evasive answers in July 1939. In March 1940, Noel-Baker introduced a motion of censure
on this issue. The motion did not go to a division, but Amery once again objected to the
new policy and to inviting representatives of the Arab states to the abortive Round Table
Conference of 1939. He called the presence of agents of the Mufti at the Round Table
"surrender."
By this time the Milner Group was badly shattered on other issues than Palestine.
Within two months of this debate, it was reunited on the issue of all-out war against
Germany, and Amery had resumed a seat in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for India.
The Palestine issue declined in importance and did not revive to any extent until the
Labour government of 1945 had taken office. From that time on the members of the
Milner Group were united again on the issue, objecting to the Labour government's anti-
Jewish policy and generally following the line Amery had laid down in 1939. In fact, it
was Amery who did much of the talking in 1946-1949, but this is not strictly part of our
story.
In Irish affairs, the Milner Group played a much more decisive role than in Palestine
affairs, although only for the brief period from 1917 to 1925. Previous to 1917 and going
back to 1887, Irish affairs had been one of the most immediate concerns of the Cecil
Bloc. A nephew of Lord Salisbury was Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1887-1891, another
nephew held the post in 1895-1900, and the private secretary and protege of the former
held the post in 1900-1905. The Cecil Bloc had always been opposed to Home Rule for
Ireland, and when, in 1912-1914, the Liberal government took steps to grant Home Rule,
Sir Edward Carson took the lead in opposing these steps. Carson was a creation of the
Cecil Bloc, a fact admitted by Balfour in 1929, when he told his niece, "I made Carson."
Balfour found Carson a simple Dublin barrister in 1887, when he went to Ireland as Chief
Secretary. He made Carson one of his chief prosecuting attorneys in 1887, an M.P. for
Dublin University in 1892, and Solicitor General in his own government in 1900-1906.
When the Home Rule Bill of 1914 was about to pass, Carson organized a private army,
known as the Ulster Volunteers, armed them with guns smuggled in from Germany, and
formed a plot to seize control of Belfast at a given signal from him. This signal, in the
form of a code telegram, was written in 1914 and on its way to be dispatched by Carson
when he received word from Asquith that war with Germany was inevitable.
Accordingly, the revolt was canceled and the date on which the Home Rule Bill was to
go into effect was postponed by special act of Parliament until six months after peace
should be signed.
The information about the telegram of 1914 was revealed to Lionel Curtis by Carson
in a personal conversation after war began. Curtis's attitude was quite different, and he
thoroughly disapproved of Carson's plot. This difference is an indication of the difference
in point of view in regard to Ireland between the Milner Group and the Cecil Bloc. The
latter was willing to oppose Home Rule even to the point where it would condone illegal
actions; the former, on the contrary, was in favor of Home Rule because it believed that
Ireland would aid Britain's enemies in every crisis and leave the Commonwealth at the
first opportunity unless it were given freedom to govern itself.
The Milner Group's attitude toward the Irish question was expressed by The Round
Table in a retrospective article in the September 1935 issue in the following words:
“The root principle of The Round Table remained freedom—'the government of men
by themselves"—and it demanded that within the Empire this principle should be
persistently pursued and expressed in institutions. For that reason it denounced the post-
war attempt to repress the Irish demand for national self-government by ruthless violence
after a century of union had failed to win Irish consent, as a policy in conflict with British
institutions and inconsistent with the principle of the British Commonwealth; and it
played its part in achieving the Irish Treaty and the Dominion settlement.”
The part which the Group played in the Irish settlement was considerably more than
this brief passage might indicate, but it could not take effect until the group in Britain
advocating repression and the group in Ireland advocating separation from the crown had
brought each other to some realization of the advantages of compromise.
These advantages were pointed out by the Group, especially by Lionel Curtis, who
began a two-year term as editor of The Round Table immediately after his great triumph
in the Government of India Act of 1919. In the March 1920 issue, for example, he
discussed and approved a project, first announced by Lloyd George in December 1919, to
separate northern and southern Ireland and give self-government to both as autonomous
parts of Great Britain. This was really nothing but an application of the principle of
devolution, whose attractiveness to the Milner Group has already been mentioned.
The Irish Settlement in the period 1920-1923 is very largely a Milner Group
achievement. For most of this period Amery's brother-in-law, Hamar Greenwood
(Viscount Greenwood since 1937), was Chief Secretary for Ireland. He was, indeed, the
last person to hold this office before it was abolished at the end of 1922. Curtis was
adviser on Irish affairs to the Colonial Office in 1921-1924, and Smuts and Feetham
intervened in the affair at certain points.
A settlement of the Irish problem along lines similar to those advocated by The Round
Table was enacted in the Government of Ireland Act of December 1920. Drafted by H. A.
L. Fisher and piloted through Commons by him, it passed the critical second reading by a
vote of 348-94. In the majority were Amery, Nancy Astor, Austen Chamberlain, H. A. L.
Fisher, Hamar Greenwood, Samuel Hoare, G. R. Lane-Fox (brother-in-law of Lord
Halifax), and E. F. L. Wood (Lord Halifax). In the minority were Lord Robert Cecil and
Lord Wolmer (son of Lord Selborne). In the House of Lords the bill passed by 164-75. In
the majority were Lords Curzon, Lytton, Onslow (brother-in-law of Lord Halifax),
Goschen, Hampden (brother of Robert Brand), Hardinge, Milner, Desborough, Ernle,
Meston, Monson, Phillimore, Riddell, and Wemyss. In the minority were Lords
Linlithgow, Beauchamp (father-in-law of Samuel Hoare), Midleton, Bryce, Ampthill
(brother-in-law of Samuel Hoare), and Leconfield (brother of Hugh Wyndham).
The act of 1920 never went into effect because the extremists on both sides were not
yet satiated with blood. By June 1921 they were. The first movement in this direction,
according to W. K. Hancock, "may be said to open as early as October 1920 when The
Times published suggestions for a truce and negotiations between plenipotentiaries of
both sides." The same authority lists ten voices as being raised in protest at British
methods of repression. Three of these were of the Milner Group ( The Times, The Round
Table, and Sir John Simon). He quotes The Round Table as saying: "If the British
Commonwealth can only be preserved by such means, it would become a negation of the
principle for which it has stood."(6) Similar arguments were brought to bear on the Irish
leaders by Jan Smuts.
Smuts left South Africa for England at the end of May 1921, to attend the Imperial