between Simon and Burnham (because of the latter's refusal to go as far as the former
desired in the direction of concessions to the Indians), and their inability to obtain
cooperation from the Secretary of State (as revealed in the steady criticism of Birkenhead
in The Times), had decided to abandon the commission method of procedure in favor of a
round-table method of procedure. It is not surprising that the Round Table Groups should
prefer a roundtable method of procedure even in regard to Indian affairs, where many of
the participants would have relatively little experience in the typical British procedure of
agreement through conference. To the Milner Group, the round-table method was not
only preferable in itself but was made absolutely necessary by the widespread Indian
criticism of the Simon Commission for its exclusively British personnel. This restriction
had been adopted originally on the grounds that only a purely British and purely
parliamentary commission could commit Parliament in some degree to acceptance of the
recommendations of the commission—at least, this was the defense of the restricted
membership made to the Indians by the Viceroy on 8 November 1927. In place of this
argument, the Milner Group now advanced a somewhat more typical idea, namely, that
only Indian participation on a direct and equal basis could commit Indians to any plans
for the future of India. By customary Milner Group reasoning, they decided that the
responsibility placed on Indians by making them participate in the formulation of plans
would moderate the extremism of their demands and bind them to participate in the
execution of these plans after they were enacted into law. This basic idea—that if you
have faith in people, they will prove worthy of that faith, or, expressed in somewhat more
concrete terms, that if you give dissatisfied people voluntarily more than they expect and,
above all, before they really expect to get it, they will not abuse the gift but will be
sobered simultaneously by the weight of responsibility and the sweetness of gratitude—
was an underlying assumption of the Milner Group's activities from 1901 to the present.
Its validity was defended (when proof was demanded) by a historical example—that is,
by contrasting the lack of generosity in Britain's treatment of the American Colonies in
1774 with the generosity in her treatment of the Canadian Colonies in 1839. The contrast
between the "Intolerable Acts" and the Durham Report was one of the basic ideas at the
back of the minds of all the important members of the Milner Group. In many of those
minds, however, this assumption was not based on political history at all but had a more
profound and largely unconscious basis in the teachings of Christ and the Sermon on the
Mount. This was especially true of Lionel Curtis, John Dove, Lord Lothian, and Lord
Halifax. Unless this idea is recognized, it is not possible to see the underlying unity
behind the actions of the Group toward the Boers in 1901-1910, toward India in 1919 and
1935, and toward Hitler in 1934-1939.
These ideas as a justification of concessions to India are to be found in Milner Group
discussions of the Indian problem at all periods, especially just before the Act of 1919. A
decade later they were still exerting their influence. They will be found, for example, in
The Round Table articles on India in September 1930 and March 1931. The earlier
advocated the use of the round-table method but warned that it must be based on
complete equality for the Indian members. It continued: "Indians should share equally
with Great Britain the responsibility for reaching or failing to reach an agreement as to
what the next step in Indian constitutional development should be. It is no longer a
question, as we see it, of Great Britain listening to Indian representatives and then
deciding for herself what the next Indian constitution should be.... The core of the round
table idea is that representative Britons and representative Indians should endeavour to
reach an agreement, on the understanding that if they can reach an agreement, each will
loyally carry it through to completion, as was the case with Ireland in 1922." As seen by
the Milner Group, Britain's responsibility was
“her obligation to help Indians to take maximum responsibility for India's government
on their own shoulders, and to insist on their doing so, not only because it is the right
thing in itself, but because it is the most certain antidote to the real danger of anarchy
which threatens India unless Indians do learn to carry responsibility for government at a
very early date There is less risk in going too fast in agreement and cooperation with
political India than in going at a more moderate pace without its agreement and
cooperation. Indeed, in our view, the most successful foundation for the Round Table
Conference would be that Great Britain should ask the Indian delegates to table agreed
proposals and then do her utmost to accept them and place on Indian shoulders the
responsibility for carrying them into effect.”
It is very doubtful if the Milner Group could have substituted the round-table method
for the commission method in quite so abrupt a fashion as it did, had not a Labour
government come to office early in 1929. As a result, the difficult Lord Birkenhead was
replaced as Secretary of State by the much more cooperative Mr. Wedgewood Benn
(Viscount Stansgate since 1941). The greater degree of cooperation which the Milner
Group received from Benn than from Birkenhead may be explained by the fact that their
hopes for India were not far distant from those held in certain circles of the Labour Party.
It may also be explained by the fact that Wedgewood Benn was considerably closer, in a
social sense, to the Milner Group than was Birkenhead. Benn had been a Liberal M.P.
from 1906 to 1927; his brother Sir Ernest Benn, the publisher, had been close to the
Milner Group in the Ministry of Munitions in 1916-1917 and in the Ministry of
Reconstruction in 1917-1918; and his nephew John, oldest son of Sir Ernest, married the
oldest daughter of Maurice Hankey in 1929. Whatever the cause, or combination of
causes, Lord Irwin's suggestion that the round-table method be adopted was accepted by
the Labour government. The suggestion was made when the Viceroy returned to London
in June 1929, months before the Simon Report was drafted and a year before it was
published. With this suggestion Lord Irwin combined another, that the government
formally announce that its goal for India was "Dominion status." The plan leaked out,
probably because the Labour government had to consult with the Liberal Party, on which
its majority depended. The Liberals (Lord Reading and Lloyd George) advised against
the announcement, but Irwin was instructed to make it on his return to India in October.
Lord Birkenhead heard of the plan and wrote a vigorous letter of protest to The Times.
When Geoffrey Dawson refused to publish it, it appeared in the Daily Telegraph, thus
repeating the experience of Lord Lansdowne's even more famous letter of 1917.
Lord Irwin's announcement of the Round Table Conference and of the goal of
Dominion status, made in India on 31 October 1929, brought a storm of protest in
England. It was rejected by Lord Reading
and Lloyd George for the Liberals and by Lord Birkenhead and Stanley Baldwin for the
Conservatives. It is highly unlikely that the Milner Group were much disturbed by this
storm. The reason is that the members of the Croup had already decided that "Dominion
status" had two meanings—one meaning for Englishmen, and a second, rather different,