who feels that federation and commonwealth were mutually exclusive ideas.
In fact, there were not two ideas, but three, and they were not regarded by the Group
as substitutes for each other but as supplements to each other. These three ideas were: (1)
the creation of a common ideology and world outlook among the peoples of the United
Kingdom, the Empire, and the United States; (2) the creation of instruments and practices
of cooperation among these various communities in order that they might pursue parallel
policies; and (3) the creation of a federation on an imperial, Anglo-American, or world
basis. The Milner Group regarded these as supplementary to one another and worked
vigorously for all of them, without believing that they were mutually exclusive
alternatives. They always realized, even the most fanatical of them, that federation, even
of the Empire only, was very remote. They always, in this connection, used such
expressions as "not in our lifetime" or "not in the present century." They always insisted
that the basic unity of any system must rest on common ideology, and they worked in this
direction through the Rhodes Scholarships, the Round Table Groups, and the Institutes of
International Affairs, even when they were most ardently seeking to create organized
constitutional relationships. And in these constitutional relationships they worked equally
energetically and simultaneously for imperial federation and for such instruments of
cooperation as conferences of Prime Ministers of Dominions. The idea, which seems to
have gained currency, that the Round Table Group was solely committed to federation
and that the failure of this project marked the defeat and eclipse of the Group is
erroneous. On the contrary, by the 1930s, the Round Table Group was working so
strongly for a common ideology and for institutions of cooperation that many believers in
federation regarded them as defeatist. For this reason, some believers in federation
organized a new movement called the "World Commonwealth Movement." Evidence of
this movement is an article by Lord Davies in The Nineteenth Century and After for
January 1935, called " Round Table or World Commonwealth?" This new movement was
critical of the foreign policy rather than the imperial policy of the Round Table Group,
especially its policy of appeasement toward Germany and of weakening the League of
Nations, and its belief that Britain could find security in isolation from the Continent and
a balance-of-power policy supported by the United Kingdom, the Dominions, and the
United States.
The effort of the Round Table Group to create a common ideology to unite the
supporters of the British way of life appears in every aspect of their work. It was derived
from Rhodes and Milner and found its most perfect manifestation in the Rhodes
Scholarships. As a result of these and of the Milner Group's control of so much of
Oxford, Oxford tended to become an international university. Here the Milner Group had
to tread a narrow path between the necessity of training non-English (including
Americans and Indians) in the English way of life and the possibility of submerging that
way of life completely (at Oxford, at least) by admitting too many non-English to its
cloistered halls. On the whole, this path was followed with considerable success, as will
be realized by anyone who has had any experience with Rhodes Scholars. To be sure, the
visitors from across the seas picked up the social customs of the English somewhat more
readily than they did the English ideas of playing the game or the English ideas of
politics, but, on the whole, the experiment of Rhodes, Milner, and Lothian cannot be
called a failure. It was surely a greater success in the United States than it was in the
Dominions or in India, for in the last, at least, the English idea of liberty was assimilated
much more completely than the idea of loyalty to England.
The efforts of the Milner Group to encourage federation of the Empire have already
been indicated. They failed and, indeed, were bound to fail, as most members of the
Group soon realized. As early as 1903, John Buchan and Joseph Chamberlain had given
up the attempt. By 1917, even Curtis had accepted the idea that federation was a very
remote possibility, although in his case, at least, it remained as the beckoning will-o-the-
wisp by which all lesser goals were measured and found vaguely dissatisfying.(1)
The third string to the bow—imperial cooperation—remained. It became in time the
chief concern of the Group. The story of these efforts is a familiar one, and no attempt
will be made here to repeat it. We are concerned only with the role played by the Milner
Group in these efforts. In general this role was very large, if not decisive.
The proposals for imperial cooperation had as their basic principle the assumption that
communities which had a common ideology could pursue parallel courses toward the
same goal merely by consultation among their leaders. For a long time, the Milner Group
did not see that the greater the degree of success obtained by this method, the more
remote was the possibility that federation could ever be attained. It is very likely that the
Group was misled in this by the fact that they were for many years extremely fortunate in
keeping members of the Group in positions of power and influence in the Dominions. As
long as men like Smuts, Botha (who did what Smuts wanted), Duncan, Feetham, or Long
were in influential positions in South Africa; as long as men like Eggleston, Bavin, or
Dudley Braham were influential in Australia; as long as men like Glazebrook, Massey,
Joseph Flavelle, or Percy Corbett were influential in Canada—in a nutshell, as long as
members of the Milner Group were influential throughout the Dominions, the technique
of the parallel policy of cooperation would be the easiest way to reach a common goal.
Unfortunately, this was not a method that could be expected to continue forever, and
when the Milner Group grew older and weaker, it could not be expected that their newer
recruits in England (like Hodson, Coupland, Actor, Woodward, Elton, and others) could
continue to work on a parallel policy with the newer arrivals to power in the Dominions.
When that unhappy day arrived, the Milner Group should have had institutionalized
modes of procedure firmly established. They did not, not because they did not want them,
but because their members in the Dominions could not have remained in influential
positions if they had insisted on creating institutionalized links with Britain when the
people of the Dominions obviously did not want such links.
The use of Colonial or Imperial Conferences as a method for establishing closer
contact with the various parts of the Empire was originally established by the Cecil Bloc
and taken over by the Milner Group. The first four such Conferences (in 1887, 1897,
1902, and 1907) were largely dominated by the former group, although they were not
technically in power during the last one. The decisive changes made in the Colonial
Conference system at the Conference of 1907 were worked out by a secret group, which
consulted on the plans for eighteen months and presented them to the Royal Colonial
Institute in April 1905. These plans were embodied in a dispatch from the Colonial
Secretary, Alfred Lyttelton, and carried out at the Conference of 1907. As a result, it was
established that the name of the meeting was to be changed to Imperial Conference; it
was to be called into session every four years; it was to consist of Prime Ministers of the