rests, as set forth in the Balfour Memorandum of 1926.... It has felt that only by trying the
cooperation method to the utmost and realizing its limitations in practice would nations
within or without the British Empire be brought to face the necessity for organic union."
There apparently exists within the Milner Group a myth to the effect that they
invented the expression "Commonwealth of Nations," that it was derived from Zimmern's
book The Greek Commonwealth (published in 1911) and first appeared in public in the title of Curtis's book in 1916. This is not quite accurate, for the older imperialists of the
Cecil Bloc had used the term "commonwealth" in reference to the British Empire on
various occasions as early as 1884. In that year, in a speech at Adelaide, Australia, Lord
Rosebery referred to the possibility of New Zealand seceding from the Empire and
added: "God forbid. There is no need for any nation, however great, leaving the Empire,
because the Empire is a Commonwealth of Nations."
If the Milner Group did not invent the term, they gave it a very definite and special
meaning, based on Zimmern's book, and they popularized the use of the expression.
According to Zimmern, the expression "commonwealth" referred to a community based
on freedom and the rule of law, in distinction to a government based on authority or even
arbitrary tyranny. The distinction was worked out in Zimmern's book in the contrast
between Athens, as described in Pericles's funeral oration, and Sparta (or the actual
conduct of the Athenian empire). As applied to the modern world, the contrast was
between the British government, as described by Dicey, and the despotisms of Philip II,
Wilhelm II, and Nicholas II. In this sense of the word, commonwealth was not originally
an alternative to federation, as it later became, since it referred to the moral qualities of
government, and these could exist within either a federated or a nonfederated Empire.
The expression "British Commonwealth of Nations" was, then, not invented by the
Group but was given a very special meaning and was propagated in this sense until it
finally became common usage. The first step in this direction was taken on 15 May 1917,
when General Smuts, at a banquet in his honor in the Houses of Parliament, used the
expression. This banquet was apparently arranged by the Milner Group, and Lord Milner
sat at Smuts's right hand during the speech. The speech itself was printed and given the
widest publicity, being disseminated throughout Great Britain, the Commonwealth, the
United States, and the rest of the world. In retrospect, some persons have believed that
Smuts was rejecting the meaning of the expression as used by the Milner Group, because
he did reject the project for imperial federation in this speech. This, however, is a
mistake, for, as we have said, the expression "commonwealth" at that time had a meaning
which could include either federation or cooperation among the members of the British
imperial system. The antithesis in meaning between federation and commonwealth is a
later development which took place outside the Group. To this day, men like Curtis,
Amery, and Grigg still use the term "commonwealth" as applied to a federated Empire,
and they always define the word "commonwealth" as "a government of liberty under the
law" and not as an arrangement of independent but cooperating states.
The development of the British Empire into the Commonwealth of Nations and the
role which the Milner Group played in this development cannot be understood by anyone