Milner : Apostle of Empire : A life of Alfred George, the Right Honourable Viscount Milner of St James’s and Cape Town, KG, GCB, GCMG, 1854-1925

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MILNER Apostle of Empire

By the same Author REBELLION IN PALESTINE

(Cresset)

(Cresset) (Cresset) trouble in muristan (fiction) (Cresset) THE SEAT OF PILATE (Cresset) ARAB NATIONALISM AND BRITISH IMPERIALISM (Cresset) THE PERSIAN GULF IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (Cresset) iran: a short political guide (Pall Mall Press) THE MAKING OF THE SUEZ CANAL (Cresset) four aspects of Egypt (Allen & Unwin) LATE VICTORIAN: A LIFE OF SIR ARNOLD WILSON (Cresset) MISSION TO KHARTUM (Gollancz) CROMER IN EGYPT (Elek) THE GOLDEN AGE OF ALEXANDRIA (Gollancz) PERFIDIOUS ALBION (Elek) CECIL RHODES: THE ANATOMY OF EMPIRE (Elek) spoiling the Egyptians (Andre Deutsch) ANGLO —EGYPTIAN RELATIONS 1800-1953

THE PURITAN TRADITION IN ENGLISH LIFE

JOHN MARLOWE

MILNER APOSTLE OF EMPIRE

A Life of Alfred George the Right Honourable Viscount Milner of St James’s and Cape Town, KG, GCB, GCMG

(1854—1925)

HAMISH HAMILTON LONDON

First published in Great Britain 1996 by Hamish Hamilton Ltd. 90 Great Russell Street London JVCiB jPT Copyright © 1996 by J. M. Collard SBN 241 89433 6

Printed in Great Britain by Western Printing Services Ltd., Bristol

TO

MARTIN AND MY VARIOUS OTHER COMPANIONS ON THE PENNINE WAY 14/28 JUNE

I975

Z7 3853

CONTENTS

Note on Sources

xi

1

A RISING STAR

I

2

THE SOUTH AFRICAN BACKGROUND

27

3

RECONNAISSANCE

38

4

WORKING UP TO A CRISIS

58

5

‘THE GREAT DAY OF reckoning’

96

6

RECONSTRUCTION

I32

7

CHINESE LABOUR

160

8

IN THE WILDERNESS

176

9

‘damn the consequences’

190

10

THE ROUND TABLE

205

11

THE BRITISH COVENANT

213

12

FRUSTRATION

236

13

POWER

257

14

THE UNEXPECTED VICTORY

306

15

COLONIAL SECRETARY

323

16

LAST YEARS

358

17

RELIGIO MILNERIANA

364

Appendix A

373

Appendix B

IT)

Bibliography of Published Books, Pamphlets, etc.

377

Index

383

ILLUSTRATIONS Between pages 212 and 213

1 (a) Milner (c. 1900) (b) Joseph Chamberlain 2 (a)

Smuts

(b) Kitchener 3 (a) Rhodes (b) Philip Kerr (Lord Lothian) 4 (a) Margot Asquith (b) Elinor Glyn 5 (a)

Geoffrey Dawson

(b) Leo Amery 6 (a) Lionel Curtis, from a portrait by Sir Oswald Birley, 1932, by permission of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (b) Curzon 7 (a) Asquith (b) Henry Wilson 8 (a) Lloyd George (b) Milner (c. 1918) All the illustrations except 6 (a) are reproduced by permission of the Radio Times Hulton Picture Library

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to quote copyright passages:

David Higham Associates

Ltd.,

Beaverbrook

Foundation, A. D. Peters & Co., The London School of Economics and Political Science, John Murray (Publishers) Ltd., Longman Group Ltd., and Hutchinson Publishing Group Ltd.

NOTE ON SOURCES The principal source is the voluminous collection of Lord Milner’s papers—diaries, correspondence, State papers etc.—the property of New College Oxford and in the custody of the Bodleian. I am grateful to the Librarian of New College for permission to examine them and to the Keeper of the Bodleian and his staff for facilitating my access to them. Quotations from, and references to, the Milner Papers are acknow¬ ledged in the Notes by the initials ‘MP’ followed by the box number, or, in the case of the Milner Additional Papers, as such followed by the box number. Innumerable brief extracts from Milner’s diaries are made without specific reference. I have made extensive use of the selection from the Milner Papers covering Milner’s South African years edited by Cecil Headlam and published by Cassell in two volumes in 1931-33. All quotations derived from these volumes are acknowledged in the Notes. I have also taken, and acknowledged in the Notes, some extracts: (a) from the Milner Papers quoted in Sir Evelyn Wrench’s ‘Alfred Lord Milner; The Man of No Illusions, 1854-1925’. Eyre & Spottiswoode 1958; (b) from the Joseph Chamberlain Papers and Colonial Office archives quoted in J. S. Marais’ ‘The Fall of Kruger’s Republic’, OUP 1961, and (c) from the Lloyd George Papers quoted in A. M. Gollin’s ‘Proconsul in Politics’, Blond 1964. All direct quotations from these, and other, writers are acknowledged in the Notes. The resources of the British Museum Newspaper Library at Colindale were invaluable for research into newspapers and periodicals. The sources and dates of quotations from them are usually apparent from the text. Quotations from Parliamentary speeches are taken either from Hansard or, occasionally, from newspaper reports. I am grateful, as always, to the London Library for access to most of the books listed in the Bibliography, and to Hansard. John Marlowe

CHAPTER ONE

A Rising Star was born on 23 March 1854 at Giessen in the Prin¬ cipality of Hesse-Darmstadt, a small German university town. As his German origins and relationships were later alleged to have affected his adult outlook and sympathies, it is necessary to describe them in some detail. His paternal grandfather was James Richardson Milner, a wine shipper, who was born in England but who spent most of his life in Germany, where he married Sophie von Rappard, by whom he had six children. Charles, Alfred Milner’s father, was the eldest, being born at Neuss, near Dusseldorf, on 30 June 1830. Charles, like his father, was registered as a British subject, but was brought up in Germany. At the beginning of 1853, when he was 22 years of age, he was studying medicine at Bonn. In order to supplement his small means he accepted a post as tutor to the two sons of Mary Crombie, an English widow recently settled in Bonn. Mary Crombie was 42 years of age, the daughtei of Major-General John Ready, sometime Governor of Prince Edward Island and subse¬ quently Lieut.-Governor of the Isle of Man. She had married an Army officer, St. George Crombie, by whom she had two sons before he was killed on duty in Ireland in 1852. His widow, and her sons, moved to Germany soon after her husband’s death, apparently because living

Alfred Milner

there was cheaper than in England. Within a few months of engaging him, Mary Crombie married the tutor, who was nearly twenty years younger than herself. Of this marriage, Alfred Milner was the only issue. The family lived at various places in Germany until May i860, when they moved to London, where Charles Milner practised medicine, apparently in rather a desultory manner, for the next six years. They lived in Chelsea, where Mary Milner had relatives, a Mr. Malcolm and his daughter Marianne, and where they made many friends.

2

Milner: Apostle of Empire

In 1866 Charles Milner, unable to make a successful living at medicine in England, obtained the post of Lektor in English at the University of Tubingen, where he and his family had lived immediately before coming to England six years before. So the whole family returned to Germany. Alfred was by this time twelve years old. While in England he had been educated, first by a governess, and later at St. Peter’s Church School, Lower Belgrave Street, where he became head boy. Among his play-mates in Chelsea were the children of the Rev. Gerald Blunt, Rector of Chelsea, and the Rev. Francis Synge, his curate. With Bertha, one of the latter’s daughters, who became a well-known children’s author, Alfred was to maintain a regular and life-long corres¬ pondence. Back in Germany, Alfred continued his schooling at the Tubingen Gymnasium, where he received an excellent German education for the next three years. Then, in August 1869, when he was fifteen, his mother died. Before her death she had expressed a wish that Alfred should com¬ plete his education in England, and had left a sum of money in her will for that purpose. Alfred’s uncle, Charles Ready, who went to Tubingen to his sister’s death-bed, and who was named as the executor of her will, took charge of Mary’s affairs. After the funeral he returned to England with Alfred and the bereaved husband and, following some family discussions, arranged that Alfred should live with Mary’s cousin, Mr. Malcolm, a widower, who resided in St. George’s Square, Pimlico, not far from the family’s old friends in Chelsea, with his daughter Marianne, at that time about twenty-six years of age. A place was found for Alfred at King’s College, London, where he started as a day-boy in the Autumn Term of 1869. Mr. Malcolm was given charge of Alfred’s financial affairs and his father returned to his lectureship at Tubingen where, soon afterwards, he married a German lady. Alfred is recorded as having said, later in life, that his father had ‘twice my brains’. This was probably filial piety. Another account describes him as ‘an impossible man, gifted, wayward, and incapable of looking after anyone.’1 Mary Milner was obviously the dominant character of the two, and the principal influence on Alfred’s upbringing. But Alfred got on well enough with his father, with whom he spent part of his school holidays and university vacations until Charles Milner, still employed at his lectureship in Tubingen, died in 1882. During the Summer holidays in 1870, when father and son were on a walking tour in the

A Rising Star

3

Black Forest, they had a distant view of the siege of Strasbourg during the Franco-Prussian war.

In England, Marianne Malcolm treated Alfred as a favourite younger brother, and Alfred discussed all his plans with her and wrote to her whenever he was away. His father wanted him to go into the Indian Civil Service; but Alfred was intent on Oxford. He had been promised an allowance of £50 a year which, together with the money his mother had left, would have been sufficient for this. But in 1872 Mr. Malcolm, who had been entrusted with this money, died, leaving his financial affairs in confusion. Alfred and Marianne had to move from St. George’s Square. They set up house together in cheaper accommodation at 54 Claverton Street, just round the corner. In view of his diminished financial situation it was important for Alfred to obtain as good an entrance scholarship as possible to Oxford. He had made his mark as a scholar at King’s College where, according to the later recollection of Lord Ullswater, who was at the school with him, ‘he was always facile princeps in Classics, French and German, . . . was a hard worker and always carried off all the prizes.’2 He asked his Classics master, Mr. Mayor, about the best obtainable Oxford scholar¬ ship and Mayor advised him to try for Balliol. He left King’s College at the end of the Summer Term 1872 and spent the next three months, and most of his available cash, at a crammer’s in Somerset. He had set his heart on a Balliol scholarship, and as he wrote in a letter to Marianne, ‘I would never forgive myself for wasting even a week at this critical time.’ He went to Oxford to sit the scholarship examination in November 1872. His only friend there was Philip Lyttleton Gell, who had been at King’s College with him and who had gone up to Balliol the year before. With Gell he went to the announcement of the results and heard that he had been awarded the top scholarship for the year. At that time Balliol, under the Mastership of Benjamin Jowett, was at the height of its reputation as a nursery for statesmen. Jowett had a dis¬ cerning eye for youthful form and soon picked out Milner as his brightest star. He had him to stay during vacations and found him pupils to coach so as to help him with his scanty means. Among Milner’s contemporaries at Balliol was H. H. Asquith. In his Memoirs Asquith recalled that ‘we sat together at the scholars’ table in Hall for three years. We then formed a close friendship and were for many years on intimate terms and in close contact with each other.... At Oxford we both took a part in the Union in upholding the unfashionable

Milner: Apostle of Empire

4

Liberal cause. ... In my early married days between 1877 and 1885 he used often to come to my house in Hampstead for frugal Sunday suppers, when we talked over political and literary matters, mostly in agree¬ ment.’3 Later, when Asquith became Prime Minister, Milner was one of his most bitter political opponents. Both Asquith and Milner became Presidents of the Union—Milner in the Summer Term of 1876. Altogether, Milner’s career at Balliol was a succession of triumphs. He became Hertford Scholar in 1874, Craven Scholar in 1877, Eldon Scholar and Derby Scholar in 1878, and was elected to a Fellowship of New College in 1877. His only failure was in the Ireland scholarship examination in 1875 when, in an access of dis¬ couragement, he tore up his papers on the fifth day. Afterwards, Jowett told him that he would have won it if he had stuck to it, but consoled him by telling him; ‘It can make no difference to you in life; you have a splendid career before you.’ While Milner was at Oxford, two men, and two sets of ideas, had an influence on him which was to determine the course of his future life and thought. Neither of these men were brilliant scholars, and neither had anything like Milner’s intellectual distinction. George Parkin was a Canadian, born in 1846 and so eight years older than Milner. Having graduated at the University of New Brunswick, he entered the teaching profession and became headmaster of a school in Canada. In 1872 he took a sabbatical year and came to Oxford as a noncollegiate student. Milner first met him at a debate in the Union when Parkin spoke in opposition to a motion, moved by Asquith, that ‘the disintegration of the Empire is the true solution of the colonial difficulty’. Milner invited Parkin to his rooms to meet some of his friends and discuss the subject of the debate. This meeting led to a close friendship and to the germination of what was to become the guiding principle of Milner’s public life. The idea of a Greater Britain inhabited by members of the AngloSaxon race, bound together in some form of union, was in the air while Milner was at Oxford. Nearly all the ‘white’ colonies had achieved selfgovernment. The great question was whether self-government was a step towards sovereign independence and separation from the Mothercountry, or whether it could lead, first to a federation of adjoining terri¬ tories, on the lines of the recently-formed Dominion of Canada, then to a larger federation including the United Kingdom and all the selfgoverning colonies in the Empire, and finally perhaps to a reunion with

A Rising Star

5

the great federal Republic of the United States of America. In 1869 Charles Dilke, a young Liberal Member of Parliament, after a world tour including the United States, the ‘white’ colonies and India, had published a book entitled ‘Greater Britain’ in which he adumbrated the idea of an Anglo-Saxon world hegemony based on racial superiority. In the following year Ruskin, Slade Professor of Art at Oxford, in his Inaugural Lecture, declaimed: ‘A destiny is now possible to us, the highest ever yet set before a nation to be accepted or refused. Will you youths of England make your country again a royal throne of kings, a sceptred isle, for all the world a source of light, a centre of peace? This is what England must do or perish. She must found colonies as fast and as far as she is able, formed of her most energetic and worthiest of men; seizing any piece of fruitful waste ground she can set her foot on, and then teaching her colonists that their chief virtue is to be fidelity to their country, and that their first aim is to advance the power of England by land and sea.’ In 1877, the year in which Milner was elected to a Fellowship of New College, an undergraduate of Oriel, named Cecil Rhodes, unknown to Milner at the time, was writing: ‘I contend that we are the first race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. I contend that every acre added to our territory provides for the birth of more of the English race who otherwise would not be brought into existence. Added to which, the absorption of the greater part of the world under our rule simply means the end of all wars.’ A few years later, in 1883, J. R. Seeley, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, published a series of lectures under the title ‘The Expansion of England’. In them he (a) advocated emigration on a large scale to the ‘white’ colonies as a remedy for pauperism in England; and (b) pleaded for a gradual evolution of an organisation which would make the whole strength of the Empire available in time of war. He drew an analogy with the United States which had steadily expanded over a vast area and where a civil war had been fought to preserve the federal con¬ stitution. He wrote that difficulties of distance which had previously made a British federation impracticable had now been overcome by the steamship and the submarine telegraph and concluded that a federation of English-speaking peoples under the British flag was a condition of their continued prosperity. The idea of a federation of English-speaking peoples as a dominant

6

Milner: Apostle of Empire

world-Power, proposed by various writers, and discussed by Parkin and Milner and their friends at Oxford, was unashamedly based on the con¬ cept of racial superiority, derived from a popularisation of the evolution¬ ary theories of Charles Darwin and, in those days, accepted almost without question in most of the Western world. The exponents of the idea were a little vague and uneasy about what was known as ‘the Dependent Empire’. The idea of self-government for ‘natives’ was regarded with derision, and the concept of ‘trusteeship’ was being evolved to meet the objections of Gladstonian Liberals to the forcible subjugation of peoples ‘rightly struggling to be free.’ Parkin’s sabbatical year at Oxford, and the influence he acquired there, led to his adopting the cause of Empire unity as his life work. When the Imperial Federation League was founded in 1884, Parkin became its travelling secretary and principal propagandist. But the League failed to ‘catch on’ and was disbanded in 1895, after Milner and some of his friends had tried without success to raise sufficient money to enable Parkin to devote his whole time to it in order to keep it going. Milner continued his friendship with Parkin after the failure of the Imperial Federation League and later, when Parkin became Secretary of the Rhodes Trust, had a great deal to do with him. A more immediately important influence on Milner was that of Arnold Toynbee. Social reform, like Imperialism, was in the air in the Oxford of the middle Seventies. Ruskin, in his denunciation of the abuses of indus¬ trialism and of the maldistribution of wealth, and in his attempts to assert the dignity of labour by, inter alia, organising undergraduates into road-mending gangs, enjoyed a great vogue. Arnold Toynbee was one of his disciples. He was born in 1852 and was thus two years older than Milner. He came up to Pembroke College to read Law in 1873. Although no scholar, he attracted Jowett’s attention, and, in 1878, became a lecturer and tutor at Balliol. From then until his early death in 1883 he was the inspiration and leader of a group of earnest young men, of whom Milner was one, interested in social questions. One of them recorded that ‘in 1877, after Milner had gone down and had been elected a Fellow of New College he frequently came down, mainly to see Arnold Toynbee and to take part in a little informal society for the discussion of political and social questions. . . . This society continued to hold its meetings until Toynbee’s death in 1883 ... (Milner) did not expect the Conserva¬ tives to be capable of treating social reform seriously. He was obviously much impressed with Bismarckian State Socialism and aired a number of

A Rising Star

7

ideas and schemes of that complexion which astonished some of us not a little.’4 Milner, in an address given in November

1894

at Toynbee Hall, the

East London settlement founded in memory of Arnold Toynbee, had this to say about Toynbee’s influence on him: ‘He was in the thick of every movement to improve the external condition of the life of the people. My friendship with Toynbee must have begun in February or March

1873

during my first term at Oxford, which was also his first.... I

fell at once under his spell and have always remained under it. No man has ever had for me the same fascination or made me realise as he did the secret of prophetic power—the kind of influence exercised in all ages by religious and moral inspiration. I could never bring my thoroughly lay mind quite into step with his religious ideals. ... I was far more conservative and far less optimistic than he was. We differed in many things_But I looked up to him no less on that account.... It was a distinguishing mark of those who came under Toynbee’s influence that they were deeply impressed with their individual duty as citizens and filled with enthusiasm for social equality, which led them to aim at bridging the gap between the educated and wage-earning classes. . . . Was he a socialist? ... If by socialism you mean collectivism, the aboli¬ tion of individual property, or if you mean social democracy, the paternal government of an omnipotent, all-absorbing State, Toynbee was no socialist. But... he was convinced of the necessity of social reorganisa¬ tion. ... Society left to itself would not right itself. Salvation could only come by deliberate corporative effort, inspired by moral ideals, guided by the scientific study of economic laws. The pursuit of individual selfinterest would never evolve order out of existing chaos. He hoped much from the action of a democratic State controlling the excesses of com¬ petition, laying down conditions of labour and exchange, subject to the spirit of individual enterprise which should have free play. He hoped even more from the action of municipalities ensuring to all their citizens the conditions of healthy life. He hoped most of all from the voluntary association of free men. . . . Nothing that tended to discourage selfreliance or weaken character could possibly lead to material well-being and, if it could, the object would be too dearly bought at the price.’6 No doubt this reminiscence was a statement of Milner’s own views as much as those of Toynbee. Together with his views on Imperialism, these views were representative of a gathering reaction from the laisse{ faire climate which had dominated English thought and politics for so

8

Milner: Apostle of Empire

long. In those days Imperialism and social reform went together. They represented a collectivism, a voluntary subordination of the individual to the community, a reaction against the harsh and unimaginative indivi¬ dualism of laissei faire. Milner and his friends believed that the laissei faire philosophy, the belief in the minimising of government action and of public expenditure, had resulted in slums, sweated labour and insecure employment at home, and a neglect of the opportunities awaiting English people abroad. They believed that industrial conditions at home could be improved by encouraging emigration to the white colonies, so at the same time relieving the pressure of population at home and stimulating the demand for British exports to the colonies. Although most of them had been brought up in the Liberal tradition, they became attracted both to Conservatism and to Socialism, on the grounds that the one was more interested in the Empire and the other in social reform than the Liberals and that both, by their greater willingness to extend the scope of govern¬ ment action, were more likely to get things done than the Liberals. They looked forward to the prospect either of a conservatism imbued with socialist ideas of social reform, or of a socialism inspired with conserva¬ tive ideas of Imperialism. Although still nominally Liberals, they had little regard for Gladstone. And, although genuinely Imperialists, they had even less regard for Disraeli. With the intolerance of youth, they probably regarded them both as mountebanks. Milner himself took a great interest in socialism and became deeply versed in the history of the movement, on which he believed a series of lectures in London in 1882.6 After being elected to his Lellowship, Milner kept residence in New College for two years in order to observe its conditions. But he had no intention of remaining in Oxford as a don, and in 1879, went t0 London and started reading for the Bar at the Inner Temple. He went on sharing house with Marianne Malcolm at 54 Claverton Street and did occasional journalism for Morley, then editor of the Pall Mall Gaiette. He was called to the Bar in 1881 but, within a few months of his call, decided to abandon the law as a profession. Sanders, later Balfour’s private secretary, was one of Milner’s colleagues ‘as a briefless barrister on the Midland circuit.’ He wrote of Milner: ‘How he loathed the atmosphere of the Bar.... He had not then passed the Gladstone cult and thought with an intellectual contempt of the school of Disraeli.’7 He was having a pretty miserable time. He was only earning a few guineas from journalism. Apart from this he had £200 a year from his

A

Rising Star

9

Fellowship. He disliked the law. And Marianne was becoming a very difficult person to live with as she had become a dipsomaniac. His diary entries at this time have continual references to wretched evenings spent at the end of hard working days as a result of Marianne’s condition. It says much for Milner’s good nature that he continued living with her—as he did—until 1883. But she had been very kind to him in the past, had entered into all his plans and ambitions, and had looked after him generally. He was not the man to neglect personal obligations of this kind, and he had a genuine affection for one who had been a big sister to him at a time when he had had few people to care for him. He did a lot of heart-searching before he decided to abandon the Bar which, for a man of his ability, would have at least provided the certainty of a secure living. A long entry in his diary for 2 December 1881 is revealing: ‘Time ebbs away with nothing to show for it, while all the time one is, or seems to oneself, consummately busy. ... A good deal of worry and wretchedness at home. . . . Some 38 guineas for very inferior scribbling in the Pall Mall.... And as for making any useful and honourable career for myself, there is still the great problem of Bar or no Bar. All that is best in me still cries for the second and yet I have no courage to take the plunge. Meanwhile I am doing absolutely nothing to fit myself for the first alternative. Five years now since taking my degree. I have seen something of the world since then ... and the more I see of it, the more it interests me, but the less I see my own particular part in it. After all, does it greatly matter? ... I don’t think it would, but for the pride some people feel in me, which I don’t care to disappoint. ... If I am not to be a distinguished man, let me at least try to be a capable one. . . . What should I like to be? First of all a good man, not mean, not selfish, with a mind always open to noble ideas, a heart always glow¬ ing for good causes. And what in the world’s eye? A useful politician in the best sense of the word, whether in the House or in the Press—a good speaker, if that is not attainable, in any case a good writer. More than that, I should like to write one solid, enduring book—‘History of Political Thought in England’ is the sort of title that runs in my head—and also in some sort of form to record my most intimate experiences of life, so that all I have felt at times with such a feverish intensity about the life of man and his mysterious destiny may be something more than a breath upon glass, vanished as soon as seen.’ A fortnight later he had made up his mind about the Bar. In his diary entry for 16 December he recorded: ‘My mind is made up. Resolution

IO

Milner: Apostle of Empire

fixed. Bar thrown overboard. Off I go upon the wide ocean.... As long as I keep my health—and if I lose it there is the Fellowship to live upon— I have nothing to fear in a life, the first condition of which is celibacy. One cannot have everything. I am a poor man and must choose between public usefulness and private happiness. I choose the former, or rather I choose to strive for it. Besides, could private happiness be mine in any case? If it could be had for stretching out the hand, the temptation might indeed be a great one.’ A few weeks later, on 2 February 1882, he wrote to tell Jowett of his decision to give up the Bar. ‘If I were to stick to the Bar, I should become absorbed in it, so absorbed that I could not work at anything else. . . . The only subject I am deeply interested in is literature, especially political literature and politics.... I am not turning away from the Bar in disgust at not succeeding. What alarms me is the likelihood of succeeding.... I should ... at some future date be glad of a private secretaryship to a really eminent politician.’ On the same day Philip Gell, who was his most intimate friend, wrote to Jowett about Milner, telling him in con¬ fidence that ‘a friend has guaranteed Milner’s expenses if he will stand for Parliament and has already lodged £1,000 for this purpose and for no other.’8 It seems likely that this friend was Philip Gell himself. The Gladstone Administration had still another three years to run and a General Election was not an immediate likelihood. After giving up the Bar Milner prepared and delivered the series of lectures which has been referred to and went on with his work for the Pall Mall Gaiette. In a diary entry during May 1882 he wrote that the lectures, ‘though not so good as I could wish were yet not wholly a failure. I feel I have broken new ground and got a grip, not yet a mastery, of a new subject which I must never let go.... My plan at present is (i) study of political and social subjects, especially Germany and Socialism, with a view to writing. Either a sketch of Lasalle or “Studies in Socialism” is the kind of book I have in mind. . . . (ii) Keep my eyes open all round for any good political opening. . . . (iii) Learn French and practise public speaking, (iv) Keep up one or two—but only one or two—good works in the line of social improvement.’ Charles Milner died in Tubingen in August 1882 and Alfred went there for the funeral. (His stepmother went on living in Tubingen for the rest of her life, dying there in 1919, just after the first world war. Milner went to see her and stay with her, from time to time, and once took her on holiday to Italy.) After that, and in pursuance of his deter-

A Rising Star

II

mination to perfect his French, he went to Normandy and spent some weeks at St. Germain-des-Vaux with Hugh Glazebrook, an artist friend, who had a studio there. Glazebrook later described him as ‘making friends with my peasant models, going on expeditions over the falaise which often ended in a ride home on top of a load of hay, criticising my sketches, teaching the girls to dance to the music of my friend’s violin, swimming in the sea... .’9 Milner, in a diary entry, described his holiday in glowing terms: ‘The only real country life I have ever known. Life among peasants and with peasants is one of the richest experiences I have ever encountered.... I shall always be grateful to Hugh Glazebrook for inducing me to go there.’ Then back to London, to Marianne’s drinking, which had become ‘frightful beyond words’, and to the search for a career. ‘My life is passing and I have done no work of value.’ It was at about this time that he joined the staff of the Pall Mall Gazette to which he had been a more or less regular contributor for the past two years. Morley was still editor. He retired in 1883 and W. T. Stead, previously assistant editor, took over, Milner becoming assistant editor under Stead. William Thomas Stead was the founder of the popular, ‘stunt’ journalism which has usually been attributed to Northcliffe. Under his editorship, lasting from 1883 to 1890—when the proprietor got tired of him and sacked him—the Pall Mall Gazette, a London daily evening paper, greatly increased its circulation and became marked with the imprint of Stead’s volcanic personality. Stead, like Milner, was an Imperialist and a social reformer, and this enabled them to work fairly amicably together despite wide differences in temperament. Stead’s editorial method was to provide his readers with regular ‘sensational dis¬ closures’ and concentrated ‘campaigns’ about various matters of current interest. Some of his best-known ‘stunts’ were the famous Gordon interview, in January 1884, which was instrumental in getting Gordon sent on his mission to Khartum; a series of articles entitled ‘The Truth about the Navy’ in the Autumn of 1884 which attacked the Government about the weakness of the Royal Navy and was partly instrumental in getting the Conservative Administration which succeeded it to introduce a considerable increase in the Naval Estimates; a series of articles on Imperial Federation in January 1885, which were probably inspired by Milner; and, most famous of all, the ‘Maiden Tribute of Babylon’ in the Autumn of 1885, when Stead exposed the scandal of child prostitution in London by publicising his purchase of a child for £5. His object was

12

Milner: Apostle of Empire

to get the age of consent raised from 13 to 16. He succeeded in this object but was sent to prison for the technical offence involved. He would have been surprised and mortified to know, that nearly a hundred years later, a Royal Commission, of which a Bishop of the Established Church was a member, was to advocate a reversal of the reform he had gone to prison to bring about. Milner worked as assistant editor to Stead for about two years until July 1885. He gave his reasons for leaving in a letter to E. T. Cook, a Balliol friend, who was later editor of the Daily News. ‘I really cannot give the paper the time that it requires, and even if I could do so I am no longer prepared to accept the embarrassments which its sayings and doings cause me. It was bad enough when one agreed more or less with Stead, but when we differ violently about three things out of every four, it is rather too much to suffer for one’s supposed approval of what one hates.’ This letter was written a few months after Stead’s Gordon inter¬ view and a few weeks before the ‘Maiden Tribute of Babylon’ escapade which led to Stead’s imprisonment. In spite of Milner’s departure from the PMG, he remained good friends with Stead and returned briefly to the office to help out while Stead was in prison.

In October 1883 Milner, while working on the PMG, finally and reluctantly gave up sharing house with Marianne at 54 Claverton Street and moved into rooms at 8 York Street with Henry Birchenough, an old Balliol friend. From there they moved to 47 Duke Street about two years later. Birchenough married in 1887 and Milner stayed on at 47 Duke Street, which remained his London pied-a-terre until 1914. Marianne died two years later, in 1885, at the age of 43. The four years during which Milner lived with her in Claverton Street after he came to London in 1879 must have been a time of great strain for a man who, like Milner, was affectionate and sensitive in his personal relationships. When he gave up the Bar at the beginning of 1882 Milner had told Jowett that he would like the job of secretary to ‘a really eminent politi¬ cian.’ He was already acquainted with the Goschen family and, in February 1884, while still working on the PMG, had become part-time secretary to George Joachim Goschen. Goschen was a financier, a Liberal MP, and an ex-Cabinet Minister. He just about qualified as ‘a really eminent politician.’ ‘It was not long before Goschen realised the great abilities of his private secretary and came to look upon him almost as a colleague and adviser. . . . Together they studied the Blue Books, and spent much time discussing the when, the where and the how.’10

A Rising Star

i3

Goschen was particularly interested in Egyptian affairs, having gone to Egypt in 1876 as representative of the English bondholders to arrange for a settlement of the Egyptian debt. He was also interested in foreign and colonial affairs generally, and most of his correspondence with Milner during 1884 and the first half of 1885 is on these subjects. In a letter dated 1 February 1885 Milner criticised what he regarded as the vacilla¬ tions of British policy in South Africa and Egypt. In South Africa, after the signature of the 1884 London Convention, ‘our resolution wobbled, or rather we allowed the Cape Government, bowing to the influence of the Dutch party, to take all the starch off our resolution—because we did not back Mackenzie with a force we now have to send Warren with an army.’u And in Egypt ‘are we again going when we reach Khartum to decline the responsibility and leave the Sudan to its fate . . . only to have to fight another Mahdi another year? I do think a word of protest against this headlong folly is much needed and would meet with general response throughout the country. ... There is nothing more dangerous than the insular hubris in which Liberals are so fond of indulging. . . . “Friendship with all and alliance with none” and so on and so on. That might have been all very well when the Continental Powers were con¬ fined to Europe. Now they touch us at every point—in Africa, in Asia, in Australia.’12 In spite of all this, Milner, like Goschen, was still a Liberal and, indeed, about to stand for Parliament as such. In March 1884 he had refused an invitation to become Liberal candidate for Cheltenham, on the advice of Goschen and others, presumably on the ground that it was not a reason¬ ably winnable seat. But, in 1885, he accepted an invitation to stand as Liberal candidate for the newly-created parliamentary division of Harrow. Gladstone’s Government resigned in June 1885 after a defeat in the Commons and was replaced by a Conservative Government with Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister. A General Election could not con¬ veniently be held until November, as the new electoral register, necessi¬ tated by the enlarged franchise under the 1884 Act, would not be ready until then. In a letter to Goschen before the Election to tell him that his work for him would have to be temporarily suspended, Milner wrote: ‘If I should succeed in getting into Parliament my great hope will be to serve in the ranks of a Party of which you were one of the leaders. With you in a Liberal Government one would feel safe.’ He did not get elected, being defeated by about 1,000 votes. He was never again to compete for a seat in the House of Commons. One of his

14

Milner: Apostle of Empire

few failures in an otherwise successful life may have contributed to his increasing dislike for parliament, party politics and democracy generally. One tends to be contemptuous of games one cannot play oneself. And Milner was not cut out by temperament for the hurly-burly of the hustings. In an age before the microphone had been invented his voice lacked resonance. His speeches read better than they sounded. Although he had passionately held political beliefs, he found difficulty in ‘getting them across’ to large audiences. Although he had something like a genius for friendship, and although he attracted numerous and devoted disciples, he was deficient in bonhomie towards casual acquaintances and lacked the common touch. He had none of that extrovert boisterousness which is so useful to the would-be successful democratic politician. The Election resulted in the Liberals being returned with 335 seats, the Conservatives 249 and the Irish Nationalists 86. The Conservatives and Irish Nationalists together thus had exactly the same number of seats as the Liberals. Salisbury continued in office until January 1886, when his Government was defeated in the Commons as a result of the defection of the Irish Nationalists. This was due to Gladstone having made it clear that he had been converted to the cause of Irish Home Rule. Although this gained him the support of the Irish Nationalists, it lost him that of part of his own party, including Goschen, who voted with the Government in the vital division (on the renewal of an Irish Coercion Bill). Gladstone formed a Government pledged to the introduction of Irish Home Rule. The dissenting Liberals, who included Hartington and Goschen, and were later joined by Chamberlain, went into opposition. In June 1886 Gladstone introduced a Home Rule Bill into the Commons, where it was defeated by 343 votes to 313 on second reading. 93 Liberals voted against the Government. Gladstone obtained a dissolution and appealed to the country in another General Election. The Liberal dissi¬ dents organised themselves under the name of Liberal Unionists and fought the Election in alliance with the Conservatives and in opposition to Home Rule. Goschen, one of the Liberal Unionist leaders, set Milner to work preparing and distributing election propaganda for the Liberal Unionist Committee. In the result 316 Conservatives and 78 Liberal Unionists were returned, with a combined majority of 118 over 191 Gladstone Liberals and 85 Irish Nationalists. Goschen lost his seat at Edinburgh. Salisbury formed a Conservative Government which, with the support of the Liberal Unionists, remained in office until 1892.

A Rising Star

15

In the Autumn of 1886 Milner, who had started writing occasional leading articles for The Times, then edited by G. E. Buckle, went over to Ireland to see things for himself. From there he wrote to Goschen that ‘the people of Ireland . . . are praying for “a little wholesome neglect”. If only the House of Commons could be shut up for ten years . . . what a transformation scene we should witness in poor politician-ridden Ireland.... I am profoundly thankful that by the goodness of Providence and your influence I was saved from taking the Gladstonian side in the late struggle. All my natural learnings were to Home Rule, and in the far future, I still think it may be the best, or only, constitution for Ireland. But, under present circumstances, I am sure that it would have meant a most fearful disaster.... I have no hesitation in saying, that I am for all practical purposes, a Tory. . . ,’13 With Goschen out of office and, for the time being, out of Parliament, Milner was more or less out of a job. In November, soon after his return from Ireland, he was offered the secretaryship of the Imperial Institute Committee. But he was now flying higher than that. He told Goschen, in effect, that he had refused it because he did not think it sufficiently important and that he preferred to wait until something better turned up. He did not have to wait long. In December 1886 Lord Randolph Churchill, Chancellor of the Exchequer, offered his resignation in an attempt to get his own way in Cabinet. Salisbury took him at his word and offered the succession to Goschen, who asked for time over Christ¬ mas to make up his mind. As yet no Liberal Unionist had accepted office in the new Government, although they supported it in the Commons. Milner urged ‘the imperative national duty of your accepting such a position if offered.’ Goschen did accept and, soon afterwards, was found a seat in the Commons. As Chancellor of the Exchequer he invited Milner to be his Private Secretary. Milner accepted and thus, for the first time, became a civil servant. In his new capacity Milner displayed a prominent aspect of his very well-equipped mind—an exceptional aptitude for figures and finance. He took a considerable share in the preparation of the three Budgets which Goschen presented while Milner was his secretary and helped Goschen with his conversion of Consols from 3 per cent to 2% per cent in 1888. In July 1888 Milner, by this time known as a coming man in the British official world, was offered and, after some hesitation, refused the post of Private Secretary to Lord Lansdowne, the newly-appointed Viceroy of

16

Milner: Apostle of Empire

India, at the then considerable salary of £2,000 a year. Towards the end of 1889 he was offered the post of Director-General of Accounts at the Ministry of Finance in Cairo. Milner was somewhat hesitant about accepting a position which seemed rather below his capacity. He told Goschen: ‘It is rather like buy¬ ing a pig in a poke . . . and on the face of it, it is not a very good one. But I think that it ought with reasonable luck to lead to something better. Egypt is an important place and it is important from an Imperial point of view that Englishmen holding any sort of responsible post there should be English-minded. And I think I may say that I am, whatever else I may or may not be ... I feel that, as between the service of England abroad—for Egypt is really that—and civil service at home, there is a great deal to be said for the former. The individual counts for more. It is more exciting. You have a larger scope. There is no one whom I feel bound or anxious to consult except yourself. If you were decidedly to dissuade me I should drop the thing at once.’14 Goschen advised him to accept. And so, in November 1889, he arrived in Cairo as Director-General of Accounts in the Ministry of Finance. In August 1890 he was promoted to Under-Secretary in the same Ministry. In April 1891 he went to Europe on three months’ leave, returning to Egypt in August. In April 1892 he left Egypt to take up the post of Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue. His period as an Egyptian civil servant therefore lasted for about i\ years. It was an important formative period of his life. He found himself somewhere near the centre of what, largely owing to Milner’s own propaganda, was to become something of a showpiece in Imperial administration. When Milner arrived in Egypt the British occupation had lasted for just over seven years, and Sir Evelyn Baring (to be raised to the Peerage as Lord Cromer in 1892) had been there for just over six as British Agent and Consul-General and virtual ruler of the country. Thirteen years before, Egypt had defaulted on the payment of her foreign debt, the capital of which amounted to about £90,000,000. Her European creditors (of whom Goschen, Milner’s patron, had been the British representative) had moved in and assumed control of Egypt’s finances with a view to ensuring payment of the debt. Ismail, the Khedive, or Ruler, of Egypt had attempted to evade this control and had in conse¬ quence been deposed by his nominal suzerain, the Sultan of Turkey, on the insistence of the British and French Governments, acting on behalf of the European creditors. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Taufiq,

A Rising Star

17

and Egypt’s finances were placed in the hands of two Controllers, one British and one French, who were responsible for the implementation of a revised settlement of Egypt’s financial affairs designed on the one hand to satisfy Egypt’s foreign creditors and on the other to meet Egypt’s legitimate administrative requirements. The Controllers’ regime involved a rigid economy, a cutting-down of the armed forces and the importation of a number of European officials. This led to popular discontent, civil disturbance and an Army coup. The British Government, particularly after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, felt themselves particularly concerned in view of Egypt’s geographical position between Europe and the British Empire in the east. After vainly trying to persuade Turkey and the European Powers to intervene jointly, they sent an expeditionary force to Egypt in September 1882 and occupied the country themselves.

By so doing HMG, willy-nilly, assumed responsibility for the good government of Egypt and for the payment of its foreign debt. The failure of the Anglo-French Control had shown, or seemed to have shown, that these tasks could not be accomplished successfully without the presence of an army of occupation. And so, in spite of objections from the French, who considered that they had been ‘diddled’ out of the halfshare of the control of Egypt which they had previously possessed, the British occupation continued as guarantor of a regime of British officials set up behind the Khedivial facade and under the supervision and effective control of the British Agent. In a letter to Goschen written a few weeks after his arrival, Milner referred to ‘the half dozen men who run Egypt’. There was Baring himself, masterful, efficient, and already regarding the rehabilitation of Egypt as his life-work. There was Sir Elwin Palmer, the Financial Adviser and Milner’s immediate superior, who had recently replaced Sir Edgar Vincent (later Lord d’Abernon), the first Financial Adviser under the occupation. There was Sir Colin Scott-Moncrieff, Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Public Works, in charge of the great irrigation schemes which were the principal instruments of Egypt’s financial and economic recovery. There was Herbert Kitchener, then Inspector-General of Police. Milner, in the letter to Goschen which has been quoted, referred to the ‘extremely good relations existing between all the leading English¬ men here. They all row in the boat and are really a wonderfully strong crew. It is a pleasure to have to deal with so many able, straight and thoroughly English-minded men on terms of perfect good-fellowship.’15 This ‘wonderfully strong crew’, as Milner described it, had something

Milner: Apostle of Empire

of the nature of a mutual admiration society. But its members occasion¬ ally expressed private reservations about their fellows. Milner had a high opinion of Baring and wondered ‘whether we could possibly get on without him.’ But he also referred to ‘his great superficial faults—his brusquerie, his conceit, his long-windedness.’ In spite of these he con¬ cluded that Baring was ‘a statesman of a very high order and ... a perfectly extraordinary example of the right man in the right place.’ He used his intimacy with Goschen to urge him to make sure that Salisbury, who was Foreign Secretary as well as Prime Minister, made no commit¬ ment about Egypt without the advice of Baring, ‘his only thoroughly competent counsellor in Egyptian affairs.’ He was less enthusiastic about Kitchener and, in a letter to a friend, referred to him as being ‘not absolutely straight.’ He was even less enthusiastic about his immediate chief, Elwin Palmer. In a letter to a Balliol friend, Clinton Dawkins, who was to succeed him at the Ministry of Finance, he wrote, after his pro¬ motion to Under-Secretary: ‘I am only a second after all... and second unfortunately to anything but a first-rate man, with whom I shall get on perfectly as long as I efface myself totally.’16 Milner’s tour of duty in Egypt both widened and intensified his Imperial enthusiasm. Under Parkin s inspiration this had previously been concentrated on the white, self-governing colonies and on the prospect of their federation with each other and with the United Kingdom. His racialism was primarily an instinct for unity. His Egyptian experience extended his enthusiasm to what was known as the Dependent Empire and his racialism became an instinct for domination as well. In a letter to Goschen in June 1890 he referred to ‘my strong and ever-increasing jingoism’. He defined the ‘true jingo’ as one who ‘is for limited expansion but unlimited tenacity’. What we had, we should hold. A few months later, in November 1890, in another letter to Goschen, he wrote: ‘I am afraid I should never make a good Party man, but I hope to make a fairly decent Englishman, and as England is doing some of her best work in the valley of the Nile, I am glad to be of the company. The more I see of it, the more proud and convinced I become of the great service which jingoism has rendered to humanity in these regions and I touch my hat with confirmed reverence to the Union Jack.’17 Baring had a high opinion of Milner and described him in his book_ Modern Egypt—published sixteen years later, as ‘one of the most able Englishmen who have served the Egyptian Government; not only was ie versed in all the technicalities of his Department, but he had a wide

A Rising Star

19

grasp of the larger aspect of Egyptian affairs/ He privately expressed the opinion that Milner was one of three people with a knowledge of Egypt who was fit to succeed him.18 In the light of Milner’s journalistic ex¬ perience and connections he encouraged him to publicise the British achievement in Egypt in the British Press in order to counteract a section of Liberal opinion in favour of evacuation. So Milner wrote several articles and gave an interview on Egypt to the PMG when he was in England in the Summer of 1891. One of these articles—in The Scotsman —was reproduced the following year in pamphlet form. . . . ‘We did not come here with any promise of immediate evacuation. . . . Egypt is capable of reform and regeneration but not by good advice. No Oriental country except Japan has ever accepted reform but by compulsion. There is no argument but “you must”.’ The British administration had been ‘led to interfere with the doings of the native bureaucracy, to remove the whip, to interrupt the bribe, to control the water supply, to substitute paid labour for the needless hardships of the corvee.’ He described how the British engineers were rehabilitating and developing the irrigation system, on which Egypt’s prosperity depended. ‘The time of withdrawal cannot be foreseen; any attempt to fix it would be the greatest possible disaster. . . . The work we are doing to-day will in the long run enable Egypt to stand on her own legs, if anything can make her.’ The work of rehabilitation and reform was ‘no barren piece of quixotry. It is of vital importance to the commercial and Imperial interests of our country/ With regard to commercial interests; ‘if we can restore Egyptian pros¬ perity, Great Britain is, next to Egypt herself, the greatest gainer. Twothirds of Egypt’s exports are taken to British ports. Nearly one-half of her imports are derived from British factories. Agricultural revival in Egypt means a larger and cheaper supply of cotton for the British market and an increased demand for all that Egyptian cotton buys— clothing, metal goods and other great staples of British industry/ And with regard to Imperial interests; ‘if we can give Egypt a sound govern¬ ment, Great Britain is relieved from the chronic fear that an unfriendly or rival Power may establish itself on the flanks of our greatest com¬ munication highroad and bar the direct road to our Empire in the East.’ The full statment of the case for the continued British occupation of Egypt was made by Milner in his book England in Egypt, published at the end of 1892, six months after he had left Egypt. The book was a great success and went into several editions. It was a splendid piece of propaganda and did a great deal not only to make British rule in Egypt a

20

Milner: Apostle of Empire

source of pride to an important section of British public opinion, but also to justify the New Imperialism, as it was called, by a demonstration both of its beneficence and its profitability. It was not only a brilliant panegyric of British rule in Egypt; it was also a seminal work in the literature of the New Imperialism—as influential in its way as Kipling’s poems and Seeley’s published lectures. The appearance of Milner’s book was timely from the Imperialist point of view. A Liberal Government, with Gladstone as Prime Minister, had come into office in July 1892. Although Rosebery as Foreign Secretary was ‘sound’, Gladstone himself and probably a majority of his colleagues were believed to be in favour of evacuating Egypt. At the beginning of 1893, just after the book was published, there was a serious constitutional crisis in Egypt. The new Khedive, a boy of 18 who had succeeded his father a year before, attempted to arouse nationalist opinion against the British occupation. The support given to Cromer by the British Press and public, over this attempt and over a similar attempt a year later, was certainly due in part to the impression made by Milner’s book. And this support was probably instrumental in getting the British Government, albeit reluctantly, to send troop reinforcements to Egypt in order to underline Cromer’s determination to show all concerned that he, and not the Khedive, was the real master of Egypt. By that time Milner had left Egypt. Although the country always exercised a considerable fascination over him, he never intended to stay there unless he could get Baring’s job. And Baring had no intention of leaving. And so Milner regarded the Ministry of Finance simply as a step on the promotion ladder which he was now determined to ascend. Before he went on leave in the Spring of 1891 he received and refused an offer of a Commissionership of the Inland Revenue. In a letter to Clinton Dawkins, written from Egypt in March 1891, he gave his reasons: ‘I feel less certain than you do that a Commissionership would lead to the Chairmanship even in seven years. I might work all that time and make myself thoroughly master of the business only to have a man put over my head because he had been a failure in politics.’ ‘If I were to leave Before I had had time to make myself an authority on the subject for all the rest of my life, the last arduous year and a half would be more or less wasted.... The successorship to Baring is I fear quite out of the question. I should hardly have sufficient authority to be dictator of Egypt without (i) a longer experience of the country, and (ii) a subse¬ quent interval of absence from it.’ What he would like would be ‘another

A Rising Star

21

couple of years in Egypt, then a place in India (Financial Membership of the Viceregal Council for choice) or one of the colonies . . . and then come back here, if we were still practically running Egypt, as ConsulGeneral.’19 This is the letter of an honourably ambitious man. The doubts and hesitations of early years were behind him. He was now thirty-seven years of age, conscious of his powers and confident of his ability to rise to the heights. Having embraced public life, and having eschewed democratic politics, his gaze was fixed on the commanding heights of public adminis¬ tration, preferably abroad. He went home to England in April 1891 via Greece and Germany, where he went to see his step-mother at Tubingen. In England he saw something of old friends. He went to Wimbledon to see Stead, who talked to him about Cecil Rhodes and his scheme for an Imperial secret society. At Oxford he saw Jowett and George Parkin, with whom he had ‘two hours’ tremendous conversation.’ He saw something of Asquith and Haldane, Balliol friends who were coming men in the Liberal Party. He saw much of Goschen, who introduced him to members of the Government. He called on Rosebery, to whom he had an introduction from Reginald Brett (Lord Esher), whom he had seen in Paris and who described him to Rosebery as ‘a charming fellow who has a “culte” for you.’20 He also met Margot Tennant, and renewed acquaintance with her a few months later in Egypt, where she spent part of the Winter with her parents. His first impression of Margot was that she ‘talks too much to be always clever.’ But later, in Egypt, he fell seriously in love with her, and proposed marriage to her. She did not accept him, but they remained close friends and regular and affectionate correspondents up to the time of her marriage to Asquith as his second wife in 1893. After her marriage they remained friends until Milner’s breach with, and continual political attacks on, her husband made continued friendship impossible. Milner got back to Egypt in August and, for the next three months acted as Financial Adviser during Palmer’s absence on leave. In a letter to Goschen in October he expressed the view that ‘all the (British) troops might now be withdrawn’ provided that ‘conditions were made for maintaining ... the predominance of English influence in the Egyp¬ tian administration’ with ‘a limited number of Englishmen in high places, with the understanding that on certain subjects their advice must be followed.’21

22

Milner: Apostle of Empire

At the beginning of April 1892 Milner was offered, and accepted, the Chairmanship of the Board of Inland Revenue. This possibility had been in the air for some time. In November 1891, when Sir Algernon West, Milner’s predecessor as Chairman, had decided to retire and had accepted a Bank Directorship, he had intimated to Milner that he would be offered the succession. The post was in the gift of the Chancellor of the Ex¬ chequer, who was still Milner’s patron, Goschen. Milner told him that he would ‘not like Somerset House as well as the Financial Advisership here or the Financial Membership of the Viceroy’s Council’, but indi¬ cated that he would accept the Chairmanship if it were offered to him. And it was. Within a few weeks of his appointment a General Election took place, and a Liberal Government came into office, with Sir William Harcourt as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Harcourt was on the Radical wing of the Liberal Party and his views on Imperialism were diametrically opposed to Milner’s. But during the time—from 1892 to 1895—that he was at the Exchequer and Milner at Somerset House, they got on well enough together. Milner was much concerned with the three Budgets which Harcourt presented during his term of office, and particularly with the Estate Duty proposals in the 1894 Budget. These were certainly worked out, and may have been initiated, by Milner. In his lectures on socialism in 1882 he had referred with approval to the possibility of financing increased social services from ‘future accumulations by e.g. an increase in succession duties.’22 Probably as a result of his work on this Budget Milner was awarded the CB in June 1894. Less than a year later, just before the Liberal Government left office, he was promoted to KCB on the special recom¬ mendation of Harcourt, who told Rosebery that ‘it would be to me a painful disappointment if before leaving office I were unable to testify my sense of the great obligation under which the Government, and more especially I personally, lie to Alfred Milner for his signal financial services to the Administration.’ Rosebery accepted the recommendation and advised Milner in a personal letter. He was now Sir Alfred Milner KCB. A few days later a Conservative and Liberal Unionist Administration was in office, with Salisbury again as Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. Goschen was at the Admiralty. Milner’s new chief at the Exchequer was Sir Michael Hicks Beach, popularly known as ‘Black Michael’. Milner worked for another eighteen months at the Inland Revenue.

A Rising Star

23

Although increasingly antipathetic to the Liberals, he had considerable reservations about the Tories, whose domestic policies he regarded, and continued for the rest of his life to regard, as selfish and unenlightened. At the end of July 1895 he wrote to Clinton Dawkins: ‘Personally I know that I have some troubles ahead of me. It is quite evident that a certain section of the Tories are going to make a very determined attack on Harcourt’s financial arrangements of last year.. . . There is no better service I can render, either to the revenue which I am paid to guard, or to our own side in politics, than to prevent the plutocrats from using the national uprising against a fussy and destructive radicalism to further their own selfish ends. . . . That is my work, I expect, for the next two years. Afterwards I hope it may be a case of “To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new”.’23 At no time did Milner regard the Chairmanship of the Board of Inland Revenue as the summit of his ambitions. He characterised his work there, in a letter to a friend, as ‘hard, important, and boring’, and told Clinton Dawkins that ‘the sober joys of a well-rendered estimate are tame com¬ pared with Empire-building’. He had already, before the Liberal Govern¬ ment went out of office, received from Asquith, who was Home Secre¬ tary, the offer of the Permanent Under-Secretaryship at the Home Office, which carried the same salary—£2,000 a year

as the Chairman¬

ship of the Inland Revenue. He refused it. He had his eye on one of the great Proconsulships. India, Egypt or South Africa. Egypt he would have liked best of all. To his childhood friend Bertha Synge he wrote: ‘I do think I should be the best man, if Cromer went, but firstly he is not going, and secondly it would be rather a bold stroke to send me, and Governments very seldom do bold things in this humdrum epoch.’24 Presumably Milner meant that it would be a bold stroke in view of his recent book about Egypt, in which he had expressed some very down¬ right views about French interference, the incapacity of the Egyptian ruling class and the undesirability of an early evacuation. Failing a Proconsulship, Milner expressed himself as being ready to retire from official life and devote himself behind the scenes to the various causes which he had at heart. In December 1893 he wrote to George Parkin, in reply to a question, declaring that he would not think of again becoming a candidate for membership of the House of Commons. ‘My own views are quite different. If I were ever to return to active politics, it will be a very long way ahead, and I am inclined to think I never shall return. I feel that a man can do any amount of good work, and be of the

24

Milner: Apostle of Empire

greatest service, without joining in the fray—can in fact be of greater service because he keeps himself in the background. ... I have an independent position,25 a great number of influential friends, and, I fancy, that sort of influence which disinterestedness always gives. On the other hand I am no partisan. My interests do not run on the lines of party and, if I can help, in however small a way, to carry out the objects I have at heart, I do not care two straws how the politicians are labelled who execute them.’26 And so Milner went on with his ‘hard, important and boring’ work at Somerset House, moving between there, his chambers in Duke Street, his various Clubs (including Brooks’s and the Athenaeum), Oxford, to which he paid frequent visits, and the many great London houses to which he now had the entree. For he was by this time a prominent member of what is now known as ‘the Establishment’. He was friendly with political leaders on both sides of the House. He was on the dining lists of the principal political hostesses. He was a welcome guest at many of the great country houses. With his interest in Imperial affairs, the appointment of Joseph Chamberlain as Colonial Secretary must have been of particular interest. Writing to Parkin soon after the change of Government, he expressed his view that Chamberlain for the Colonies is good I think on the whole.’ Chamberlain, according to his biographer, had met Milner a few years before when visiting Egypt and had ‘formed a high opinion of him, warmed to admiration by reading England in Egypt. Since then he had marked the vogue on all sides of Sir Alfred Milner’s praises.’27 Chamberlain had no very high opinion of Sir Hercules Robinson, the British High Commissioner in South Africa, and was determined to get rid of him. After some difficulty and delay, and after Sir Hercules had been consoled with a Peerage, the High Commissioner at last agreed to resign on health grounds and the way was open for a new appointment. Chamberlain’s first offer to Milner was that of Permanent Under-Secre¬ tary at the Colonial Office, made in January 1897, at a time when he must already have started looking for a successor to Robinson. Milner defined this. A few weeks later, Chamberlain again summoned him and offered him the High Commissionership of South Africa, with which was combined the Governorship of Cape Colony. This time Milner accepted It was one of the great Proconsular posts for which he was looking In general, the appointment was well received by both political parties by the Press, and by the general public. Even those who were later to

A Rising Star

25

be most critical of him welcomed his appointment at the time. Harcourt, his old chief, and one of his future critics, was amongst the first to con¬ gratulate him, telling him: ‘I reckon that your secession from Somerset House will cost the revenue some millions. ... I confess I had always hoped to see you enthroned in Cairo.’ His reputation as a non-Party man made people think he was a moderate, a conciliator, a ‘safe’ man who could be relied upon not to do anything rash. In reality, Milner was not a moderate man. As John Buchan wrote of him many years later: ‘When he had satisfied himself about a particular course ... his mind seemed to lock down on it, and after that there was no going back. Doubts were done with, faced and resolved, and he moved with the confident freedom of a force of nature.’28 But Chamberlain knew what he was about. It was easier, if necessary, to restrain a strong man than to galvanise a weak one.

NOTES ON CHAPTER ONE 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

MP 297. MP 183. Earl of Oxford and Asquith, Memories and Reflections (Cassell, 1928) I, p. 78. 4. MP 183. Memoir written by Hon. W. N. Bruce. Sir A. Milner, Arnold Toynbee; A Reminiscence (Arnold, 1901). For Milner’s notes for these lectures see MP 240-5. MP 183. Geoffrey Faber, Jowett (Faber & Faber, 1957), pp. 360 et seq. MP 183. Memoir by Hugh Glazebrook. A. D. Elliot, The Life of Viscount Goschen 1831-1907 (Longmans Green, 1911),

I, p. 289. 11. This refers to the proclamation of a British Protectorate over Bechuanaland in order to prevent the South African Republic from expanding its frontier west of the line drawn in the London Convention and so blocking the ‘missionary road’ to the north, along which Rhodes was later to advance to colonise Rhodesia. 12. Evelyn Wrench. Alfred Lord Milner. The Man of No Illusions. 1854-1925 (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1958), pp. 71-3. 13. Wrench, op. cit., p. 80. 14. ibid., p. 94. 15. MP 227. 16. ibid. 17. Wrench, op. cit., p. 104. 18. Cromer Papers PRO FO/633. 19. MP 227.

26

Milner: Apostle of Empire

20. Viscount Esher. Journals and Letters (Nicholson & Watson, 1934), I, p. 153. 21. MP 227. 22. The object of the new Estate Duty was to apply to landed property the same taxationcriteria as were already applied to other forms of property over succession and probate duties. In retrospect this Estate Duty can be seen as one item—neither the first nor the last—in a continuing process by which large landed proprietors were deprived of their special privileges, and as a first sign of the Liberal Party’s conversion to what were then regarded as radical social policies. 23. Wrench, op. cit., p. 154. 24. ibid., p. 158. 25. Milner was to repeat this statement about an ‘independent position’ in a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1897. I have been unable to discover from where the money required for this ‘independent position’ was derived. Most of whatever money his mother left him was apparently lost by Mr. Malcolm. He was certainly hard-up when at Oxford, where he had to rely on his scholarships and some tutoring jobs and, later, on his New College Fellowship, worth £200 a year, which, incidently, he put at the disposal of the Warden and Fellows on his appointment to Somerset House in 1892. As early as 1883 he offered to supplement Marianne Malcolm’s income ‘to any exent necessary ... as I can do with increasing ease’. At that time he was working for what was probably a modest salary as Assistant Editor of the PMG. Subsequently, as Goschen’s Private Secretary at the Exchequer, at the Ministry of Finance in Cairo, and at Somerset House, he was earning what was in those days a high salary (£2,000 a year at Somerset House). He probably made a substantial sum from royalties on his Egypt book. He claimed to have left South Africa a poorer man than when he arrived there. In 1903 he wrote that he had a private income of about £1,500 a year, and at about the same time he referred to the house in Claverton Street which he and Marianne had shared as being his property. Conceivably Marianne may have left it to him when she died in 1885. She may also have left him some money although she probably did not have very much to leave. While in South Africa Milner was given a substantial sum of money by Mrs. Montefiore, the mother of an Oxford friend who had died young, which she said she had intended to leave to him in her Will. In 1906 he calculated his investments as being worth £26,000. Thereafter he spent a lot of time in the City and probably earned a good deal of money there. But I have discovered nothing to explain his ‘indepen¬ dent position’—which probably at that time denoted an income of at least £500 a year for a bachelor—in 1893. 26. MP 228. 27. J. L. Garvin, Life of Joseph Chamberlain, Vol. Ill (Macmillan, 1930), 1, p. 143. 28. John Buchan, Memory Hold the Door (Hodder & Stoughton, 1940), p. 100.

CHAPTER TWO

The South African Background British connection with South Africa started in 1795 when the Dutch settlement at the Cape was occupied by them on the invitation of the Prince of Orange, after he had been driven off the Dutch throne by the Dutch republicans, who had allied themselves with the French revol¬ tionary government. The British evacuated it in 1802 under the terms of the Treaty of Amiens when it came under the rule of the Batavian Republic. In 1806 the British re-occupied it in the course of the renewed war against France and her allies. This second occupation was confirmed at the Congress of Vienna and the colony formally transferred to British rule against a cash payment to the Royalist government of the Nether¬

The

lands. The Cape had originally been colonised by the Dutch East India Company as a watering and victualling station on the route between Holland and the Dutch East Indies. To the British, with their large and expanding Empire in the East, the Cape, during the course of the nine¬ teenth century, became increasingly important as a naval base and coaling station. Nor was this importance greatly diminished by the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. For the shorter Suez route was vulnerable to land-based attack in a way that the blue-water route round the Cape was not. And so the Cape and its hinterland became regarded as a vital keypoint in the British Imperial system, and the possibility of its possession or control by a potentially hostile Power was regarded as a serious menace. British occupation of the Cape involved the imposition of British rule over some 16,000 Dutch colonists, and a few thousand Hottentots and Bushmen, the sole inhabitants of the land before the arrival of the Dutch. It also involved penetration into and administration of increasing areas of the vast hinterland. The difficulty of ruling the Dutch colonists was increased by the fact that the introduction of British rule approximately

28

Milner: Apostle of Empire

coincided with British legislation prohibiting, first slave trading, and subsequently slave owning, throughout the British dominions. The Cape Dutch economy was a slave owning one and, at the time of the British occupation, there were about 17,000 slaves in the colony. The British Act emancipating these slaves, which came into force in Cape Colony in 1834, against what the Durch farmers regarded as inadequate compensa¬ tion, was at the root of one of the two great problems which plagued British administrations in South Africa for the next three-quarters of a century. The other great problem was caused by the southward migra¬ tion from Central Africa of warlike, cattle-owning Bantu tribes whose vanguards, at the time of the British occupation, were beginning to clash with the Dutch farmers in the coastal plain on the undefined north¬ eastern borders of the colony.

The Cape Government tried to solve the second of these problems by the import of British settlers to assist in establishing a defensible and peaceful frontier between the white farmers and the southward trekking Bantu. What happened in practice was that they were compelled gradu¬ ally to extend the boundaries of the colony in order to include the Bantu migrants and keep the peace between them and the white settlers. The first of these problems—the disaffection of many of the Dutch settlers against the British administration—resulted—in the late 1830s, in the Great Trek. Numerous Dutch farmers packed their belongings into ox-wagons and trekked north into the high veld beyond the Orange River, which formed the northern boundary of Cape Colony. Some of the Voortrekkers, as they were called, settled in the territory between the Orange and the Vaal in what later became the Orange Free State, where they clashed with the Basuto tribes inhabiting the mountains to the east. Others turned east towards Natal and the sea coast, where they became embroiled with the warlike Zulus. Others crossed the Vaal and continued northwards, clashing with the Matabele tribesmen between the Vaal and the Limpopo.

The British made some attempt to control their errant colonists. They landed a force at Port Natal and tried to mediate between the Zulus and the Voortrekkers who, in 1838, set up a republic with its capital at Pietermaritzburg. This republic was short-lived and, within a few years, most of the Voortrekkers withdrew from Natal, where the British set up their own administration in 1843. In 1848 the British annexed all the territory in the triangle formed by the Vaal and Orange rivers and the Drakensberg and set up the Orange River Colony. North of the Vaal

The South African Background

29

the Boers (by which name the Voortrekkers became known) set up several republics, whose independence was recognised by the British in 1852. In the following year the independence of the Orange River Colony, re-named Orange Free State, was also recognised. In the same year Natal became a separate Crown Colony. In 1846 the British Government had recognised the extension of the responsibilities which had been imposed on the Governor of Cape Colony by the northward-trekking Boers on the one hand and the southward-trekking Bantu on the other by giving him the additional title of High Commissioner for Southern Africa, charged with the ‘settling and adjustment of the affairs of the territories . . . adjacent or contiguous to ... the frontier of Cape Colony.’ Over the next sixty years this task constituted one of the principal overseas preoccupations of successive British Governments and marred the careers of several British High Commissioners. The aims of British policy towards the two alien peoples whom they had to govern may be summarised as follows: (a) To disarm and domesticate the various Bantu tribes and to settle them on lands reserved to them, where they could live at peace with each other and their white neighbours under the rule of their tribal chiefs. (b) To establish a modus vivendi between the British colonies of Cape Colony and Natal on the one hand and the Boer republics on the other, providing immediately for British supremacy in southern Africa and ultimately for the formation of a self-governing South African federation, on the analogy of Canada, where the French-speaking Quebec province had been federated with the English-speaking provinces to form the Dominion of Canada. By the Summer of 1895, when Chamberlain became Colonial Secre¬ tary, the first of these aims had largely been achieved, at the cost of considerable bloodshed and in accordance with the spirit of the age which regarded as axiomatic the dominance of the white races over the black. The Bantu territories along the east coast had been incorporated into Cape Colony up to the border of Natal. The Zulu territories, after a bloody war in which the British had suffered an initial defeat, had been incorporated into Natal, by this time, like the Cape, a self-governing colony. The mountain territory of the Basuto, after a series of minor wars, had become a British protectorate. The territory of the Bechuana, through which ran the ‘missionaries’ road’ between Cape Colony and central Africa, had also become a British protectorate, except for a small

30

Milner: Apostle of Empire

portion south of the Molopo river which was about to be incorporated into Cape Colony. Further north, between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers, the area of southern Africa over which the British claimed paramountcy had been extended as a result of the activities of the British South Africa Company which, under the authority of a Royal Charter granted in 1889 to Cecil Rhodes and his associates, had subjugated the tribes of the Matabele and Mashona and planted the area with white settlers, mostly of British extraction.

Efforts to achieve the second aim of British policy—a modus vivendi between British and Dutch—had been considerably less successful. In 1877 an unwisely premature determination to impose a British-controlled federation caused the Colonial Secretary of the day to give orders for the annexation of the Transvaal—the State into which the various Boer republics north of the Vaal had been consolidated. The Transvaal was at that time almost bankrupt and involved in war with the still unsubdued Zulus. No resistance was offered to annexation at the time. But, three years later, when the British had subjugated the Zulus and so freed the Transvaal from the need of British protection, the burghers of the Transvaal rose in rebellion and declared their independence. Fighting broke out between the Boer commandoes and the British garrison. In February 1881 a British relief column from Natal was defeated by the Boers at Majuba Hill. Faced with the prospect of a large-scale war, the British Liberal Government, elected to office the year before to replace the Conservative Government which had annexed the Transvaal, opened negotiations with the Boer insurgents. In August 1881 was signed the Pretoria Convention, conceding to the Transvaal ‘complete self-govern¬ ment subject to the suzerainty of H.M.’, to the prohibition of slavery, to a British right of veto on native legislation, and to continued British responsibility for ‘the conclusion of treaties and the conduct of diplo¬ matic intercourse.’ Three years later, in 1884, this Convention was superseded by the London Convention which, in effect, granted to the Transvaal (henceforth to be officially known as the South African Republic) independence, subject to British control of their foreign policy, most favoured nation treatment for British imports, and a pledge of non¬ discrimination against European immigrants irrespective of nationality. The annexation of the Transvaal, followed by the British defeat and withdrawal, killed any immediate prospect of federation and had a deplorable effect generally on relations between British and Dutch. On the Dutch side, resentment at British high-handedness, combined with

The South African Background

31

what was regarded as evidence of British weakness, stimulated the development of Afrikaner nationalism. This movement, which was propagated by an organisation called the Afrikaner Bond, founded in Cape Colony in 1879, had as its immediate object the encouragement of a national consciousness among the Dutch-descended colonists of South Africa based on their common tongue—Afrikaans, a local derivation from High Dutch—and as its ultimate object the establishment of a single, independent Afrikaner republic covering the whole of southern Africa. On the British side, the British-descended colonists, who previously had been inclined to make common cause with the Dutch colonists against both the ‘Imperial factor’ and the Bantu, were driven into an unwilling alliance with and dependence on the ‘Imperial factor’, which they affec¬ ted to despise because of what they regarded as its ‘soft’ native policy and its craven conduct over the Transvaal rebellion. ‘Majuba’ became an emotive word in South African politics, signifying Afrikaner contempt and British resentment, Afrikaner ambitions and British desire for revenge. This antagonism did not at first threaten British supremacy. The two land-locked Afrikaner republics were much less prosperous than, and their trade and communications largely dependent upon, the British colonies of the Cape and Natal. It seemed likely that self-interest would keep the Afrikaners of the Cape (who made up rather more than half of the white population of the colony) loyal to the British connection. The white colonists of Natal were mostly of British descent. From 1890 onwards another British colony was in course of formation north of the Limpopo. The prospect seemed to be that the two Boer republics would either have to join a British-controlled federation or remain outside in impotent and poverty-stricken isolation. Then, in the course of a very few years, the whole picture changed as a result of the discovery, in 1886, of the gold deposits of the Witwatersrand in the Transvaal. By the early 1890s it was apparent that the Witwatersrand was one of the richest goldfields in the world. Thousands of European immigrants, mostly British, and several millions of capital, poured into the Transvaal, where a new city—Johannesburg—mainly inhabited by these immigrants, sprang up. The political effect of all this was to transfer the centre of gravity in South Africa from the Cape to the Transvaal. Continued British paramountcy depended on their obtaining effective control over a Transvaal which could no longer be coerced by what we should now describe as economic sanctions. The gold discoveries also tended to exacerbate the existing ill-feeling

32

Milner: Apostle of Empire

between British and Dutch. The new economic attraction of the Trans¬ vaal strengthened the Cape Dutch in their feelings of racial affinity with the Boers of the interior and weakened their feelings of allegiance to the British Crown. On the other hand, the immigrant and mainly British community of the new city of Johannesburg, to whom the Transvaal Government denied most of the rights of citizenship, tended to look to the British Crown for protection and to the British colonists of Cape Colony and Natal for support. The danger to British supremacy and the polarisation between the two white races was to some extent offset by the efforts of Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes, having made a fortune in diamonds at Kimberley by the age of 28, was elected to the Cape Parliament in 1881. As a dedicated Imperial¬ ist, he believed in ‘the extension of British rule throughout the world’ on the ground that ‘the more of the world we inhabit, the better it is for the human race.’ As the founder and virtual dictator of the British South Africa Company, he was in process of settling the territory later known, after him, as Rhodesia, with white, and mostly British, colonists. Part of his motive for doing so was to buttress British supremacy by throwing the human and economic resources of the new territory (in which it was hoped to find gold resources comparable with those of the Transvaal) into the British side of the equation. As a Cape politician he concentrated on repairing the breach between British and Dutch and on weaning the Dutch away from their attraction to the Transvaal and towards an acceptance of British paramountcy. He was so far successful that, in 1890, he became Prime Minister of the Cape as the result of an alliance with the Afrikaner Bond. To the British Government, Rhodes, with his influence over the Cape Dutch, his Chartered Company, his great wealth (he had interests on the Rand which made him a gold as well as a diamond millionaire), appeared as the essential counterpoise to the increasing influence of the Transvaal. And so, during his Premiership of the Cape, he was made much of in official circles in England, as well as becoming something of a popular hero. His colonising activities were benevolently regarded by the Colonial Office and diplomatically assisted by the Foreign Office. A blind official eye was turned to the forcible expropriation of the Matabele and Mashona by his Chartered Company. His attempts to purchase from Portugal Delagoa Bay, and the railway between there and the Transvaal, thus bringing all the Transvaal’s channels of import and export under British control, were covertly encouraged and assisted.

The South African Background

33

Rhodes’s alliance with the Afrikaner Bond at the Cape was regarded as a means by which pressure might be brought to bear on President Kruger of the Transvaal and his Government to accommodate themselves to British policy generally and, in particular, to start a process of angli¬ cising the Transvaal by granting to the mainly British Uitlanders—as the European immigrants were called who had come to theTransvaal as a result of the gold discoveries—the same rights of citizenship as were enjoyed by the Dutch at the Cape. When the High Commissionership fell vacant at the beginning of 1895 as a result of the resignation of Sir Henry (later Lord) Loch, Sir Hercules Robinson (later Lord Rosmead), who had been Loch’s predecessor, was, on Rhodes’s recommendation, re-appointed to succeed him. Such is a measure of the influence which Rhodes, by this time, exerted on the British Government. This was the situation when Chamberlain became Colonial Secretary. Immediately after his assumption of office, he fulfilled a promise made to Rhodes by the previous Government and transferred British Bechuanaland, a Crown Colony, to the Cape. Rhodes then, as Managing Director of the Chartered Company, started negotiating with the Colonial Office for the cession of the rest of Bechuanaland—the protectorate—as pro¬ vided in the Charter granted in 1889. The reason given by the Company for requiring the cession was their intention to build a railway through the protectorate linking the Chartered territory with the Cape. The real immediate reason for requiring the cession, which was granted by the Colonial Office after a certain amount of haggling over native reserves and other matters, soon became apparent. Patience was one of the qualities lacking in Cecil Rhodes. He was still a comparatively young man, but he suffered from heart trouble and knew that he probably had not long to live. He wanted to see the Kruger regime, which he regarded as the great, indeed the only, obstacle to a South African federation, removed before he died. He had, for some time, through his gold interests, been in touch with a Uitlander movement which was planning a coup d'etat against the Kruger regime. He decided to give this movement his support, and by so doing, converted to revolutionary courses many Uitlanders who had previously favoured attempting to reform the Transvaal administration by constitutional means. Having made up his mind, Rhodes recruited his various interests in the service of the revolutionary movement. The offices of his goldfields company became the headquarters of the movement in Johannesburg. The de Beers diamond company was used to smuggle arms and ammunition.

34

Milner: Apostle of Empire

But the most important role was played by the Chartered Company. Starr Jameson, Administrator of the Chartered territory and Rhodes’s closest associate, was detailed to raise and equip a volunteer force to be stationed on the Transvaal border and to invade the Transvaal in support of the Uitlanders as soon as the signal for the insurrection had been given. The real reason why Rhodes wanted the immediate cession of Bechuanaland protectorate to the Company was to enable Jameson’s force to be stationed on Company territory at a point on the Transvaal border nearest to Johannesburg. When it came to the point, the Uitlanders got cold feet. But Jameson, in face of positive prohibitions both from them and from Rhodes, in¬ vaded the Transvaal with his troopers and incontinently surrendered to a Transvaal commando. He and his officers were handed over to the British authorities, taken to London, tried under the Foreign Enlistment Act, convicted and sentenced to short terms of imprisonment. The Uitlander leaders were arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced by a Transvaal Court, and then released after being condemned to heavy fines, paid mostly by Rhodes, after an unseemly process of bargaining. Rhodes, freely admitting his complicity, resigned from the Premiership of the Cape, and the alliance between him and the Afrikaner Bond was irrevocably broken. The Jameson Raid set Anglo-Afrikaner relations back to the low point to which they had fallen after Majuba fifteen years before. Kruger and his burghers became more adamant than ever in their refusal to grant citizen rights to the Uitlanders, who had just demonstrated not only their disloyalty but also their powerlessness. The Afrikaner Bond and with it the majority of the Cape Dutch, in a revulsion from Rhodes and every¬ thing he stood for, swung away from the British connection and towards their blood-brothers in the republics. The British in the Cape and Natal made common cause with the Uitlanders. By the middle of 1896 the South African League had been formed, with branches in the Cape, Transvaal and Natal, for the representation and protection of British settlers, having for its principal declared aim the maintenance of British supremacy in South Africa. Chamberlain was in a difficult position. He had been compelled to dis¬ sociate himself and the Government from Jameson’s filibustering. But there was a widespread suspicion in England, in South Africa, and in Europe, that he was to some degree implicated. Continental reactions had been almost universally unfriendly, underlining Great Britain’s isolation

The South African Background.

35

among the Great Powers. Conversely, Kruger and the Transvaal basked in the sunshine of international popularity and acclaim. At home, the Jingoes, with Rudyard Kipling and the Poet Laureate (Alfred Austin) as their fuglemen, and with the support of most of the Press, were treating Jameson and his men as heroes and martyrs. But most of the Cabinet, and a majority of the House of Commons, were appalled and disapprov¬ ing. In South Africa, the British, both in the Transvaal and the colonies, thought that the British Government had let them down, as they had let them down after Majuba. And the Dutch were half-inclined to believe what some English Liberals were telling them—that the whole incident was an ‘under the counter’ attempt at annexation, connived at by Chamberlain, if not by the British Cabinet as a whole. The High Commissioner, Sir Hercules Robinson, who went to Pretoria after the Raid to save what could be saved from the wreckage, managed to obtain the release of Jameson and his men (against an under¬ taking that Jameson himself and his officers would be tried before a British Court) at the expense of leaving the Uitlander leaders to their fate, but failed entirely to obtain any redress, or promise of redress, of Uitlander grievances. Chamberlain, who had publicly disapproved of Sir Hercules’ appointment by his Liberal predecessor, thought that the High Commissioner had made a mess of things and tried, without success, to induce Kruger to come to London and negotiate with him direct. But Kruger made it clear that, as a pre-condition of such negotiations, he would require an amendment to the London Convention which would confer complete independence on the Transvaal by removing existing restrictions on the republic’s foreign relations. Chamberlain made it clear that this would not be considered and told him that British public opinion, irritated by the arrest and trial of the Uitlander leaders, was demanding ‘definite assurances’ about the removal of Uitlander griev¬ ances. He added, in a despatch to the High Commissioner dated 17 March 1896, that he regarded the situation as ‘urgent and serious’, that he was considering strengthening the garrisons in the Cape and Natal, and that ‘complications ... will certainly arise if any early attempt is not made to come to an agreement with HMG.1 The High Commissioner, who appears to have been convinced that Chamberlain was implicated in the Uitlander plot and the Jameson Raid, and who was probably feeling sore at the rebukes which Chamberlain had addressed to him after the failure of his mission to Pretoria, replied with a note of warning, telling Chamberlain that the feeling of the

36

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Dutch inhabitants of Cape Colony has undergone a complete change since Jameson’s raid and they would now neither sympathise with nor support any forcible measures undertaken by the Imperial Government to secure redress of Uitlander grievances.’ He added that Kruger was refusing ‘to discuss alleged grievances relating to certain internal matters and, sooner than do so, would if necessary, face hostilities.’ He added that HMG had ‘the choice of making such a refusal a casus belli or contenting themselves with the private suggestions as to the interests of British subjects which he states that he is willing ... to consider in a friendly spirit.’ The High Commissioner concluded that ‘in the event of hostilities growing out of the Jameson Raid, the South African Republic will be openly assisted by the Orange Free State and ... by a large number of Dutch both in Cape Colony and Natal.’ He recommended that HMG should ‘sit still and wait patiently to see what measures of redress the President himself will propose.. .. If his concessions prove insufficient, private representations and official remonstrances might then be renewed and, by the publication of these, public opinion both in South Africa and England might be brought to bear on the Government of the Republic.’2 The High Commissioner’s views were supported by communications from the Cape and Natal Governments, by Colonial Office officials, and by opinion in the British Cabinet and Parliament. For international, for domestic, and for South African, reasons, the time was not ripe for a ‘show-down’. So, for the time being, Chamberlain, in his own words, pursued a policy of maintaining ‘the most stringent possible interpreta¬ tion of the Convention and all that remains to us of our suzerainty over the Transvaal’ and ‘if possible magnify(ing) it by any plausible inter¬ pretation of the Convention.’3 To this end, he objected successively, and with the dubious concurrences of his legal advisers, to a Press Law, an Aliens’ Expulsion Law, and an Aliens’ Immigration Law, promulgated by the South African Republic during 1896, on the grounds that they involved breaches of various articles of the London Convention. On 6 March 1897 he approved two strongly-worded despatches about these alleged breaches, which were presented to the Transvaal Government by the British Consul-General in Pretoria on 15 April, with a verbal intima¬ tion from Chamberlain, approved by the Cabinet, that the British Government were sending a naval squadron to Delagoa Bay with the object of‘preserving the status quo at that place’.4 At about the same time, on 5 April, Chamberlain told the War Office that ‘adequate measures of precaution’ in South Africa had become ‘a matter of pressing importance’.

The South African Background

37

In face of opposition from Lansdowne, Secretary of State for War, Chamberlain obtained Cabinet approval for the despatch of reinforce¬ ments and, at the end of April, a battalion of infantry and three batteries of artillery were sent to South Africa, bringing British military strength there to 8,000 men and 24 guns, as compared with 5,000 men and 6 guns at the end of 1895.5 By this time Chamberlain had managed to get rid of Sir Hercules Robinson, now raised to the Peerage as Lord Rosmead, and had appointed Sir Alfred Milner in his stead.

NOTES ON CHAPTER TWO x. 2. 3. 4. 5.

J. S. Marais, The Fall of Krugers Republic (Oxford Univ. Press, 1961), p. 117. Robinson-Chamberlain 27.4.96. CO 5 37/13° quoted in Marais op. cit., pp. 117-18. Marais, op. cit., p. 125. ibid., p. 150. ibid., pp. 156-7.

CHAPTER THREE

Reconnaissance received a good send-off to his South African assignment. His friends gave him a dinner at the Cafe Monico on 27 March at which there were some 140 people present, including Asquith (in the chair), Chamberlain, Balfour, Goschen, Morley and Curzon. Harcourt was unable to be present but sent a friendly message. Rosebery, also unable to be present, sent a message saying that the guest of honour ‘has a brilliant past, but a still greater career before him, for he has the union of intellect with fascination, which makes men mount high.’ Asquith, proposing Milner’s health, referred to him as having ‘as clear an intellect, as sympathetic an imagination and ... a power of resolution as tenacious and inflexible as belong to any man of my acquaintance.’ Milner, in his reply, took the opportunity to make a public confession of his Imperial faith. He recalled an occasion twenty years before at an Oxford Union debate on the possibility of strengthening the ties between the United Kingdom and the self-governing colonies when ‘some half-dozen of us hammered away at the idea that there was no reason why the growth of the colonies into self-governing communities should lead to their separation from the Motherland or from one another; that the complete separation of one section of the British race (i.e. the USA) had been a disaster; that there was no political object comparable in importance with that of preventing a repetition; that complete independence for local purposes was not incompatible with closer union for common purposes.’ ‘The opinions which I then expressed have grown stronger. ... I have a fatal habit of seeing that there is a great deal to be said on both sides, but there is one question on which I have never been able to see the other side, and that is the question of Imperial unity. My mind is not so con¬ structed that I am capable of understanding the arguments of those who question its desirability or possibility.’ He went on to say that all his most audacious dreams had ever aspired to was to render some substantial Milner

Reconnaissance

39

service to what he called the ‘world State’ of the British Empire, to be ‘a civilian soldier of the Empire ... in a cause in which I absolutely believe. . . . Even if I were to fail, the cause itself is not going to fail.’ Chamberlain, toasting the chairman, made what Milner described as ‘a very political and rather bellicose speech’. He said that Milner was going ‘to this very difficult post with the . .. hearty goodwill of all sections of his fellow-countrymen.’ His task would be to reconcile and persuade to live together in peace races ‘whose common interests are immeasurably greater than any differences which may unfortunately exist.’ He stressed that Great Britain had ‘no intention and no desire to interfere with the independence of neighbouring States’ and expressed the hope that the South African Republic would ‘extend the hand of fellowship to that large number of foreigners who have contributed so largely to its success and prosperity’, and ‘maintain in their integrity our rights under the Convention and our position as Paramount Power in South Africa.’ He pointed out that the Cape was ‘the most important strategic point in the Empire, the possession of which is absolutely necessary to us as a great Eastern Power.’ He concluded with a warning that ‘the aspirations of Afrikaner nationalism’ were incompatible with British interests and that until these aspirations were ‘finally abandoned there cannot be a final and satisfactory settlement.’ Chamberlain’s, taken together with the contemporaneous naval demonstration and troop movements, made it clear that the new High Commissioner was proceeding to South Africa with clear instructions to assert British supremacy there. Milner’s dual position—High Commissioner in all the territories in southern Africa over which Great Britain claimed paramountcy, and Governor of a self-governing colony—was the same as that held by his predecessors. It was nevertheless an anomalous one, particularly under the conditions prevailing in South Africa. As High Commissioner Milner was responsible for (a) the administration of the native protec¬ torates of Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland; (b) the supervision of the Chartered Company’s administration of the territory known as Southern Rhodesia; (c) the exercise of undefined powers attaching to British suzerainty over the South African Republic and Orange Free State; and (d) the exercise of similarly undefined powers in the selfgoverning colonies of the Cape and Natal. As Governor of Cape Colony he was the Representative of a constitutional Monarch and, as such, limited by the attributes of a constitutional Monarch in that he was

40

Milner: Apostle of Empire

supposed to be politically neutral and to govern in accordance with the advice of his Ministers. Milner himself thought that his dual position ‘tended frightfully to retard our legitimate influence in the country.’ In practice the duality proved to be impracticable, and much of the criticism later directed at Milner derived from the anomalous position in which he was placed. Milner’s appointment was made just at the time when the Colonial Office were engaged in drafting a despatch to be presented to the Transvaal Government about alleged breaches of the Convention with their Aliens Immigration Law. He was consulted about its wording by Lord Selborne, Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, who was to prove one of Milner’s staunchest allies. On 20 March, while he was still in England, Milner told Selborne that the despatch should be toned down unless ‘we have quite clearly made up our minds that, if Law No. 30 is not suspended, we shall go to war. ... If we are to hold such language without carrying our point in the long run, we shall be terribly dis¬ credited. Therefore, in my opinion, we should certainly not hold it unless we are quite determined to fight on this issue in the last resort. We should continue to press our point firmly but in a very temperate and unmenac¬ ing tone for the present. We can always stiffen up later ... if we think it desirable.’1 Milner’s advice was taken and the despatch toned down. Milner left Southampton for Cape Town on the Nor ham Castle on 17 April 1897. Before leaving he discussed with the War Office the question of British military strength in South Arica and on 20 April he wrote to Selborne about it from the ship. He asked him to ‘hang on like grim death to the decision to send reinforcements and not to let the Government slip out of it on any account.’2 The Norham Castle arrived at Cape Town on 5 May and Milner took the Oath of Office at Government House the same day. Sir James Rose Innes, later Chief Justice of the Transvaal, and at that time an Indepen¬ dent member of the Cape Legislature, recorded the following impression; ‘With most of those present at the ceremony he exchanged a few words. I recall my first impression. A friendly smile and a pleasant manner, in appearance a scholar rather than a man of action, but with an air of grave assurance which indicated fixity of purpose, a man more apt to give than to take advice. Certainly a Governor of a different type and a different class from either of his predecessors. As we walked down Parliament Street after the ceremony Merriman3 broke out: “Mark my words, we shall have a rough-and-tumble with that fellow.” ’4

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4i

Government House was the same ‘Government House in the Gardens’ described by Lady Anne Barnard where Lord Macartney resided in 1797, ‘a long, unpretentious, old-fashioned building’ situated in the middle of a park separating the business from the residential area of Cape Town. It was the High Commissioner’s and Governor’s office as well as his winter residence, and his personal staff were also accommodated there. His summer residence was atNewlands, a suburb of Cape Town, which was described by Milner as ‘inconvenient to get at, and a mere box, but awfully pretty.’ Milner’s staff included Major (afterwards Major-General Sir John) Hanbury Williams, Military Secretary, Captain Dawkins, Acting Imperial Secretary, Osmund Walrond, Private Secretary, and Lieut. Charles Wood ADC. A few weeks later George (afterwards Sir George) Fiddes came from the Colonial Office as Imperial Secretary. As Milner was a bachelor, Mrs. Hanbury Williams acted as hostess at Government House. The British military garrisons in the Cape and Natal were commanded by General Goodenough, who was stationed in Cape Town, and the British naval squadron by Vice-Admiral Rawson, who was stationed at the base at Simonstown, just outside Cape Town. In Cape Colony the polarisation between British and Dutch which had taken place since the Jameson Raid had led on the one hand to the formation of the Progressive Party, consisting mainly of British colon¬ ists, and on the other hand to a strengthening of the Afrikaner Bond, representing most of the Dutch colonists. A Progressive Party Govern¬ ment, with Sir Gordon Sprigg as Prime Minister, was in office at the time of Milner’s arrival, hanging onto a bare majority in the Legislative Assembly in face of an Opposition consisting mainly of supporters of the Bond. There were also a few Independent members. The Progressives were largely financed by, and wholly under the influence of, Cecil Rhodes, although he was not a member of the Government. The Opposition was led by "W. P. Schreiner, who had been Attorney-General in Rhodes’s Government, and an important influence behind the scenes was J. H. Hofmeyr, who directed the activities of the Bond. In Natal, the other self-governing colony, Sir W. Hely Hutchinson was Governor. His relationship to Milner was anomalous in that Milner was his superior as High Commissioner and his equal as Governor of the Cape. In practice this created no difficulty. Southern Rhodesia, since the Jameson Raid, had been in a state of confusion. There had been

42

Milner: Apostle of Empire

serious revolts by the Matabele and the Mashona, the principal Bantu inhabitants of the territory, which had only just been put down with the aid of Imperial troops. The future administration of the territory was still to be settled, and one of Milner’s first tasks would be to negotiate with Rhodes about this. Basutoland and Bechuanaland protectorates were being competently administered by British Residents. Swaziland was in effect being administered by the Transvaal in accordance with an agreement made by Loch in 1894. The independent status of the Orange Free State had been defined in the Bloemfontein Convention in 1853 and had never given any trouble. It was an entirely agricultural territory and nearly all its white inhabitants were Dutch. Those few settlers of British extraction had full citizenship rights. Relations with HMG were good and the British claim to suzerainty had not in practice either been withdrawn or conceded. There was no British Representative in Bloem¬ fontein, the capital. The President, Steyn, in March 1897, had signed a treaty of alliance with the Transvaal and Chamberlain had been warned by Milner’s predecessor that the Free State would almost certainly come in on the side of the Transvaal in the event of hostilities with Great Britain, in spite of the fact that there was no cause of dissension between HMG and the Free State. As has been indicated, Milner’s arrival in South Africa coincided with a time of crisis in relations between the British and Transvaal Govern¬ ments. Two protests (one of which Milner had toned down before he left London) had been presented to Pretoria, accompanied by troop reinforcements and a naval demonstration. Milner, reporting on the effect of these, told Chamberlain a few weeks after his arrival that he was quite sure that the effect of the two measures between them averted war in South Africa.5 Milner’s dealings with the South African Republic (SAR) the Trans¬ vaal’s official title were carried on through the British Consul-General in Pretoria, Mr. (later Sir) Conyngham Greene, whose functions, like British relations with the SAR in general, were vague and undefined. He had been posted to Pretoria at the end of 1896. He was an experienced diplomat who had previously been at the Hague and he spoke Dutch fluently. At the time of his appointment it had been provided that he should communicate direct with the Colonial Office through the High Commissioner under flying seal. Milner successfully insisted that the Consul-General had the duty ‘to carry out any instructions which may be given him by the High Commissioner’ and that the High Commis-

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43

sioner was ‘at liberty to enter into direct communications with the President of the SAR . . . should any exceptional circumstances arise which in his judgement render it necessary to do so.’ Kruger’s term of office as President was due to expire in February 1898. He was expected to stand for re-election. In spite of his consider¬ able prestige there was a good deal of discontent among his burghers at the corruption and inefficiency of his regime, and at his dictatorial ways. His re-election was not therefore regarded as a foregone conclusion. Such expectation of improvement in Anglo-Boer relations as existed depended on his not being re-elected. Kruger’s Secretary of State was W. J. Leyds, a Hollander, who was regarded by the British as the President’s evil genius, and who, at the time of Milner’s arrival, was on a tour of Europe with the principal object of raising a loan for the SAR Treasury. British supremacy in South Africa, and not the question as to whether this or that clause of the London Convention had been breached, was the real point at issue between the British and Transvaal Governments. It might be necessary, as a holding operation, merely to insist on a strict observance of the Convention. But ultimately the challenge presented by Afrikaner nationalism, which aimed at the substitution of Afrikaner for British supremacy, had to be met and defeated. And, in order to do this, it was necessary both to organise and to enthuse British colonial opinion in the Imperial sense, as Dutch colonial opinion was already being enthused in the Afrikaner sense, and to ensure that this opinion was adequately supported by the British Government at home. In the end the issue of supremacy would be decided, not by diplomatic protests, nor even by military reinforcements, from the United Kingdom, but by the relative strengths of the white populations of South Africa. But, as things were in South Africa, while the Afrikaners at the Cape were free to use their votes and their influence in the Afrikaner sense, the mainly British Uitlanders of the Transvaal had no votes and were excluded from all political influence. The struggle for supremacy between the two white races was therefore weighted in favour of the Afrikaners and the balance could only be adjusted by the exercise of British Imperial power. It was a struggle not for territory but for minds. If the Afrikaners became con¬ vinced of HMGs determination effectively to assert their supremacy visa-vis the SAR, a majority of them would, however reluctantly, come to terms with the British. Conversely, if the British colonists became con¬ vinced of HMG’s unwillingness or inability to help and protect them, a

44

Milner: Apostle of Empire

majority of them would, however reluctantly, come to terms with the Afrikaners. By the end of August, the immediate outlook for relations with the Transvaal seemed sufficiently calm to enable Milner to absent himself from Cape Town from time to time. From 29 August to 21 September he was away on a tour of the Colony. He visited the principal towns— Worcester, de Aar, East London, King Williamstown, Grahamstown, Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage—by train and went on a ten-day trip upcountry travelling in a ‘spider’—a four-wheeled covered wagon on springs—escorted by Cape carts. Then, towards the end of October, he set off for Rhodesia, ostensibly for the ceremonial opening of the railway, which had just reached Bulawayo from Cape Town, actually to see the place for himself and make arrangements for the future relationships between HMG and the Chartered Company. It was clear that the Company’s uncontrolled rule, the abuses of which had been largely responsible for the native risings which had only just been suppressed with the aid of Imperial troops, could not be allowed to continue. As Chamberlain told Milner, ‘public opinion here will undoubtedly require considerable changes in the administration of the Chartered Company.’6 At first, Rhodes seemed determined to be difficult. He was not at Bulawayo to meet Milner, who assumed that he was ‘ill or sulking’. Milner performed the railway opening ceremony and had talks with Lawley, the Administrator of Matabeleland, and with Martin, the Commandant-General and Deputy Commissioner. He came to the con¬ clusion that ‘things in Rhodesia are in a pretty handsome mess adminis¬ tratively.’7 After four days in Bulawayo he left for Salisbury by mule cart, an uncomfortable journey of about 600 miles along a rough track, which took ten days. At Salisbury the capital, he spent four days, attend¬ ing various ceremonies and having discussions with Milton, the Com¬ pany’s Acting Administrator. He had planned to return to Cape Town by sea, via Beira, and, on 21 November, he and his party left Salisbury for Umtali, on the Rhodesia-Mozambique frontier, and the existing terminus of the railway from Beira, which was about to be extended to Salisbury. He arrived at Umtali after a couple of days travelling by mule cart. Here Rhodes was waiting to see him and they had a day of discus¬ sions before the High Commissioner’s party left by train for Beira on 24 September. Milner was back in Cape Town by the end of the month and, on 1

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45

December, sent a long letter to Chamberlain about his trip. He told him that he thought Rhodesia ‘is neither going to be a fiasco nor yet a rapid success. I think there is payable gold ... not in enormous quantities as in the Transvaal, but in sufficient quantities to give the country a start_if there is peace and decent government.’ He then set out his proposals for the administration of the territory. He praised the Company’s economic record. ‘They waste a lot certainly, but they spend a lot well. ... It is a pity that money should be wasted, but it is better, in a new country, to waste a good deal than not to spend enough. Treasury principles are all very well for an old rich country, where there is plenty of private capital to do what the State refuses. But Treasury principles would starve Rhodesia—that is one great reason for keeping the Company up.’ But he was very critical of the Company’s administrative record. ‘Land was alienated in the most reckless manner ... a lot of unfit people were allowed to exercise power . . . especially with regard to the natives, in a manner which cannot be defended. . . . The number of competent men is small, and the amount of riff-raff having some sort of claim on the Company ... is considerable. . . . The legislation is apt to be rather harum-scarum and exceedingly drastic. I have amended a good deal of it since I came here and with the more perfect information I now have I should have amended it still more. . . . Rhodes is as much as ever the real head of the administration . . . (His) attitude was exceedingly con¬ ciliatory, much more so than it had been when I saw him last in Cape Town.’8 Milner’s detailed proposals for leaving the administration of the territory in the hands of the Company, subject to the Imperial control of the police under a Commandant-General appointed and paid for by the Imperial Government, and to the supervisory authority of the High Commissioner exercised on the spot by a Deputy Commissioner appointed and paid by the Imperial Government and reporting to the High Commissioner, were approved by the Secretary of State and promulgated in due course after Rhodes had accepted them. During January 1898 Rhodes and Milner had several business con¬ versations in Cape Town and seem to have got on well. Rhodes expressed himself satisfied about the arrangements proposed for Rhodesia but continued pestering Milner about the Company’s ‘rights’ in the Bechuanaland protectorate, whose eventual attachment to Rhodesia had been envisaged in the Charter. Milner was quite a match for Rhodes and got him to understand that ‘the realisation of his pet plan of ultimately

46

Milner: Apostle of Empire

merging the protectorate in Rhodesia depends on his satisfying us of the good government of the latter country.’ Rhodes, who usually res¬ pected people who stood up to him, formed a high opinion of Milner during these negotiations. This was to be important for Milner in the near future, when the enthusiastic support of the British colonists became a vital element in his dealings with the British and Transvaal Govern¬ ments. The fact that Rhodes, whom the British colonists idolised, was prepared to give Milner a character, was essential in securing that support. Back in Cape Town, Milner took an increasingly grim view of developments in the Transvaal, which seemed to be moving away from any likelihood of reform. In February 1898 Kruger was re-elected to the Presidency by a surprisingly large majority over his principal opponent, Shalk Burger. Burger had been chairman of a government commission which, in the previous July, had made a report on a dynamite monopoly which constituted one of the many grievances of the Rand mineowners against the Transvaal Government. The report, which Milner described as a ‘startler’, confirmed the allegations of the mineowners by stating that the abolition of the monopoly would involve both a relief to the mining industry by lowering the price of dynamite and an increase in the State revenue. But Lippert, the holder of the monopoly, was a friend of Kruger’s, and nothing was done about the Commission’s recommenda¬ tion. After Kruger’s re-election it was apparent that nothing would be done. Milner was becoming increasingly impatient with what he regarded as the British Government’s legalistic policy of trying to contain the SAR by assertions of British suzerainty and by insistence on the observance of the London Convention—‘that miserable old instrument’ as he called it in a letter to Conyngham Greene.9 This policy had, in his opinion, dege¬ nerated into a kind of game and was not leading anywhere. For example, the SAR Government, in notifying HMG of the repeal of the Aliens Immigration Act, against which Chamberlain had protested, took the opportunity of asserting that the London Convention ‘must be inter¬ preted according to the accepted principles of the law of nations’, and requested that future disputes be submitted to arbitration. It took seven months’ gestation before the Colonial Office replied with a formal asser¬ tion of suzerainty and a rejection of arbitration. The SAR Government replied reiterating their point of view. And so the argument went on. Milner told Greene that they had to ‘take the farce . .. seriously ... not

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47

with any hope of immediate results, but with a view to the great day of reckoning.’10 He was becoming convinced that ‘the great day of reckoning’ must be hurried on and that time was not on the British side. On 23 February 1898 he wrote to Chamberlain to warn him that things were getting worse and that ‘there is no way out of the political troubles of South Africa except reform in the Transvaal or war. And at present the chances of reform in the Transvaal are worse than ever.’ Since Leyds’ return from Europe, ‘any little signs of consideration for the subject races of the Transvaal, whether European or native . . . and of civility to us, have ceased to appear . . . Kruger has returned to power more autocratic and more reactionary than ever.... He has immense resources of money and any amount of ammunitions of war, to which he is constantly adding. Politically he has strengthened his hold on the Orange Free State and the Colonial Afrikaners continue to do obeisance to him.’ He thought that ‘Kruger will never take any step which he thinks will provoke us to fight. But if he is assured that our hands are full in other directions, he will certainly seize the opportunity to assert his independence in a very pointed way. . . . Looking at the question from a purely South African point of view, I should be inclined to work up to a crisis, not indeed by looking about for causes of complaint or making a fuss about trifles, but by steadily and inflexibly pressing for the redress of substantial wrongs and injustices. It would not be difficult thus to work up an extremely strong cumulative case.... But if we are going to remonstrate incisively ... we cannot disregard either a persistent silence or a flat refusal. It means that we shall have to fight.... It depends on the Imperial outlook as a whole . . . whether we are to be passive here ... or whether we are to pursue an active policy ... vigilant and insistent on all our rights, not only our treaty rights, but the inherent right of every nation to protect its subjects against injury by foreigners. The latter policy may, and probably will, require a much larger army. . . . These alternatives may be borne in mind when the line to be taken in any particular case is being decided.’11 This letter thoroughly alarmed Chamberlain who, on 19 March, sent a sharp telegram to Milner. ‘The principal object of HMG in South Africa at present is peace. Nothing but a most flagrant offence would justify the use of force.’12 This was clear enough, and Milner warned Greene that ‘HMG are not at all anxious to bring matters to a head. We must keep up our wickets and not attempt to force the game.’13 Milner,

48

Milner: Apostle of Empire

once he felt he had taken the measure of the bowling, was not a natural stone-waller. But the captain’s orders were clear and he had to obey them. Chamberlain also sent Milner a letter, dated 16 March, in reply to Milner’s letter of 23 February. He told him that ‘a war with the Transvaal would certainly rouse antagonism in Cape Colony and leave behind it the most serious difficulties in the way of South African union. ... A waiting game is best... as time is on our side.’ Above all, ‘a war with the Transvaal, unless upon the utmost and clearest provocation, would be extremely unpopular in this country.’ He added; ‘With regard to the general Imperial outlook ... we have on hand difficulties of the most serious character with France, Russia and Germany ... an important expedition in the Sudan . . . and the possibility of a war on the NW frontier of India. Accordingly I wish to emphasise the fact that for the present at any rate our greatest interest in South Africa is peace and that all our policy must be directed at this object.’14 Milner had to accept this, although he strongly dissented from the view that time was on the side of the British. For the next few months, as far as the Transvaal was concerned, he confided himself to grumbling to Selborne in London and to Greene in Pretoria, both of whom sympa¬ thised with his views. On 9 May he expressed to Selborne in the frankest terms his abandonment of any idea of conciliation between British and Dutch. ‘My opinions have been somewhat modified by a year in South Africa. While I still . . . fully appreciate the arguments for a policy of patience and while, such being my orders, I shall loyally carry it out, I am less hopeful than I was of an ultimate solution on these lines. Two wholly antagonistic systems—a mediaeval race oligarchy and a modern industrial State recognising no difference of status between the various white races—cannot permanently live side by side in what is after all one country. The race oligarchy has got to go and I see no sign of its removing itself. To hope we shall ever have the sympathy of any con¬ siderable number of our Dutch subjects in removing it by force seems to me idle. The Dutch may become as loyal as the French Canadians, but after and not before the principle of equality is established all round. In the fight for its establishment, if it comes to a fight, we shall have to rely on British forces alone.... And whether we shall have the whole of British South Africa on our side depends ... on letting everybody under¬ stand that our real cause is not a phrase, a technicality, but the establish¬ ment of pure justice and equal citizenship in the Transvaal.’15 So he concentrated on rallying the British colonists to the Imperial

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cause in preparation for ‘the great day of reckoning’, convinced that their support, together with the logic of events, would eventually swing HMG round to his point of view. He saw no object in risking losing the support of the British element by any attempt to conciliate the Dutch. Ever since he had been in South Africa he had been irritated by what he regarded as the disloyalty of the majority of the Dutch population of the Cape, expressed in their more or less open, but neither uncritical nor unnatural, sympathy for the Transvaal. He did not sufficiently appreciate, and made very little use of, attempts by leading Cape politicians to moderate Kruger’s policy, which was as embarrassing to them as it was obnoxious to Milner. He came to the conclusion that the best way of uniting the British was to demonstrate beyond a peradventure that he was on their side against the Dutch both in the Cape and elsewhere in South Africa, that the battle for supremacy was on, that the Union Jack had been hoisted, and that the time had come for all good men to rally to the standard. He might have addressed an invitation to a British audience. Instead, he chose to throw down a challenge to a Dutch one. On i March 1898 Milner went to Graaf Reinet, a Dutch township in the interior of the Colony, to open a new line of railway which had just been completed. On his arrival he was presented with an address from the local branch of the Afrikander Bond expressing their deep sorrow that their loyalty had been ‘openly doubted by certain parties’, explain¬ ing that the Bond’s object was to secure to ‘their kinsmen in South Africa those rights which were kindly presented by HM our respected Queen in the past’ and assuring the Governor of their loyalty and attach¬ ment to the British Empire. Whatever the real reason behind the presentation of this address, it gave Milner an opportunity for which he had been waiting. That same evening, at a banquet in the Market Hall, he addressed a mainly Dutch audience: ‘Of course I am glad to be assured that any section of HM’s subjects are loyal, but I should be much more glad to be allowed to take that for granted. . . . What reason could there be for disloyalty? You have thriven wonderfully well under HM’s Government.... You have, at least as regards white races, perfect equality of citizenship. . . . Free¬ dom and self-government, justice and equality, are the first principles of British policy, and they are secured to you by the strength of the Power which gave them, and whose Navy protects your shores from attack.... Well gentlemen, of course you are loyal. It would be monstrous if you were not.’ But he complained ‘that the political controversies of this

50

Milner: Apostle of Empire

country at present turn largely upon ... the relations of HMG to the SAR, and that whenever there is any prospect of any difference between them, a number of people in the Colony at once vehemently and without even the pretence of impartiality espouse the side of the Republic ... to a point which gives some ground for the assertion that they seem to care much more for the independence of the Transvaal than for the honour and interests of the country to which they themselves belong . . .’ He went on: ‘So far from seeking causes of quarrel, it is the constant desire of HMG to avoid . . . even the semblance of interference in the internal affairs of [the SAR], and, as regards external relations, only to insist on that minimum of control which it has always distinctly reserved. . . . That is Great Britain’s moderate attitude and she cannot be frightened out of it.’ He advised ‘the Dutch citizens of this country, and especially those who have gone so far in the expression of their sympathy with the Transvaal as to expose themselves to charges of disloyalty to their own flag ... to use all their influence . . . not in confirming the Transvaal in unjustified suspicions, not in encouraging its Government in obstinate resistance to all reform, but in inducing it gradually to assimilate its institutions and . . . the temper and spirit of its administration to those of the free communities of South Africa, such as this Colony or the Orange Free State.’16 At the beginning of April, a month after the Graaf Reinet speech, Milner left Cape Town on a tour of Basutoland, passing through the Orange Free State on the way. In 1889 the Free State and the Transvaal had signed a ‘treaty of friendship and commerce’ which had been supple¬ mented by a treaty of political alliance signed in March 1897 under the terms of which, inter alia, the Transvaal undertook to supply arms to the Free State. Milner was anxious to do what he could to drive a wedge between the Free State and the Transvaal and he therefore welcomed the adhesion of the Free State, in April 1898, to the South African Customs Union, of which Cape Colony, Natal, Basutoland and Bechuanaland were members, but which the Transvaal had refused to join. On his way to Basutoland Milner paid a visit to Bloemfontein to attend the meeting of the Free State Volksraad which ratified the Government’s decision to join the Union. From Bloemfontein he went to Basutoland, travelling by cart. Basutoland, originally a British protectorate, had been handed over to the Cape in 1871 and been a continual source of trouble to them. In 1883 the Cape Government, by agreement with HMG, relinquished it and it reverted to the status of a British protectorate, administered by

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a British Resident Commissioner. At this time the Commissioner was Sir Godfrey Lagden, who had just succeeded in arriving at a peaceful settlement of what had threatened to be an ugly border dispute between Basutoland and the Free State. Milner was highly impressed. He told Chamberlain: ‘Basutoland is a perfect marvel to me. There is a large and by no means tranquil population kept in order by nothing but the moral influence of a mere handful of Europeans. There are no civil servants in South Africa who deserve better of the country than the men who have so far succeeded in accomplishing this extraordinary feat/17 Milner greatly enjoyed his visit to Basutoland. He told a correspon¬ dent: ‘... Basutoland is a real native reserve, where the European hardly comes except in the harmless shape of a High Commissioner or other official, and Nature is still beautiful and the aborigines still picturesque. Needless to say colonial civilisers are anxious to make an end of it. . . . Here am I travelling about with ten policemen and followed by some hundreds, occasionally thousands, of mounted natives, all extremely friendly and evidently thinking the thing a great lark. The weather is simply perfect_It is all very amusing and, thanks largely to the moun¬ tain air and the novelty of everything, very exhilarating and, for the last week, I have enjoyed myself for the first time in this beastly year I have spent in South Africa.18 Soon after he returned to Cape Town at the end of April, Milner found himself in the midst of a local political crisis. Sprigg’s Progressive Government had prepared a Redistribution Bill which, if it became law, would change the balance of seats in the Legislative Assembly between rural and urban areas and favour the Progressive vis-a-vis the South African Party. The Opposition were determined to fight the Bill and it seemed likely that they would succeed in defeating the Government. Schreiner, the leader of the Opposition, moved a vote of No Confidence. The Government were defeated by five votes. Sprigg asked the Governor for a dissolution, which was granted. Both sides then prepared for elections. Milner, commenting to Chamberlain on the course of events, had this to say: ‘The gravamen of Mr. Schreiner’s charge against the pre¬ sent Government is that it has not shown any “sympathy or conciliatory approach” to the “sister Republic”. It is a curious situation. While the Boer oligarchy of the Transvaal keeps its foot firmly on the neck of the Uitlander population of that country and snaps its fingers in the face of HMG, it is gravely made a subject of reproach to the Government of a neighbouring British Colony that it does not manifest a sufficiently

52

Milner: Apostle of Empire

active sympathy with these proceedings. ... We may live to see the Boer oligarchy of the Transvaal encouraged in its policy of withholding all political rights from the British inhabitants of that country by the Government of a British Colony in which, owing to the concession of equal and indeed more than equal rights to the Boer inhabitants, the latter have gained the upper hand.’19 Although Milner did not make the point, this was the precise reason why Kruger and the Transvaal Volksraad were refusing to extend the franchise to the Uitlanders—they did not want to reproduce the obverse of the situation threatened in the Cape i.e. a British majority of votes in the Transvaal commanding a majority in the Volksraad and electing one of their own people as President. Milner had received permission from Chamberlain to go home on leave to have his eyes, which were giving him trouble, treated. Before going, he would have to see the forthcoming elections at the Cape through. They were due to take place towards the end of August and the election campaign began immediately after the dissolution. While it was going on, negotiations important for the British future in South Africa were taking place between the British and German Governments. For some years Germany had been interested in South Africa. In 1884 they had declared a protectorate over Damaraland and Namaqualand north of the Orange River—the territory subsequently known as German S.W. Africa (and now as Namibia), with the exception of Walvis Bay, which had previously been occupied by the Cape. The German Government had come to regard the Transvaal as a protege and had made it clear to HMG that they would oppose any British attempt to obtain control of Delagoa Bay and so deprive the Transvaal of their only non-British-controlled access to the sea. Immediately after the Jameson Raid the Kaiser had sent a telegram to Kruger congratulating him on his success in ‘defending the independence of his country against attacks from without’. But, in the Summer of 1898, the position changed. The German Government intimated to HMG that they might be willing to do a deal over the Portuguese colonies. Chamberlain cabled to Milner asking him to find out ‘under pledge most absolute secrecy’ whether the Cape Government would acquiesce in the cession of Walvis Bay to Germany in return for ‘commercial control in time of peace and right of occupation in time of war of Delagoa Bay and railway’.20 Milner replied suggesting the kind of compensation which might be offered to the Cape.21 As it happened the proposal came to nothing. But Milner’s imagination had been fired by the possibility of getting control of

Reconnaissance

53

Delagoa Bay and thus achieving Rhodes’s old ambition of encircling the Transvaal by depriving it of the use of any port outside British control. He told Chamberlain on 6 July: ‘I look on possession of Delagoa Bay as die best chance we have of winning the great game between ourselves and the Transvaal for the mastery of South Africa without a war. I am not indeed sure that we shall ever be masters without a war. The more I see of South Africa the more I doubt it. But if we are not to fight and yet not be worsted one of two things must happen. Either Rhodesia must develop very rapidly or we must get Delagoa Bay. Now the very rapid development of Rhodesia is more than doubtful. ... I do not believe that it is going to be a rival to the Transvaal for years to come.... I fear that the overwhelming preponderance of wealth and opportunity on the side of the Transvaal may turn the scale against us, unless we have some means to bring some very effective pressure to bear. . . . There is none that I can see except command of all its trade routes, of which I need not tell you that Delagoa Bay in the most important.’22 Although the Delagoa Bay business did not come off, something almost as important for the British cause in South Africa did emerge from the Anglo-German negotiations. A secret Protocol to the AngloGerman Convention signed on 30 August 1898 provided for the aban¬ donment of German diplomatic support for the SAR in return for an arrangement by which an Anglo-German loan would be offered to Portugal on the security of her colonial revenues. In the expected event of a default the Portuguese African colonies would be divided between Great Britain and Germany, with Great Britain taking southern Mozam¬ bique, from Beira to Delagoa Bay inclusive, and Germany most of the rest. The Germans secured the reversion to the lion’s share of the Portuguese African Empire. From the British point of view the main object of the Convention was to detach Germany from France, with whom Great Britain was at that time on the verge of war over Fashoda. A subsidiary gain was that it detached the Transvaal not only from German but also from Portuguese assistance in that, short of an actual British occupation, pressure could now be put on Portugal over Delagoa Bay without the risk of German intervention. (In the event Portuguese finances improved to such an extent that an Anglo-German loan proved unnecessary and the Portuguese colonies remained in Portuguese hands for long after both Germany and Great Britain had lost theirs.) Germany was thus eliminated as a factor to be reckoned with in British dealings with the Transvaal. And, by the time Milner got home in late Autumn,

54

Milner: Apostle of Empire

the Sudan campaign had ended with the battle of Omdurman and the subsequent humiliation of the French at Fashoda. The international decks had been cleared for ‘the great day of reckoning’ with the Transvaal. While the Anglo-German negotiations were proceeding in London, the election campaign—the bitterest in the history of the Colony—was going forward at the Cape. Rhodes more or less openly financed and managed the campaign of the Progressives, who alleged, probably with some truth, that the other side was being financed from Transvaal secret service funds. Rhodes, in one of his speeches, said that ‘the whole basis of one side in this election is to make the Transvaal paramount, however much the Transvaal may insult HM’. Schreiner, the leader of the South African Party, advocated a policy of ‘true Imperialism and true colonialism’ and ‘friendly relations with all the Colony’s neighbours, including the Transvaal.’23 In those days the announcement of election results was spread over several days and the position was complicated by the fact that some can¬ didates were nominated for two seats, which involved the necessity for a second election in one or two constituencies. There was also the possi¬ bility of successful election petitions. In the end, the Government appeared to have lost by 39 seats to 40. Sprigg decided not to resign immediately but to wait until the Government were defeated in the new Assembly. He and his associates tried to persuade Milner, as Governor, to delay the summoning of Parliament for as long as possible in the hope that something—a successful election petition or a timely death—might occur to convert their narrow minority into a majority. Milner, in a letter to Selborne on 14 September, wrote: ‘There is a coolness between me and Ministers at present, as I have told them that they are bound to summon Parliament without unavoidable delay. ... It is bad enough to have to authorise expenditure not approved by Parliament. But it is defensible as long as Parliament cannot meet. It would be wholly in¬ defensible to do so once it can. . . . Though of course I want Sprigg to stay in_I will do no such thing. R.H. [Rutherfoord Harris, Rhodes’s principal understrapper], C.J.R. [Rhodes], J.G.S. [Sprigg]

& Co.

steadily refuse to see that there is a moral side to such matters or even that straightforwardness may have a tactical value... . Curious psycho¬ logically how the present Rhodes-cum-Harris scheme for keeping office fas per nefas is just the Raid over again . . . the same attempt to gain prematurely by violent and unscrupulous means what you could get honestly and without violence if you would only wait and work for it.

Reconnaissance

55

I am sick of hearing that if the loyal Ministry lose office for a single day the Party will go to pieces, Rhodes & Co. will throw up the game in disgust, and the Imperial cause in South Africa will be ruined. Captain of XI to umpire: “Unless you cheat I won’t play.” What rubbish!’24 In the end Parliament met on 7 October. The Government was almost immediately defeated on Schreiner’s motion of No Confidence and resigned. Milner sent for Schreiner, the leader of the majority Party, and invited him to form a Government. Within a couple of days he had done so. Schreiner, whose verbal moderation during and after the election was acknowledged by Milner, selected a Cabinet of which the two most striking features, Milner told Chamberlain, were the high average of character and capacity of the individual members, and the fact that it illustrated Schreiner’s evident intention of pursuing a policy of com¬ promise and moderation. ‘The Government is not to all appearance anti-Progressive, anti-native or anti-British, although it is very pointedly anti-Rhodes. . . . We have got a Bond Ministry but so far we have not got a Bond policy.’25 Once the Cape elections were over and a new Government installed, Milner felt that he could safely take his leave in England. A little before he left an unexpected misfortune took place. The C-in-C, General Goodenough, who would have been Acting High Commissioner in Milner’s absence, fell ill and died. Before his death, and when it had become necessary to replace him, Milner told Chamberlain: ‘I need not tell you that it is of vital importance to get a really good man in his place, a man of energy and resource and some political sense.. . . My object is not to suggest a particular man but. .. to call your attention to the fact that a new appointment may be near at hand ... in case you think fit to use your influence to get the appointment filled by special selection and not the usual departmental routine.’26 Milner’s letter arrived too late and on 28 October Chamberlain cabled to tell him that the War Office had already made their selection without reference to him. The officer selected, Lieut.-General Sir William Butler, had not arrived when Milner left for England on 2 November. The ship taking him to Cape Town passed the one taking Milner to England on the high seas. When he went home on leave Milner had spent just eighteen months in South Africa. He had not enjoyed it very much, apart from his three weeks in Basutoland. In his diaries and letters he referred variously to ‘incessant, disgusting work and no fun at all, the relaxing climate of the

56

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Cape, ‘this social desert’, ‘hours of overwork and boredom and depres¬ sion’, ‘no relief or amusement’, the difficulty ‘in this life here to have either any privacy or any intimate intercourse with a single fellowcreature.’ He told an old Balliol friend: ‘Socially it is the most detestable sort of life you can imagine, and I should not stay six months, so utterly do I hate it, if I did not think it was a public duty.’ As always, he worked extremely, and probably unnecessarily, hard. He had a competent and devoted staff, but he was not a good delegator. His diary, then and later, is full of references to days of‘fearful rush’ and ‘terrific drive’. He enjoyed good, but not exuberant, health. As he told a friend: ‘I know better than most people what a bore inadequate health is. Not to be ill exactly, but just not well enough to get through life without a perpetual effort.’ There were occasional compensations, as when Rudyard Kipling arrived with a letter of introduction. Milner found him ‘a most compan¬ ionable creature and not in the least spoiled.’ He shared Milner’s Imperial views and, later, the two became friends and regular correspondents. He had some recreations and played bowls and billiards with his staff. He was persuaded by his official hostess, Mrs. Hanbury Williams, to take up the then fashionable sport of archery. He bicycled with Walrond, his private secretary. He climbed Table Mountain. He was interested in his gardens and his stables. He sometimes went out hunting. Writing to an old Balliol friend who had introduced him to stag-hunting on Exmoor years before, he told him: ‘The ground is not unlike Devonshire, except the hills are less steep and there are far more holes. . . . We have not— alas—the wild red deer, but only jackals. They don’t run badly though, and we had quite a good run last Saturday, ending in a kill.’27 He enjoyed his trips up-country. He liked the informality, the picnic meals, the nights spent in camp under the stars, the often splendid scenery. Travelling in those days was much slower, much more uncom¬ fortable, but much more interesting, than it is to-day. In the intervals of his office work in Cape Town, and in spite of his somewhat sedentary habit, he did a good deal more travelling than some of his predecessors. During his first eighteen months of office he visited most parts of the Cape, the Orange Free State, Basutoland, Bechuanaland, and Rhodesia. He did not visit Natal, possibly for protocol reasons, and he did not think it politic to visit the Transvaal. A few weeks before sailing for England he wrote to a friend: ‘I want to come home to refresh myself for a harder stuggle, a struggle which, humanly speaking, I am going to win. . . . The pious parsons of the

Reconnaissance

57

Dutch Reformed Church really believe that the Lord of Hosts is always on the look-out and will get them out of any tight place. But I have my private heresy and doubt whether He will always do it.’28 It was in this mood that he arrived in England on 18 November 1898.

NOTES ON CHAPTER THREE 1. Cecil Headlam (ed.), The Milner Papers, Vol. I, 1897-99 (Cassell, 1931-33), pp. 37-9. 2. ibid., p. 41. 3. F. X. Merriman, a Cape politician of British descent but of Afrikaner sympathies. 4. J. Rose Innes, Autobiography (B. A. Tindall ed.) (OUP, 1949), p. 165. 5. Headlam, op. cit., p. 72. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

ibid., p. 71. ibid., p. 131. ibid., pp. 281-2. ibid., p. 217. ibid., p. 214. ibid., pp. 220 et seq. ibid., p. 226. ibid., p. 227. ibid. ibid., p. 232. ibid., pp. 243 et seq. ibid., p. 158. ibid., p. 163. ibid., p. 256. ibid., p. 266. ibid., p. 267. ibid. Marais, op. cit., p. 224, Headlam, op. cit., p. 273.

25. ibid., pp. 280-2. 26. ibid., p. 288. 27. ibid., p.84. 28. ibid., p. 286.

CHAPTER FOUR

Working Up to A Crisis The Uitlander franchise was not specifically covered in the London

Convention. Before 1882 the period of residence in the Transvaal necessary for a European to obtain a vote had been one year. (NonEuropeans had no votes at all.) In 1882 it had been raised to five years as a result of an influx of, probably, short-term residents to the gold diggings at Lydenburg. In 1890 a more drastic change was made. Pre¬ viously the Transvaal Legislature, the Volkraad, had been unicameral. In 1890 a second Volksraad was created, with very limited powers, and subject to the overriding authority of the First Volksraad. Voting rights for election to the Second Volksraad were conferred on adult European males born outside the Transvaal two years after registration as residents of the Transvaal. The right to sit in the Second Volksraad was con¬ ferred after four years’ residence. But voting for elections to the First Volksraad and in Presidential elections was made subject to fourteen years’ residence after registration. Further legislation enacted in 1894 provided that children born in the Transvaal were to take their father’s nationality, thus disenfranchising the second generation of Uitlanders. The object of this legislation was to prevent any possibility of political control passing from the hands of the Boers into those of the Uitlanders who, from about 1890 onwards, formed a substantial and increasing proportion of the population. The Uitlanders formulated a demand for the franchise for adult European males after two years’ residence, subject to a small property or earnings qualification. A petition in this sense, with 13,000 Uitlander signatures, was presented to the First Volks¬ raad in 1894, and a similar petition, with 38,000 Uitlander signatures, in 1895. Both these petitions were received with open contempt. After the Raid and its aftermath, the Uitlanders came to realise that there was no future in any attempt to influence the Transvaal Government by their own efforts and that henceforth any effective pressure would have to be

Working Up

to

a Crisis

59

exercised by HMG. They also feared, judging from what they regarded as HMG’s supine attitude towards the Raid and its consequences, that this pressure would not be forthcoming, and that they would probably have to make the best of what could be made of life under a firmly-entrenched Boer oligarchy. Chamberlain saw the necessity, from the point of view of his policy, of reviving an aggressive and patriotic spirit among the Uitlanders, and the British colonists in South Africa generally, and one of the reasons he gave for the troop reinforcements and naval demonstration in April 1897 was £to strengthen the loyalty of all the British in South Africa—greatly shaken by successive defeats and humiliation—and give them confidence in the Imperial factor.’1 The standard-bearer of the Uitlander cause was the South African League in the Transvaal, in close contact with the League’s organisation in other parts of South Africa, and enjoying the support of most of the English-language Press. On 18/19 December 1898, at about midnight, an English Uitlander in Johannesburg named Thomas Edgar knocked down a fellowcountryman named Forster in what appears to have been a drunken brawl. Edgar walked off home leaving his victim lying on the ground, as if dead. The police were called and, after finding out from bystanders what had happened, four policemen went to Edgar’s house to arrest him. Edgar refused an invitation to open up, and the police forced an entrance. Using an iron-tipped stick, Edgar hit the leading policeman named Jones, who thereupon shot him dead. Jones was charged with murder, later reduced to culpable homicide, tried and acquitted. The judge, in discharging Jones, said that he agreed with the verdict and hoped that the police, in similar circumstances, would again know how to do their duty. Immediately after the shooting, the South African League took up the case. When, after a preliminary hearing before a magistrate, Jones was released on bail, they started an organised agitation. As a result, Fraser, acting as Consul-General in Pretoria during Greene’s absence on leave, secured Jones’s re-arrest. In spite of this, and in spite of Fraser’s request to the League to keep quiet, a public meeting attended by some 4,000 Uitlanders was held in Johannesburg, under the auspices of the League, whose officers had drawn up a Petition to the Queen. The Petition was read out to the meeting and handed in to the British Consulate in Johannesburg. The British Vice-Consul, Evans, sent it to Fraser, who sent it to General Butler, the Acting High Commissioner, with the

60

Milner: Apostle of Empire

recommendation that it be forwarded after it had been purged of ‘exag¬ gerated passages.’ Lieut.-General Sir William Butler, the newly appointed C-in-C, who was acting as High Commissioner in Milner’s absence, was a curious choice in the light of HMG’s South African policy. He was a competent officer who had served in South Africa before. He had studied South African history and written a biography of Sir George Colley, the British General who had been beaten by the Boers at Majuba. He was an Irish Catholic and an anti-imperialist. He later wrote his Autobiography, which showed he had a considerable sympathy for the Boers and a great detestation of Rhodes and the Uitlanders, whose grievances he regarded as the product of a ‘colossal syndicate’ for the ‘spread of systematic mis¬ representation’ to secure the continued export of gold ‘to another hemi¬ sphere for the profit of the alien.’ He described Johannesburg as ‘Monte Carlo superimposed on Sodom and Gomorrah’ and its inhabitants as ‘probably the most corrupt, immoral and untruthful assemblage of human beings in the world.’2 Butler refused to forward the Petition to England on the ground that it had been published in the Cape Times before being submitted to Evans, whom he instructed Fraser to ‘caution against mixing himself up with political and financial agitators.’ At the same time, advising the Colonial Office about the Edgar case after the preliminary hearing on 30 Decem¬ ber, he cabled: ‘Edgar shooting affair originated in a drunken brawl in which Edgar grossly assaulted another man whom he left as he thought dead. Police were then called in. Edgar resisted and struck policeman who fired fatal shot. South African League adopted case, hence excitement.’3 He expanded on this in a mailed despatch which reached the Colonial Office in mid-January. Milner, who was in London at the time, and who read Butler’s cable and despatch, regarded the former as ‘seriously mis¬ leading’ and concluded from the latter that the South African League had ‘a strong prima facie case such as would have excited public feeling any¬ where.’ He regretted that the Colonial Office had ‘not been fully and impartially informed’ and remarked that he was ‘going to pay dearly, dearly for this holiday.’4 Early in March, some three weeks after his return to South Africa, and after Jones had been acquitted, Milner sent a despatch to the Colonial Office, giving his considered opinion of the affair, and concluding that the Uitlanders were justified in thinking that the Transvaal Courts would not dispense even-handed justice in cases where Boer and Uit-

Working Up to a Crisis

61

lander interests or sympathies clashed. Wingfield, the Permanent U/S, disagreed with Milner and minuted: ‘I see no reason to doubt the evi¬ dence of the police that they believed Forster to have been killed. The real point of the case is that there was no justification for the shooting, but even for that there is something to be said when a man is struck on the head with a stick with an iron end.’ But Chamberlain supported Milner: ‘The case is a bad example of the treatment British subjects are liable to in this semi-barbarous community. If we publish a despatch ... this incident will help to open people’s eyes in this country.’5 In the end Milner’s despatch was not published, but Chamberlain later claimed £4,000 compensation for Edgar’s widow on the ground that there appeared to have been ‘a clear miscarriage of justice in the criminal trial’. Although officially on leave, Milner does not seem to have had much leisure in England. He went to stay with Chamberlain at Highbury, where South African affairs were discussed with Selborne, Graham, a senior official at the Colonial Office, and Greene, who was also home on leave. He stayed with the Prime Minister at Hatfield, with the Prince of Wales at Sandringham, with Lord Rothschild at Tring, with Rosebery at Mentmore, with the Goschens at Seacox, and with the Clinton Dawkinses at Eastbourne. He had meetings with Lansdowne, Loch and Rhodes, and ‘a long delightful talk with Asquith’. He did a lot of work at the Colonial Office and sent regular reports to Fiddes, his Imperial Secretary, in Cape Town. After a week in England he told him: ‘As far as I can judge, the “no war” policy is still in favour in the highest quarters, and that being so, I am all for lying as low as possible. . . . Despite the thick veil of secrecy maintained by the FO I am now sure that the AngloGerman Agreement does not include Walvis Bay and does formally and forever eliminate Germany as a political influence in the Transvaal.’6 Milner left for Cape Town in the Briton on 28 January, accompanied by Lord Belgrave (later Duke of Westminster), his new ADC, and arrived on 14 February. Just before leaving he sent a line to Selborne: ‘On the whole I am well pleased with my visit. Chamberlain has been very kind.’7 In another letter, written a few days later, from the boat, he was more explicit: ‘Amusement at Butler’s idiotic proceedings over¬ comes annoyance. . . . The Gilbertian flavour of a 2-|-months High Commissioner out-Krugering Kruger appeals to me-Re the Trans¬ vaal. My views are absolutely unalteredf, but I have come to the conclusion that, having stated them, it is no use trying to force them upon others at this stage. If I can advance matters by my own actions, as I still hope I

62

Milner: Apostle of Empire

may be able to do, I believe that I shall have support when the time comes. And, if I can’t get things “forrader” locally I should not get support whatever I said. I quite realise that public opinion in England is dormant on the subject, tho’ it would take but little I believe to wake it up in a fashion that would astonish us all.’8 Soon after Milner’s return to Cape Town a second Uitlander Petition to the Queen had been drawn up by the South African League, and sent to Milner through the usual channels. It is not certain whether Milner inspired this second Petition. He was certainly determined to get things ‘forrarder’ in order to ‘keep up interest and rub the real issue well into the public mind.’9 But, whether or not he inspired the Petition, the League could be confident that he would treat it more sympathetically than the previous Petition had been treated by his locum tenens. The second Petition was signed by over 21,000 British subjects resident on the Rand. After summarising the course of events since 1895, and recapitulating Uitlander grievances, it went on: ‘The condition of Y.M.’s subjects in this State has become well nigh intolerable. . . . They are still deprived of all political rights, they are denied any voice in the government of the country, they are taxed far above the require¬ ments of the country. . . . Maladministration and peculation of public monies go hand in hand. The education of Uitlander children is made subject to impossible conditions. The police afford no protection to the lives and properties of the inhabitants of Johannesburg.’ The petitioners asked HM to ‘cause an enquiry to be made into grievances and com¬ plaints enumerated and set forth’ in the Petition and to ‘direct Y M’s Government in South Africa to take measures which will secure a speedy reform of the abuses complained of and to obtain substantial guarantees from the Government of this State for recognition of their rights as British subjects.’ A counter-petition, said to have been signed by 23,000 Uitlanders, was organised by the SAR Government, deprecating foreign intervention in the affairs of the Transvaal, but Greene told Milner that it need not be taken seriously. Nobody, including the SAR Government, seems to have done so. Milner forwarded the South African League Petition to Chamberlain on 27 March. After the Petition had gone off, Greene warned Milner that ‘if the steps just taken by the Uitlander community ... are not regarded as sufficient ... no further combined action need be expected, with the result that. . . waverers will be drawn to the Boer side. . . . What they mean is ... ‘now or never’. They are quite ready to wait for any reason-

forking Up to a Crisis

63

able time—two or three months—for a result in the way of action by HMG, but if... no result ensures, it will be a long day ... (before),.. . we need expect any combined movement again.’10 Fiddes, Imperial Secretary, whom Milner had sent to Johannesburg to look into things, supported Greene’s view. ‘If they find in two months or so that ours is not the winning side, they will make their peace with Kruger.’11 These views were forwarded to the Colonial Office, together with a stream of telegrams and despatches from Milner, urging the necessity for decisive action on the Petition. One of these referred to the impending struggle for ‘the complete vindication of British supremacy’. Another told Chamberlain that ‘the Boers will yield to nothing less than the fear of war, perhaps not even to that. But this is a risk which ... we are running all the time.... If we succeed we shall get rid of this night¬ mare for ever.’ He asked that this last despatch be published. Chamberlain minuted his astonishment and disagreement, but invited Milner to ‘send for publication “your views expressed as fully as you consider possible and advisable consistently with your position in South Africa”.’12 This invitation resulted in the famous ‘helot’ despatch, which was cabled to Chamberlain on 2 May, before HMG had replied to the Uitlander Petition. ‘The present crisis arises out of the Edgar incident. But that incident merely precipitated a struggle which was certain to come. . . . There are absolutely no grounds for supposing that the excitement which the death of Edgar caused was factitious. The defence¬ less people who are clamouring for a redress of grievances are doing so at great personal risk. .. . There are in all classes a considerable number who only want to make money and clear out. . . . But a very large and increasing proportion of the Uitlanders are not birds of passage; they contemplate a long residence in the country or to make it their perma¬ nent home. These people are the mainstay of the reform movement, as they are of the prosperity of the country.... They have many grievances, but believe all these could be gradually removed if they only had a fair share of political power. . . . The only effective way of protecting our subjects is to help them cease to be our subjects. The admission of Uitlanders to a fair share of political power would . . . remove most of our causes of difference with ... (the SAR Government) ... and modify and in the long run entirely remove that intense suspicion of and bitter hostility to Great Britain which at present dominates its internal and external policy. The case for intervention is overwhelming. The military strength of the Transvaal has increased greatly since the Raid and is still

64

Milner: Apostle of Empire

increasing. This is so far the only substantial result of trusting to time and patience. . . .’ There followed the passage which subsequently became famous. ‘The spectacle of thousands of British subjects kept permanently in the position of helots . . . calling vainly to HMG for redress does steadily undermine the influence and reputation of Great Britain and the respect felt for the British Government within its own dominions. A certain section of the Press, and not in the Transvaal only, preaches openly and constantly the doctrine of a republic embracing all South Africa and supports it by menacing references to the armaments of the Transvaal, its alliance with the Orange Free State, and the active sympathy which, in case of war, it would receive from a section of HM’s subjects. ... I see nothing which will put a stop to this mischievous propaganda but some striking proof of the intention, if it is the intention, of HMG not to be ousted from its position in South Africa. And the best proof. . . would be to obtain for the Uitlanders in the Transvaal a fair share in the government of the country. It could be made perfectly clear that our action was not directed against the existence of the Re¬ public. ... It is asking for nothing from others which we do not give ourselves. And . . . though temporarily it might aggravate, it would ultimately extinguish, the race feud which is the great bane of the country.’13 Meanwhile, Chamberlain was having some trouble with the Cabinet over his reply to the Uitlander Petition. His first draft, submitted to the Cabinet on 2 May and criticised by Balfour and others, had to be revised. Balfour submitted a memorandum in which he wrote: ‘Were I a Boer ... nothing but necessity would induce me to accept a Constitution which would turn my country into an English republic.... We have of course the right to ask for these and other like concessions, but I do not think the practice of international law would justify us in doing more than ask for them and, in existing circumstances, a request not accompanied by a menace is certain to be disregarded.’ And in a subsequent note he asked ‘whether there are any peculiarities in our relation with the Transvaal which would justify us in submitting it to more summary treatment than any ordinary foreign State.’14 As a result of these disagreements a Cabinet decision was adjourned until 9 May. Milner, told by Chamberlain of the reasons for delaying a reply to the Petition, thought that it was ‘much better to delay answer than send an equivocal one’, but ‘we shall get nothing at all if the Transvaal Government has the least sus¬ picion that we are half-hearted.’15

Working Up to a Crisis

65

Before the Cabinet discussed South Africa again Chamberlain had received Milner’s ‘helot’ telegram which he distributed to the Cabinet, with his minute: ‘This is tremendously stiff, and if it is published it will make either an ultimatum or Sir A. Milner’s recall necessary.’ So it was not published for the time being. At the adjourned Cabinet meeting a revised draft of Chamberlain’s reply to the Petition, in which Chamberlain tried to show that the inequality of the treatment of the Uitlanders as compared with that of the Boers was ‘inconsistent with the spirit of the Convention’, was approved by the Cabinet and sent the following day. Chamberlain told Milner that this reply, in the form of a despatch for communication to the SAR Government, ‘will not be in the form of an ultimatum but it will be a very strong one.’ It stated, inter alia, that ‘HMG cannot permanently ignore the exceptional and arbitrary treat¬ ment to which their fellow-countrymen and others are exposed, and the absolute indifference of the Republic to the friendly representations which have been made on the subject.’16 Milner, on 8 May, after he had heard of the difficulties which Chamberlain was having with the Cabinet, wrote to Hely Hutchinson: He told him that telegrams from the Colonial Office ‘leave me in no doubt that the Government is in earnest this time. I don’t think they are going to reply to the Petition by an ultimatum, but I think they are going to send a despatch so strong that it will probably necessitate their intervention if Kruger does not grant large reforms. If he does the Uitlanders must take them and work them bona fide. . . . Perhaps it would be best if Kruger hardened his heart and the smash came. But I don’t think we ought to aim at that. ... I would fight rather than accept a piffling measure. . . . But an immediate substantial share of power for the Uitlanders, such as complete enfranchisement after five years’ residence (retrospective) and a liberal measure of redistribution [of seats] ought in my opinion to be accepted with a good grace and a firm determination to use it fairly. Personally I am not afraid that if the Uitlanders are admitted to power by our aid—and it is de toute evidence that they would never have got it otherwise—they will turn and rend us. Possibly the Transvaal will never become part of our South African Empire, though I think that, with statesmanship on our side, it must come in time. . . . The great thing now ... is to stiffen the wobblers. . . . Once you con¬ vince the wobblers that the British Government is resolute, the whole force of the peace-at-any-price party will be directed towards getting the Transvaal to give in. . .. If war is to be avoided we must sooner or

66

Milner: Apostle of Empire

later get into direct and straightforward negotiations with the Transvaal Government as to the amount of reform we can accept. They will naturally be unwilling to revolutionise their institutions on spec, without knowing that we shall be satisfied at the end of it.’17 Preparations for these direct negotiations were already under way. Towards the end of April Schreiner had asked de Villiers, Chief Justice of the Cape, to go to Pretoria in order both to persuade the SAR Govern¬ ment to grant some reforms so as to keep HMG quiet, and to suggest the possibility of a conference between Milner and Kruger, de Villiers returned from Pretoria on 4 May and told Schreiner that the SAR Government agreed to ‘work for a liberal franchise and an enquiry into the dynamite monopoly’ provided that all British demands were pre¬ sented ‘fully and finally, once for all’. They also favoured a meeting between the High Commissioner and the Presidents of the SAR and the Free State. Schreiner told Milner about the results of de Villiers’ mission and, on 8 May, Milner cabled Chamberlain suggesting that the despatch replying to the Uitlander Petition should end up by suggesting a con¬ ference in order to arrive at ‘such a programme of reforms as the Uitlanders could be advised by HMG to accept.’ ‘If we can only get into negotiation with them, we can compel them either to adopt specific reforms or else, by refusing them, to show their invincible obstinacy and justify us in taking stronger measures. And I think that if we propose negotiations I can put the screw on their Cape friends to urge them to accept and, failing such acceptance, to wash their hands of them.’18 This recommendation coincided with another communication which Chamberlain had just received. James Sivewright, one of the few English members of the Bond, and an ex-Minister in the Rhodes Cabinet, who was in London at the time, saw Chamberlain on 4 May and, immediately afterwards, cabled Hofmeyr suggesting that he try to arrange a meeting between Milner and Kruger. Hofmeyr and Schreiner then agreed that President Steyn of the Free State be asked to invite Milner and Kruger to meet at Bloemfontein. Hofmeyr cabled accordingly to Sivewright, who told Chamberlain. Chamberlain, in accordance with Milner’s recommen¬ dation, and fortified by Sivewright’s information, concluded his des¬ patch of 10 May by suggesting a conference between the President and High Commissioner for the purpose of settling all matters at issue between HMG and SAR. Steyn agreed to Hofmeyr’s proposal and Kruger accepted Steyn’s invitation, provided that the independence of his State would not be

Working Up to a Crisis

67

called in question. Milner accepted provided it was understood that Steyn did not participate as an intermediary between Kruger and himself. In order to avoid prejudicing the atmosphere at the conference Chamberlain decided that neither the ‘helot’ telegram nor his own reply to the Uitlander Petition should be published for the time being. The opening of the Bloemfontein Conference was fixed for 31 May. The two weeks preceding it were occupied with much diplomatic cabling and toing-and-froing generally. Schreiner wanted to accompany Milner to the conference, Milner objected and, on 23 May, cabled to Chamberlain: ‘It is no use yielding any more to Schreiner, as if we mean to take a decided line about the Transvaal, split with present Ministry is bound to come sooner or later and anything that weakens my hands at Bloem¬ fontein will only make a critical situation more probable.’19 Chamberlain replied that ‘in my opinion there is nothing to lose in taking Schreiner and a good probability of something to gain, But... I am ready to leave decision with you as you are on the spot.’20 Milner replied curtly that he remained of his original opinion. Chamberlain minuted that he did not like the tone of Milner’s telegram. ‘It seems to betray the existence of somewhat strained feelings, whereas coolness and sweet reasonableness are more than ever necessary. ... I am afraid of doing anything which can add fuel to the fire_If Sir A. Milner is to keep in close sympathy with HMG I think that he requires to be restrained rather than encour¬ aged at the moment.’21 Milner had in fact been suffering from fatigue and sleeplessness. On 1 May his diary records: ‘Not a very good night and feeling my heart rather.’ And on 4 May: ‘Fearfully tired by strain of last two or three days.’ And on 5 May: ‘Feeling rather tired and knocked up by the worry of the last few days.’ And on 9 May: ‘Some idea of hunting this morning but abandoned it after short and unquiet night.’ And on 12 May he told Greene: ‘The strain on me has been very great during the last few days.’22 All this must be taken into account when considering Milner’s attitude before and during the Bloemfontein Conference. The Afrikaners outside the Transvaal, whether out of‘funk’ as Milner believed, or because they were genuinely aware of the need for reform in the Transvaal, tried to bring their influence to bear on Kruger. They may have been assisted in their efforts by a telegram received by the SAR Government from Leyds who, since he had ceased to be State Secretary, was a sort of Ambassador-at-large in Europe and was at that time in Berlin. ‘Minister for Foreign Affairs says Germany still friend of SAR

68

Milner: Apostle of Empire

but cannot assist in war because England master on sea; hopes Govern¬ ment SAR will concede as much as is consistent with independence.’23 The Anglo-German Convention of the previous year was beginning to bear fruit. Dr. te Water, a member of the Cape Ministry, writing to President Steyn (and sending him, astonishingly, a copy of the Cape Cabinet code for confidential communication), asked him to try to moderate Kruger’s attitude: ‘It is honestly now the time to yield a little, however one may later tighten the rope.’24 Hofmeyr was, according to Milner, ‘busy with a scheme for compromise’. But Milner was neither inclined to welcome nor attach much importance to these efforts, and was pessimistic about the Conference. He told Greene that he had not much hope for the result.25 He asked Chamberlain for ‘some indication of line you wish me to take at Conference’ and eventually agreed with him that he should concentrate on the franchise and try to get Kruger to accept ‘franchise after five years retrospective and at least seven members for the Rand—present number of Volksraad 28—this would mean onefifth Uitlander members. If President will not agree to anything like this I shall try municipal government for whole Rand as alternative with wide powers including police.’26 On 24 May Milner sent a ‘Very Secret’ letter to Selborne about the military aspect, telling him: ‘If we can’t get reforms by negotiation with so much in our favour we shall never get them and we must either be prepared to see Kruger carry out his policy of suppressing his English subjects or compel him to desist from it. The latter means a greatly increased force and may mean war .... I think if this Conference fails ... such increase in strength should immediately be made. ... If we are perfectly determined we shall win without a fight, or with a mere apology for one. It is a long period of suspense or of enforced standing on the defensive which might lead to a big war. The only objection is . . . will not the arrival of more troops so frighten the Boers that they will take the first step and rush part of our territory? ... By so doing they would put themselves in the wrong and become the aggressors. ... What I do fear is their seizing these positions without our being able at once to hit back.’ He ended with a few words about General Butler, the C-in-C. Since his own return, Butler had not meddled in political affairs in any way. He was a competent and conscientious officer, and, if ‘the worst came to the worst there would be absolute cooperation between him and me’. But ‘he does not and cannot sympathise with my policy’ and he did not think that ‘he realised the intense gravity of the situation or

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was thinking out the scores of subsidiary questions which arise when one looks the possibility of war in the face.’ He asked that Butler be given a hint to this effect from the War Office with ‘no suggestion of its source’.27 Si vis pacern para helium. But did Milner really want peace? What was his real state of mind in his approach to the Bloemfontein Con¬ ference? Why, since his return from England, had he concentrated on the Uitlander franchise to the exclusion of Chamberlain’s idea of municipal autonomy, which he never seriously pursued? Was it because he thought that Kruger was more, or less, likely to give way over the franchise? Did he really want a settlement of the franchise on the lines he put forward, or did he put them forward because he knew, or hoped, that they would be unacceptable, and that their rejection would lead to a war which, as he afterwards wrote, ‘however deplorable in itself would at least enable us to put things on a sound basis for the future.’28 His official attitude, as expressed in his despatches, was that the franchise he was demanding for the Uitlanders would give them sufficient political leverage to enable them to look after themselves. But neither Milner nor Chamberlain was primarily interested in the welfare of the Uitlanders. What they were really interested in was the maintenance—or recovery—of British supremacy in South Africa. Would the franchise demanded, within a reasonably short space of time, not only enable the Uitlanders to look after themselves, but also bring the Transvaal into the British orbit? If it were likely to do so, it seemed certain that Kruger would reject it. If it were not likely to do so, it is difficult to see what use of it could be made for Milner’s—or Chamberlain’s—real purpose. It is extraordinary that no attempt seems to have been made, by either side, to calculate the effect of the various franchise demands and proposals which were made before, during, and after the Conference. An Afrikaner historian (Menais) who has examined such evidence as there is concluded that in January 1899 (a) there were probably more Boers—men, women and children—than Uitlanders; and (b) that there may have been more Uitlander than Boer adult males owing to the fact that adult males formed a relatively high proportion of the Uitlander population.29 If that were so, there was some substance in Kruger’s fear lest a five year retrospective franchise would, in a fairly short time, deliver the Transvaal into the hands of the Uitlanders, on the assumption that the great majority of Uitlanders would accept naturalisation as Transvaal citizens, which, it was agreed, must be a condition of getting the franchise. This was a large assumption, for it seems fairly certain that, at all events, a substantial

7o

Milner: Apostle of Empire

minority of Uitlanders would have wished to retain their original citizen¬ ship. If so, Kruger’s fears, and Milner’s hopes, if genuine, may have been exaggerated. But it seems likely that neither the hopes nor the fears were genuine. Kruger and his entourage feared not for the independence of their country but for the continuance of their own influence. Milner hoped not for the naturalisation and enfranchisement of a few thousand Uitlanders but for the rejection of a demand which appeared sufficiently reasonable to constitute a casus belli for a war which would ‘enable us to put things on a sound basis for the future’. On the assumption that Milner wished for a settlement, his attitude at the Bloemfontein Conference showed him at his worst. On the assump¬ tion that he did not want a settlement, but a casus belli, his attitude was well adapted to the object in view. But Kruger was every whit as obdurate as Milner. If there were going to be any concessions over the franchise he was determined to exact a quid pro quo from HMG. No amount of conciliatoriness of Milner’s part would have extracted any worthwhile concessions without such a quid pro quo. The most that could have been expected was an inconclusive result—the sort of Conference we have got accustomed to nowadays. In Churchill’s phrase, a continua¬ tion of ‘jaw jaw’ instead of a resort to ‘war war’. But this was not what Milner wanted. He wanted to bring matters to a head—either a final settlement or a definite break. This is a dangerous mood in which to approach any Conference. The High Commissioner and his party arrived at Bloemfontein on the afternoon of 30 May, and were met by President Steyn. On the morning of the next day Milner and Kruger attended a formal reception given by Steyn. One of Kruger’s biographers has an account of this, the first meeting between the two men. ‘Kruger was, as always, strictly punctual, Milner was a moment late. When he arrived at the gathering, Paul Kruger stepped forward with outstretched hand to greet the High Commissioner. Milner pretended not to see—Kruger drew back his hand. There was no sign on his impassive face what he thought. . . . Milner of course was quite correct, because his first duty was to greet his hostess. But it would have been more human if he had not refused the hand of the old statesman, given instinctively, letting his natural feelings over-ride his cold knowledge of etiquette.’30 That same afternoon the Conference opened. It ‘took place in the Railway Central Bureau ... in a richly timbered chamber walled with oak panelling .. . Abraham Fischer, Prime Minister of the Orange Free

Working Up to a Crisis

7i

State, acting as interpreter, with Milner on his right and Kruger on his left.... Milner had insisted that the Conference should be fully reported, which lowered it from the level of a serious negotiation to that of public debate and, as Kruger talked to Milner and Milner to Kruger, each was addressing an audience further north.’31 Milner was accompanied by Fiddes, Imperial Secretary, Hanbury Williams, Military Secretary, Walrond, Private Secretary, and Lord Belgrave, ADC. Kruger had with him Wolmarans and Schalk Burger, two members of his Executive Council, and Smuts, State Attorney. In accordance with what he had agreed with Chamberlain, Milner, before dealing with any other matters, tried to direct the discussion to the single point of the franchise. He proposed (i) that the franchise be given to every male adult European foreigner who (a) had been resident for five years in the Transvaal, (b) declared his intention of residing there perma¬ nently, (c) took an oath to obey the laws, to undertake all obligations of citizenship, and to defend the independence of the country; (ii) that the franchise should be subject to a small property or income qualification and be confined to persons who had not been convicted of any serious crime; (iii) that there should be some increase of seats for the Rand in the First Volksraad. The essential point was immediate admission to the full rights of citizenship for all those who wished for it, who were prepared to renounce their own nationality, and who were qualified according to the conditions proposed. The President replied that the High Commissioner’s proposal, if implemented, would be tantamount to handing over his country to foreigners. It would involve the enfranchisement of about 60,000 Uitlanders, as compared with the existing number of about 30,000 burghers. Milner said that the President’s figures were incorrect (although he did not produce his own), that many Uitlanders were not qualified, and that many more would not want to abandon their own nationality, which was a condition of the proposed franchise. Deadlock seemed to have been reached. Eventually, the President indicated that he might be prepared to do something about the franchise provided HMG met him on various other points, the most important being agreement to arbitration in disputes over the interpretation of the 1884 Convention, with some neutral party, such as the President of the Swiss Republic, as arbitrator. To this Milner replied that HMG ‘will not have any foreign . . . interference at all between them and SAR, but might consider some form of arbitration if it could be satisfactorily

72

Milner: Apostle of Empire

arranged while excluding the interference of the foreigner’. But he insisted that some satisfactory agreement on the franchise must be arrived at first. Kruger insisted that any concession made by him over the fran¬ chise must be traded against concessions made to him over something else. He was not prepared to discuss the franchise in isolation. Milner replied that he would not ‘buy a just settlement’. He agreed that ‘there should be a system of settling future differences between us, but not to exchange the two things one for the other—that is a sort of Kaffir bargain.’ He asked that the franchise proposal should be considered and discussed on its merits. ‘If agreement is not possible on that point, then everything else is a waste of time. If it is possible, then I will do every¬ thing in my power to remove other difficulties.’ He then suggested an adjournment to enable the President to consider the matter. It was now lunch-time on 2 June, the third day of the Conference. After lunch, Kruger, to the surprise of the British delegation, produced ‘a complete Reform Bill worked out in clauses and sub-clauses.’ Milner asked for time to consider it, and the Conference was again adjourned until next morning. Briefly, the draft Bill provided that European adult male foreigners could obtain naturalisation two years after being regis¬ tered as immigrants, and enfranchisement five years after naturalisation. This was to be retrospective in that pre-1890 immigrants could obtain the franchise after two years and those with at least two years’ residence after five years. There were the usual unobjectionable conditions about continuous residence, oath of allegiance, small property or income qualification, good character etc. Milner’s principal objections to the draft Bill were (a) the fact that no Uitlander would qualify for enfran¬ chisement for another two years; (b) the length of time between natural¬ isation and enfranchisement; and (c) the absence of any provision for additional Rand seats in the First Volksraad. Generally, he regarded the proposals as quite inadequate, and spent most of the night composing a detailed reply, to be presented to Kruger next morning, which amounted to a rejection of the proposals. Next morning—Saturday 3 June—after a short discussion, the Con¬ ference was again adjourned to enable the President to examine Milner’s reply. On Sunday Milner received a note from the President stating his refusal to modify the main outlines of the Bill. On Monday 5 June, on what proved to be the last day of the Com ference, Kruger suggested that the draft Bill was a step in the right direction, even if the High Commissioner did not wholly agree with it,

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and offered to recommend it to the Volksraad on condition that the High Commissioner would submit to HMG his request for arbitration. Milner’s reaction to this was that they were back to where they had started and had been unable to agree to anything concerning the prin¬ cipal object of the Conference. Therefore, he announced, ‘this Con¬ ference is absolutely at an end and there is no obligation on either side arising from it.’ Writers have pointed the contrast between the highly-educated, sophisticated English diplomat on the one side, and the simple, unedu¬ cated old Boer on the other, with the implication that the Boer was writhing in the toils of the diplomat, crying out in protest, as if to claim the sympathy of the outside world, that the British were trying to rob him of his country. The truth was that, diplomatically, the simple old Boer made rings round the sophisticated Englishman. He gave nothing whatever away, he made the Englishman lose his temper more than once, created the impression that it was Milner, and not he, who was being intransigent, and loaded Milner with the onus of breaking up the Con¬ ference. Milner complained during the course of the Conference that ‘the President rambles fearfully.’ This was craft, and not simplicity, on the President’s part. Unlike Milner, he had no interest in forcing matters to an issue. To use the kind of cricketing simile Milner was fond of employ¬ ing, he was playing for a draw, while Milner was out to force a win, either by getting Kruger to agree to his demands or by putting him clearly in the wrong. Smuts wrote down his impression of Milner at the Conference in a letter to his wife: ‘Milner is as sweet as honey, but there is something in his very intelligent eyes which tells me that he is a very dangerous man.’ He added a sentence which shows that he, at least, was in favour of a peaceful settlement: ‘Although it is a very great humiliation for us to confer on our own affairs with HM’s Representative, it . . . remains my earnest wish that all may come right. The present... tension is having a very harmful effect on the spirit of our people and is retard¬ ing the development of our country.32 On 4 June, the penultimate day of the Conference, Milner cabled to Chamberlain: ‘Conference seems likely to fail. I have been studiously conciliatory. ... A big concession on the franchise would be such a score that we could afford a compromise on other controversies or let them drop quietly into the background.’ 4 June was a Sunday and Chamberlain did not reply until next day. He told Milner: ‘I hope you will not break off hastily. Boers do not understand quick decisions but

74

Milner: Apostle of Empire

prefer to waste a long time over a bargain. ... I am by no means con¬ vinced that the President. . . has made his last offer and you should be very patient and admit a good deal of haggling before you finally abandon the game. It is of the utmost importance to put the President... clearly in the wrong.’33 But, before Milner had received this cable, he had broken up the Conference. Writing to Chamberlain on 14 June, over a week later, Milner ad¬ mitted that he had been wrong in ‘breaking off the Conference quite as quickly as I did. Perhaps extreme fatigue had something to do with it. ... Of course I should not have broken off as I did had I had your telegram urging delay in time.’ Apart from that, he was quite unrepent¬ ant. ‘I was quite right in not taking Schreiner. . . . Even without him I had quite enough of the “impartial Afrikaner” who is so anxious to persuade Kruger to give way and then, when he offers you sixpence in the £, expresses his surprise and admiration at Kruger’s generosity and expects you to accept it with gratitude. . . . British South Africans are more united and in better heart than they have been for twenty years. Their confidence in you is profound and they support me with really touching heartiness. The Dutch are wavering. Orange Free State . . . will fight in a lukewarm sort of way. In the Transvaal itself there will be much shirking and . . . though the beginnings of a war would be veryunpleasant ... I do not think the result doubtful or the ultimate difficulty at all serious. Thousands of people would at once swarm into the Trans¬ vaal and the balance of power... would be rapidly and decisively turned against the Boer for ever. On the whole ... I hope that now we have gone so far we shall see it through. I expect the Cabinet wavers and naturally looks more at the present nuisance than at the fact that we are now in the presence of an opportunity that may never recur. We shall never have our friends more united and ... the Dutch ... are at least discouraged. To hope that they will ever under any conceivable circum¬ stances be on our side against an independent Dutch Republic is to hope for the impossible.’ He ended his letter with a complaint about the C-in-C. ‘The General. He is too awful. He has I believe made his military preparations all right, but beyond that I cannot get him to make the least move or take the slightest interest. . . . He never interferes with my business and is perfectly polite. But he is absolutely no use, unless indeed we mean to knuckle down, in which case he had better be made High Commissioner.’34 Milner’s attitude at the Conference was whole-heartedly supported by

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the South African League, who had never liked the idea of a Conference at all. On 12 June a deputation organised by Garrett, the editor of the Cape Times, waited on Milner at Government House to congratulate him. In Johannesburg a meeting of 5,000 Uitlanders recorded their ‘deep sense of obligation to the High Commissioner’ and their acceptance of the franchise proposals he had put forward as ‘an irreducible minimum’. Chamberlain’s attitude, and that of HMG generally, was inclined to be critical of Milner. Chamberlain minuted one of Milner’s cables from the Conference: ‘It seems clear to me that Sir A. Milner has been over¬ worked.’35 After hearing that Milner had broken up the Conference he cabled that he would receive fresh instructions as soon as his full des¬ patches had been received and considered. Not much enthusiasm here. But he did arrange for the immediate publication of Milner’s ‘helot’ telegram (omitting the reference to the arming of the Transvaal) and his own reply to the Uitlander Petition. These were published in a Blue Book on 13 June and caused something of a stir both in England and South Africa. In England, Jim Rendel, an old Balliol friend, wondered whether he had bargained for publication and told him: ‘You have cut off your retreat. If that is what you intended, well and good. But if not it was, to say the least, unfortunate.’ He added; ‘If you are committed, the Govern¬ ment is committed too ... I don’t see how they can go back now. Even Gladstone himself could not do it.’36 In South Africa, Smuts’ reaction to the publication of the despatches, communicated in a letter to Merriman, was that ‘the situation is being forced from the outside in order by an armed conflict to forestall or defeat the work of time.... I have great hope that within a few years all just causes of complaint will have disappeared altogether, and it fills me with a savage indignation to think that the work of those who are spend¬ ing their . .. lifeblood for South Africa is to be undone in a moment by academic nobodies who fancy themselves great Imperial statesmen.’37 The British Cabinet, as Milner feared, were wavering, After Chamberlain had consulted Milner about the terms of a possible ultimatum, Selborne told him that they ‘felt they could not send an ultimatum yet, but that another stage or stages must intervene before public opinion would permit it.’ In the same letter, dated 25 June, Selborne wrote: ‘The warning Mr. C and I gave you about the state of public opinion here has been abundantly justified. The publication of the Blue Book produced a great effect, but not so great as we had hoped. The idea of war with SAR

76

Milner: Apostle of Empire

is very distasteful to most people. Consequently the Cabinet have un¬ doubtedly had to modify the pace that they contemplated moving at immediately after the Bloemfontein Conference.’ He ended with a gentle hint to Milner to moderate the language of his despatches and to ‘avoid like poison all appearance of inconsistency . . . and guard most carefully against any appearance of jumpiness.’38 This was a delicate way of telling Milner that some of his telegrams were irritating Chamberlain and the Cabinet and were, in the modern idiom, ‘counter-productive’. On 22 June Milner had cabled pointing out that ‘prolonged uncertainty here will cause many supporters to fall away’ and that ‘in case of absolute rupture, coming months more favourable for operations than the Summer’, [i.e. South African Summer]. He advocated the despatch of a ‘formal demand’ specifying ‘the reform etc. we are prepared to insist on . .. accompanied by arrival of expeditionary force, or advance portion of it, in Natal.... We have half the white population of South Africa in our favour and decided action would secure all waverers. The most probable result would be a complete climb-down on the part of SAR and if not that a war which, however deplorable in itself, would at least enable us to put things on a sound basis for the future, better even than the best-devised Convention can.’ He ended with another complaint against General Butler, who ‘seems to think I am planning another Jameson Raid and, like a thorough Bondsman, sees Rhodes and the Chartered Company behind every bush.’ Graham, at the Colonial Office, minuted that Milner’s telegrams ‘make me very anxious. ... I begin to think there is something excitable in the South African air which prevents men from taking a cool and dispassionate view.’39 Two days later, on 24 June, Milner cabled Chamberlain asking for Butler’s recall. The immediate occasion for this was a cable which Butler, after showing it to Milner, had sent to the War Office in reply to a cable ordering the purchase of wagons and mules. ‘Present condition of opinion here is highly excited. . . . Persistent efforts of a party here to produce war . . . form the gravest element in the situation. I believe war would be the gravest calamity that ever occurred in South Africa.’40 It was not unreasonable that Milner should object to a C-in-C who was opposed to his policy and advising the War Office, in political matters, in a sense diametrically opposite to what Milner was telling the Colonial Office. But Chamberlain was unsympathetic. He minuted Milner’s cable: ‘Milner is really rather trying. . . . Such a course would strengthen the hands of the Opposition immensely. I shall do my best

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77

for Milner and for the policy which is mine as well as his . . . but he is over-strained.’41 He replied to Milner’s cable asking him to bear with Butler a little longer. About a month later, as the result of a hint from the War Office suggesting he resign if reports about his political opinions were true, Butler saw Milner and, on being told that he was a hindrance to him, he immediately cabled his resignation to the War Office, who accepted it. The ‘public opinion’ cited by Selborne as a reason for the necessity to ‘modify the pace’ referred in part to a speech made at Ilford on 17 June by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the leader of the Liberal Opposition who, from this time on, was one of Milner’s political betes noires. In this speech, Campbell-Bannerman, referring to the BloemfonteinConference and to the subsequent publication of despatches, said that he ‘could dis¬ cern nothing in what had occurred to justify warlike action or even military preparations . . .’42 Campbell-Bannerman was regarded as standing in the centre of the Liberal Party, with the Radicals on his left and the Liberal Imperialists on his right. His Ilford speech was an indication that, since Rosebery’s resignation from the leadership, the centre of gravity in the Liberal Party had moved leftwards and away from the Liberal Imperialists. This was an important development since, if there was going to be a war, the Government wanted a united nation behind them. Chamberlain, on the evidence of his minutes on Milner’s telegrams, was becoming progressively more irritated with the High Commis¬ sioner’s apparent inability to understand his political difficulties with the Cabinet, with the Commons, and with public opinion generally. He did not, as Milner sometimes suspected, intend to capitulate in face of these difficulties, but he needed time in which to overcome them. In reply to a bombardment of telegrams he told Milner, on 16 June, that we ‘must be able to show, before we take more active measures, that every form of diplomatic pressure . . . has been exhausted,’ and, on 21 June, that any large reinforcements are out of the question for the time being. But, in a speech at Birmingham on 26 June, he made it clear that, even if the Government were proceeding slowly, they were proceeding in what Milner regarded as the right direction. He told his audience that Kruger’s proposals at the Conference were utterly unacceptable, and that the Government, having ‘put their hands to the plough’, were unanimous in their determination not to look back. ‘We have tried waiting, patience, and trusting to promises which are never kept. We can wait no more.’43

78

Milner: Apostle of Empire

It was Chamberlain’s habit, in dealing with this South African business, to make his public pronouncements more bellicose than his diplomatic actions. Meanwhile, ‘every form of diplomatic pressure’ was proceeding. Fischer, Prime Minister of the Free State, came to Cape Town to discuss the stituation with Milner and with the Cape Government before pro¬ ceeding to Pretoria to try to persuade Kruger to improve on his last offer. Milner was inclined to be contemptuous of such efforts and told Chamberlain, on 20 June, that Kruger ‘will never agree to an effective and straight¬ forward measure’, and that ‘the efforts of the Cape Ministry and Orange Free State may be well meant, but as the latter are already pledged to support Government of SAR . . . and the former will certainly never take sides against them, their representations cannot amount to effective pressure.’ He complained that ‘the present period of suspense ... dimin¬ ishes any little chance there was of Boers yielding. Our only card throughout has been belief in our resolution and this is weakened by delay.’44 But, in view of Chamberlain’s attitude, he had to resign himself to delay and to take as seriously as he could attempts at mediation. He indicated to Fischer that ‘if the President could be induced to make substantial concessions ... he should consult us beforehand and not hastily commit himself to a new scheme. Any scheme must be such as could be recommended to Uitlanders as a measure not hampered by unreasonable conditions or liable to be defeated by subsequent legisla¬ tion.’45 Fischer’s intervention came to nothing. Then Hofmeyr, de facto leader of the Bond, the real boss, as Milner believed, of the Cape Govern¬ ment, the man behind the scenes, the Mole, as Merriman called him because he always preferred to work underground, was persuaded by Schreiner and Steyn to see what he could do with the Old Man in Pretoria. Kruger was not very fond of Hofmeyr and, at first, refused to see him. But, at Steyn’s request, he agreed to do so. Milner impressed on Hofmeyr that ‘no franchise reform will be accepted which does not give the Uitlanders some genuine representation in the First Volksraad at once, and again suggested that any proposed reform be discussed in¬ formally with HMG to test its acceptability before being submitted to the Volksraad. ^ On 7 July, probably as a result of Hofmeyr’s efforts, the SAR Government published a draft Bill on the franchise to be submitted to the Volksraad during its forthcoming session. It provided for naturalisation

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and grant of full franchise after seven years’ residence, with a retrospective clause providing for immediate naturalisation and franchise for those with at least nine years’ residence. Milner admitted that the draft Bill was a ‘considerable advance on die President’s proposals at Bloemfontein’, but added that die ‘attempt to represent them as differing very little from mine is idle’.46 Chamberlain told Milner that the SAR Government should be officially asked to give HMG full particulars of the proposals and obtain HMG’s comments before proceeding to enact them, and expressed the hope that, ‘if the proposals involved a substantial and prompt concession in the matters of enfranchisement and representation, they might form a basis for further negotiation.’47 But the SAR Government refused to discuss the proposals, which represented ‘the farthest possible limit to which the people and Volksraad could arrive.’ HMG must, in effect, take them or leave them. Milner was learning to moderate his language when communicating with Chamberlain. But he was in a state of considerable tension. He was irritated with Schreiner for having publicly committed himself to approval of the draft Bill as soon as it had been published, and for urging him to commend it to HMG. He sent Chamberlain a despatch from Greene stating that ‘suspense is demoralising Johannesburg and it will not be possible to hold Uitlanders together more than three weeks longer.’ This despatch infuriated Chamberlain, who did not share Milner’s admiration for the Uitlanders. He minuted: ‘This telegram need not go to the Cabinet or Queen. It ought never to have been sent. ... I am sorry that Milner and Greene should forward such rubbish. If the Uitlanders really prefer to make terms with Kruger—and can do so— they had much better go to Kruger and relieve us of their complaints. But of course it is all nonsense of the most pestilential kind. I should like a hint to be given that I want no more of it.’48 Chamberlain was deter¬ mined that Milner should not ‘bounce’ him into a precipitate decision by threatening him with what he regarded as the non-existent possibility of the Uitlanders deserting to Kruger. He regarded the Uitlanders simply as a stick with which to beat Kruger. Milner regarded them as essential allies in the fight for a British South Africa. Meanwhile, Hofmeyr, undeterred by lack of enthusiasm both in Pretoria and at Government House, continued his efforts. The task of mediation which circumstances had imposed on the Cape Dutch leaders was a thankless one. Distrusted by both sides, they themselves disliked

8o

Milner: Apostle of Empire

about equally Milner’s Imperialism and Kruger’s obscurantism. They dreaded the prospect of a war in which their people would be torn apart by loyalty to two opposing sides, with neither of which they had very much sympathy. One of the strange lacunae in Milner’s intellectual make¬ up was his inability to understand and to sympathise with what he harshly regarded as their quasi-treasonable behaviour. Hofmeyr’s renewed efforts were successful to the extent that, on 18 July, the Volksraad accepted an amendment to the Bill providing for a straight seven-year retrospective franchise. The Bill was passed into law the following day. On receipt of the news Chamberlain told a Times correspondent that ‘the crisis in the relations between Great Britain and the Transvaal may be said to have ended’, and cabled to Milner congrat¬ ulating him on ‘a great victory. No one would dream of fighting over two years in qualification period and President SAR will have been driven by successive steps to almost exact position taken by you. We ought to make the most of this and accept it as a basis for settlement.... If report of this new concession is confirmed I propose to send you despatch . . . concluding with suggestion for another conference in Cape Town to arrange details as to . . . representation, to consider project of tribunal of arbitration without foreign element, and to discuss all remaining points of difference between the two Governments.’49 Milner was appalled by this euphoria, and particularly by the statement to the Times which, he told Chamberlain, ‘has created consternation among the British party here.’50 He added that he regarded the new Law, as it stood, as unsatisfactory, and that ‘the Uitlander Council was aghast’. In fact, the Uitlander reaction was so furious that Milner tried to calm them down, telling the Vice-Consul in Johannesburg that ‘HMG could not afford not to admit largeness of advance made by President without alienating reasonable opinion in England.’51 In his diary entry for 19 July Milner noted: ‘Very bad day indeed.... Telegram from S of S this morning showing great change for worse in attitude of Government. . . . Gloomy and tired to bed.’ Milner had been anxious to arouse public opinion in England on the situation in South Africa. British public opinion had been aroused, but the criticism seemed to be almost as weighty as and rather more vocal than the en¬ couragement. His confidence in Chamberlain was also wavering. A statement made by Chamberlain in the Commons after having read Milner’s cabled analysis of the new Law was somewhat less euphoric than his initial reaction. He told the House that the new Law ‘may prove

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to be a basis of settlement on the lines laid down by Sir A. Milner at the Bloemfontein Conference’, but that there were a number of conditions ‘which might be so interpreted as to preclude those otherwise qualified from acquiring the franchise and might therefore be used to take away with one hand what had been given by the other.* Milner continued to feel very depressed. On 23 July he noted in his diary: ‘British public opinion is going to be befooled and that is the long and short of it.’ South Africa was to be debated by both Houses at Westminster on 28 July. On 26 July he cabled Chamberlain expressing the hope that the debates ‘may bring out wider aspects of questions which have been lost sight of in long wrangle over details of franchise Bill. It is practical assertion of British supremacy in forcing SAR to move in direction of equal rights and genuine self-government which is real issue.’ He thought that ‘arbitration ought to entail disarmament’ and denigrated recent attempts at mediation by Cape and Free State politi¬ cians. Specifically he asked Chamberlain not to go out of his way to praise Schreiner in his speech to the Commons.62 At about this time Milner opened his heart to Jim Rendel: ‘Frightful as has been the strain of the last two months, the abuse . . . does not touch me.... You see there is this great per contra. Loyal British South Africa has risen from its long degredation and stands behind me to a man with an enthusiasm which has not been known since before Majuba. It is a great thing to be, even for a few brief days and weeks, the leader of a people, possessing their unbounded confidence. Of course England may give us away—probably will—not from cowardice but from simple ignorance of the situation and the easy-going belief that you only have to be very kind and patient and magnanimous and give away your friends to please your enemies in order to make the latter love you for ever. She may give us away. It is the last time she will have the chance. But there will always be, when I return to my books in Duke Street, the recollec¬ tion of the time when I had done all the man on the spot could do to recover the position and everybody knew it. Of course I have made heaps of mistakes. But... I have absolutely rallied all our forces on the spot. ... Joe has stuck to me magnificently. If he throws me over after all, or worse still retreats under a garbled version of my advice to him, I shall know it is only because he cannot help it.’63 Selborne, as usual, tried to calm Milner down and keep his spirits up. On 27 July, the day before the debates, he told him: ‘Public opinion has been very difficult here. . . . Parliament has been much less favourable

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to your views and mine than the Press; London than the Provinces; the governing classes than the hoi polloi. The idea of a war has been very unpopular among our own Party in both Houses. . . . Public opinion insists on our using great patience and endeavouring to avert war. . . . The Cabinet is all right. I do not say there are no mugwumps in it. . . . Last Sunday I had it all out with the PM at Walmer. ... He said he meant to secure full effective (as distinct from pedantic) compliance with your Bloemfontein demands as a minimum, and added: “I will go my own pace—I will not be hurried by any one, not by all the English in South Africa”. . . . He is altogether in favour of continuing steadily the military preparations.’54 Campbell-Bannerman, speaking in the Commons debate on the Colonial Office vote, saw ‘nothing whatever which furnishes a case for armed intervention’ and advocated bringing ‘enlightened Dutch opinion’ in the Cape to bear upon the Transvaal. On the Uitlander franchise he remarked: ‘It is a most extraordinary thing that no one appears to have formed any accurate conception of the numbers involved,’ and that ‘it would be very odd to go to war in order to facilitate British citizens in changing their nationality.’ Chamberlain, in reply, stressed that ‘It is a question of the power and authority of the British Empire, of the British position in South Africa, of our predominance and how it is to be inter¬ preted, ... of our position as Paramount Power in a country which includes the most important strategic point in the Empire. . . .’ He criticised Schreiner and Hofmeyr as being ‘always a little premature in accepting proposals made by the Transvaal Government.’ He acknowl¬ edged that the latest Transvaal proposals were a ‘real advance’, and hoped to find in them ‘a basis for a satisfactory settlement’. He concluded: ‘I have an absolute conviction that the great mass of people in this country are prepared to support us in any necessary measures ... to secure justice for British subjects in the Transvaal.’ Labouchere, the Radical Liberal MP, made an attack on Milner: ‘The worst of the business is that Sir Alfred Milner has been a partisan. ... It by no means follows that an able journalist and financier should be an able Governor of a self-governing Colony.... I hope that the Colonial Secretary will approach President Kruger through Mr. Schreiner and not through Sir. A. Milner.’ There were other criticisms of Milner from the Opposition benches, and this debate marked the beginning of a steady barrage of public criticism which increased rapidly in venom and intensity. For a growing section of the Liberal Party, the approaching

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war became ‘Milner’s war’ and much as, or even more than, it was ‘Chamberlain’s war’. Milner, more than Chamberlain, more even than Rhodes, became, to much of the ‘Liberal conscience’ of England, the Guy Fawkes figure symbolising what they regarded as the cosmopolitan millionaires’ conspiracy behind the Boer War. In the Lords debate the same day, Salisbury, after a characteristic remark that the granting of a modified independence to the Transvaal had ‘the most dangerous fault any policy can have ... it was an optim¬ istic policy’, announced: ‘If this country has to make exertions in order to secure the most elementary justice to British subjects ... we will not reinstate a state of affairs which will bring back the old difficulties.’ In other words, war would result in the annexation of the Transvaal. ‘I do not think that President Kruger has sufficiently considered this.’ (Privately, Salisbury was less than enthusiastic about the whole South African business. In a letter to Lansdowne—Secretary of State for War •—a month later—30 August—he complained: ‘We have to act upon a moral field prepared for us by Milner and his Jingo supporters. And therefore I see before us the necessity for considerable military effort, and all for people we despise and for territory which will bring no profit and no power to England.’55) On 27 July—the day before the debates—Chamberlain had instructed Milner to invite the SAR Government to participate in a joint inquiry into the implications of the new Law so as to ensure that it provided ‘some approach in practice to equality of consideration between the two races.’56 It seemed unlikely that Pretoria would agree to this, since previously they had insisted that the franchise was a domestic matter and that discussion of its details with HMG would be an admission of British suzerainty. But the Cape Dutch politicians, hoping against hope that war might be avoided, tried to persuade them. Schreiner begged them ‘not to let a mere matter of form spoil a good settlement’. Hofmeyr told them that Chamberlain’s invitation should be accepted, de Villiers thought that acceptance might involve a partial surrender of indepen¬ dence, but that was better than a possible total loss of it. Leyds, from Europe, warned the President that no help could be expected from the Powers. The Transvaal’s Liberal friends in England—Labouchere and Courtney—told Kruger that refusal of a joint inquiry might mean war. But Kruger was adamant and told Steyn on 2 August that ‘SAR Govern¬ ment deem a compliance with this request impossible as it would be equivalent to a destruction of our independence.’

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Then, on 12 August, the SAR Government made an unofficial approach to Greene to enquire whether HMG would waive their demand for a joint inquiry if the franchise Law were still further liberalised and a substantial increase in Volksraad seats allocated to the Rand. As a result Greene saw Smuts, who offered the five-year retrospective franchise demanded by Milner at Bloemfontein, and eight more Rand seats, making ten out of a total of thirty-six, in return for HMG’s agreement (a) to no further interference in the affairs of the Transvaal outside the terms of the Convention, (b) to arbitration ‘from which the foreign element was excluded in disputes arising out of the interpretation of the Convention’, and (c) tacitly to drop their claim to suzerainty. Milner was not pleased. He forwarded the proposals to London, but complained of Greene’s ‘extraordinary conduct’, and told Chamberlain that ‘nothing but confusion can result from this irregular method of negotiation.’57 He wanted HMG to insist on a reply to their proposal for a joint inquiry before embarking on fresh negotiations. But Chamberlain thought otherwise. On 16 August he told Milner that the new proposals ‘evidently constitute an immense concession and even a considerable advance on your Bloemfontein proposals’ (in which Milner had asked for a total of seven seats for the Rand). As to non-interference, Chamberlain replied that ‘fulfilment of promises made and just treatment of Uitlanders in the future will, HMG hope, render unnecessary any future interference.’ And, ‘as to arbitration’, Chamberlain was prepared to ‘agree to discuss form and scope of tribunal provided foreign influence is excluded.’58 He asked the SAR Government to submit their proposals formally, on the understanding that these would be considered on their merits and not regarded as a refusal of the joint inquiry. Kruger told Steyn that this answer ‘seems not unfavourable’. But Milner strongly disapproved of the way things were going. On 17 August he told Greene: ‘Secretary of State is prepared to discuss new proposal. Personally I should have stuck to inquiry. After weeks of wavering we had at last made a reasonable and clear demand and I am sorry that he did not insist on it.’59 The SAR Government’s formal proposals were handed to Greene on *9 August and cabled to London on 22 August. They were, in substance, the same as those which Smuts had made informally to Greene and made conditional on HMG’s consent (a) not to interfere in SAR’s domestic affairs, (b) not to insist on suzerainty and (c) arbitration. But Smuts had intimated verbally that his Government would be prepared unofficially

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to discuss the franchise proposals with the British representative before they were promulgated, and that there would be no difficulty about the use of the English language in the Volksraad. Chamberlain, in reply to the formal SAR proposals, referred to these matters, and Greene passed on his comments to Smuts. In reply Smuts told him that ‘the terms of a settlement as embodied in the formal note of the Government.. . were very carefully considered and I do not believe there is the slightest chance that those terms will be altered or amplified. Your decision will therefore have to be arrived at on these terms as they stand.’00 This retreat from the conciliatoriness previously displayed may have been due to two cables received at Pretoria from Leyds, then in Brussels. The first of these, dated 14 August, stated that he had heard Chamberlain’s plan was ‘gradually to send out troops and place them in position along the border . . . and after franchise to force new Convention by which SAR bound hand and foot to England.... Accepting this as truth other concessions will be of no avail.’ The second, dated 20 August, stated: ‘All depends if SAR wishes to avoid war at any price, even at the price of complete subjection. Your proposal gives this impression. Proportion representation goldfields fixed for future unreasonable. ... You must not speak about dropping suzerainty but submit proviso acknowledging non-existence. England must acknowledge that she has by this inter¬ ference in internal affairs exceeded her right. . . . Excluding foreign element from arbitration is exceedingly dangerous. ... I fear England will in any case continue to demand commission of inquiry.’61 Chamberlain, seeing the prospect of a peaceful solution once more receding, reverted to what, on the occasion of his Birmingham speech on 26 June, he had described as ‘getting the water into good condition’ in England. In another speech in Birmingham on 26 August he said: ‘Mr. Kruger procrastinates in his replies. He dribbles out reforms like water from a squeezed sponge, and he either accompanies his offers with con¬ ditions which he knows to be unacceptable, or he refuses to allow us a satisfactory investigation. . .. The sands are running down in the glass. ... If we are forced to make further preparations we shall not hold our¬ selves limited by what we have already offered.’62 Two days later, on 28 August, HMG’s reply to the Transvaal pro¬ posals was cabled to Milner. It accepted the proposed franchise con¬ cessions, with the proviso that the British Agent should satisfy himself that they conferred ‘immediate and substantial representation’ on the Uitlanders, and accepted arbitration in principle, but, in effect rejected

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

the other two conditions. The telegram concluded: ‘British Agent may inform State Secretary that if reply to . . . (HMG’s proposal for a joint inquiry) ... is not prompt and satisfactory, and if it becomes necessary to despatch further troops, HMG will feel justified in withdrawing previous suggestions for compromise and will formulate their own demands for a settlement, not only of Uitlander question, but also of future relations between Great Britain and the Transvaal State.’63 If not an ultimatum this was, at all events, a penultimatum. Pretoria’s reply, communicated on 2 September, withdrew the offer made on 19 August and reverted to the previous offer of a seven-year franchise and four extra Volksraad seats for the Rand. But the sands had run out. And the sponge had been squeezed dry. During all this month of August Milner was in a state of high tension, judging from his diary entries. On 2 August he complained of ‘fearful pressure’; on 3 August, ‘rather depressed to-night—overworked and not feeling well.’ On 7 August he referred to a ‘very unpleasant interview’ with Schreiner. On 17 August: ‘the strain of three months and more of incessant anxiety beginning to tell a bit.’ On 22 August, ‘the usual dreary and weary day’; on 26 August, ‘very dragging day. We are all fearfully tired and bored with the prolonged crisis.’ On 28 August he complained that he was ‘in the greatest state of bewilderment’ about Chamberlain’s intentions. On 8 September the British Cabinet met and approved Chamberlain’s reply to SAR s withdrawal of their conditional five-year franchise proposal. In it he stated that the conditions attached to this proposal were insufficient to secure the immediate and substantial representation which HMG have always had in view.’ He added that HMG were still prepared to accept the five-year franchise proposals ‘taken by them¬ selves’, provided that an inquiry, whether joint or unilateral, ‘shows that the new scheme of representation will not be encumbered by conditions which will nullify the intention to give immediate and substantial repre¬ sentation to the Uitlanders.’ The despatch concluded: ‘If the reply of the SAR Government is negative or inconclusive, HMG must reserve to themselves the right to consider the situation de novo and to formulate their own proposals for a final settlement.’64 This was, to all intents and purposes, a repetition of the ‘penultimatum’ of 28 August which had caused the SAR Government to withdraw their five-year franchise proposal. HMG’s only reason now for delaying an ultimatum was to ensure that

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there were sufficient troops in South Africa before finally committing themselves. Ever since the breakdown of the Bloemfontein Conference Milner had been urging on HMG the necessity for a reinforcement of the British garrisons in South Africa which, at that time, amounted to about 9,500 men. In June Wolseley, the C-in-C in England, advised preparing for the despatch of an army corps to South Africa, but the Cabinet did not agree. Nor did they agree with his subsequent recommendation for the immediate despatch of 10,000 troops. All that was authorised were some small and inconspicuous reinforcements of engineers and artillery and a few special officers to organise local forces. On 18 July, Sir Redvers Buller, who was to command the army corps if it were ever sent, advised against the despatch of large reinforcements, relying on the opinion of Butler, C-in-C in South Africa. Milner kept HMG well advised of SAR imports of arms and ammunition and warned them that, if the process of arming by the Transvaal continued without British reinforcements, ‘we cannot expect the SAR to pay the slightest attention to our recom¬ mendations hereafter.’ At last, on 3 August, Chamberlain told Milner that it had been decided to reinforce the Natal garrison by 2,000 men.65 Over a month later, the same Cabinet meeting as approved Chamber¬ lain’s ‘penultimatum’ of 8 September also approved reinforcing the South African garrisons, by then numbering about 12,000 men, by another 10,000, of whom 6,700 were to sail from India so as to arrive in Natal before mid-October. The news of these reinforcements was announced in the Press, together with the intimation that a powerful expeditionary force’, consisting of an army corps, was being prepared. Chamberlain, in a letter to Milner written the same day (8 September) wrote: The vital question now is, will the Boers, when they hear of the despatch of a large body of troops, take the initiative and rush Natal?’ He though that the danger of their doing so was being exaggerated.66 Humanly speaking, war was now inevitable, although the facade of negotiation was kept up, and although the Cape Dutch politicians con¬ tinued their efforts for a compromise. After the SAR had rejected the claims put forward in Chamberlain’s cabled despatch of 8 September, Chamberlain, on 22 September, after consulting the Cabinet, replied with yet another ‘penultimatum’. Milner had indicated, in a telegram dated 19 September, that a formal ultimatum ‘should be delayed as long as possible to give time for reinforcements now on the way.’ This third ‘penultimatum’ concluded by stating that the SAR s rejection of the claims and the offer made in HMG’s cable of 8 September, ‘coming at

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

the end of nearly four months of protracted negotiations . . . makes it useless to further pursue a discussion on the lines hitherto followed, and HMG are now compelled to consider the situation afresh and to formu¬ late their own proposals for a final settlement.’67 On the same day— 22 September—Chamberlain cabled Milner: ‘Cabinet unanimous and resolved to see matter through. All preparations for expeditionary force will be proceeded with as quickly as possible, but without public pro¬ nouncement at present. Our proposals for settlement will be agreed on by Cabinet next week and, if forwarded by mail, will allow four weeks’ interval for reinforcements to arrive.’68 The SAR Government were equally belligerent. On 16 September Kruger had telegraphed Steyn that ‘it is no longer possible for us to comply with the far-reaching and insolent demands of the British Government. . . . We are firmly resolved to go no step further than we have already done. ... With God before our eyes we feel that we may not go further without endangering our independence, if not wholly destroying it.’69 This attitude was unaffected either by warnings from Leyds that there was little chance of assistance from Europe,70 or by continual appeals from the Cape Dutch politicians addressed to Pretoria through Steyn and Fischer in Bloemfontein. These appeals became almost desperate as the last hopes of peace receded. On 13 September Hofmeyr telegraphed Fischer that ‘war will probably have fatal effect Transvaal, Free State and Cape Afrikaner Party.’71 On 28 September de Villiers, in a letter to Fischer, made ‘a final appeal to you and to others in the Free State who have any influence with President Kruger and his Raad. I do not know what the contents of the next British despatch will be, but if they are such as can be accepted without actual dishonour, I hope they will be accepted. The SAR cannot go to war if your Government should consider the despatch one which ought not to be rejected.. . . However badly the Transvaal may have been treated from a diplomatic point of view, there are at bottom good reasons for irritation against its Government.... I look with horror at a war fought by Afrikaners to bolster up President Kruger’s regime.’72 On 28 September Kruger told Steyn that he had received a cable from Leyds stating that their Continental friends advised them to use the excuse of British troop concentrations to send an ultimatum calling for their withdrawal and then ‘attack immediately before the English are ready.’73 Steyn thought this inadvisable. But Kruger had the bit between his teeth. On 29 September he told Steyn: ‘Our forces are already on the

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way to the border. ... You still seem to think of peace, but this strikes me as impossible. I am strongly of opinion that your people should also go to the border.... You think Chamberlain is leading us into a snare, but if we wait longer our cause may be hopelessly lost.’74 The military thinking behind Kruger’s decision was sound. Assuming the inevitability of war, it made sense for the Boers to use their temporary military superiority to carry the war into the enemy’s territory before the balance of strength was reversed by the arrival of British reinforce¬ ments. But it was also desirable, if possible, to avoid the appearance of aggression by letting the British get their ultimatum in first. It was decided to send the Transvaal ultimatum on 2 October and invade Natal on 4 October and, in the meantime, try to expedite the expected British ultimatum. On 30 September, Reitz, State Secretary, in a message to Greene, requested that he be ‘informed by Monday 2 October what decision if any had been taken by the British Cabinet.’ As Milner correctly saw, ‘this means that the Boers, being ready to attack Natal, want to get our ultimatum out of us in order to reject it out of hand and go to war at once. I do not see why we should give them an advantage by communi¬ cating our ultimatum simply to furnish them with an excuse for attacking us.’ Chamberlain agreed, and Reitz was told that the British reply would not be ready for some days.75 It was by this time abundantly clear that Kruger was not bluffing and that Milner’s, and Rhodes’s, 76 expectation that he would climb down when it came to the point was not going to be fulfilled. It was also appa¬ rent that the first few weeks of the war were, from the British point of view, going to be very unpleasant. Owing to hesitations in Bloemfontein and confusion in Pretoria Boer troop movements were held up and their ultimatum, timed for 2 October, was not presented until a week later, thus narrowing the vital gap between the outbreak of war and the arrival of British reinforcements. On the evening of 9 October, after ‘two games of billiards after dinner with Hanbury’, Milner received from Greene advice of the ultimatum in the following telegram: ‘I have just received a Note from State Secretary in which, after reciting reasons which have led Government of SAR to take this step, they ask HMG to give them four assurances: First, that all points of difference be settled by arbitration or by peaceful means to be agreed on; secondly, that the troops on the borders of the Republic be instantly withdrawn; thirdly, that all increases of troops arrived since 1 June in South Africa be sent back to sea coast with assurance that they

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will be withdrawn from South Africa within a time to be agreed on ...; fourthly, that British troops now on their way to South Africa shall not be landed in any part of South Africa.5 An answer was requested not later than 5 p.m. on 11 October, in default of which ‘SAR Government will regard action of HMG as a formal declaration of war.’ On the following morning the inevitable reply was sent: ‘HMG have received with great regret the peremptory demands of the Government of SAR. .. . The conditions demanded ... are such as HMG deem it impossible to discuss.5 On the High Commissioner enquiring from President Steyn whether his Government associated themselves with the Transvaal ultimatum, he received the reply that ‘the high-handed and unjustifiable policy and conduct of HMG5 constituted ‘such an undoubted and unjust attack on the independence of the SAR that no other course is left to this State than honourably to abide by its treaty agreements.5 So, at five o’clock on the evening of 11 October 1899, Great Britain was at war with the Transvaal and Orange Free State. On that day Milner told Selborne: ‘We have a bad time before us and the Empire is about to support the biggest strain put upon it since the Mutiny. Who can say what will befall us before that army corps arrives?5 No euphoria here. Was he beginning to regret the advent of a war which he, more than anyone else, had worked to bring about? The military situation was unfavourable mainly because diplomatic relations with the SAR had deteriorated faster than military reinforce¬ ments had arrived. In their preparations for the war, HMG were in¬ hibited both by a hesitation to ask Parliament for money until they had convinced public opinion, including some members of the Cabinet, of the necessity for them, and by a feeling, sometimes encouraged by Milner, and certainly by Rhodes, that Kruger would ‘bluff up to the cannon’s mouth5 and then give way. In the end, as Chamberlain told Milner on 22 September, the Cabinet were unanimous. But, over the previous weeks, they had not been so. The Prime Minister had been dubious and critical. Balfour continually produced memoranda tearing Milner’s argu¬ ments to pieces. Hicks Beach was appalled on financial grounds at the prospect of war. Lansdowne, at the War Office, was unenthusiastic. The Unionist back-benchers, the majority of the Press, and some of the Opposition, were favourable. At the beginning of September Chamberlain told Milner that the majority of our people here have ... recognised that there is a greater issue than the franchise or the grievances of the Uitlanders at stake and that our supremacy in South Africa and our

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existence as a great Power in the world are involved. .. . Three months ago we could not ... go to war on this issue, now, although most un¬ willingly and with a large minority against us, we shall be sufficiently supported.’77 As Chamberlain had indicated, the support was ‘sufficient’ but not unanimous. There was a relatively small, but very vociferous, ‘pro-Boer’ element in the Liberal Party, including respected figures like Courtney and rising politicians like Lloyd George. Campbell-Bannerman, leader of the Party, and Harcourt and Morley, influential ‘elder statesmen’, although they were not regarded as ‘pro-Boer’, except by Milner and Chamberlain in their more exasperated moments, were extremely critical of the Government in general, and of Chamberlain and Milner in parti¬ cular, over their South African policy. In a speech at Manchester on 15 September Morley made an obvious hit at Milner when he said that ‘the man with the sword blundering in and slashing at the knots that patient statesmen ought to have untied is responsible for half the worst political catastrophes in Europe.’78 And Harcourt, speaking at Tredegar on 18 September, said that he could see ‘no valid answer’ to the Boer case. Campbell-Bannerman, in a letter to Harcourt on the eve of war, told him that he regarded ‘this franchise movement as the biggest hypocrisy. It was designed (a) so that Kruger might refuse it and supply a direct ground of quarrel; (b) if he accepted it would mean that, not being able to get in by the front door, they would get the area gate opened and so get possession of the country.’ But he admitted that there was a stronger case for intervention than if it were merely a case of an Englishman being ill-treated at Calais. It is analogous to the right of the European Powers to stop misgovernment in Turkey which endangers general peace.’79 The Liberal Imperialists—Asquith, Grey, Fowler, Haldane—gave full support to the Government over the war. Rosebery, as usual, was equivo¬ cal and unpredictable. Milner had strong ties of friendship with Asquith and Haldane, neither of whom liked, or approved of, Chamberlain. He had been at great pains to carry them with him over South Africa, both in conversation with them while in England, and by correspondence. He must have been cheered by evidence of their support at this time. Haldane assured him that four-fifths of the Liberal Party supported the Government over South Africa. Grey, after an earlier criticism that ‘better diplomacy might have avoided war’, wrote on 1 November to Milner to tell him that ‘in my opinion the end has justified the view you have taken of the South African question from the beginning.’80

92

Milner: Apostle of Empire The war relieved Milner of the burden of negotiating with Pretoria.

Military operations were the responsibility of the military command although he was to take a keen interest in them. His most immediate responsibility, as he saw it, was the political situation in Cape Colony. Slightly more than half of the white population were of Dutch descent and so with a natural affinity—which Milner as an avowed racist may have tended to exaggerate—with the Boers of the Republic and Free State. There was a Government which had close links with the Bond and the majority of whose supporters had been elected by mainly Afrikaner constituencies. As Governor, Milner was obliged constitution¬ ally to act on the advice of his Ministers. As High Commissioner he took the view that much of the advice he was receiving was subversive in time of peace and semi-treasonable in time of war. In order to resolve this, to say the least, difficult position, he was, during and after the war, continually playing with the idea of suspending the Cape Constitution, and was only prevented from doing so by the very firm stand taken against it by Chamberlain. Very early in his term of office he had closed his mind to the concept of accepting the divided loyalties of the Cape Dutch as natural and inevitable and of using them as a means of bridging the gulf between HMG and the SAR Government. He insisted on a division between the sheep and the goats and told the Cape Dutch in effect that they must choose which side they were on. Since the Cape Dutch, as a whole, refused to choose, Milner insisted on regarding some 50 per cent of the white population of the Colony as a ‘fifth column’. Ironically, he regarded them in exactly the same light as Kruger regarded the Uitlanders and, by so doing, provided a tacit justification for Kruger’s reluctance to enfranchise them. The Dutch in the Cape were not, like the Uitlanders in the Transvaal, willing immigrants into a foreign country. Their ancestors had been there already when the British took them over. Although the Cape Dutch leaders had, to put it at its lowest, the strongest reasons of selfinterest for promoting a peaceful settlement with the Transvaal (which meant inter alia a settlement acceptable to HMG), Milner continually and vehemently denigrated attempts at mediation by de Villiers, Hofmeyr and Schreiner, regarding these, in his own words, as designed ‘to get SAR out of a tight place rather than to help HMG.’ He was not prepared to admit that ‘getting SAR out of a tight place’ and ‘helping HMG’ were not necessarily incompatible. The increasing intemperance of his re¬ marks about the Cape Dutch are astonishing, coming from a man in

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his position. On 6 September he told Chamberlain: ‘I have had a lesson in subtlety and dishonesty such as I shall never forget. The way in which the Afrikaners here, after doing everything in their power to frustrate our policy, and after having in every private and underhand way tried to blacken and malign the British Government, myself, and all loyal men, are now whining and declaring themselves misunderstood, and claiming that they have always been doing their best for reform in the SAR, is beyond anything I have ever known or imagined ... in the way of play¬ ing it low.... There are of course exceptions, honest “nationalists” who have been taught to believe that our objects are tyranny and oppression, and a few dreamers like Schreiner, whom personally I still like, though he has not always treated me quite fairly. But in the mass their duplicity is phenomenal.’81 In the circumstances, Milner’s relations with Schreiner, both imme¬ diately before, and during, the war, were somewhat delicate. His diary is full of references to ‘unpleasant’ and ‘disagreeable’ interviews, and ‘long wrangles’, with the Prime Minister—over preparations for the defence of Kimberley, over Schreiner not having stopped imports of arms through Cape Colony to the Free State, over a speech by Schreiner saying that the Colony wished to stand apart and aloof from the im¬ pending struggle, over the use of locally recruited forces, which Schreiner insisted should only be used in the Colony for the defence of the Colony and not outside it for offensive operations. Milner does not seem to have appreciated Schreiner’s difficulties, nor to have realised that a necessarily equivocal policy was compatible with honesty of purpose. And, after the outbreak of war, the differences between them necessarily became more acute.

NOTES ON CHAPTER FOUR 1. Memo by Chamberlain to Cabinet 10.11.96. quoted in Marais, op. cit., p. 158. 2. Sir William Butler, Autobiography (Constable, 1913), p. 4453. Marais, op. cit., p. 241. 4. Milner-Graham, 19.1.99. quoted in Marais, op. cit., p. 242. 5. Headlam, op. cit., I, p. 295. 6. ibid., p. 299. 7. ibid., p. 301. 8. ibid., pp. 301-2.

94

Milner: Apostle of Empire

9. ibid., p. 332. 10. ibid., p. 346. 11. ibid., p. 347. 12. Marais, op. cit., p. 266. 13. Headlam, op. cit., pp. 349-63. 14. Marais, op. cit., pp. 269-70. 15. ibid., p. 270. 16. Chamberlain Papers quoted in Marais, op. cit., p. 277. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Headlam, op. cit., p. 358. Marais, op. cit., p. 273. Headlam, op. cit., p. 392. Chamberlain-Milner 27.5.99. CO 417/261 quoted in Marais ,op. cit., p. 278.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

ibid., p. 279. Headlam, op. cit., p. 378. ibid., p. 380. ibid., p. 393. ibid., p. 396. ibid., p. 399. ibid., pp. 400-3. ibid., p. 444. Marais, op. cit., p. 3. Marjorie Juta, The Pace of the Ox; The Life of Paul Kruger (Constable, 1937),

31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

p. 278. John Fischer, Paul Kruger (Seeker & Warburg, 1974), p. 219. Marais, op. cit., p. 282. ibid., p. 284. Headlam, op. cit., pp. 424-6. J. L. Garvin Life of Joseph Chamberlain, Vol. Ill, 1895—1900 (Macmillan, 1930)

36. 37. 38. 39.

p. 308. Headlam, op. cit., p. 355. Marais, op. cit., p. 287. Headlam, op. cit., p. 446. Milner-Chamberlain 2.6.99., with minutes, CO 417/262 quoted in Marais, op. cit.,

p. 289. 40. ibid., p. 290. 41. ibid. 42. J. A. Spender, Life of Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman (Hodder & Stoughton, 1923), Vol. I, p. 231. 43. Headlam, op. cit., p. 442. 44. ibid., p. 448. 45. ibid., p. 447. 46. ibid., pp. 459-60. 47. ibid., p. 456. 48. Marais, op. cit., p. 298. 49. Headlam, op. cit., p. 468. 50. ibid.

Working Up to a Crisis

95

51. ibid., p. 469. 52. ibid., pp. 471-2. 5354. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

ibid., p. 473. ibid., p. 474. Marais, op. cit., p. 318. Garvin, op. cit., p. 472. Marais, op. cit., p. 310. Headlam, op. cit., p. 490. ibid., pp. 490-1. ibid., p. 492. ibid., p. 495. Marais, op. cit., p. 312. ibid., p. 314. Headlam, op. cit., p. 534. ibid., p. 511. ibid., p. 533.

67. ibid., pp. 543—468. ibid., p. 545. 69. ibid., p. 537. „ , ,. _ 70. On 26 September Leyds cabled to Pretoria: ‘Germany will do nothing, r ranee will gladly cause England difficulites but is not to be relied on. . . . Chance that Russia may take action in Asia.’ See Headlam, op. cit., p. 543. 71. Headlam, op. cit., p. 536. 72. ibid., p. 550. 73. 74. 75. 76.

ibid., p. 549ibid. ibid., p. 550. Rhodes had told Milner on 16 September that he was ‘absolutely sure Kruger will concede everything HMG demand.’ Headlam, op. cit., p. 536.

77. ibid., p. 526. 78. Spender, op. cit., I, p. 240. 79. ibid., p. 127. 80. Headlam, op. cit., pp. 560-1. 81. ibid., pp. 531-2.

CHAPTER FIVE

f The Great Day of Reckoning At the outbreak of war, British forces in South Africa amounted to

about 27,000 men, including local troops. Of these, about 11,000, of whom some half were local troops, were in Cape Colony, and 16,000, including 3,000 local troops, in N atal. The army corps, consisting of some 47,000 men, whose formation had necessitated calling up Reserves, which Wolseley had wanted to do in June, was not mobilised until the eve of the outbreak of war, and did not arrive in South Africa until December. The Boers only had a small standing army, consisting mainly of artillery. But virtually all their adult manhood had been trained to ride and shoot, and were organised into ‘commandoes’ which could be rapidly mobilised. Many of these commandoes had battle experience in native wars. The total Boer fighting strength at the outbreak of war was estimated at about 90,000, although only about half of these were available for duty at any one time, owing to the demands of agriculture and necessary civilian work generally. The Boer plan of attack envisaged cutting the railway connection between Cape Colony and Rhodesia and an invasion of the northern part of Cape Colony in order to foment rebellion among the Dutch communities there. But their main attack was to be concentrated on Natal which, immediately on the outbreak of war, was invaded by 14,000 Transvaalers from the east and north and by 10,000 Free Staters from the south. By the end of October the British forces in Natal had been defeated in two battles near the frontier and the greater part of them was besieged in Ladysmith. For a few days there was nothing very much to stop the Boers from occupying the whole of Natal and gaining access to the sea at Durban. This would have been very serious for the British. Fortunately for them, the Boers failed to realise their opportunity before the arrival of reinforcements at Durban relieved the situation. Mean-

‘

The Great Day of Reckoning'

97

while, in the Cape, the British garrisons in Mafeking and Kimberley were besieged, and Boer commandoes had crossed the Orange River into the northern districts. This was the position at the end of October, when Major-General Sir Redvers Buller, who had been placed in command of all British military forces in South Africa, arrived at Cape Town. The plan of campaign agreed in London was to remain on the defensive in Natal and, when the army corps arrived, to take the offensive from the Cape, advancing on Pretoria through the Free State, relieving Kimberley en route. After three weeks in Cape Town, Buller decided to change all this and advance from Natal instead. The army corps, which was to have disembarked at Cape Town, was split up, the major part being sent round to Durban. Buller himself left Cape Town on 22 November to take command in Natal, leaving British forces in the Cape under the command of General Methuen, who was ordered to relieve Kimberley. On 15 December, Buller, crossing the river Tugela with 18,000 troops in an attempt to relieve Ladysmith, was defeated at Colenso by a Boer force half the size of his own commanded by General Botha. During this same ‘black week’—as it became known in England—Methuen was defeated at Magersfontein in an attempt to relieve Kimberley and General Gatacre was defeated further east, at Stormberg. After his defeat at Colenso, Buller abandoned the idea of relieving Ladysmith and actually advised General White, commander of the Ladysmith garrison, to surrender, advice which White declined to take. This sorry performance caused HMG to supersede him as C-in-C by Field Marshal Lord Roberts, who was given Lord Kitchener of Khartum as Chief of Staff. Buller was however left in command in Natal. At the same time steps were taken to send out reinforcements, to recruit volun¬ teers, and to solicit help from the self-governing colonies. The appoint¬ ment of Great Britain’s two best-known soldiers was insisted on by the Cabinet, against the advice of Wolseley, who wanted to retain Buller. Roberts and Kitchener arrived in South Africa early in the New Year. From then on, things started to improve for the British. They now enjoyed a great superiority in quantities of men and equipment and they were being adequately commanded. Roberts reverted to the original plan of advancing on Pretoria through the Free State. On 12 February he led his army across the Orange River. On 15 February, General French, advancing on Roberts’ left flank, relieved Kimberley. On 27

98

Milner: Apostle of Empire

February, the Boer General Cronje, who had defeated Methuen at Magersfontein, surrendered to Roberts at Paardeburg. On 1 March Ladysmith was relieved after the Boers had withdrawn a large part of their forces from Natal to resist Roberts’ advance into the Free State. On 13 March Bloemfontein was captured. On 17 May Mafeking was relieved, after a siege which had lasted seven months. On 24 May the Orange Free State was formally annexed to the British Crown. Johannes¬ burg was captured on 31 May and Pretoria entered on 5 June. On 30 July the Boer General Prinsloo surrendered with 4,000 men in the Free State. On 27 August General Botha was defeated with the main Boer force at Dalmanutha in N.E. Transvaal. On 1 September the Transvaal was formally annexed. On 11 September, Kruger, who had left Pretoria before its capture and gone to Nelspruit, near the Mozambique border, left the Transvaal for Lourenco Marques, en route for Europe, whither he was conveyed by a Dutch warship. By this time organised fighting had ceased, and the second, the longest, the bitterest and, politically, the most controversial phase of the war had started. For the Boers did not surrender after the capture of their capital cities, the occupation of most of their territory, the flight of the Transvaal President, and the break-up of their organised armies. Instead, they started a new phase of the war, in which a comparative handful of armed men, organised into small commandoes, and aided by their mobility, their knowledge of the country, the assistance of the white inhabitants, and their own expert bushcraft, succeeded, for nearly eighteen months, in tying up a British force which outnumbered them by at least ten to one. Milner’s principal task during the critical early months of the war was the delicate one of managing the Cape Ministry, most of whose members he believed to be enemy sympathisers, and some of whom he suspected of being enemy spies. The position was a difficult one, both for the Governor and his Ministers, in that over half the white population of the Colony, being moreover the half on which the Ministry relied for support, passively sympathised with the enemy, and in that a minority of these were actively supporting the enemy. Many of the Dutch inhabi¬ tants of the northern districts greeted the Free State troops who crossed the Orange in November 1899 as liberators. In some cases this may have been a prudent gesture; in others it was a genuine fellow-feeling. There was continual trouble between the Ministry and the military authorities —over local defence, the imposition of martial law and so on—in which

‘The Great Day of Reckoning

99

Milner had the task of trying to meet the army’s requirements and his own wishes without infringing his constitutional limitations as Gover¬ nor. It was not a task for which he was ideally fitted. He was neither a diplomat nor a negotiator. He once told a friend that he loathed com¬ promise. He made matters worse by his obsessive dislike and mistrust of the Cape Dutch. On 11 December he told a friend: ‘The state of this Colony is awful. It simply reeks with treason. I have a sad satisfaction in thinking that at least I did not malign people. I was so abused at one time by the ignorant and always befooled British sentimentalists for saying that there was a serious amount of disaffection in the Colony that I sometimes began to wonder whether I had not been unjust to these ‘simple peasants’. And now! Well!’1 The war was by no means universally popular in England. The Liberal Party line was that HMG were mainly to blame for the failure of negotia¬ tions with Pretoria, but that war was inevitable after the Boer ultimatum. The Liberal parliamentary tactic was, in the words of Campbell-Banner¬ man to his Chief Whip, to condemn ‘the conduct of the Government in working the Transvaal quarrel up to the war pitch without adequately preparing for war.’2 The Liberal leader described himself an ‘anti-Joe but never pro-Kruger.’3 Chamberlain told Milner that ‘the Liberal Party as a whole have behaved extremely well, but I cannot say as much for their leaders. C-B, who wobbled at first, has succeeded in climbing down on the wrong side—that is the Morley-Labouchere side—of the fence, but he has lost influence and I do not think there can be any serious attack on us, except perhaps for the military conduct of the war, and later on upon the settlement.’4 Even in the darkest days of the war, Milner’s mind, and those of British statesmen, were turning towards a consideration of the post-war settlement, on the assumption of a British victory. Milner, in a letter to Fitzpatrick on 28 November, wrote: ‘One thing is quite evident. The ultimate end is a self-governing white community supported by welltreated and justly governed black labour from Cape Town to the Zambezi. There must be one flag, the Union Jack, but, under it, equality of races and languages. ... All South Africa should be one Dominion, with a common Government dealing with customs, railways and defence, perhaps also with native policy. ... A considerable amount of freedom would be left to the several States. But, though this is the ultimate end, it would be madness to attempt it at once. There must be an interval to allow the British population of the Transvaal to return and increase, and

IOO

Milner: Apostle of Empire

the mess to be cleared up, before we can apply the principle of selfgovernment to the Transvaal.... How long the period of unrepresenta¬ tive government may last I cannot say. I would be for shortening it as much as possible, but not before a loyal majority is assured.’5 On io November, Selborne, asking Milner for his view, told him that Chamber¬ lain’s idea was that ‘SAR and OFS should both be annexed and not united to each other or to the Colony. An interim Crown Colony government, to be followed by the responsible government colony system in both cases. No attempt to enforce federation.’ Milner, in reply, agreed that there must be no question of the republics remaining inde¬ pendent. ‘Either we must absolutely smash them politically or our own explusion from this part of the Continent . . . can only be a matter of time.’ He thought that ‘autocratic government’ was ‘for a time inevitable’ and indicated that ‘I should be happy enough myself to try and clean the Augean stable.’ He expressed the view either that the Cape Constitution would have to be suspended or that some of the Afrikaner districts might be attached ‘as conquered districts to the Transvaal and OFS, thus bringing them for a time under virtually despotic government.’6 The policy of annexation was carried into effect by Proclamations in the Free State and the Transvaal as soon as the capitals of these Republics had been captured and more or less effective occupation established. When, in March 1900, the Boer leaders made peace offers to Roberts on condition that the two Republics retained their independence, it was made clear to them that independence was not negotiable. In this, the Liberal Opposition agreed with the Government. Campbell-Bannerman’s line was annexation and ‘the fullest self-government at the earliest possible time.’ There were, however, a number of prominent Liberals, including Courtney, Bryce and Morley, who advocated an immediate peace settle¬ ment acknowledging the independence of the two Republics. In opposition to Milner’s advice, Roberts decided virtually to denude Cape Colony of troops in order to concentrate the maximum force for an advance through the Free State to Pretoria. ‘No doubt a certain amount of risk had to be run, but protracted inaction seemed to me to involve more serious dangers than the bolder course which I have decided to adopt.’7 Roberts’ confidence was justified and the defeat of the main body of the enemy in the Republics for the time being took the heart out of the rebels in the Cape. The question of the Cape rebels was an immediate one. There had been a large-scale rebellion in November when OFS commandoes had invaded

‘

The Great Day of Reckoning

IOI

the Colony. As a result of Roberts’ advance the Colony had been cleared of enemy forces, the rebellion put down, and a number of active rebels rounded up. Milner estimated that there were ‘at least 5,000’ active rebels. ‘We cannot try them all for high treason. ... I don’t want to try too many. Yet we must do something to them .... Statutory disenfranchise¬ ment seems to me a possible . . . compromise.’8 The Cape Ministry proposed trial by a special tribunal of ‘a certain limited number of the principal offenders, and a proclamation of amnesty for the rest’. Chamberlain and Milner agreed that the principal offenders should be tried before a special tribunal, but insisted that the rest should be tried as well and, if found guilty, fined and disenfranchised. Milner attached particular importance to disenfranchisement since this might alter the electoral balance in the Cape decisively in favour of the British colonists and against the Bond. Chamberlain’s—and Milner’s—insistence split the Ministry whose members were, of course, just as aware as Milner of the implications. Three members—Schreiner, Solomon and Herholdt—were prepared to introduce legislation providing for five years’ disenfranchisement. But the other three—Merriman, Sauer and te Water—objected to any proposal to deprive of their civil rights men who, in Merriman s words, ‘have at worst taken up arms for what they, however erroneously, con¬ sidered to be a righteous war—a war in which they joined the Queen’s enemies to resist what prominent men here and in England have repeat¬ edly spoken of as a crime.’9 Chamberlain and Milner thought that dis¬ enfranchisement for life did not seem to be a very severe punishment for rebellion.’10 The differences on the subject between the Governor and the Ministry, and the more serious differences within the Ministry, led Schreiner, on 13 June, to submit to the Governor the Ministry’s resignation. Milner accepted it, and in accordance with constitutional procedure, sent for Sir Gordon Sprigg, leader of the Progressive Opposition Party. Sprigg, by this time seventy years of age, succeeded in forming a Government which, in October 1900, passed through the Assembly, in face of bitter opposition, the necessary legislation providing for compensation for loyalists and punishment for rebels in accordance with HMG’s wishes. Milner, in a letter to Fiddes, whom he had lent to Roberts as political adviser, described what had happened. ‘Schreiner at the last moment could not rise at a fence. He took a very courageous, very conscientious,

102

Milner: Apostle of Empire

and very correct line. But he was too divided in his own mind, and too anxious not wholly to break with his own followers, to carry any large body of them with him. With the absolutely unscrupulous and uncom¬ promising people on the other side, his line was too moderate. I think on the whole he is not sorry to be out of it. But I am sorry to lose him, as I don’t feel absolutely certain that the new Ministry will be able to attach sufficient of the other side to carry their measures. ... I am absolutely determined under no circumstances whatever to give in about this business, and if I don’t weaken, I don’t see how HMG can. They wouldn’t care to have me back at 47 Duke Street, St. James’s, though I should like nothing better in the world. . . .’11 Schreiner had left office just as Milner was beginning to appreciate his qualities. Milner had been fully supported by Chamberlain over the question of the Cape rebels, on which he felt so strongly. But, as his letter to Fiddes indicates, he still feared lest the ‘people at home’ would ‘wobble’. In a letter to Jim Rendel at the end of May, a propos of a Balliol dinner at which Brodrick, Under-Secretary for War and an old Balliol friend, had spoken in his support, he wrote: ‘The fact is that the Under¬ secretaries have largely saved me. Chamberlain I believe has stuck to me right through but, till I succeeded, I don’t believe there was another Minister who wouldn’t have chucked me. ... Not that I am out of the wood yet. There is a fearful row here over the punishment of the Cape rebels. Of course the British Public will expect British authority to be vindicated and everybody made happy without anybody being made uncomfortable. . . . And then—there is the Transvaal settlement. That will be down on my head like a ton of bricks before I am disentangled of my Cape rebels. So, one way or the other, I am pretty sure to break my neck over this business yet. But come what may, I have saved the British position in South Africa.’12 ‘Till I succeeded’. ‘I have saved the British position in South Africa.’ ‘What did Milner mean by these, for him, unusually boastful expressions? In his own eyes, (a) he had rallied to the Imperial cause the British population in South Africa who, before his arrival, had become dis¬ heartened with HMG and on the point of making the best that could be made of increasing Afrikaner predominance; (b) he had induced a reluctant British Government to go to war in order to vindicate British paramountcy in South Africa; and (c) he had induced the British Govern¬ ment publicly to declare that the two Boer Republics would be annexed to the British Empire.

''The Great Day of Reckoning

103

So, for once, he was in a mood almost of euphoria. In a letter to Lady Edward Cecil, who had been staying at Groot Scliuur, Rhodes’s house in Cape Town, while her husband was shut up in Mafeking, and whom he was to marry twenty-one years later, he wrote ,on 1 July: ‘Yesterday we had the most tearing ride. Chester [Chester-Master, one of his ADCs] to his great happiness got the lot of us—Princess Adolphus of Teck, Lady Charles, Mrs. Atherton, Bendor [the Duke of Westminster, another ADC], Dudley, Churchill [Winston Churchill, then a war correspondent], Frank Rhodes, [Cecil Rhodes’s brother and one of the Reform leaders at the time of the Jameson Raid], Miss Struben and about six others—out to Kalabas Kraal, and we ran for 50 minutes on a very hot scent and killed a fox in the open. I say ‘we’ grandly, but as a matter of fact I was perfectly cooked after galloping for half-an-hour and had to leave the others, or some of them, to finish it. ... I hope to do better next time and be in at the death. . . .’13 A General Election, called the ‘khaki’ election by the Government’s opponents, who accused them of cashing in on what appeared to be the approach of victory, was held in the United Kingdom in October 1900 and resulted in an overall majority of 134 for the Government. It was Chamberlain who insisted on holding the election. From his, and the Government’s, point of view it was only held just in time. For the war was entering its long and frustrating guerrilla phase and was to last for another eighteen months, during which there was mounting criticism at home about the way in which it was being carried on. Milner, with his mistrust of the ‘wobbling’ tendencies of the British public, was anxious about the prospect of an election. He asked a friend: ‘Will it strengthen the position here? ... It happens to be of supreme importance that people here should be convinced that we are going through with the South African settlement on the lines already laid down. If the result of the election is to strengthen that conviction, victory is assured and the ultimate settlement easier than most people think. But any encourage¬ ment to people . . . whose only hope ... is in the changeableness of British opinion, may ruin everything.’14 By ‘settlement on the lines already laid down’ Milner presumably meant ‘on the lines which he himself advocated.’ For all that had been ‘laid down’ was that the Republics should lose their independence. In addition to this, Milner advocated, and was known to advocate, punishment of colonial rebels and a sufficient period of Crown Colony administration for the ex-Republics to ensure that there was a British

104

Milner: Apostle of Empire

majority in the Transvaal before there was any grant of self-government. He also advocated an imposed peace settlement—‘unconditional sur¬ render’ and no negotiations with the enemy. There was already much opposition in England to these views, which were also, at this time, Chamberlain’s views. In September 1900 Milner was complaining to Haldane of ‘the cloud of misunderstanding which has quite hidden me, my views, feelings, actions and character, from many of my old friends.’15 As the war continued its inglorious and frustrating course, as the extent of military incompetence began to be realised, and as increasing unease was manifested in England about the policy of‘concentration camps’ and ‘scorched earth’, and what CampbellBannerman described as ‘methods of barbarism’ generally, to which Kitchener was driven as the result of the Boer guerrilla tactics, this opposition grew in extent and intensity. And Milner, rather than Chamberlain, was becoming the principal target for this opposition. Campbell-Bannerman was particularly critical of Milner and extremely irritated by what he called the religio Milneriana of the Liberal Imperial¬ ists, most of whom not only refused to criticise Milner but tried to prevent other people from doing so. In a letter to Lord Ripon, one of his principal political confidants, Campbell-Bannerman, in November 1900, wrote: ‘We cannot shut our eyes or our ears to the fact that Milner has close friends very near to us. I have heard them spoken of as the Balliol set; they include Asquith, Grey and Haldane, and it is my con¬ viction that one of the main influences causing the determined support given by them to the Government’s South African policy is Milner worship. ... I think he is the worst man for the position. ... I do not say it would be proper for us to arraign the conduct of Milner. But I do not see my way to vote for him, still less to announce beforehand that I shall do so. ... I cannot vote black white to save the faces of Milner and his devotees. . . .’16 Campbell-Bannerman’s idea about the ‘Milner worship’ of some of his nominal adherents was not altogether chimerical. At about this time, in December 1900, Haldane told Milner: ‘You must not judge the Opposi¬ tion by the speeches of Harcourt and Bryce. They do not represent the bulk, or anything like the bulk, of Opposition opinion.’ Referring to a recent Commons debate, he added: ‘The bulk was represented by the refusal to divide on the amendment moved after hearing Chamberlain’s speech. A minority would have divided and would, if they dared, have moved for your recall. ... If things continue as they are, you need not

‘

The Great Day of Reckoning

i°5

be afraid of an adverse majority in the Opposition. . . . Our confidence in you is unabated by a hair’s breadth.’17 As Haldane had indicated, there was a section of the Opposition which wanted Campbell-Bannerman to move for Milner’s recall. Camp¬ bell-Bannerman refused to do this, as it would ‘raise a storm’. The Government and their supporters—whatever the private reservations of some of them—were compelled by the venom of Milner’s opponents to form up solidly behind him. As an outward and visible sign of the Government’s support, Milner, after having been offered and having refused, a Peerage, was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, of which he was already a Companion and a Knight Commander. During the Autumn (English) of 1900, as regular warfare began to peter out into what, at first, were optimistically regarded by the British as ‘mopping-up’ operations, arrangements were made for a gradual move from war to peace conditions. Roberts returned to England at the end of November, after handing over to Kitchener the task of finishing off the war. It had already been arranged that Milner, after Roberts’ de¬ parture, should become Administrator of the conquered territories, retaining his High Commisionership and handing over his Governorship of the Cape to Hely Hutchinson, Governor of Natal. This was in accordance with Milner’s wish, expressed to Chamberlain at the end of May: ‘Not only should I prefer to go to the Transvaal, taking my High Commissionership with me, and not only do I think it the right plan from the public point of view, but I should not care to stay in South Africa on any other condition. ... I am deeply interested in the work of starting the new and—if we are not hopeless bunglers—really British South Africa on the right lines. And that can only be done from the centre. I am not... very hopeful about Cape Colony. But if we make the Transvaal what it ought to be, the Colony will matter less and . . . with the heart sound, the whole body will be saved . . .’18 In accordance with this arrangement Milner was to transfer his Headquarters from Cape Town to the Transvaal as soon as the military situation permitted, and to start taking over the administration of the conquered territories from the military. In the event, Milner left Cape Town for Johannesburg, where he was to set up his new Headquarters, at the end of February 1901, when peace negotiations were proceeding between Kitchener and the Boer C-in-C, General Botha. After Roberts had left and Kitchener had succeeded him, the High Commissioner and the new C-in-C were naturally in very close contact.

io 6

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Milner had known Kitchener ten years before, when both had been in Egyptian Government service. At that time Milner had had no very high opinion of him. Now, in South Africa, he was in disagreement with his method of conducting the war. Milner advocated, in his own words, ‘the gradual securing of each district before tackling the next and slowly occupying the country bit by bit rather than rapidly and repeatedly scouring it.’ Kitchener, on the other hand, inclined towards treating the whole country as enemy territory until the guerrilla bands had all been rounded up. This involved the burning of farmhouses and crops—lead¬ ing to the interment in ‘concentration camps’ of evicted non-combatants and a policy of ‘scorched earth’ in order to deny the means of subsis¬ tence to the enemy. Consequently, relations between the two men were not very easy. At the end of October, before Milner had taken over from Roberts, Milner told Lady Edward Cecil, with whom, at about this time, he started a regular correspondence: ‘Kitchener! It is fortunate that I admire him in many ways so much, and admiring, am prepared to stand a lot and never take offence.... I am determined to get on with him, and I think he likes me and has respect for me, if he has for anybody. But shall I be able to manage this strong, self-willed man in a hurry (for he is dying to be off in time to take India) and to turn his enormous power into the right channel?’19 Kitchener had been promised the post of C-in-C India as soon as he had completed his South African assignment. He had set his heart on this and was anxious to get the war finished as soon as possible. If it were too prolonged he might even lose the Indian post. He disliked the sort of war he had to fight—the burning of farms, the internment of women and children, the chasing up and down the country after guerrilla bands who made rings round his own patrols. He realised that there was little credit, and possibly a lot of discredit, attached to being in command under these circumstances, where there were no resounding victories to be won and no great cities to be captured. One effect of the guerrilla war was to start a new rebellion in Cape Colony. The fall of Schreiner’s Ministry had removed the principal restraining influence on the Afrikaner nationalists. Milner told Chamberlain in mid-November: ‘I have no doubt that if any small commando were to slip through, it would find adherents in almost every part of the Colony.20 In the middle of December the Colony was again invaded by a commando and, as Milner had foreseen, there was another rebellion

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which necessitated the imposition of martial law over most of the Colony. Milner was confirmed in his view that suspension of the Cape Constitution and the disenfranchisement of the rebels for life would be necessary as part of the process of restoring British supremacy in South Africa. He continued to press this view onto Chamberlain, and Chamberlain continued, tactfully but firmly, to tell him that suspension was ‘not on*. In spite of continual reinforcements—by the beginning of 1901 there were over 100,000 British and Colonial troops in South Africa—and continually increasing costs—the war was costing about million a month—very little progress was being made towards victory. Kitchener’s blockhouses, linked together by trenches and barbed wire in his attempts to restrict the enemy’s movements, his burning of farms and his concentration camps, seemed to annoy public opinion in England more than they harassed the enemy, whose commandoes time and again slipped through Kitchener’s cordons and once appeared within 100 miles of Cape Town. In England war weariness wras becoming apparent, even among those who had supported the war from the beginning. The new King, Edward VII (Queen Victoria died in January 1901) was anxious for peace. In South Africa, Kitchener, on the British side, and Botha, the Boer C-in-C, both wanted peace. As early as the previous March Botha had made peace overtures, but had insisted on the Republics retaining their independence. Early in 1901 he tried again. There was an exchange of messages between him and Kitchener, through Mrs. Botha, in which Kitchener made it clear that he could not discuss the question of inde¬ pendence, which was chose jugee. Eventually a meeting was arranged at Middleburg on 28 February. Kitchener informed Brodrick (who had replaced Lansdowne as Secretary of State for War after the October elections), and Milner, who informed Chamberlain. Kitchener told Brodrick that he wanted ‘to do away with anything humiliating to the Boers in their surrender.’ Chamberlain, sensing Milner’s distaste for any negotiations at all with the enemy, warned him by cable not to reject any proposal Botha may make without consulting us.’ At the Middleburg meeting Kitchener told Botha that he was willing to recommend to HMG; (a) Crown Colony government for Transvaal and Orange River Colony (the name to which OFS had reverted after annexation), with a nominated Executive and elected Assembly, followed after a period by representative government; (b) English and Dutch languages on an equality; (c) Boers to retain rifles and rifle ammunition

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as a protection against natives: (d) no enfranchisement of natives before grant of representative government. Amnesty for all bona fide acts of war committed by enemy nationals presented no difficulty, but Botha insisted on an amnesty for all Cape and Natal rebels as well. In a letter to Brodrick describing the negotiations Kitchener wrote: ‘He (Botha) spoke very strongly as to the feeling of his burghers about Sir A. Milner’s appointment and at one time seemed to think that it would probably prevent any chance of their giving in. I assured him that Sir Alfred was a first-rate man and that I thought there was no chance of a change.’ He described Botha’s adamant objection to any question of ‘Kaffirs’ being enfranchised and how he had induced him to agree to let the matter be decided by a representative government. He also stressed Botha’s insistence that he could not desert the Cape and Natal rebels, although ‘he did not see much objection to their disenfran¬ chisement.’ Kitchener concluded: ‘It seems a pity that the war should go on, for the points raised by Botha all seem capable of adjustment.’21 Two days later, on 2 March, Kitchener met Milner at Bloemfontein to discuss what recommendations should be made to HMG about the terms to be offered to Botha. That evening Milner wrote to Lady Edward Cecil about their conversations: ‘We don’t see eye to eye as might be expected. He is fearfully sick of the war, sees no possible credit in the continuance of it, and is, I think, rather disposed to go far in making things easy for the enemy. I feel that every concession we make now means more trouble hereafter. At the same time it is not easy, with people sensibly weakening at home, and with your General on the spot desperately anxious to come to terms, to insist on all that you personally consider important. I foresee that I shall be driven to compromise—a thing I loathe. But I hope to save our policy from anything discreditable, though I fear it will be impossible to save it from some concession which will be rather weak.’22 The two men compiled their separate versions of a draft offer for HMG’s approval. The only disagreement of substance was over an amnesty for the Cape and Natal rebels. Kitchener was agreeable to the Boer request to extend an amnesty from the enemy burghers of the Republics to the rebellious British subjects of the Cape and Natal. Milner was adamant that this should not be done. HMG agreed with him and the letter finally sent to Botha incorporated Milner’s views on the subject. On the native franchise the wording approved by HMG was: ‘It is not

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the intention of HMG to give native franchise before representative government is granted, and if this is given it will be so limited as to secure the just predominance of the white man.’ This was a minuscule concession to British liberal feeling in that it provided for the possibility of some native franchise before the grant of representative government. Botha, replying to the offer, which was sent in Kitchener’s name, wrote: ‘I do not feel disposed to recommend that the terms of the said letter shall have the earnest consideration of my Government.’ And so the first attempt at peace negotiations came to an end. Kitchener had already told Brodrick that Botha was unlikely to accept the terms offered, ‘particularly in respect of an amnesty. I therefore insisted on my views being sent home in the High Commissioner’s telegram to the Colonial Secretary. I hardly expected after the High Commissioner’s strongly-worded objections to my proposals that HMG would decide differently from what they did. I did all in my power to induce the High Commissioner to change his views which, on this subject, seem to me to be very narrow. I feel certain and have good grounds for knowing that an amnesty and the King’s Pardon for 200/300 rebels (carrying with it disenfranchisement, which Botha willingly accepted), would be extremely popular among the majority of the British and with all the Dutch in South Africa, but there no doubt exists a small section in both Colonies who are opposed to any conciliatory measure being taken to end the war, and I fear that their influence is paramount; they want extermination and I suppose they will get it. Sir A. Milner’s views may be strictly just, but they are to my mind vindictive and I do not know of any case in history where under similar circumstances an amnesty has not been granted. We are now carrying the war on to put 200/300 Dutchmen in prison at the end of it. It seems to me absurd and wrong, and I wonder the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not have a flit.’23 It is uncertain whether Botha rejected the terms because of the amnesty conditions. Milner, in reply to a query from Chamberlain, who was evidently uneasy on the subject, told him that the reason was that ‘he still hoped for independence’.24 But he had entered on the negotia¬ tions knowing that independence would not be conceded. He was later quoted by Chamberlain as having told Kitchener that one reason why he rejected the British terms was that he ‘strongly objected to Sir A. Milner’.25 Since disenfranchisement was conceded, why was Milner so adamant

no

Milner: Apostle of Empire

about additional punishment, particularly as political conditions at the Cape would probably ensure that Cape rebels were not punished anyway, apart from disenfranchisement? A year later, at Vereeniging, he agreed to virtually the same terms as he had rejected at Bloemfontein. Possibly, disliking the idea of a negotiated peace anyway, he raised every objection which he thought would be sustained by HMG. He made his private view about the negotiations clear in two letters to Lady Edward Cecil. In the first, dated 8 March, while the reply to Botha was being discussed over the wires with London, he wrote: ‘Knowing the feeling at home, which is one of increasing disgust with this business, and the anxiety of Ministers about the cost of it, and the difficulty of keeping the national resolution to the sticking point, I felt that I could not afford to have a rupture with K on the question of the terms of peace, with him appealing to the current sentiment against the unbending attitude of the High Commissioner. So I had to bargain and, by long argumentation ... I managed to arrive at something not good but tolerable. ... Fortunately he felt the importance to him of my endorsement of his recommendations as much as I felt the awkwardness of a split with him. I was backed up on the only proposal on which K and I had openly differed.... We now await the result.’26 When the result was known he told Lady Edward: ‘The Botha negotiations have entirely failed. I hope we shall take warn¬ ing and avoid such rotten ground in future.’27 And so the war went on for another fourteen months, until it ended on virtually the same terms as Kitchener had wanted to offer Botha at Middleburg. On i April, Chamberlain, after advising Milner not to bother about the attacks being made on him by Opposition Press and politicians in England, told him: ‘I am convinced that the Government is even stronger now in regard to its South African policy than it was at the last election. The terms of settlement offered by you and Kitchener to Botha and approved by us here are generally admitted to have gone to the utmost limits of concession.... I am inclined to hope that we may have no more negotiations.... There are not wanting commentators who see in them a proof of weakness and of doubt on the part of the Government.’28 This, of course, was precisely Milner’s view and he must have been encouraged by the tone of Chamberlain’s letter. But Chamberlain had been rather optimistic about the strength of public opinion in favour of the Government. The Liberal Opposition were becoming more and more critical about the conduct of the war, and more and more people

‘

The Great Day of Reckoning

’

Ill

were beginning to listen to them. Milner’s friend E. T. Cook had just been ejected from the editorship of the Daily News, one of the principal Liberal newspapers, which thereafter conformed to the Liberal Party line. This line was expressed in the Commons by Campbell-Bannerman on 14 February, when he called for a negotiated peace, and at Oxford on 2 March, when he advocated self-government for the two ex-Republics immediately after the end of military rule. On 15 May, speaking to a National Liberal Federation meeting at Bradford, he attacked Milner’s attitude towards an amnesty and blamed him for the continuance of the war. ‘Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man shall not be molested in one British Colony and be punished if he goes into a neigh¬ bouring British Colony?’29 His biographer tells us that he suspected Milner of ‘dragging a reluctant Ministry along the path of unconditional surrender and no amnesty.’30 But, on these matters, Chamberlain was in agreement with Milner. In any case, he was not a man who was easily dragged along. Apart from criticisms about policy, which he was quite prepared to defend, Milner had to deal with criticisms about conditions in the con¬ centration camps, where Boers, mostly women and children, were confined as part of Kitchener’s plan for cutting off sources of aid and comfort from the enemy commandoes he was pursuing. Milner was responsible neither for the existence of the camps nor for the way in which they were run. Nevertheless he had to take most of the blame, which was directed towards the very high death-rate prevailing in them. He told Chamberlain, in December 1901, that he thought that ‘the whole thing . . . has been a mistake. . . . But a sudden reversal of policy would only make matters worse.’31 The administration of the camps was trans¬ ferred from military to civilian control and conditions gradually im¬ proved. Before the war ended the Boers themselves were admitting that their women and children were better off in the camps then they would have been outside. Botha himself, just before the end of the war, told de Wet, a famous commando leader and intransigent Boer nationalist; ‘One is only too thankful to know that our wives are under British protection.’32 As has been mentioned, Milner was moving his Headquarters from Cape Town to Johannesburg at the time of Kitchener’s negotiations with Botha. In Johannesburg he was, in his own words, ‘settled ... in a villa which might be the residence of a prosperous London tradesman at Hendon or Chislehurst. It is on the outskirts of Johannesburg on top of a hill to the north of the town, well away from mines and places of

112

Milner: Apostle of Empire

business and looking over magnificent rolling country north towards Pretoria. The weather is splendid and we are nearly 6,000 feet above the sea-Here I mean to stay at any rate until I have had a run home... .’33 Chamberlain, in January, had suggested to Milner that he should come home for a rest before taking up his duties as Administrator of the con¬ quered territories. Milner replied that he would like to come home for three months in April or May, after he had laid the foundations of civil administration. At the end of March he told Chamberlain: ‘If I am ever to get away from South Africa for a break, I must get away now.’ Chamberlain told him that ‘in view of the agitation of pro-Boers here and in South Africa for your recall’, he should ‘send an official application for leave . . . which might be published if necessary, so that it is made perfectly clear .. . that it is your own wish and necessity for temporary leave for the sake of health which prompt your request and not any suggestion from here.’34 Milner sailed from Cape Town on 8 May and arrived at Southampton on 24 May. In view of the criticism which had been directed at him, and in order to show the Government’s confidence in him and in the policy which was being pursued, arrangements had been made to receive him with great eclat. When he arrived at Waterloo from Southampton he was met by the Prime Minister, Chamberlain, Balfour, and most of the rest of the Cabinet. From Waterloo he was driven, with Salisbury and Chamberlain, direct to Marlborough House, where he was received by King Edward VII, who conferred a Peerage on him. (He took the title of Baron Milner of St. James’s and Cape Town.) On 25 May Chamberlain gave a lunch in his honour at Claridge’s, with the Duke of Cam¬ bridge and half the members of the Cabinet present. Chamberlain, proposing Milner’s health, invited his guests to join him in the hope that ‘Lord Milner, heartened and encouraged by the proof that he still has the support of his fellow-countrymen, will be able to crown the work he has undertaken by laying broad and deep the foundations of a united South Africa, as free and prosperous and loyal as the sister federations of Australia and Canada.’35 Milner, in his reply, after expressing his belief that the end of the war was ‘fairly in sight’, added: ‘Peace we could have had by self-effacement. We could have had it easily and comfortably on those terms. But we could not have held our own by any other methods than those which we have been obliged to adopt. I do not know whether I feel more inclined to laugh than to cry when I have to listen for the hundredth time to those dear delusions . . . that it only required

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a little more time, a little more patience, a little more meekness, a little more of all those gentle virtues of which I know that I am conspicuously devoid, in order to conciliate panoplied hate, insensate ambitions, invincible ignorance. . . ,’36 Milner spent the next week-end at Windsor Castle (where he was introduced to the then new game of bridge), was made a Privy Coun¬ cillor, and, the following week, received the freedom of the City of London. The welcome given to him in England was by no means unanimous. There were other people beside the Boers to whom he was distasteful. In the Opposition Press and in speeches he was variously described as ‘heartless’, ‘bloodthirsty’, ‘narrow-minded’, ‘arrogant’, ‘a prancing proconsul’, and ‘a wretched penny-a-liner’. Morley denounced him as ‘an imitation Bismarck’, who had broken off the Bloemfontein negotiations without preparing for war, whereas an able negotiator would have arrived at a settlement and avoided war. Merriman and Sauer, who had been members of the Schreiner Ministry and were supporters of the Bond, were in England at the time, protesting against annexation and denouncing the conduct of the war. They were made much of by Milner’s English opponents. Merriman, at a banquet in his honour, compared the official welcome given to Milner with ‘the Imperial spectacle of the servile Senate which decreed ovations and triumphs to Caligula and Domitian when they had received rebuffs from the ancestors both of ourselves and the heroic Dutch’, and described Milner’s High Commissionership as ‘a career of hopeless and unmiti¬ gated failure’. He condemned the decision to leave him to administer the post-war settlement as ‘a ruinous policy’. He described Milner as ‘a violent partisan.. . . His predictions never come true.. .. The frivolous utterances in his despatches show an ill-balanced and unregulated mind which is utterly unable to cope with the problem.’37 Milner spent three days at Highbury in conference with Chamberlain. Their discussions were mainly concerned with reconstruction and the post-war settlement, which will be dealt with in the next chapter. Mean¬ while, the war was still on, and Milner had several discussions with the War Office and with Roberts. It was estimated that not more than 17,000 Boers were still in the field, as against something like ten times that number of British troops. Kitchener, baulked as he believed of the opportunity of making peace in March, now asked Milner for his support for a pronouncement (a) that the property of Boers who did not surrender

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

by a certain date would be confiscated, (b) that prisoners captured after a certain date would be liable to perpetual banishment, and (c) that burghers who had previously surrendered and who had resumed fight¬ ing would not in future be treated as prisoners-of-war if recaptured. He told Milner that he feared the war would go on indefinitely unless such measures were taken. Milner, in reply, cabled that he did not think the Government would accept these proposals and that he could not support them. Eventually, on 7 August, with the agreement of Chamberlain and Milner, Kitchener issued a Proclamation calling upon all Boers to surrender before 15 September on pain of perpetual banishment for the leaders and a tax on the others to meet the cost of supporting their families in the concentration camps. These threats had little or no effect and were never implemented. In a letter dated 7 June, after he had been in England for a fortnight, Milner warned Kitchener that there was a ‘natural impatience’ about the ‘want of clearly visible progress in the war’ and that, failing such pro¬ gress, there would be a demand for ‘some of our heads on a charger, possibly yours, more likely mine, still more likely the Ministry’s.... As regards negotiations, there is a general wish to see the war end without more of them. But there is no intention among responsible people to go back upon what has been said. The door is still open, only it is a “take it or leave it” sort of door. No disposition to open it any wider.’38 While in England, Milner continued his cultivation of the Liberal Imperialist leaders. He told Haldane that he had always ‘striven to avoid anything which could shock Liberal feeling in the true sense of the word. I claim to be, myself, at bottom a Liberal, my Imperialism is too Liberal, too advanced, to be understood to-day.’ Haldane, in reply, assured him that he could count on the continued support of Asquith, Grey and himself, and that Rosebery ‘is probably out of it all now.’ Milner also saw something of Rhodes, who arrived in England in July. Before the war, Milner’s feelings towards Rhodes had been some¬ what critical. Their negotiations over the future of Rhodesia had been conducted at arm’s length. During the war, attempts had been made to split the pro-British interest in South Africa by setting Milner against Rhodes and vice versa. But the deep identity between them on the future of South Africa had drawn the two men together, although they never became intimate. Rhodes was unequivocal, both publicly and privately, in his support for Milner’s policies, and Milner realised the extent to which Rhodes’s influence, and Rhodes’s money, kept the Progressive

‘The Great Day of Reckoning

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Party, and British influence generally, alive in Cape Colony. Before going to England, Rhodes wrote to Milner, telling him he would like to meet him ‘to talk over personal matters with you which may affect the world’. They duly met on one or two occasions in England. Rhodes told him about his Will and his plans for the Rhodes Scholarships, and invited Milner to become one of his Trustees. This was something which greatly appealed to Milner and he told Rhodes, in a letter, that he was ‘in complete sympathy with your broad ambitions for the race.’ He also seems to have persuaded him that part of the surplus income from the Trust, in the words of a letter from Milner to Albert Grey, another of the Trustees, ‘might be devoted (a) to the formation of a Parliamentary Party which, without any desire for office, will always give their votes for Imperial purposes and (b) to the steady encouragement of emigration, especially women, and getting our people on the land. We shall never be safe in Africa until we occupy the soil equally with the Dutch.’39 Milner sailed from Southampton on 10 August and arrived at Cape Town on 28 August. He told a friend that his time in England had been ‘in one way a profitable one-1 have freshened up a lot of old acquain¬ tances of the better kind and have I believe done both the Government and the saner portion of the Opposition a lot of good. Asquith and Grey’s stand has been fine and must... produce a good effect in the long run. All this is encouraging and, though the military continue to prove their complete incompetence.... I think we now have sufficient way on the ship to carry her well into port in spite of persistent bungling.’ He referred to what he regarded as ‘the total and ridiculous breakdown of our system, military, administrative, constitutional. We have got through a moderate-sized crisis, but we should never get through a big one in this condition, with such departments, and with the ultimate decision on great external questions resting with an Assembly so totally incompetent to deal with them as the House of Commons, or an effete octopus like the Treasury. My determination therefore is strengthened to get out of harness as soon as I honourably can. I disbelieve so entirely in the hierarchy of which I am a member to stay in it longer than I need.’40 This last sentence is one example of that intermittent feeling of disgust and disillusionment with public life which periodically afflicted Milner. Apart from these intermittent moods, he showed, at all periods of his life until the very end, a determination to remain in public life, combined with a determination not to accept office except on his own terms. Back in South Africa, Milner was soon deeply involved (a) in disputes

ii6

Milner: Apostle of Empire

with Kitchener about the war, (b) in the eternal Cape Constitutional question, and (c) in the work of reconstruction. With regard to the war. With his eyes fixed on post-war reconstruc¬ tion, Milner was anxious to get the gold-mining started again on as large a scale as possible, and to get as much as possible of the conquered territories back to normal life as soon as possible. He wanted as many Uitlander refugees as possible back on the Rand as soon as there was transport to carry them and food to feed them. He complained that Kitchener, by his insistence on continued military administration as long as there was any fighting going on, was hampering the work of recon¬ struction. Chamberlain, from a different aspect, was also worrying about Kitchener’s policy. He told Milner: ‘The war drags on and there is no assurance that it may not continue for months and years to come. This naturally leads to some public impatience and irritation . .. and we shall have great difficulties when Parliament meets.’ He complained that ‘we still employ 200,000 troops with 500 guns to deal with 10,000 men with no guns at all.’ He referred to a plan agreed between Milner and himself to capture the Boer leaders, and asked what Kitchener was doing about it. ‘We might use this plan, which we do not think has been fully grasped, to catch one leader first, say Botha or Steyn, and, if successful, we could try it with another. We think that the war will never end until the leaders are captured, and the surrender of one would be more important than the result of all the drives. ... I know that it is a delicate matter inter¬ fering with military discretion, but you might discuss question with Lord Kitchener, and in any case I desire fullest possible report and explanation from you.’41 Milner had been discussing these, and related, questions for weeks with Kitchener without result. ‘A natural dictator himself, he found Kitchener’s military dictatorship intolerable. He wanted to get down to the work of reconstruction. But Kitchener would not have it. Accord¬ ingly, in his drastic way, he decided that Kitchener must be removed.’42 Chamberlain’s telegram seemed a heaven-sent opportunity and he immediately cabled back: ‘I have not altered my views about the conduct of the war since I was in England, but I do not think that my frequentlyexpressed opinions have any weight with the C-in-C. He may under great pressure appear to bow to instructions from home. But in matters military he will never take anything but his own line. The remedy, and the only remedy, is to change the command.’43

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Chamberlain circulated this telegram to the Cabinet. Salisbury com¬ mented: ‘I have read Milner’s letter [sic] with care but I have not derived any idea of what policy he wishes to cany out. If you desire to move in the direction in which Milner is pressing you, you must make him set down his demands and, if you approve them, urge them on Kitchener.’ Chamberlain minuted his agreement with the Prime Minister and added: ‘Nothing can be done to give the impression that we have lost confidence in Kitchener.’ So Milner was again ‘choked off’, as he had been over the Cape Constitution. Meanwhile, he had replied officially to Chamberlain’s cable, telling him that ‘any view on conduct of war which HMG desire to impress on Lord Kitchener would be more effective coming direct from War Office than from me. . . . Personally ... I do not believe we shall ever catch leaders by chasing them round South Africa. If we out¬ pace them they will dodge us. Mobility and local knowledge can only be perfected by more and more decentralisation and less racing about. This ... I suppose we shall learn in time. Meanwhile I cannot expect Lord Kitchener to attach importance to my views on strategy. To intrude them might only disturb our otherwise good relations, and would produce absolutely no effect.’44 And so the war dragged on, to the accompaniment of mounting criticism and disillusion in England and increasing bitterness in South Africa. But the Boers were nearly at the end of their tether. In January 1902 a formal offer of mediation was made to HMG by the Government of Holland. HMG replied that the first overtures should come from the Boer leaders in South Africa. This suggestion was transmitted to ActingPresident Shalk Burger of the Transvaal, and President Steyn of the Free State, both of whom were in the field. Aided by British safeconducts, which they requested, members of the two Boer Governments were able to meet on 9 April at Klerksdorp, where they decided to ask Kitchener to meet them in order to receive from them a peace proposal. They were invited to Pretoria, where Kitchener met them at his resi¬ dence. Milner made no secret of his opposition to any negotiations at all. Chamberlain, up to a point, agreed with him. He told him on 9 April, when negotiations were in the wind: ‘Personally, I believe, as I always have done, that anything short of unconditional surrender will be most dangerous and may lead to further trouble; but this is not the opinion of everyone and ... we should be seriously attacked if we allowed the negotiations to go off on what could with any show of reason be alleged to be an insufficient cause.’45 This was a tactfully-worded warning to

n8

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Milner not to sabotage the negotiations and not to hold out in the matter of an amnesty. On io April, after Kitchener had told him of the impending meeting in Pretoria, Milner told Chamberlain that Kitchener wanted to know what line to take, and added: ‘I don’t at all relish the idea of interview between Kitchener and Boer delegates.’46 Chamberlain replied that ‘HMG cannot give any instructions until we have received the proposals of the Boers, which should be obtained in writing. No opinion on these proposals should be expressed by you or Kitchener.’ Chamberlain was obviously a little worried lest Kitchener should promise too much or lest Milner should break the thing up. He added, for Milner’s comfort, that ‘we have never contemplated negotiations as possible without your participation.’47 Kitchener met the Boer delegates in Pretoria on 12 April. The Boers started by demanding independence in return for a promise to dismantle all forts in the Transvaal and Free State. If this were considered unsatis¬ factory, as they must have known it would be, they asked HMG for their terms. After a good deal of rather futile discussion, Kitchener, in order to keep the negotiations alive, agreed to transmit the Boer proposal to HMG. The inevitable refusal arrived and negotiations were resumed on 14 April, with Milner present. Kitchener and Milner had been instructed not to formulate counter-proposals but to ask the Boers to put forward new proposals of their own, excluding independence. Chamberlain, in a telegram dated 14 April, told Milner of the way his mind was working. With regard to amnesty, he thought that ‘rebels may be brought to trial but if convicted of treason only, all sentences will be remitted except moderate fines and disenfranchisement for life.’ ‘The question of return of prisoners and language will have your careful consideration. The question of money ought not to stand in the way of a satisfactory agree¬ ment in other respects. The enormous cost of the war and the continual strain on the army makes peace most desirable, but we cannot buy it by concessions which may encourage future rebellion or which would justify the locals in saying that they had been betrayed.’48 At the resumed negotiations the Boer delegates again asked HMG to submit their proposals and reiterated that they would have to consult their burghers before agreeing to a surrender of independence. After refusing Boer requests for (a) an armistice and (b) a safe-conduct for a delegate from Europe, Milner and Kitchener agreed to ask HMG to submit their own terms on the understanding that, if an agreement were

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arrived at, the Boer delegates would have to submit it to their burghers for ratification. Milner told Chamberlain: ‘Personally I distrust all nego¬ tiations. This feeling is shared I believe by all our friends in South Africa. But as public feeling at home evidently favours negotiations we must do the best we can.’ He proposed that HMG should offer the same terms as Kitchener had offered to Botha in March 1901, reminding them that ‘after the subsequent great reduction in the strength of the Boers, and our own expenditure of life and treasure, we should be justified in imposing far more onerous conditions, but that... we are prepared, though for the last time, to accept a general surrender on these lines... with some modi¬ fication of detail’. He agreed that the Boer delegation should be allowed to consult their burghers. He recommended (a) that any agreement should not be in the form of a Convention or Treaty; ‘The Boers must . . . trust HMG to do what they declare they intend to do.’; (b) No date to be fixed for the return of prisoners, ‘which may take some consider¬ able time.’ (Milner had some idea of using the return of prisoners as a means of inducing good behaviour.) (c) No date to be fixed for the introduction of self-government; (d) No equality for English and Dutch languages. ‘English must be official language and principal medium of instruction, (e) Amnesty; all rebels surrendering and either pleading guilty to or being convicted of treason to suffer disenfranchisement for life but no other punishment. Chamberlain agreed in general with Milner’s recommendations, and HMG’s terms, cabled from the War Office to Kitchener, were largely based on them. But Milner was still afraid of what Kitchener might give away. On 10 April he told Chamberlain: ‘My great difficulty is Lord Kitchener. He is extremely adroit in his management of negotiations, but he does not care what he gives away. If he knew as absolute certainty that HMG would not yield on certain points no one would be more skilful than he in steering the Boers off these points.’49 On 17 April HMG’s terms were presented to the Boer delegates by Kitchener, who agreed to their request for facilities to consult the burghers in the field. Milner could not induce them to agree to recom¬ mend acceptance to the burghers, but they did agree to ask them for plenary powers to conclude the negotiations. ‘If you merely come back with proposals from the people which HMG will not accept and then go back and consult again, this sort of thing may go on indefinitely.’ A breathing space followed while the Boer delegates got a representa¬ tive selection of burghers together. Chamberlain asked Milner whether

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he thought the War Office should add to their previous instructions to Kitchener. Milner replied that identical telegrams should be sent to himself and Kitchener from the Colonial and War Offices respectively making it clear that ‘HMG is not prepared to make concessions on points of policy.’ In a letter dated 21 April he told Chamberlain: ‘Personally I disliked the course and am disappointed at the result of the negotiations. Kitchener practically held the strings throughout. He was constantly in communication with the Boers.... I think it was a mistake letting them go away without committing themselves at all, but he is strongly of the opposite opinion. ... He may be right.... I feel it is even betting how things turn out at the next meeting.... My conclusion is that there is no object in giving way on any point which can cause us subsequent dis¬ advantage. If they mean peace they will accept what we are prepared to give them. The great danger is that if they come abandoning indepen¬ dence but asking for impossible things in return, the great longing for peace at home . .. will bring pressure to bear in favour of our giving in. ... I am quite determined to stick out myself. If I am once more re¬ presented as the evil genius who always prevents peace and conciliation I can’t help it. I know that I am right. . . .’50 It was not until 15 May that 30 burghers from each of the two Boer States were elected and assembled at Vereeniging to hear the British terms. After a long and bitter discussion in which Burger, Smuts, Botha and de la Rey argued for peace, and Steyn and de Wet for a continuation of the war, the peace party won the day. A confused discussion followed about amendments to the British terms. After various more or less unrealistic proposals had been put forward, it was agreed that the delegates be given plenary powers to make the best terms they could. While this discussion was going on, the war was also going on. Like¬ wise the correspondence with HMG about the peace terms. HMG agreed to Milner’s suggestion about identical instructions, and these were duly sent. Milner wrote to Hanbury Williams, his ex-Military Secretary, who had been transferred on promotion to the Colonial Office. ‘No doubt Joe alone is playing the right game at home and I am as usual alone here. ... I am never going to assent to really rotten terms, not though the Boers, grown fat and defiant by a month of recuperation, should be ever so truculent. I hate all negotiations but, having to negotiate, I recog¬ nise that one must give up something.... But that something will never, with my consent, be anything vital. If a bad peace is to be made, it must

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be over my political corpse. ... If K is going to make the bed, let him lie on it and not Yours ever M.’51 Milner appears to have become slightly paranoiac about Kitchener. Lady Edward Cecil encouraged this by telling him, from England, where she was staying at Hatfield, that Kitchener was ‘offering the Government what seventeen of them want, i.e. peace at more or less any price.’52 But Chamberlain’s support was sufficient to ensure that Kitchener would not be able to ‘get away with’ anything to which Milner was unable to agree, any more than he had the previous year. On 19 May Milner and Kitchener again met the Boer delegates in Pretoria. A good deal of haggling, mainly about money, followed, during which Milner complained to Chamberlain that ‘the Boers are making what appear to me preposterous demands’ and that ‘Kitchener does not always support me, even in the presence of the Boers.’63 How¬ ever, on 21 May, a document was agreed by all parties for submission to HMG. This document, with a few minor alterations, was agreed by HMG and then by the Boers at Vereeniging by a majority of 54 to 6. On 31 May the Peace of Vereeniging was signed by Kitchener and Milner on behalf of Great Britain and by the eleven Boer delegates on behalf of the two Boer States. It provided: (a) For the burgher forces in the field to lay down their arms forthwith. (b) For the repatriation of prisoners-of-war after declaring their allegiance to HBM. (c) For the Dutch language to be taught ‘where the parents of children wished it’ and to be used in Courts of Law ‘when necessary for the better and more effectual administration of justice.’ (d) That military administration in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony ‘will at the earliest possible date be succeeded by civil govern¬ ment, and, as circumstances permit, representative institutions, leading to self-government, will be introduced.’ (e) That native franchise ‘will not be decided until after the introduc¬ tion of self-government.’ (This in effect meant that there would be no franchise for natives, since this was about the one point on which British and Dutch colonists were agreed.) The point which caused most of the last-minute haggling was the extent to which HMG would reimburse burghers for losses sustained during the war, including value of stock etc. requisitioned against receipt by their the British or Boer military authorities. It was eventually agreed to honour receipts and pay compensation up to a maximum of

122

Milner: Apostle of Empire

£3 million and in addition to grant interest-free loans in appropriate

cases. One account of the negotiations, said to have been obtained from Smuts, purports to describe how Kitchener induced the Boers to agree to the terms on which Milner insisted: ‘When all hope seemed lost, Smuts felt himself gripped by the elbow and, looking round, he saw Kitchener, who said to him, “Come out for a little.” The two of them left the Con¬ ference and then paced outside, backwards and forwards, in the dark.... And then Kitchener said to him; “Look here, Smuts, there is something on my mind that I want to tell you.... My opinion is that in two years’ time a Liberal Government will be in power and ... it will grant you a Constitution.” Said Smuts: “That is an important pronouncement. If one could be sure of that it would make a great difference.” Said Kit¬ chener; “It is only my opinion but honestly I do believe that it will happen.” ’54 And so the war came to an end. Milner received a step in the Peerage and became a Viscount. And he had got all, or nearly all, of what he had been standing out for. He owed this to Chamberlain’s support. To the Cabinet, seeing all the telegrams, the negotiations must have seemed like a contest between Milner and Kitchener rather than between the British and the Boers. And most of the Cabinet supported Kitchener, as Lady Edward told Milner, and as Chamberlain’s biographer confirms.85 But ‘Chamberlain supported his lieutenant though often not wholly agreeing with him.’56 Milner himself was reasonably satisfied. He told a friend: ‘Considering the extreme weakness of my hand I. .. have been more successful than could be expected.’57 He had, by his insistence, and by what Smuts called ‘obduracy’, avoided any ambiguity, anything of which the precise meaning might be argued about afterwards. He had avoided any precise commitment over the date of self-government. One clause which he afterwards regretted was the agreement to leave native franchise to the decision of a Responsible government. He told Selborne later: ‘If I had known then as well as I know now the extravagance of this prejudice on the part of all the whites against any concession to any coloured man, however civilised, I should never have agreed to so absolute an exclusion, not only of the natives, but of the whole coloured population, from any rights of citizenship, even in municipal affairs.’58 But, in spite of his general satisfaction with the terms of peace, Milner’s mood seems to have been a bitter one. In a letter to a friend on the day

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before the signature of peace he wrote: ‘I see things as they are and recognise that it is a fool’s trick to waste the energy and devotion of 1,000 men... to keep an Empire for people who are dead set on chucking it away. I could wrestle with Boers for ever. But British infatuation is too much for me. What with our sentimentality, our Party system, our government by committee, our “Mandarins”, our “Society”, and our Generals,... the game is just hopeless.... Our political organisation is thoroughly rotten, almost non-existent. It is Carthaginian—really the only comparison I can think of. Never was there such an absurd waste of power, such ridiculous inconsequence of policy—not for want of men but for want of any effective central authority or dominant idea to make them work together.’59 It may be that this black mood, so inappropriate to the peace with victory which was about to be consummated, was partly due to his knowledge of the trouble which was about to blow up between him and Chamberlain over the old question of the Cape Constitution. Almost since the time of his appointment as Governor, Milner had been oppressed by the thought that any constitutional Government in Cape Colony was more or less dependent on the goodwill of the Bond, whose members and adherents he considered as fundamentally disloyal. He refused to consider the possibility that their political ideal was any more susceptible of compromise than his own. He paid them the dubious compliment of regarding them as obdurate as he was himself. That being so, he considered that the Cape, with its existing Constitution, was an absolute barrier to a South African Union under British Imperial auspices, and a constant threat to British supremacy in South Africa. The position during the war, when an appreciable part of the Afrikaner population of the Colony, including some members of Parliament, were actually fighting on the Boer side, merely high-lighted an inherently impossible situation. At the beginning of 1902 Milner was concerned with the post-war situation. The Cape Parliament had been prorogued in October 1900, but would have to meet again as soon as the war was over. When that happened it was probable that the Sprigg Government would be defeated and replaced by a Government consisting of, and supported by, a majority of people who had been rebel sympathisers and by some people who had themselves been guilty of rebellion. Difficulties would arise over the indemnification of acts done under martial law and over the arrest, conviction and subsequent disenfranchisement of rebels. It was

124

Milner: Apostle of Empire

not unlikely that loyalists would be harassed and generally discriminated against. Milner found such a prospect intolerable. Early in 1902 he wrote to Rhodes and to other members of the Progressive Party, including Jameson and Lewis Michell, who were both intimates of Rhodes, explaining his views. He though that either the rebellious districts in the north should be detached from the Colony and administered as part of Orange River Colony under Crown Colony government, or that the Cape Constitution should be suspended pending revision, which would provide for a new register and a re-distribution of seats. But either of these steps would need the authority of the British Parliament which, Milner told them, would not be forthcoming unless there was a strong and so far as possible unanimous petition addressed to it by loyalist members. He told Hely Hutchinson, who had succeeded Milner as Governor of the Cape, what he was doing. ‘The Government at home loathes the idea of suspending the Constitution,’ and ‘if the home Government is to act at all, it must be in response to an appeal from the loyal colonists. This ought to proceed from the Government, backed by you and supported, if need be, by a popular agitation. . . . The loyalists must be put in a position to help themselves-But there must be a fair degree of unani¬ mity among the loyalists themselves as to what they ask for. ... I can’t take the initaitive.’60 And so the Petition was born. Rhodes backed it and was the first person to sign it, a few weeks before his death. But Sprigg refused to have anything to do with it. He liked being in office and reckoned that he could remain as Prime Minister by means of some accommodation between himself and the Bond. And most of the members of his Ministry supported him. It was therefore impossible for the Petition to come from the Government, and impossible for the Governor to support it. Milner as High Commissioner was in a different position. But any open association with the Petition was undoubtedly irregular. He was under no illusion about this, but as he told Hely Hutchinson, had ‘absolutely convinced myself of the necessity of intervention from home to put Cape Colony straight and prevent its being a drag on all South African pro¬ gress. And I am not in the least afraid of bearding Joe about it, though he hates it and loses his temper with me when I tell him what he is in for. It is the only important point in connection with South Africa about which he and I are at cross-purposes.’61 Rhodes’s death at the end of March 1902 seemed to Milner to increase

‘The Great Day of Reckoning

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the urgency of the Petition. For the removal of the Progressive Party’s banker, brains, and principal inspiration increased the likelihood of a Progressive defeat and the return of a Bond Government. Milner told Lady Edward Cecil: ‘It is a great blow.... Certainly there has never been a time since first I came to South Africa when I have wanted him more. . . . I mean when the work has wanted him more.’62 Just after Rhodes’s death Milner went down from Johannesburg to Muizenburg, just outside Cape Town, for a fortnight’s holiday by the sea. Here he was consulted by those members of the Progressive Party who were organising the Petition. He appears to have been able to con¬ vince himself, and them, that it was not a matter of suspending the Constitution, which was already suspended as a result of the prorogation of Parliament, but a question of whether the Constitution should be restored as a whole or gradually. As Milner put it, the Colony was like a man recovering from an attack of fever. A period of convalescence and dieting was desirable before resuming normal life. In the end, the Petition was signed by 42 members of the two legis¬ lative houses (the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly) and presented to the Governor on 10 May. The Governor forwarded it to Milner, together with a letter in which the signatories invited an expres¬ sion of opinion from the High Commissioner. There is no doubt that this letter was pre-arranged and probably suggested by Milner, who replied to the Governor stating that he could not, as High Commissioner, enter into a discussion on the Petition. But he enclosed an unofficial letter to the petitioners, written in his private capacity, re-stating the views he had already expressed to them as to the justification and indeed the necessity for the suspension of the Constitution prayed for in the Petition. ‘Speaking unofficially as to old friends, I may say that I entirely sympathise with the desire to preserve the Colony from the disastrous consequences which are likely to result from the resumption of parlia¬ mentary and party strife before the bitter passions excited by the war have had even a little time to settle.... It may well be that an interregnum of non-party government in the Cape may not prevent but promote a return to the normal working of the Constitutional system. I think that such a system is much more likely to make for real freedom, for indus¬ trial and commercial development, and for the appeasement of race hatred than an immediate return to the old condition of things.’ He added that he thought that a temporary suspension would pave the way towards an eventual federal union of all the South African States.63

126

Milner: Apostle of Empire

This letter was intended by Milner for publication and it was published in the Cape Press on 19 May. The only stipulation Milner made was that the text should not be telegraphed to London. It was possible to enforce this owing to the existence of the war-time censorship. So it was some time before Chamberlain heard about it. Meanwhile Hely Hutchinson forwarded the Petition to London with his proposals for an ad interim administration in the event of the Petitioners’ request being agreed to. But Chamberlain was adamant. On 10 June he cabled the Governor: ‘HMG could not for a moment entertain such a policy without incon¬ trovertible proof that British interests are seriously threatened and that this policy is absolutely necessary for their maintenance. The Cape Colonists must not be allowed to think that they can appeal to the Imperial Government merely for the purpose of impressing the views of a minority on a majority.’64 Then, about a fortnight later, Chamberlain’s attention was drawn to Milner’s letter to the petitioners. He immediately, on 24 June, sent him a fulminating telegram, telling him that he was ‘dismayed’, ‘seriously embarrassed’, and ‘deeply hurt to find that in a matter of cardinal impor¬ tance in which I desired the utmost caution you should have fully expressed your views to private individuals without giving me the opportunity of considering them beforehand.’65 Milner replied by tele¬ gram that he was ‘deeply grieved to cause you annoyance or embarrass¬ ment’, but that he had been ‘more than careful not to commit HMG’ and that what he did, he did ‘deliberately and reluctantly because I felt bound in honour to help those Cape loyalists who, deprived of their real leader, were given away by their nominal chiefs. Attempt on part of Cape Ministry to stifle expression of opinion on part of their fellows was intolerable and in view of fables put about as to my attitude I had no choice but to state my true opinion.’66 Chamberlain replied on 2 July deeply regretting ‘that any serious difference should have arisen between us as to policy and hope that time and progress of events will remove it.’67 Milner, meanwhile, had written two letters to the Colonial Secretary, one official, the other personal. In the official letter he wrote: ‘I think it unfortunate that public opinion in England is capable of regarding it as tolerable that within six months of the end of a struggle for British supremacy in South Africa, the men who have fought for that supremacy at the Cape should be allowed to fall under the control of its bitter and treacherous enemies. ... It seemed not only permissible but my plain

‘

The Great Day of Reckoning

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duty to tell them that, unless they could themselves and through the regular channels, bring their fears and their necessities before the British Government and people, judgement might go against them by default.’68 In his private letter, Milner told Chamberlain that ‘this incident. . . strengthens a doubt . . . whether I am any longer the right man to re¬ present HMG in South Africa.... I am afraid that my views are diverg¬ ing more and more from the average views of those who, during the struggle, in the main sympathised with my line of action. ... I cannot help feeling that your confidence in me is shaken and, on my side, I am no longer convinced that we are on the right tack.’ He concluded by offering his resignation.69 Chamberlain, in reply, assured him that he did not ‘attach exaggerated importance to the difference of opinion which has arisen between us on a matter of policy.’ He asked him to withdraw his resignation and enable HMG ‘to rely as before on your loyal cooperation in the difficult task which lies ahead for us.’70 On 6 September Milner replied in a somewhat ungracious letter. ‘I am out of touch with the predominant sentiments of my countrymen, the trend of opinion which ultimately determines policy on the South African question. This has not always been the case, nor is the divergence as yet generally recognised. It is highly desirable that it never should be. I have always been unfortunate in disliking my life and surroundings here.’ He acknowledged that, for the time being, he was, ‘if not indis¬ pensable at any rate more useful than any new man.’ But, ‘as soon as we are out of the present jungle, and another six months ought to see us through it, a new man will have immense advantages. ... He will not excite the same hostility as I do among the Boers or their friends at home. He will be able to take “conciliation” seriously. If he does not trust the Boers (which I pray he may not do) he will be better able to pretend to trust them than I am, weary as I feel of their eternal duplicity. As regards the English, he will no doubt at first not have anything like my influence. But. . . this influence . . . cannot always remain what it is to-day-I do not complain of this. But I feel that my popularity is not being wasted but is being legitimately used in securing public objects of importance. My successor will be able to face the next set of problems with much better heart than I because he will presumably have some sort of belief in what he is doing. I assume that he will have that robust faith in selfgoverning institutions which is the birthright of every sound-hearted Briton, but which in my case has unfortunately been dissipated by

128

Milner: Apostle of Empire

experiences which I trust are exceptional. What I have seen of the work¬ ing of Responsible government in South Africa makes it totally impos¬ sible for me to labour for its extension with any sort of zeal. Of course I know it must come—and pretty soon. Our own people are as deter¬ mined to have it as they will be sorry for themselves when they have got it. But it is surely better that the way should be paved by someone who regards it as a desirable thing in itself and not simply as a deplorable necessity.’71 Milner’s private explanation of his action, given to his friend Jim Rendel, was, naturally, a little more frank than the explanation given to Chamberlain: ‘My letter was not an indiscretion, if by that is meant a piece of thoughlessness. It was a very deliberate, desperate, perhaps questionable, attempt to prevent a tremendous blunder. The blunder has been made. I hardly hoped to succeed. But I’m glad I tried. I do not blame Joe, nor can I ever forget his immense courage and great support of me in the past. If he knew the situation as intimately as I do, he would never have taken this line; he would sooner have left office. I have done everything that a cruelly overworked man can do to make him under¬ stand it.... The fact is that I am, and always have been, rowing against the stream. The tendency of public opinion and feeling in England is to go wrong about South Africa. It needed an ultimatum to wake them up and they will go to sleep again on the first opportunity. I only just saved the terms of surrender. It is more than any man can do to avert the con¬ sequences of the ignorance, self-sufficiency, proneness to optimistic selfdelusion, and fetish-worship of shibboleths, which at once resume their sway over John Bull when you cease kicking him.’72 In this matter of the Cape Constitution, Milner showed himself at his worst. On any interpretation, and in spite of his plea to Chamberlain that he had been ‘more than careful not to commit HMG’, the public expression of his opinion, which he knew was opposed to that of HMG, and about which he had neither consulted nor advised Chamberlain, was grossly improper. As a matter of political tactics it was unwise in that it ensured the defeat of that which it was designed to achieve. In this matter as at the Bloemfontein Conference and on various other occasions, Milner would have done well to heed the parting advice given to him in 1897 by his Treasury chief, Hicks Beach, who told him; ‘I believe the great thing necessary is patience. Impatience has been at the root of all our difficulties in South Africa.’ In the end Milner agreed to stay on for the time being. Chamberlain

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behaved very generously, both publicly and privately. When invited by the Opposition in the Commons to join them in condemning Milner for his gaffe, he told the House; ‘We regard Lord Milner as the most effective instrument in our possession and we hope that the House of Commons will extend to him the consideration and confidence that we are glad to to show him.’ Did Milner really intend to resign, just at the outset of what he hoped would be his most valuable and enduring work in South Africa? The tone of Chamberlain’s first cable practically demanded, and duly received, an offer of resignation. But Milner must have known that he would be invited to withdraw it. The virulence of the Opposition against him, in itself, made it impossible to get rid of him at the moment of victory. The defiant defeatism expressed in his letter of resignation was an overspill to Chamberlain of what he had been intermittently writing to his private friends ever since he had been in South Africa. As Margot Asquith, his one-time girl-friend, once remarked, there was a sort of violence in Milner’s mind, which contrasted strangely with his donnish appearance, his quiet voice, his courtly manner, his great personal charm, and his genuine kindliness.

NOTES ON CHAPTER FIVE 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Cecil Headlam (ed.), Milner Papers, Vol. II, 1899-1905 (Cassell, 1933), p. 23. Spender, op. cit., I, p. 271. ibid., I, p. 279. Headlam, op. cit., p. 33. ibid., p. 35. ]. P. (later Sir Percy) Fitzpatrick was a member of the goldmining firm of Eckstein & Co. and the leading political figure among the mineowners of the Rand. ibid., p. 37. Roberts-War Office 16.2.00., ibid., p. 65. Milner-Hely Hutchinson, 4.5.00. ibid., p. 107. ibid., p. 109. ibid., p. no. ibid., pp. 112-13. ibid., pp. 103-4. ibid., p. 105. ibid. ibid., p. 128. Spender, op. cit., I, p. 302.

130

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Headlam, op. cit., II, pp. 186-7. ibid., p. 146. ibid., p. 166. ibid., pp. 170-1. Sir George Arthur, Life of Kitchener (Macmillan, 1926), II, p. 19. Headlam, op. cit., II, p. 211. Arthur, op. cit., II, pp. 27 et seq. Headlam, op. cit., II, p. 220. Statement by Chamberlain in H of C 23.3.01. See MP 305. Headlam, op. cit., II, p. 214. ibid., p. 215. ibid., pp. 218-19. Spender, op. cit., II, p. 329. ibid. Headlam, op. cit., II, p. 229. ibid., p. 225. ibid., pp. 235-6. ibid., p. 246.

35. Julian Amery, Life of Joseph Chamberlain, Vol. IV (Macmillan, 1951), p. 33. 36. ibid., pp. 34-5. 37. W. B. Worsfold, Lord Milner s Workin S. Africa 1893-1902 (Murray, 1906), pp. 495, et seq. 38. For correspondence between Milner & Kitchener at this time see Headlam, op. cit., II, pp. 257-62. 39. John Marlowe, Cecil Rhodes (Elek, 1972), p. 292. 40. Headlam, op. cit., II, p. 266. 41. ibid., pp. 292-3. 42. Julian Amery, op. cit., IV, p. 43. 43. ibid. 44. Headlam, op. cit., II, p. 294. 45. ibid., p. 328. 46. ibid. 47. ibid., p. 329. 48. ibid., pp. 332-3. 49. ibid., p. 337. 50. ibid., p. 340. 51. ibid., p. 342. 52. ibid., p. 341. 53. ibid., p. 349. 54. Lord Shaw of Dunfermline, Letters to Isabel (Cassell, 1921), pp. 202—3. 55. (a) On 15.5.02. Lady Edward Cecil, while staying at Hatfield, told Milner that ‘only Joe, Salisbury and Selbome are for a good settlement, all the rest of the Government. . . for a bad one.’ (Headlam, op. cit., II, p. 341.) (b) ‘Kitchener sympathised with the Boers. He liked them as men. He wished to seem magnanimous in victory. Milner took a sterner view. . . . Most of the Cabinet felt like Kitchener.’ (Julian Amery, op. cit., IV, pp. 69 et seq.)

‘The Great Day of Reckoning 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72.

131

Julian Amery, op. cit., IV, p. 60. Headlam, op. cit., II, p. 353. G. B. Pyrah, Imperial Policy and South Africa 1902-1910 (OUP, 1955), p. 84. Headlam, op. cit., II, p. 364. ibid., p. 407. ibid, p. 408. ibid., p. 411. MP 51. Headlam, op. cit., II, p. 423. Julian Amery, op. cit., IV, p. 108. Headlam, op. cit., II, p. 418. ibid. Julian Amery, op. cit., IV, p. no. ibid., p. 125. Headlam, op. cit., II, pp. 419-22. ibid, pp. 421-2. ibid., pp. 424-5.

CHAPTER SIX

Reconstruction to Milner’s plans for reconstruction was the settling of British farmers on a large scale in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony with a view to anglicising the country districts and, together with the expected large British influx into the towns, changing the balance of the white population between British and Dutch, at all events in the Transvaal, against the time when Responsible government would have to be granted. In February 1901 he raised the matter with Chamberlain who had asked him for his view about helping to resettle Boer farmers after the war without antagonising loyalists. He told Chamberlain that ‘something would have to be done in that direction’, but that this should be combined with ‘introducing a large British element into the agricultural population.... The presence of a substantial British element, even as little as one-fifth, makes a great difference. Any appreciable minority holds it own, and there is much less race feeling where the two races are not wholly separate in interests, as well as in origin and langu¬ age.’1 He had expressed himself more frankly in a letter written a few weeks before to Hanbury Williams who had been transferred on pro¬ motion to the Colonial Office, ‘I attach the greatest importance of all to the increase in the British population. British and Dutch have to live here on equal terms. If, ten years hence, there are three men of British race to two of Dutch, the country will be safe and prosperous. If there are three of Dutch to two of British, we shall have perpetual difficulty. . . . We not only want a majority of British, we want a fair margin because of the large proportion of cranks that we British generate and who take particular pleasure in going against their own people. ... The difficulty is to place any number of them on the land. The majority of the agricultural population will always be Dutch. That does not matter provided that, in most districts, there are a sufficient number of British to hold their own. A mere sprinkling is no use. They only get absorbed and become more Dutch than their neighbours. The only way to achieve this is by large purchases of land on the part of Government with a view Central

Reconstruction

133

to reselling to suitable settlers. Men willing to risk some capital of their own should be preferred, and they should be planted on large or middlesized farms. . . . Our great hope is in getting . . . thousands of settlers of a superior class. . .. They will get on all right with the Dutch if they are not too greatly outnumbered. ... A healthy social and political white population would be the following: assuming that 60 per cent of the white population will be industrial and commercial and 40 per cent agricultural, I should like to see 45 out of the 60 British and 15 Dutch, and 15 out of the 40 British and 25 Dutch. The former proportion will accomplish itself. . . but to make even as much as i/^ths of the agricul¬ tural population British will take some working. It is only to be done by bringing British settlers through Government agency in considerable numbers.’ He went on to give Hanbury Williams his views about education. He wanted to make ‘English the language of all higher education. Dutch should only be used to teach English and English to teach everything else. Language is important, but the tone and spirit of the teaching con¬ veyed in it is even more important.’ And on self-government and federation. ‘Our political aim should be to work towards federation by making, or keeping, as many branches of government as possible common to two, or more, of all the Colonies.... I believe a great deal can be done to federate practically and in detail before we embark on a discussion of a federal Constitution, just as I believe in a lot of virtual self-government in the new Colonies, without letting the supreme control out of Imperial hands. We must be very sure of our ground before we part with executive authority. Indeed, I hope there may never be “Responsible government” in the two Colonies as separate States, but that we shall always keep Imperial control over them until we can safely grant “Responsible government” to a federated South Africa.’2 This letter contains a concise statement of Milner’s views on the three controversial aspects of his reconstruction programme—British settle¬ ment, the priority of the English language, and the timing of Responsible government. These views remained unchanged and were destined to be almost wholly frustrated. But a large part of his reconstruction pro¬ gramme consisted of projects which were non-controversial in the political sense—although these were differences of opinion on the technical, economic and financial aspects. These were, for the most part, successfully launched under Milner’s authority and were carried on by

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Milner’s successors—providing the basis, the infrastructure to use a piece of modern jargon, of South Africa’s future prosperity. Milner’s decision to set up his Headquarters in Johannesburg instead of Pretoria evoked criticism from those who believed, or professed to believe, that his policy was influenced, or even dictated, by the gold¬ mining magnates and cosmopolitan financiers. Chamberlain was also a little dubious. But Milner got his way. The war dragged on for over a year after Milner’s move to Johannes¬ burg and Milner found his efforts at administration and reconstruction ‘weather-bound and paralysed by military policy’, as he expressed it. The Peace of Vereeniging brought military rule to an end and left him in supreme control of affairs in the two new Colonies. Kitchener left soon afterwards, and General Lyttleton, who was Milner’s own choice, succeeded him as C-in-C. At last it was possible to make a real start on the work of reconstruction. The principal personnel of the new Administration had been appointed and had taken up their positions during the last year of the war. Sir Arthur Lawley (later Lord Wenlock), previously of the British South Africa Co., was Lieut.-Governor of the Transvaal. Sir Hamilton Goold Adams, previously Resident of Bechuanaland, was Lieut.-Governor of Orange River Colony. Sir Godfrey Lagden, previously Administrator of Basutoland, was Chief Commissioner for Native Affairs. Sir George Fiddes, previously Milner’s Imperial Secretary, became Colonial Secre¬ tary of the Transvaal. Sir Harry Wilson, previously Milner’s Legal Secretary, became Colonial Secretary of Orange River Colony. Sir Richard Solomon, who had been Attorney-General in the Schreiner Ministry, became Legal Secretary of the Transvaal, and Sir James Rose Innes Chief Justice of the Transvaal. All these, and other high officials, were mature men of South African experience. But the most distinctive aspect of Milner’s administration was the import of young, Universityeducated men from England, who were appointed to high positions and who were known, derisively at first, as ‘Milner’s Kindergarten’. These appointments were much criticised in South Africa. Merriman, in a debate in the Cape Parliament in September 1902, referred disparagingly to Milner’s ‘setting up a sort of Kindergarten of Balliol young men to govern the country.’ But, generally, they proved themselves very com¬ petent and contributed much to what is usually regarded as the most successful aspect of Milner’s work in South Africa. The ‘Kindergarten’ consisted of about a dozen young men who

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became deeply attached to Milner and to each other and who soon formed a closely-knit fellowship which, apart from its contribution to South African reconstruction, was destined to exercise an appreciable influence both upon the approach to South African Union and, later, upon Imperial policy generally. Its membership was fluid but consisted principally of the following men: J. F. Perry. A graduate of New College Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls. Was a Civil Servant at the Colonial Office and in 1900 was sent to South Africa to join the High Commissioner’s Secretariat. In July 1901 became Assistant Imperial Secretary with special responsibility for the native territories. He was also employed in negotiations with the Portuguese authorities in Mozambique about the supply of native labour for the mines. In 1903 he resigned from Government service to become Chairman of the Rand Native Labour Association, with the principal task of organising recruitment and conditions of work for native labour on the Rand. Lionel Curtis, A graduate of New College Oxford. Came to South Africa in October 1900 with a letter of recommendation to Milner and was engaged by Perry as one of a number of Private Secretaries to Milner. In March 1901 he became Secretary to a Commission drawing up a Municipal Constitution for Johannesburg, and was appointed Town Clerk when the Municipality was set up. Later he became Milner’s Assistant Imperial Secretary. Patrick Duncan. A graduate of Balliol. Recruited by Milner himself from the Inland Revenue Office. Became Treasurer of the Transvaal in March 1901 and later Milner’s Colonial Secretary. Geoffrey Robinson (afterwards Dawson). Fellow of All Souls. A Civil Servant in the Colonial Office; detailed to assist Milner on his visit to England in 1901. As a result of this, and of his friendship with Perry, he went to South Africa in the Autumn of 1901 and became Private Secretary to Milner. Later he became Secretary for Municipal Affairs. When Milner left South Africa in April 1905 he obtained for him the editorship of the Johannesburg Star. Of all the members of the Kinder¬ garten he was the one most intimate with Milner. Hugh Wyndham (later Lord Leconfield). Graduate of New College Oxford. A cousin of George Wyndham. Went to South Africa for his health and was engaged by Milner, on his cousin’s recommendation, as one of his Private Secretaries. Lionel Hichens. Graduate of New College Oxford. Recruited by

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Milner from Egyptian Ministry of Finance. Became Treasurer of Johannesburg Municipality and afterwards Treasurer of the Transvaal and of the Inter-Colonial Council (q.v. below). Richard Feetham. Arrived in Johannesburg in March 1902 and succeeded Curtis as Town Clerk of Johannesburg. John Dove. Graduate of New College Oxford. On the recommenda¬ tion of the Warden of All Souls was appointed Municipal Treasurer of Johannesburg in succession to Hichens. Hon. Robert Brand. Graduate of New College Oxford and Fellow of All Souls. Came to South Africa in late 1902 and on Perry’s recommen¬ dation was appointed Secretary to the Inter-Colonial Council (q.v. below) and Railway Committee (q.v. below). Philip Kerr (afterwards Lord Lothian). Graduate of New College Oxford. Came to South Africa in 1902 to join staff of Lieut.-Governor of the Transvaal. Later appointed to assist Brand on Railway Committee. Dougal Malcolm. Graduate of New College Oxford and Fellow of All Souls. Came to South Africa after Milner’s departure as Private Secretary to his successor, Lord Selborne. Closely associated with rest of Kindergarten. Of these Kindergarten members we shall hear more in this book of Curtis, Robinson, Brand and Kerr. Duncan and Feetham, after leaving Government service, remained in South Africa to practise at the Bar. Duncan became Governor-General of the Union and Feetham a Judge of the Union High Court. Milner had his plans for reconstruction worked out well in advance. As one who was increasingly in Milner’s confidence has put it, his ‘policy of reconstruction was based on “lift” and “overspill”. By “lift” he meant raising the whole level of the “primitive squatters’ republic” onto a wholly new plane. By “overspill” he meant the surplus of revenues from a rapidly expanding mining industry which would make the “lift” possible. Expansion was the key to the whole problem.’ He was also impressed with the need for haste. He realised that ‘the time at his dis¬ posal before the inevitable grant of self-government was brief.’ The same authority adds that ‘almost every characteristic of the new Government was an emanation from Milner’s brain-The charge of over-centralisa¬ tion was often laid against his administration, not wholly without reason. Great minds and strong wills inevitably attempt too much.’3 The two most immediate problems were (a) the resettlement and rehabilitation of the Boer farmers who had left or been evicted from their

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farms during the war; and (b) the return to full production of the Rand goldfields, on the prosperity of which most of the rest of the reconstruc¬ tion programme depended. The physical damage to the mines during the war had been slight and the principal difficulty was shortage of labour, a shortage which was later to have momentous consequences for Milner. The resettlement and rehabilitation of the Boer farmers was made more difficult and more expensive by a severe drought in the first Summer after the war, and the process was not completed until the end of June 1904 in Orange River Colony and the end of October 1904 in the Transvaal. By that time the total cost of the operation had risen to £16 million, of which £6-5 million was found by the local Governments and £9*5 million by HMG. The labour difficulty at the mines was due to the reluctance of natives, who had returned to their homelands during the war, to come back to work on the mines, partly owing to bad wages and conditions. Milner did something to improve these. He also, in April 1902, paid a visit to the Portuguese Governor-General of Mozambique, from where some 85 per cent of the labour for the mines had previously come, to discuss labour supply, rail freights and other problems. The rail question was always a delicate one because of competition between Lourenco Marques and Durban for the Transvaal traffic. In order to obtain a satisfactory agreement over labour, which Milner regarded as a first priority, he was compelled, in his negotiations, to guarantee a certain proportion of Transvaal rail traffic to Lourenco Marques, an agreement which was not very popular in Natal. Apart from these more or less temporary problems, and apart from the controversial questions of self-government, education and British settlements, Milner’s programme of reconstruction had the following principal features. (A) The creation of an Inter-Colonial Council consisting of Govern¬ ment representatives from each of the two new Colonies, which would deal with matters of common interest, in pursuance of Milner’s idea, expressed to Hanbury Williams, of working towards federation by making or keeping as many branches of government as possible common to two or more colonies. (B) The taking over of the privately-owned railways in the Trans¬ vaal and Orange River Colony, and their administration and develop¬ ment by a Railway Committee consisting of representatives of the two Governments who acted in close consultation with the railway adminis¬ trations in the Cape and Natal and Mozambique. Milner regarded the

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expansion of the rail network into the rural districts as a matter of prime importance as a means of bringing down the price of imported goods to the rural population and of improving the distribution and decreasing the cost to the urban population of local agricultural production. During the period of Milner’s administration the existing railway system in the two Colonies was re-stocked and rehabilitated and some 800 miles of line added, at a total cost of about £22 million, of which £19 million came from the Guaranteed Loan (q.v. below) and £3 million out of revenue. Of this sum £14 million was spent on the acquisition of the existing system and the rest on new construction and new rolling stock. (C) The formation of nominated Legislative Councils in the two new Colonies in an endeavour to meet Milner’s prescription for ‘a lot of virtual self-government without letting the supreme control out of Imperial hands.’ A nominated Legislative Council of 16 official and 14 non-official members was formed in the Transvaal and one of 5 official and 4 non-official members in the Orange River Colony. The experi¬ ment was not altogether successful in that most of the leading Boers, although invited, refused nomination. (D) The development of local government by elected bodies. Under Milner’s administration 12 elected Municipalities and 23 elected Urban District Councils were brought into being in the two Colonies. Milner would have liked to admit aliens and coloureds to the municipal franchise and a motion to this effect was passed by the votes of the official majority in the Transvaal Legislative Council. But he abandoned the idea as he considered it ‘impossible to force upon the whole white population a principle repudiated no less by the British inhabitants as by the Dutch.’4 (E) Law and Order. A constabulary for the policing of the two Colonies was organised by Baden-Powell, the hero of Mafeking and subsequently the creator of the Boy Scout Movement. Originally 10,000 strong, it was reduced, first to 6,000 and later to 4,000. (F) Agricultural Improvements. Milner, fortified by expert opinion which he consulted, was convinced that there was a tremendous gap between actual and potential standards of farming in the two Colonies. He had the possibilities of afforestation, irrigation and fruit-farming intensively examined, and established a number of experimental farms to illustrate, teach and encourage the adoption of more progressive, more intensive and more variegated farming. He encouraged veterinary research into cattle diseases and organised a system of locust control. He tried to get away from the traditional and wasteful Boer farming methods,

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which extracted very poor returns from vast areas of land, reduced good agricultural land to dust bowls, and left the farmer entirely at the mercy of drought, locusts, cattle diseases and other natural scourges. (G) The encouragement of cooperation between the various Colonial governments in South Africa. In March 1903 a Conference of represen¬ tatives from all these Colonies, including Rhodesia, was held in Bloem¬ fontein as the result of an initiative by Milner. The Conference lasted a fortnight. Among the matters agreed upon were: (i) A Convention providing for a common external tariff with a 25 per cent preference for imports from the United Kingdom. (ii) A Resolution stating that ‘the native population of South Africa does not comprise a sufficient number of adult males to satisfy the normal requirements of the Colonies and also furnish an adequate amount of labour for the industrial and mining centres and, while the permanent settlement of Asiatics should not be permitted, indentured Asiatic labour should be permitted if industrial development positively required it.’ This Resolution was relevant to the great question of labour for the mines, which was to have such wide ramifications, and which will be dealt with in the next chapter. (iii) A Resolution expressing the hope that it soon ‘might be possible to summon a Conference to consider the union under a central federal administration of the whole of the colonies and territories under British rule.’ The Conference, which was attended by a representative from the Mozambique Government, also discussed rail freights and railway matters generally, with particular reference to the desirability at arriving at some agreement between the British coastal colonies and Mozambique over their respective shares of the Transvaal traffic. This Conference inaugurated a habit of consultation between the Colonies which culminated, six years later, in the Union of most of them. The agreements arrived at by this first Conference illustrate the strength and persistence of Milner’s guiding hand—the common tariff, the preference for UK imports, the approval in principle of indentured Asiatic labour, and the expression of intent over eventual federal union, were all matters which he had very much at heart. All these reconstruction policies, initiated by Milner, were carried on and developed by his successors, under the self-governing and Boerdominated regimes which, to Milner’s immense disapproval, were in¬ augurated within a year or two of his departure. But two aspects of his

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

reconstruction were more controversial and were subsequently discon¬ tinued or reversed. (A) Land Settlement. As already indicated, Milner attached immense importance to encouraging the immigration into the Transvaal and Orange River Colony of British agricultural colonists. In his private correspondence he made it clear that his reasons were political, with the object of bringing about, in the Transvaal, an overall British majority, including a strong British minority in the rural districts. Even before subsequent ‘Responsible’ governments put an end to the scheme, the results were far below Milner’s expectations, particularly in the Trans¬ vaal. By the time of his departure in 1905 it was estimated that in the Transvaal £500,000 had been spent in acquiring nearly 700,000 acres of land on which had been settled 537 farmers and their families, to whom sums amounting to £100,000 had been advanced in loans. In the Orange River Colony, £850,000 had been spent in acquiring 1,250,000 acres, on which had been settled 691 farmers and their families, to whom a total of £80,000 had been advanced.5 Thus, more money had been spent, more land acquired, and more farmers settled in the Orange River Colony than in the Transvaal, although Milner’s idea had been that, for political reasons, the emphasis should be in the Transvaal. In Orange River Colony there was no possibility of a British majority, or even of a strong British minority. But Orange River Colony was not important politically. The Transvaal, as Milner recognised, was the key to South Africa. The comparative failure of his settlement scheme there, combined with the fact that British immigration into the urban areas was rather less than he had expected, meant that his hopes of a British majority before the advent of‘Responsible’ government in the Transvaal were frustrated. And, as he fully realised and always feared, an Afrikaner majority in the Transvaal led ultimately to an Afrikaner-dominated South Africa. (B) Milner announced a policy of free elementary education in all districts where there was a minimum of 30 children and accepted Govern¬ ment responsibility for all education from primary to university level. In the Government schools undenominational religious instruction was given and facilities offered for denominational instruction in school hours for children whose parents wished it. Dutch was taught up to five hours a week to children whose parents requested it. Separate schools were provided for native children, where the emphasis was on manual training. Provision was made for local school committees, but these were to be purely advisory and, in particular, were not to be concerned with the

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selection of teachers. Milner was determined that Government schools and Government money should not be used for the propagation and perpetuation of Afrikaner nationalism. The Dutch Reformed Church started their own schools and preached a boycott of Government schools. On the advent of Responsible government the school committees were given executive powers and the teaching of Dutch made compulsory, whether the parents wanted it or not. Milner’s programme of reconstruction required the general assent of HMG, and some of it needed British legislation. And it all depended on a large loan which, if it were to be raised on anything like reasonable terms, required HMG’s guarantee. Milner had in mind a loan of £35 million—£30 million for the Transvaal and million for Orange River Colony—at 3 per cent interest plus 1 per cent sinking fund. Of the £30 million for the Transvaal Milner reckoned that £20 million would be absorbed by existing commitments—the purchase of the railways, resettlement, compensation for war losses etc., leaving £10 million for new railway construction, new land settlement etc. He reckoned that the service of the loan would cost £1-2 million p.a. for the Transvaal and £0-26 million p.a. for Orange River Colony out of estimated annual revenues of £4-5 million and £0-95 million respectively. In the event, expenditure of the loan, for which Milner was successful in obtaining HMG’s guarantee, was allocated as follows: Railways £19-5 million; other Public Works £2 million; Land Settlement £3 million; War Charges £7 million; SAR Government Debt taken over £2-5 million; Sundries £1 million; Total £35 million.6 On 4 September 1902 Chamberlain told Milner that he was ‘seriously contemplating an early visit to South Africa . . . about the end of November, and would give 2/3 months to the job.’7 Milner replied expressing enthusiastic agreement. This was more than formal courtesy. He needed Chamberlain’s agreement to various items in his reconstruc¬ tion plans and, in particular, he needed Chamberlain’s help over his proposal for a Guaranteed Loan. These things could much better be discussed personally than by correspondence. Also, he probably wanted to repair the personal relationship with Chamberlain damaged by the Cape Constitution incident. So Chamberlain, accompanied by his wife, came out to Durban in the cruiser Good Hope (to be sunk in 1914 at the Battle of Coronel). He arrived at Durban on 26 December and was met on the Transvaal border on 3 January 1903 by Milner and the Lieut.-Governor.

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

One of the objects of Chamberlain’s visit was to agree on the broad lines and, particularly, the finances of reconstruction. Another was to try to accomplish what Milner could not hope to do—a reconciliation between British and Dutch. But he was quite determined not to conciliate the Dutch by the removal of Milner, whose offered resignation he had recently refused to accept. Apart from the fact that Milner and Chamberlain shared much the same Imperial creed, Milner’s removal would have bitterly antagonised the British South Africans. The prospects of reconciliation had been a little improved by a visit of some of the Boer Generals to England and Europe during the Summer. In Europe they had tried to raise money towards the rehabilitation of their countries, and had met with a very dusty response, which may have convinced them of the necessity of making the best of a bad job and trying to get on with the British. In England they had tried to get some modification of the peace terms. They had met with a courteous but firm refusal from Chamberlain, and something like an hero’s welcome from the London crowds who, six months before, had been all for shooting Boer prisoners as francs tireurs and banishing their leaders from South Africa. In Pretoria Chamberlain received a Boer delegation consisting of the delegates who had negotiated the peace terms. With Smuts as their spokesman, they presented much the same demands for revision of these terms as the Boer Generals had presented in London, including an amnesty for the Cape and Natal rebels and a firmer policy towards natives. Chamberlain replied courteously but unequivocally, as he had already done in London: ‘It is a little too soon to try to go behind or to go further than the terms’ of Vereeniging, . . . ‘the charter of the Boer people . .. (which) ... you have every right to call upon us to fulfil. .. in the spirit and the letter.’ On the amnesty demand he spoke forth¬ rightly: ‘How did you treat your rebels? You shot them. You imprisoned them. You sjamboked them. You fined them. I do not say that you were wrong. You were ... protecting your own government. I ask you ... to justify us when we try to protect ours. ... I do not wish you to under¬ stand that we close the door absolutely to further amnesty. But it will not come as a result of pressure.’8 He indicated that some concession might be made about language and education and showed a sympathetic understanding towards their anxieties lest the British administration might treat the natives as human beings. At the end of the meeting, on Botha’s initiative, the delegation gave Chamberlain a hearty cheer. It was more than a Boer audience ever did for Milner.

Reconstruction

M3

From Pretoria Chamberlain went on to Johannesburg, where he spent a fortnight with Milner at Sunnyside, his Headquarters and Residence, discussing the reconstruction programme and various urgent problems which had arisen in connection with compensation and rehabilitation. The question of payment for goods received by and services rendered to the British army was a delicate one, since British good faith was at stake. Chamberlain regarded it as ‘the most urgent of all the practical questions with which we have to deal,’9 and he settled it by arranging for HMG to provide an immediate sum of £3 million in order to get the claims settled as expeditiously as possible. In the event another £2 million had to be provided later. One effect of Chamberlain’s action was to enable the £3 million provided in the Vereeniging treaty to be used wholly for resettlement and rehabilitation. Chamberlain also arranged for the £35 million guaranteed loan, cabling to London for the consent of the Prime Minister and Treasury. But he made HMG’s consent conditional on the Transvaal, and particularly the gold magnates who had benefited from the war, undertaking to make a substantial contribution towards the cost of the war. Milner, while agreeing in principle, was opposed either to a definite commitment or to naming a definite sum before confidence had been fully restored and the mines once more in full production. He was relying heavily on the mines to finance his reconstruction programme and was not anxious to have the British Treasury pre-empting any large share of the mining profits. But Chamberlain was insistent and had in mind a sum of £100 million.10 Eventually, after discussions with Fitz¬ patrick and some of the gold magnates, a sum of £30 million was agreed on, to be raised by a loan secured on the assets of the Transvaal and paid to HMG in three annual instalments of £10 million. (As it happened, the initial contribution was postponed as a result of a slump in the Trans¬ vaal and, in the end, not a penny of the agreed contribution was ever paid.) Chamberlain, like Milner, regarded federal union under the Crown as the ultimate aim for South Africa, and he made no difficulty about Milner’s proposals for an Inter-Colonial Council and an Inter-Colonial Conference (see above). The preferential tariff agreed at the Conference was the result of a suggestion by Chamberlain to Milner.u When Chamberlain set out on his trip to South Africa he had reached a turningpoint in his political career. After the 1902 Colonial Conference he had decided that a policy of reciprocal tariff preference between the United Kingdom and the self-governing colonies was desirable both in order to

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keep the Empire together and to provide a secure and expanding market for British industry. At a Cabinet meeting on 19 November, just before his departure, he understood it to have been agreed that a small duty on imported corn, intended as a temporary war tax, would be retained and, in the words of a letter from Balfour to the King, ‘a preferential remission of it made in favour of the British Empire.’12 Therefore, while in South Africa, he had every reason to believe that the Cabinet had accepted the principle of Imperial preference, even if this involved a tax on imported foreign food. He was too optimistic. When he arrived back in England just before the 1903 Budget he found that Ritchie, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, proposed to abolish the corn duty altogether, in spite of the previous Cabinet agreement. Six months later, Chamberlain resigned from the Government in order to devote himself to the con¬ version, first of the Unionist Party, and then of the electorate generally, to the policy of Protection and Imperial Preference. During his talks with Milner, Chamberlain smoothed over the difficulties which had arisen between them over the Cape Constitution. This involved explaining matters to Lord Balfour of Burleigh, who had been provisionally chosen as Milner’s successor in case Milner insisted on resignation. Chamberlain told him that Milner ‘is determined not to stay on indefinitely for reasons partly personal, partly political. He is sensi¬ tive, lonely and misses very much the intellectual environment to which he has been accustomed. Yet he admits the importance of the work, and recognises that his resignation at the moment would almost be an act of cowardice. His influence is extraordinary and his successor will at any time have a hard task to gain in equal measure the confidence of the people. Things however are moving very fast and what would be a national disaster to-day may in a year’s time be accepted as natural and necessary. His present offer is to get through certain pressing work and then take a holiday, of which he stands much in need. After a rest, he would return with the definite statement that he would only remain twelve months longer.’13 On 22 January, just before leaving Johannesburg, Chamberlain wrote to the King about his visit. He expressed the view that ‘Johannesburg is destined to be the commercial centre of South Africa and must always exercise a powerful political influence,’ and that ‘if the Transvaal is contented and loyal it will matter very little what Cape Colony does or thinks.’ He pointed out that the mainly British population of Johannes¬ burg, although ‘keen, intelligent and responsive’, and ‘at bottom intensely

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loyal and Imperialist’, had ‘an inclination to be too impatient and critical’ and needed ‘delicate handling’. ‘Lord Milner has secured their confidence in an extraordinary degree, so that I am more than ever convinced that his stay here for some time longer is a matter of the highest import¬ ance.’14 From Johannesburg, Chamberlain went on tour, visiting Krugersdorp and Potchefstroom in the Transvaal and Bloemfontein in the Orange River Colony. From there he went on to Cape Colony, to see what he could do in the way of reconciliation in that part of South Africa where Milner had been least successful. In Cape Colony Chamberlain spoke frankly and in public about ‘a large section of the population’ which had been ‘engaged in a sanguinary rebellion against their own institutions’, of a Parliament ‘elected by constituents, 10,000 of whom have since been disenfranchised’, and of‘an intolerable state of affairs’ by which ‘in parts of this Colony at the present time, loyalty involves persecution.’ He appealed to the Bond to give up their ‘aspiration for a separate republic outside the British Empire’ and to recognise publicly that ‘in the future their dealing is inseperable from ours and that they are ready to share our pride in the Empire to which we all belong and to accept their full share in its obligations as in its prin¬ ciples.’15 He had a talk with Hofmeyr at Government House, and a few days later, received a Bond delegation which told him that the Bond condemned, reprobated, and would actively and publicly dis¬ courage all acts of discrimination against loyalists and would ‘cooperate to the fullest of our power to promote good understandings between and the happiness and prosperity of both the great European sections of our population under the flag which waves over all of us.’16 As far as words went, this was all very well, and Chamberlain was concerned that the Progressives should show a similarly accommodating spirit. He deplored their recent choice of Jameson as their leader and told Lewis Michell, who waited on Chamberlain at the head of a Progressive Party deputa¬ tion, that the best policy for the loyalists was to act as though the Bond’s assurances were genuine unless or until they were proved otherwise. Milner watched Chamberlain’s progress through Cape Colony with anxiety and disapproval. He told Lady Edward Cecil: ‘You can imagine my feelings if Joe does forgive and bless the Bond before he leaves South Africa_You may be kindly to the Dutch, even the rebels, if you will. But to have any truck with the fundamentally and incurably disloyal organisation which has caused all the mischief and which is as full of

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

devilry as it ever was, would be an even greater blunder than the suspen¬ sion mess. It is a blunder even to receive a Bond deputation.’17 Chamberlain left Cape Town for England on 25 February. At a banquet in Cape Town the evening before he sailed, he told his audience that they should ‘make preparation for the ultimate federation of South Africa, which is destined, I hope in the near future, to establish a new nation under the British flag, who shall be “daughter in her mother’s house and mistress in her own” . . . Your fate is in your own hands.’18 For whatever reason, or combination of reasons—Chamberlain’s quasi-fraternisation with the Bond in the Cape may have been one of them—Chamberlain’s departure from South Africa coincided with a period of intense depression and discouragement in Milner’s life. On 2 February, in a letter to a friend, he wrote: ‘Joe sees eye to eye with me in everything but. ... I know that this agreement on the spot is liable to be deflated on his return home if he finds nasty currents of public opinion running against him. Our personal relations are perfectly friendly. We discussed suspension academically.’ A month later, to the same friend, he expressed his disagreement with Chamberlain’s concilia¬ tory speeches in Cape Colony. ‘He was just a little outwitted by Hofmeyr, who has the finer brain of the two.’19 In a letter to Lady Edward Cecil dated 25 March he wrote: ‘All the interferences from home are bad. I resist as long as I can. When resistance is hopeless I give way on minor points. I am prepared to make small mistakes to please them. No man can expect to have all his own way. But I will not be their agent for big mistakes. If they are set on such they must find another agent. ... Joe may, under certain circumstances, give way to the pressure of parliamen¬ tary necessities, of Party, of a rotten public opinion. ... But the system is wrong. ... I set sail in a rotten ship. By the help of the High Gods I may get her into port somehow. . . . But I am under no obligation to take another voyage in her. The day might come . . . when I should have the opportunity of pointing out why we make such a mess of things and make the burden on the true-hearted servants of the country so unnecessarily heavy; -where the system is wrong. But I should not attempt that for a long time, not till I could see my own experience in true perspective, till personal bitterness had died out of me.’20 In another letter to the same, a month later, he wrote: ‘The system is hopeless. Only one man in a hundred dares give effect or utterance to the statesmanship that is in him and he, being a solitary incident, is of little use.... There is no consistent national mind about any political question, no standard,

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cohesion, system, training anywhere. The few people who think con¬ sistently or constantly about public affairs and think of them as a whole ... are all on their own, without touch, without being a school, without co-related effort towards agreed common ends, and if we were all in touch we should avail nothing.’ Then comes a remarkable piece of pre¬ vision: ‘Perhaps a great Charlatan—political scallywag, buffoon, liar, stump orator, and in other respects popular favourite—may some day arise who is nevertheless a statesman—the combination is not impossible —and who, having attained and maintained power by popular art, may use it for national ends.’21 Such a man was already waiting in the wings and, some thirteen years later, at a time of national crisis, Milner was to be his coadjutor. A week or two later, in the middle of May, Milner wrote to the same correspondent, describing what he regarded as the defects of the ‘system’ to which he objected so strongly, ‘(i) Ultimate power in all matters, without appeal, with an ignorant people, not only ignorant but having no adequate appreciation of the supreme value of trained knowl¬ edge, or of the differences in the size of the questions submitted to them, so that they are capable of the same levity with regard to the biggest things as with trifles, (ii) This disregard ... for trained knowledge and complete information running through the whole people ... and finding its expression in the habit of mind and judgement of the upper class and the whole structure of our administration, (iii) Party politics at their worst—a pure struggle of ins and outs without any inner meaning or principle in it whatever, (iv) A huge unwieldly Cabinet in which half-adozen first-rate men are swamped by twice that number of second-rate men_(v) Above and Before All. No grading of the 100,000 questions, no separation of the local and Imperial, the great and the small, but all ultimately centring on that same unwieldly Cabinet which . . . cannot give continuous thought and study to the vital, being eternally distracted by the local and temporary, order of questions.’22 At about the same time, in a letter to his friend Spenser Wilkinson, a journalist and expert on military affairs, he complained that Chamber¬ lain’s speeches about South Africa ‘encourage an optimism which is not justified. ... It is not true that we have won the game and we cannot afford to lose a single trick.... We are fighting for something immensely big. ... Of all the distant portions of the British Empire, this may become the most valuable ... the one affording the most support to Great Britain. ... We may lose South Africa yet. But if we keep it,

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

we shall keep it by developing here a spirit of wider British patriotism. ... We can only maintain South Africa at all by maintaining the strength of British sentiment and by increasing the numbers of British people.’23 He grumbled to Chamberlain about the indifference shown in England to the proposal, inspired by Chamberlain himself, for a 25 per cent tariff preference on British imports. He doubted whether the Cape Parliament would agree to it ‘unless ... the Cape Colonists have reason to think that the Mother-country really care about it.... It is too much to expect that the Mother-country should protect her Colonies against being punished by foreign nations for going out of their way to do Great Britain a good turn. But they do expect some decided mark of apprecia¬ tion.’ And he reminded Chamberlain, who did not need reminding, that ‘any reciprocal advantage, however small, or even the hope of it some day, would encourage the sentiment here, which is very strong, but which will not live permanently on nothing.’24 In the event, the Cape Parliament did agree to the preference, and to the Customs union generally, as a result, ironically, of Hofmeyr’s influence. It is possible that Milner’s gloomy letters, and his occasional petulant outbursts to Chamberlain (since the ‘khaki’ election in October 1900 he no longer had Selborne, who had been promoted to First Lord of the Admiralty, as confidant at the Colonial Office), were, in part, a reaction from the strain of excessive work. In his diary entry for 16 March he wrote: ‘Another day of really fearful drive. I began working as usual before 7 and did not stop except for meals till long past midnight. ... I kept two shorthand writers at it all day.’ And on March 31: ‘I have now got into the habit of being called at 6.30, getting up at once, and working till 8.’ In spite of all the difficulties and delays caused, inter alia, by drought in South Africa and democracy at home, he was determined to get reconstruction under way before his leave. He left for Europe on 7 August 1903, after having presided at the first meeting of the Inter-Colonial Council. He told Chamberlain that he intended to have a proper holiday, starting with six weeks on the Continent ‘in absolute seclusion’. He went to Carlsbad, where he had some sort of affaire with Elinor Glyn, the popular novelist, who had a penchant for famous men and who, a few years later, had a love affair with Curzon. Milner’s side of the encounter is not available, but Anthony Glyn, in his entertaining biography of his grandmother, tells us: ‘There was pleasant company assembled at the spa, amongst them Lord Milner, resting after his arduous and prolonged efforts in South Africa. He and

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Elinor took to each other at once and their friendship was cemented by a common love of Greek ideas and philosophy. Once again she took the measured walks through the pine forests, discussing the Greek contri¬ bution to art and knowledge. . . . She was deeply impressed with Lord Milner. “I always thought he must be the reincarnation of Socrates.” On the terrace in the evenings he would read Plato aloud, especially the Phaedo, the final passage of which never failed to move him to tears.’25 It must have been a pleasant change from the cares of State in South Africa. But the idyll was not uninterrupted. In September Chamberlain resigned as Colonial Secretary in order to free himself for the advocacy of Imperial Preference, and what became known as Tariff Reform. Balfour, now Prime Minister, sent a special messenger to Carlsbad offering Milner the Colonial Office. After explaining what had happened, Balfour went on: ‘I cannot conceive a worthier successor at the Colonial Office than yourself. I am sure you could do invaluable service to the Empire as the Head of a Department under which you have served with such conspicuous distinction.’ And Milner received an intimation that the King earnestly hoped he would accept. But he refused the offer. He told Balfour: ‘I am honestly convinced that... I can render the Government and country better service in the position I actually hold than in the higher office which you offer me.’26 Balfour asked him to re-consider and Chamberlain advised him to accept. When he returned to England later in the month further pressure was put upon him. But he remained adamant and, eventually, Alfred Lyttleton was appointed in his stead. Was the reason which he gave to Balfour the real one? In a private letter dated 21 September he wrote: ‘It has been the most difficult decision of my life. I want to get out of South Africa as soon as I can; I should love the life at home and the experience of Cabinet work.... I am independent though not rich, having some £1,500 a year of my own. . . . What South Africa needs now is my personal presence and influence with certain people. ... I should feel a bit awkward in taking office in a crisis resulting from the . . . postponement of a policy of which I happen to be one of the most convinced proponents.’27 Taking the office of a man who had resigned as the result of the Cabinet’s refusal to adopt a policy with which Milner agreed would have made any future public advocacy of that policy embarrassing and this may have been his principal reason for refusing an offer towards which he was attracted. Milner arrived in England from Carlsbad at the end of September and,

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

having finally refused the Colonial Office, went to Tubingen, where he had a new monument erected over his parents’ grave and saw Emma, an old family servant, ‘her husband and Josephine, besides various aunts and cousins.’ He returned to England on 13 October and spent the next six weeks visiting friends, working at the Colonial Office and indoctri¬ nating the new Colonial Secretary, Alfred Lyttleton, with his views on South Africa. He had an audience with the King at Windsor, where he was commanded to ‘dine and sleep’. He sailed for Cape Town on 28 November. He had agreed with Chamberlain that he should return to South Africa for about twelve months and then hand over to a successor. His last year in South Africa seemed, at the time, to be the most satisfactory part of his service there. In the offer of the Colonial Office he had received from the Prime Minister striking evidence of his confidence. In his rela¬ tions with the new Colonial Secretary he had the advantage of dealing with a man, nominally his superior, who was occupying a position he himself had refused. And in South Africa, after some difficult months of drought in the countryside and depression on the Rand, things seemed to be looking up. In his task of administration he worked largely through his ‘Kindergarten’, whose members were both congenial and devoted to him. He was sustained by the enthusiastic approval of the Englishspeaking colonists. He could afford to ignore the continued disapproval of the Afrikaners, particularly after the Cape elections in February 1904 had resulted in a Progressive Government, with Jameson as Prime Minister. As Milner told Lewis Michell: ‘It makes just the whole difference to have a loyal Government at the Cape.’28 But there were clouds on the horizon. While in England he had become aware of the near-certainty of the advent of a Liberal Govern¬ ment within the next year or two, which would very likely grant imme¬ diate and complete self-government to the new Colonies, set their faces against the policy of Imperial Preference to which Chamberlain had converted him, and generally exhibit all the worst defects of the ‘system’ against which he so frequently inveighed. So, as he saw it, his first duty was to scramble the South African egg so that a Liberal Government would not be able to unscramble it, and to advance reconstruction to an extent that even his opponents in South Africa could ‘see his good works’ and carry them on after he had gone. He soon came to realise that, if he were to retain the goodwill of the English-speaking colonists in the Transvaal, he would have to make

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some move in the direction of self-government. It had always been basic to his policy that ‘Responsible’ government should not be conceded until there was a majority of English voters. But he decided, reluctantly, that he would have to make some move before that stage was reached. On 2 May 1904 he told Lyttleton that there was ‘agitation in favour of the speedy introduction of self-government among the less patient and far¬ sighted portion of the British community’ and ‘unless something is done we shall soon have to confront an organised movement which the bulk of the British population will thoughtlessly welcome.’ He therefore recommended a ‘halfway house’ in the form of an entirely elected legis¬ lature, instead of the existing entirely nominated one, together with a continuation of the existing Crown Colony type of an entirely nominated Executive Council. He thought that ‘the mere fact of it becoming known that HMG wished this Colony to obtain self-government and was determined to move steadily, though cautiously, in that direction, would have a good effect.’29 HMG agreed with Milner and, in due course, what was known as the ‘Lyttleton Constitution’ was drawn up on the lines suggested by Milner. It was promulgated in 1905, after Milner had left South Africa, but was never put into effect. The Liberal Government which came into office in December 1905 and was confirmed in power by its victory at the General Election in January 1906, immediately superseded it by a grant of full ‘Responsible’ government. The announcement, in July 1904, of HMG’s intention to grant the ‘halfway house’ of Representative government did not, predictably, satisfy everyone, either in the United Kingdom or in South Africa. On 17 November Campbell-Bannerman announced that, if and when the Liberal Party came into office, they would grant a ‘full and honest measure of self-government’ to both the new Colonies. In South Africa the British colonists were split between the Transvaal Progressive Organisation which accepted an interim period of Representative government, and the Responsible Government Association which wanted immediate Responsible government. Among the Boers, the announcement precipitated the formation, in January 1905, of Het Volk, or People’s Union, a tightly-organised and well-disciplined political party representing Afrikaner nationalism in the Transvaal in the same way as the Bond represented it at the Cape. In the Orange River Colony, the Oranjie Unie, an organisation similar to Het Volk, was formed. Het Volk’s attitude, as expressed by Botha, its President, was that it

152

Milner: Apostle of Empire

was opposed to Representative government and wanted a direct transi¬ tion to Responsible government in due course. But they made no immediate demand for it, being content to watch the political split developing among the British colonists. Oranjie Unie adopted a similar line. They had been assured that the Liberal Party, which would prob¬ ably be governing England within a year or two, would grant Respon¬ sible government anyway, and they preferred to wait until then. As the time of his departure drew near, Milner became concerned with the question of his successor. He told the Prime Minister in February 1904 that he would recommend Lawley, Lieut.-Governor of the Trans¬ vaal, if the appointment were to be made from within the Colonial Service. But he thought that there was a case for appointing ‘a man of Cabinet rank’, and suggested either Lyttleton, Colonial Secretary, or Selborne, First Lord of the Admiralty. Eventually Selborne was appointed, to Milner’s great satisfaction, after Balfour had vainly asked Milner to stay on himself as ‘the interests of the Empire will be best served by your continuance in office like Cromer for an indefinite period.’30 It was arranged that Milner should relinquish his appointment ‘in the second or third week of March.’ His state of mind during his last few months as High Commissioner is revealed in a letter to Jim Rendel, at the end of December 1904; ‘My wishes for myself are summed up in the desire to get out of this.... I am under no illusions about “finishing my job” here. It is like the heads of the hydra. . . . Since I got back a year ago we have simply saved the Colonies economically. It was an awful fight but the result is that the financial outlook is completely altered. Fresh follies might of course spoil it. They might spoil anything. But ... I shall leave that side of the business in good order. The next cause of anxiety is the foolish haste to get ‘representative’ or ‘responsible’ govern¬ ment. Let others deal with that. I have practically fixed the end of March as my date of leaving here. ... I see from the papers that the “out of work” question is assuming a specially grave aspect this winter.... The thing is not going to get less serious as the years go by. These problems —and those of Empire—are the only political questions which really matter. And they are of course intimately connected.’31 In the last sentences of this letter Milner was reaching forward towards what was to become one of his principal future preoccupations—the close relationship between Imperial unity and the ‘condition of the people’ question. For, at the core of Milner’s Imperialism was the belief that freedom of move¬ ment and of trade within the British Empire was a necessary condition of

Reconstruction

M3

stable employment for the people of the UK and that the revenue to be derived from a system of tariffs, combined with Imperial Pref¬ erence, was the only sound way to finance an enlarged system of social services. When the time came for him to go there was the usual round of farewell banquets and speeches. On 31 March, at a banquet in the Drill Hall in Johannesburg to a mainly British audience, Milner made probably the most notable speech of his life—a confession of faith, a defence of his administration, a gesture of defiance to his opponents, an apologia pro vita sua. It took an hour and twenty minutes to deliver and, as he put it, was phrased ‘quite mercilessly’ and ‘without adornment or relief.’ He warned his audience of nearly 1,000 that ‘it is not the case that what is known as self-government will of itself bring every blessing in its train. If anyone believes that popular election and a party system are the panacea which is going to put right whatever is defective in your system of government, I fear he is doomed to disappointment. None of the good tendencies will be quickened—I trust that none of them will be retarded—by the advent of party government.’ HMG was anxious to grant self-government to the new Colonies as soon as possible so that they could put a stop to ‘the mischievous game of dragging local colonial business for home party purposes about the floor of the Commons.’ There was a danger lest HMG might be tempted ‘to go too fast rather than too slowly.’ He went on to state his views about reconciliation between Briton and Boer. ‘It is a mistake to keep girding at . . . (the Boers) ... to show us more friendship than they are yet able to feel. But it is no less a mistake to try to coax them by offering them more than they are entitled to, and something which in our hearts we know we ought not to give up. Courtesy and consideration for their feelings, always. Compromise on questions of principle, the suppression of our natural and legitimate sentiments, never. There is a want of good sense and self-respect about that sort of kow-towing which makes it the worst way in the world to win over a strong, shrewd, and eminently selfrespecting people.’ He touched briefly on the colour question, about which his British audience was almost as obscurantist as the Boers. He declared himself as ‘in the opinion of the vast majority of the people in this room, a heretic on the subject. . . and an unrepentant heretic. ... I continue to hold the view that we got off the right lines in this matter when we threw over the principle of Mr. Rhodes—equal rights for all civilised men.’ But

154

Milner: Apostle of Empire

he added that he was ‘prepared to rely for the return to the true path upon a gradual change in the opinion of the people of South Africa. This is a South African question. Nothing could be worse than to try to influence this decision, even in the right direction, by any kind of external pressure. ... You may learn that the essence of wisdom ... is discrimination; not to throw all people of colour . . . into one indistinguishable heap—but to follow closely the difference of race, of circumstance, and of degree of civilisation, and to adapt your policy intelligently and sympathetically to the several requirements of each.’ He referred to his work in South Africa before and during the war: ‘I shall live in the memories of the men of this country, if I live at all, in connection with the struggle to keep it within the bounds of the British Empire. And certainly I engaged in that struggle with all my might, being, from head to foot, one mass of glowing conviction in the righteousness of our cause.’ But, he went on, ‘what I should prefer to be remembered by is the tremendous effort subsequent to the war, not only to repair its ravages but to restart the Colonies on a higher plane of civilisation than they had ever previously attained. . . . There are many things which I have been instrumental in doing which any man in my place would have done. . . . But there are some other enterprises which owe their origin almost entirely to my personal initiative and insistence, and these are all more or less in danger.’ He specified these as (i) his land settlement policy which he regarded as ‘a vital and essential part of our constructive work’ and which, in spite of some initial difficulties was ‘pro¬ ceeding . . . slowly but successfully, unsensationally and on a sound basis.... But the experiment has many enemies and unless I can secure for it active friends, it has a troubled time before it.’ (ii) Afforestation. ‘That is another of Milner’s fads. ... If you could persist in spending £100,000 a year for thirty or forty years in planting forests, you would find yourselves in the possession of undreamed-of wealth when your mines are exhausted. . . . But . . . unless the people of this country can be awakened to their vital permanent interests, the first “responsible” government which has any difficulty in squaring its Budget will starve the thing to death.’ (iii) ‘And the same danger threatens our arrangements for the scientific promotion of agriculture. ... I am not confident of its fate at the hands of party politicians.’ (iv) ‘Last but not least of these unpopular enterprises is the amalgamation of the railways and the crea¬ tion of the . . . Inter-Colonial Council.’ He defended the work of these bodies and hoped that they had paved the way towards ‘an amalgamation

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155

of all the railways in South Africa—which might even precede a political union.’ He explained that all these ‘fads’ were ‘necessarily unpopular to begin with because they were original . . . (and) . . . they have not had time enough to wear down this unpopularity by their fruits, because they are slow-growing. They are all under the curse of that congenital vice of their author—an incurable tendency to look ahead.’ He con¬ cluded this part of his speech with an appeal to his audience: ‘If you believe in me, defend my works when I am gone.’ He concluded with a confession of his faith as an Imperialist: ‘What I pray for hardest is that those with whom I have worked . . . should remain faithful... to the great ideal of Imperial Unity. . . . The future of the Empire is a race, a close race, between the numerous influences manifestly making for disruption and the growth of a great but as yet very imperfectly realised political conception. Shall we ever get ourselves understood in time? . . . When we who call ourselves Imperialists think of the British Empire we think of a group of States independent of one another in their local affairs but united for the defence of their common interests and for the development of a common civilisation, and united, not in an alliance—for alliances can be made and unmade and are never more than nominally lasting—but in a permanent organic union-Our ideal is still far distant, but we are firmly convinced that it is neither vision¬ ary nor unattainable. Such a consummation would solve the most persist¬ ent of the problems of South Africa and unite the white races as nothing else could. The Dutch can never owe a perfect allegiance to Great Britain; the British can never without moral injury accept allegiance to any body politic which excludes the Motherland.32 But British and Dutch alike could . . . unite in loyal devotion to an Empire State in which Great Britain and South Africa would be partners. . . . And so we see that the true Imperialist is also the best South African. . . . You cannot hasten the slow growth of a great idea of that kind by any forcing process. But you can keep it steadily in view, lose no opportunity of working for it, and resist like grim death any policy that leads away from it. I know that the service of that idea requires ... a combination of ceaseless effort with infinite patience. But think of. . . the immense privilege of being allowed to contribute to the fulfilment of one of the noblest conceptions which has ever dawned on the political imagination of mankind.’33 Milner left Johannesburg by train for Lourenco Marques on 2 April. He was accompanied by Geoffrey Robinson (Dawson), one of his Kindergarten, for whom he had obtained the editorship of tha Johannes-

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

burg Star, ‘to ensure that his policy would receive adequate attention ...

after his departure.’34 Robinson accompanied Milner as far as Cairo, where they went sightseeing together. He then returned to Johannes¬ burg and Milner, instead of going straight to England as he had intended, went, at the urgent request of Lady Dawkins, to the Italian Lakes where Sir Clinton Dawkins, one of his oldest friends, was dying. On the way home Milner wrote a long letter to Selborne, his succes¬ sor, an old friend and supporter, and almost a disciple. ‘People think that the war decided that South Africa should remain for good and all part of the British Empire.... It only made that result possible—at most probable. To make it certain requires years of strong, patient policy, the principal danger in this, as in all our Imperial problems, being of course at home. Without the tomfoolery of home party politics interfering with a sane Imperial policy we should be safe. . ..’ He warned him about the Boers; ‘The change of Governors enables them not only to pretend to be less hostile, but actually to adopt a somewhat less aggressive policy, for it had become almost a point of honour with them to oppose me and all my works.... The Afrikaner party is an all-pervading political force throughout South Africa—the same everywhere in spirit, aim and method and working together instinctively on the same lines and for the same ends, with or without formal organisation. . . . Their creed and ideal is that of a separate Afrikaner nation and State, comprising ... men of other races who are ready to be afrikanerised, but essentially autoch¬ thonous, isolated and un-British, although some of them are pre¬ pared to see their object realised, for a time at least, under the British flag. .. . Almost every phrase which they use . . . has a double meaning, a popular one for consumption by you and me or at home, and an esoteric one, which is wholly different, if not opposite.’ On union, he had this to say: ‘Everybody clamours for union, every¬ body recognises, in the abstract, its desirability, yet everybody kicks against the inevitable sacrifices of self-containedness which this involves. It is the HC’s prestige and personal influence which alone can prevent... bad quarrels, and force the jealous rivals, nolentes volentes, into com¬ promise and common action. . . . The Transvaal is particularly selfassertive, the other Colonies are madly jealous of the Transvaal, and have the most ridiculous fear of the Rand and its money-bags.’ He commended ‘Milner’s fads . . . which will need your special protection if they are to survive the attacks of deliberate malice or mere empty-headed superficiality’ and, in particular, urged Selborne to ‘pro-

Reconstruction

J57

tect the British settlers we have already got from being squeezed out... when the administration passes into less sympathetic hands.’ He ex¬ horted him to keep the Inter-Colonial railway system going and re¬ gretted thatHMG’s refusal to give the Inter-Colonial Council borrowing powers had frustrated the ‘bigger political objects prompting me to suggest the creation of the Council’.35 By this he menat that he had intended the Council to form the nucleus of a federal organisation. He arrived in England, without eclat, in July 1905. His plans, so far as he had formed any, had been expressed to Clinton Dawkins in a letter written in April 1904. ‘I will not go on with political life in the ordinary sense of the word when I am freed from this dungeon. . . . What I may do is quite uncertain and I decline, until I have had my long holiday, even to consider it. But I am too far, too increasingly, as the years go by, out of sympathy with our political system, and with the political attitude of the bulk of my countrymen, to be a successful poli¬ tician in the ordinary sense. I am an anachronism. It may be I was born too late, it may be I was born too soon. In the latter, I think the less probable, case I may be of some use in politics as an outsider, though never again as an active participant in the fray. But I am not going to make myself miserable any more, or to embarrass any Ministry or Party, by holding office on the terms on which, under the conditions of the day, it can alone be held. Every man can afford to hold some unpopular ideas. But I have amassed all the most unpopular. I hold, with real conviction, a whole posse of them, and I mean to allow myself the luxury of holding, perhaps even occasionally of expressing, them.’8* At the end of August he was offered, and refused, the Vice-royalty of India in place of Lord Curzon, who had just resigned as a result of his row with Kitchener over the control of the Indian Army. The offer was made by Balfour during the last few weeks of the life of his Conservative Administration, which went out of office in December. It was replaced by a Liberal Administration headed by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, which was confirmed in office at a General Election held in January 1906, when the Unionists were defeated by an overwhelming majority, retain¬ ing only 167 seats in the House of Commons. A typically uninhibited comment by Milner on the result of the Election is contained in a letter to E. B. Iwan-Muller, the Daily Telegraph correspondent in South Africa, written from the south of France, where Milner was having—one cannot say enjoying—a holiday: ‘The utter uselessness of doing anything for such a pack of fools as the British

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

people. ... If I was beginning life afresh the last thing I should touch with the end of the tongs would be public service or anything remotely connected with public affairs. A nation which is capable ... of giving the largest majority on record to Campbell-Bannerman may be everything that is excellent and desirable, but it’s no master for the likes of me.’37

NOTES ON CHAPTER SIX 1. 2. 3. 4.

Headlam, op. cit., II, p. 217. ibid., pp. 242-4. L. S. Amery, My Political Life (Hutchinson, 1953), I, p. 174W. B. Worsfold, The Reconstruction of the New Colonies under Lord Milner (Kegan Paul, Trench & Truebner, 1913), II, p. 179. 5. ibid., pp. 101 et seq. 6. ibid., p. 148. 7. Julian Amery, op. cit., IV, p. 75. 8. ibid., p. 308. 9. ibid., p. 315. 10. ibid., p. 319. ix. ibid., pp. 328-9. 12. Kenneth Young, A. ]. Balfour (Bell, 1963), p. 211. 13. Julian Amery, op. cit., IV, p. 340. 14. ibid., p. 338. 15. ibid., pp. 362-3. 16. ibid., p. 371. 17. MP 191. 18. Julian Amery, op. cit., IV, p. 381. 19. Headlam, op. cit., II, p. 442. 20. ibid., pp. 446-7. 21. ibid., p. 447. 22. ibid., p. 448. 23. ibid., p. 449. 24. ibid., pp. 451-2. 25. Anthony Glyn, Elinor Glyn (Hutchinson, 1955), p. 103. That this was more than a Platonic friendship is suggested by some extracts from Elinor’s diary, quoted by her grandson and biographer, e.g. In September 1910, describing a visit from Milner: ‘I have seen him, my old friend. He loved me and he loves me still. His stem face grew soft when his eyes rested on me. We talked for hours in the firelight and he forgot his dates and his dinner. ... At last he went away and 1 fear that he will not come again.’ (ibid., p. 192) But they did meet again, in Paris in 1917, when Milner was in the War Cabinet, and in 1919, also in Paris, during the Peace Conference, when Elinor described Milner as having ‘all Milord’s

Reconstruction

M9

infinite brain and no arrogance or vanity, humble and gentle and modest, but witty . . . one moment passionately loving, the next aloof and unapproachable. He has the most remarkable character of cunning, caution, sophistry and nobility one could imagine.’ (ibid., p. 257) (‘Milord’ was Curzon, with whom Elinor had also had a love affair.) A letter she wrote to Milner in 1917 about a protege for whom she wanted a job is conventional in phrasing and content and is, incidentally, the oniy one of her letters preserved in the Milner Papers. (MP 221.) 26. Headlam, op. cit., II, p. 473. 27. MP 191. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

Headlam, op. cit., II, p. 506. ibid., pp. 514 et seq. ibid., p. 539. ibid., p. 538. But what about the agitation for the franchise for the British Uitlanders? For full text of speech see (a) Milner’s ‘Nation and Empire’ or (b) Montefiore Papers, M 188.

34. 35. 36. 37.

Evelyn Wrench, Geoffrey Dawson and His Times (Hutchinson, 1955), p. 43. Headlam, op. cit., II, pp. 550-8. ibid., p. 483. MP 192.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Chinese Labour to Milner’s plans for reconstruction was the resumption of gold-mining as soon and on as large a scale as possible. During the war production was delayed by the supposed military necessities pleaded by Kitchener, against which Milner was continually chafing. After the war, progress was hindered by a shortage of native labour. Something like 85 per cent of African labour on the Rand normally came from Mozambique and, as we have seen, one of Milner’s first acts after the war was to negotiate with the Portuguese Governor about maintaining this. But, in spite of this, of improved conditions and in¬ creased wages, and of intensified recruiting drives, the shortage con¬ tinued. And pressure of recruitment by the mines naturally led to labour shortage elsewhere—particularly on the farms and in railway construc¬ tion. A Transvaal Labour Commission, appointed in July 1903 and reporting in November, found that there was a shortage of 130,000 men on the mines, 50,000 in agriculture and 35,000 on railway construction, against estimated requirements of 200,000 on the mines, 80,000 in agriculture, and 40,000 in railway construction. According to these estimates, the shortage was very serious indeed. But it was probably exaggerated by the interests providing the figures. Milner suggested to Chamberlain the possibility of importing inden¬ tured Asiatic labour (indentured Indian labour had already been em¬ ployed in the Natal sugar plantations). Chamberlain, in view of his insistence on a substantial Transvaal contribution towards the cost of the war, was as seized as Milner with the desirability of maximising gold production as quickly as possible, and discussed the labour problem with the mine-owners. He suggested the possibility of paying higher wages and indicated that the white attitude towards Africans had the effect of hindering recruitment. He advised them ‘to bring all your intelligence to bear to obtain a solution of the problem, by developing the present Essential

Chinese Labour

161

supply of African labour and by increasing the efficiency of the white labour employed. ... It is not until you have exhausted these solu¬ tions . . . that it would be reasonable that you should turn to the more drastic remedy of introducing Asiatic labour.’ In a diary entry on 21 January 1903 he recorded: ‘Lord Milner would be inclined to favour an experiment in the importation of Chinese labour. ... I consider that such action would be extremely unpopular and would raise a storm at home. . . . The feeling at present all over South Africa is against such a policy and, as long as this continues, it is not likely that the home Government would give its assent.’1 It was indeed the case that there was a strong local prejudice against imported Asiatic labour. Many of the indentured Indian workers who had come to Natal had stayed on in South Africa and created a racial problem. It was feared lest Chinese labour might do the same. But economic considerations were already causing the mining, and other, interests, to overcome their prejudice, provided that the labour were imported under conditions which would preclude their either propagat¬ ing themselves or mixing with the rest of the population, and which would ensure their returning home when their contracts had expired. In February 1903 a representative of the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association was sent to the Far East to enquire into the possibility of obtaining indentured Chinese labour. At the Inter-Colonial Conference in March, as we have seen, a Resolution was passed stating that ‘while the permanent settlement of Asiatics should not be permitted, indentured Asiatic labour should be permitted if industrial development positively required it.’ By this time Milner had become firmly convinced of the necessity for importing Asiatic labour. In April he told Chamberlain: ‘I believe we shall not be able to get through without some reinforcements from Asia.’ And in July he described Chinese labour as ‘a temporary bridge, though an absolutely necessary one, to the development of South Africa,’ and appended to his despatch a proposed timetable of procurement. On this Chamberlain minuted: ‘I fear he is inclined to move too fast. I must discuss with him in October,’2 when Milner would be home on leave. But, by October, Chamberlain was out of office. So, in his conversa¬ tions on the subject at the Colonial Office, Milner had to deal with Alfred Lyttleton, who was much more receptive to his views than Chamberlain had been. He obtained from him a promise that, if it were

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

found impossible to carry on the work of reconstruction without Asiatic labour, he would receive his support. Milner also canvassed his Liberal Imperialist friends, who do not appear to have expressed any strong objection. He returned to Africa in December with a firm determination to get his way in the matter. On 13 December he told his friend Philip Gell: ‘I foresee great difficulties to be got over before I can get the thing through, both for the Transvaal and for Rhodesia. This however is now my first duty and I mean to go at it with all the energy, patience and tenacity which I may possess. I am not at all confident of success, but I shall leave nothing in my power undone to secure it. . . .’3 By the time he got back, the Transvaal Labour Commission had reported their findings (see above), and Mr. Skinner, the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association representative, had come back from the Far East with a report that Chinese labour was suitable and would be avail¬ able in the required numbers if the conditions offered were right. On 2 December, while Milner was on the sea, the Witwatersrand Chamber of Mines formally and unanimously approved a proposal to introduce indentured Chinese labour. Two days later the Chamber of Trade followed suit, and on 15 December the Chamber of Commerce reversed a previous resolution disapproving of imported Asiatic labour. A draft Asiatic Labour Importation Ordinance had already been prepared by the Attorney-General and sent to the Colonial Office for approval. Imme¬ diately after Christmas the Legislative Council debated a private member’s motion in favour of the immediate import of Asiatic labour and approved it by 22 votes to 4. All the official members, who were allowed a free vote on this occasion, voted with the majority. Milner cabled the result of the debate to the Colonial Secretary on 4 January 1904, with the request that HMG approve the terms of the draft Ordin¬ ance. ‘I realise the gravity of this decision but have no shadow of doubt as to its wisdom. There are no signs of an adequate amount of labour being obtained from existing sources of supply. The consequent de¬ pression in . . . business is increasing daily, the revenue is falling off, many people are out of work and, if the situation does not soon change, a considerable exodus of the white population is inevitable.... It appears unjustifiable to refuse to try any remedy not in itself intolerable for a state of things which is causing grave distress ... and affecting the whole of South Africa.’4 A few days earlier, on 28 December, he had asked HMG to agree to a postponement of the first instalment of the promised

Chinese Labour

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war contribution on the ground of the economic situation, which he attributed primarily to the labour shortage.5 In reply to these despatches, HMG, apart from agreeing to a postpone¬ ment of the war contribution instalment, gave their approval to the draft Labour Importation Ordinance, subject to some detailed amend¬ ments, to the formal approval of the amended draft by the Transvaal Legislative Council, and to the approval of certain details by the Chinese Government. The Legislative Council formally approved the Ordinance on 10 February. On 10 March a deputation broadly representative of British interests in the Transvaal waited on the High Commissioner to protest against HMG’s delay in sanctioning the Ordinance. On 11 March, whether or not by coincidence, the Colonial Secretary advised Milner, in due form, that it was ‘His Majesty’s pleasure not to disallow’ the Ordinance. But it was still necessary to await the signature of a Conven¬ tion with the Chinese Government before it could be implemented. Such a Convention was signed in the middle of May, after the usual diplomatic haggling. Meanwhile, some disapproval had been expressed in England. On 16 February in the Commons, Mr. H. (later Sir Herbert) Samuel, a Liberal MP, moved an Amendment to the Address affirming that it was in¬ expedient that the Royal sanction should be given to the Ordinance. The Amendment was defeated by 281 votes to 230. In the Lords, on 21 March, the Bishop of Hereford, moving that ‘this House disapproves of the importation of Chinese labourers into the Transvaal until the grant of full self-government’, said that ‘it would be a great boon to South Africa if Lord Milner were no longer there. He has shown his disqualifi¬ cation for the position in two ways; (i) his temper constantly obscures his judgement, and (ii) his language is constantly running away with him. Men of that temper and with that rasping journalistic pen should not represent the Empire in great positions.’ His old patron, Goschen, now in the Lords, and other Conservative Peers, defended Milner, and Selborne, replying for the Government, denied that Milner had put the proposal forward in the interests solely of the mine owners. ‘It is not the mine-owners that Lord Milner thinks about. ... It is in order that South Africa should become British . . . that he is adopting this policy.’ The motion was defeated by 97 votes to 25. On the same day in the Commons Campbell-Bannerman moved that ‘this House disapproves of the conduct of HMG in advising the Crown not to disallow the Chinese Labour

164

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Ordinance.’ Unlike the Bishop of Hereford, he made no personal attack on Milner. His motion was defeated by 299 votes to 242. Up to this point the Boers had shown little interest in the matter, although a meeting at Heidelburg on 2 July 1903 had passed a resolution that ‘the introduction of Asiatics ... ought not to be adopted until such time as the white population of the Transvaal should be able to decide thereon under conditions of self-government, especially as conclusive proof had not been given that the labour capacity of South Africa was not sufficient for the demands then existing.’ This was mild enough. But six months later, in February 1904, when it was apparent that the matter was being taken up in the English Press and that the Ordinance was being opposed by those English Liberals whom the Boer leaders regarded, with some justice, as Milner’s enemies and their allies, they began to take more interest. A protest, signed by 14 Boer leaders, including Botha and Smuts, was submitted to the Lieut.-Governor, with the request that it be submitted to the Secretary of State. The protest read, in part: ‘The question has never been submitted to the approval of the people ... the overwhelming majority of whom are unalterably opposed to the intro¬ duction of Asiatic labour . . . under whatever restrictions. The Labour Commission was not an impartial or representative body;... the Legis¬ lative Council is in no sense representative of the Transvaal people. . . . We are most anxious that HMG ... shall not remain under the mistaken impression that the Boer population is in favour of a measure which it looks upon as a public calamity of the first magnitude. . . .’6 The first shipload of 600 Chinese labourers arrived at Durban from Hong-Kong on 18 June 1904 and began working on the Rand on 2 July. The labourers were engaged on 3-year contracts. They were placed under the supervision of the Transvaal Government from recruitment to repatriation. They were not allowed without a permit to leave the immediate area of the mine in which they were employed, and where they were housed and fed, under supervision, in compounds. Travelling expenses from and to the labourer’s place of origin were paid at the beginning and end of the contract, which could be terminated by the labourer at any time on condition of paying his own repatriation expenses and refunding the cost of bringing him to South Africa. In theory they were allowed to bring their wives and children with them, but in practice this was made impossible by making them responsible for fares both ways. Their treatment and living conditions were probably no worse, and in some respects better, than those of the African labourers

Chinese Labour

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in the Kimberley diamond mines. Inspection arrangements were made to ensure that employers carried out the terms of their contracts and that the treatment of the labour was in accordance with the terms of the Ordinance. As later became apparent, these inspection arrangements were not infallible. ‘The immediate results of the additional labour supply obtained from China may be summarised in a few lines: At the end of March 1904 the number of Chinese at work on the gold mines was nil; at the end of March 1905, when Milner left South Africa, it was 34,355. At the former date the number of British workmen employed in the industry was 10,240, at the latter date it was 13,25 5. At the former date the number of African natives employed was 78,825; at the latter date it was 105,184.... The output of gold for April 1904 was of the value of £1,305,431, or at an annual rate of production of £15-5 million. For March 1905 it was of the value of £1,699,991, or at an annual rate of production of £29 million. In March 1904 it was very doubtful whether the Transvaal Government would not have to seek financial assistance from the Parlia¬ ment of the UK to enable it to meet the expenses of the current financial year ending 30 June 1904; on 30 June 1905 the Transvaal Treasurer announced a surplus of £347,ooo.’7 From the economic point of view, the experiment would appear to have paid off. But, if the bottom of the barrel had been scraped in the efforts to obtain African labour, how was it that the supply of African labour increased by 26,000, or about 33 per cent, between April 1904 and April 1905? And how was it that by 1910 no less than 183,000 African labourers were working on the mines?8 The real explanation almost certainly is that there was sufficient African labour available provided that adequate wages were paid, and that the mineowners cozened the High Commissioner and the British Government into permitting the introduction of indentured and ‘tied’ labour in order to lower the price of African ‘free’ labour.9 Shortly before he left South Africa, in the course of what he no doubt regarded as part of his ordinary routine work, Milner approved a proposal by Mr. Evans, Government Superintendent of Chinese labour, that employers should be permitted summarily to inflict what was later described as ‘light corporal punishment, equivalent to the caning of a schoolboy’, on Chinese labourers, without reference to a magistrate, in cases of violence or unruliness in the mine compounds. ‘At the time,’ as Milner later told his successor, ‘it seemed to me so harmless that I really

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

gave very little thought to the matter.’10 As one might have expected, this permission was frequently abused by some of the mine foremen and in June Lawley, acting as High Commissioner and Administrator, hear¬ ing some complaints about it, withdrew the permission given and re¬ ported the matter to the Colonial Secretary. Lyttleton called for an investigation and, having received a report from Evans which mentioned that Lord Milner had authorised what he had done, sent a despatch to Selborne, who had by this time (October) taken up his duties, in which he expressed his disapproval at the fact of corporal punishment, however slight, having been inflicted without the sanction of the law and without his having been informed.11 With a General Election in the offing, all this was political dynamite. Already, and even without the flogging, which the Opposition did not yet know about, ‘Chinese slavery’ was becoming a staple charge against and a source of embarrassment to the Government at by-elections. And when the General Election campaign opened in December, after the Conservative Government had resigned and been replaced by a Liberal Government under Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberals made ‘Chinese slavery’ one of the two principal planks in their election platform, the other being the ‘sixpenny loaf’, which was their electoral version of the Tariff" Reform proposals to which the Conservative Party was halfcommitted. With these two subjects in the forefront of their propaganda, the Liberal Radicals were in the happy position of being able to abuse both their principal betes noires—Milner and Chamberlain. In a speech at the Albert Hall on 21 December Campbell-Bannerman announced that orders had been given ‘to stop forthwith the recruitment and embarkation of coolies in China.’ Later, when the result of the elections had been to confirm him and his Government in office, he was compelled to re-interpret this pledge, owing to the existence of 14,000 outstanding licences, to say nothing of the 47,000 Chinese already in South Africa.12 The first reference to Chinese labour in the new House of Commons was in a debate on the Address on 22/23 February 1906. Mr. Forster, a Unionist member, moved an Amendment to the Address, regretting that ‘YM’s Ministers should have brought the reputation of the country into contempt by describing Chinese indentured labour as slavery and yet are contemplating no effective measures to bring it to an end.’ Winston Churchill, son of Lord Randolph, who had, a few months before, crossed from the Unionist to the Liberal benches, and been re-elected as a Liberal, was now Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in the new

Chinese Labour

167

Government and, as his chief Lord Elgin was in the Lords, the Govern¬ ment spokesman in the Commons for Colonial affairs. He replied, using an expression which has since become famous, that the Chinese labour scheme, which was the responsibility of the previous Government, was undesirable, but that it was a ‘terminological inexactitude’ to call it slavery. The Amendment was defeated by 416 votes to 91, an indication of the strength of the new Government in the Commons. In the King’s Speech at the opening of the new Parliament, reference had been made to the Government’s intention to grant a full measure of self-government forthwith to the Transvaal, in place of the ‘halfway house’ of the Lyttleton Constitution, and to the Orange River Colony. On 26 February, in a Lords debate on South African affairs, Milner took the opportunity of making his maiden speech, in which he asked Lord Elgin whether he could give the House any information about the form of the proposed Constitution for the two ex-Republics. His speech betrayed much of the bitterness which he undoubtedly felt; ‘I hope that the noble Lord will be able to dispel the alarm of all those who did not sympathise with the enemy during the war and do not want to see all the hard and costly work accomplished since its conclusion . . . undone.’ Even if, unfortunately, it were decided to give immediate self-govern¬ ment to the Transvaal, this need not necessarily apply to Orange River Colony ‘where almost every man of influence . . . devoted himself from the outset to thwarting the policy of reconciliation. It will be perfectly possible for them, with the most complete constitutional propriety ... to reverse all that has been done and gradually to get rid of. . . any offen¬ sive British taint. ... I cannot understand how any human being, not being a pro-Boer, can regard with equanimity the prospect that the very hand who drafted the ultimatum of October 1899 may within a year be drafting Ministers’ Minutes for submission to a British Governor who will have no option but to obey them. ... If he refuses there will be a low growl of menace from Press and platform and pulpit . . . and the answering scream from a certain section of the British Press, against the ruthless satrap who dared trample on the rights of a free people. . . . These are not imaginings, they are reminiscences.’ He expressed anxiety about the future of British settlers in Orange River Colony if selfgovernment were granted immediately. There was no difference in attitude between the Boers of the Orange River Colony and those of the Transvaal, but there was a strong minority, if not a majority, of British in the Transvaal, where ‘as you have decided against the gradual

168

Milner: Apostle of Empire

method, as you are going to plunge into full self-government at once, it may make the whole difference between retaining and losing South Africa that you do nothing to hinder its growth or alienate the affections of its people.’ This led him to the Chinese labour question. 1 was as much opposed to it as all the rest of the white population of the Trans¬ vaal. ... If I was converted a little sooner than some of the rest it was only because I had earlier and fuller access to the facts.... I should never have recommended the system if I had thought it morally wrong. . . . These enterprises cannot afford the wages which British workmen would rightly require. ... It seems to me unreasonable and tyrannous both to the Chinese and to the British to forbid it. . . .’ He ended by expressing his regret that it had been decided to jettison the Lyttleton Constitution for the Transvaal, ‘The bulk of the country voters will do what Het Voik tells them to do. It will go for Chinese labour or forced Kaffir labour if thereby it can only get control of the country schools. If I were a Party man I should try to goad the Government into going still further, because the people of Great Britain will greatly dislike the consequences and will visit with condign punishment those who have done it. But... the alienation of South Africa is too high a price to pay for another swing of the pendulum at home.’ Milner’s attack did not long remain unanswered. During the course of a somewhat rambling debate, the Earl of Portsmouth, Under¬ secretary of State for War, referred to the correspondence between Lyttleton and Selborne about the flogging incidents, which had been published in a Blue Book, and read Lyttleton’s despatch in which the Labour Superintendent was quoted as saying that ‘Lord Milner took no objection’ when his permission was sought for allowing Chinese coolies to be lightly caned by mine foremen for violence or unruliness. Lord Portsmouth pointed out that Milner had previously stated that corporal punishment would only be administered according to law. ‘I maintain that it is a monstrous thing for the High Commissioner to make a state¬ ment of that kind . . . and then to sanction illegal flogging.’ Milner immediately intervened. He told the House that it was ‘no doubt true’ that the Superintendent of Foreign Labour—who had been placed at the disposal of the Transvaal Government because of his long experience with Chinese coolies—had informed him that he found it necessary to authorise the infliction of light corporal punishment by the mine foremen for ‘acts of violence and disturbance to order’, although never for ‘desertion or refusal to work’. That being the view of the man

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who was appointed to protect the interests of the coolies and whom he had found . . . ‘fearlessly zealous and devoted to the defence of their interests/ he did not interfere. He took upon himself the whole respon¬ sibility. He thought, in the light of subsequent events, that he was wrong. This had happened immediately before he left the Transvaal. Shortly afterwards the Lieut.-Governor was informed that at one or two of the mines ill-treatment of the coolies had taken place and he immediately forbade all corporal punishment whatever at any of the mines. If he himself had been there he would have done exactly the same. On 28 February, the day after this incident in the Lords, Mr. Byles, a Liberal member of the Commons, moved a Resolution to the effect that any settlement of South African affairs should take into account the welfare of native races and quoted Sir William Harcourt as saying that ‘taxing the poor in order to compel them to labour at work they dislike at a wage far below the market price is an economic doctrine of South African origin/ Since the Government’s policy of self-government for the two Boer colonies effectively precluded any possibility of any con¬ sideration at all being extended to the native races, the question posed by Mr. Byles was an awkward one, which Churchill evaded by attacking Milner instead. ‘I should not put myself to any undue or excessive exer¬ tion to defend Lord Milner from any attacks which might be made upon him. .. . His position over the native question in South Africa is neces¬ sarily a very weak one. Being regarded after the war as the inveterate enemy of the Dutch ... he had to fall back for support on the British section of the population and in particular on the mine-owning groups. In order to placate them he had somewhat to ignore the wishes of the rest of the British population. In order to propitiate the British popula¬ tion he had to sacrifice the interests of the Dutch, and in order to com¬ pensate the mine-owners, the British and the Dutch, he had to sacrifice the interests of the natives.’ This somewhat involved explanation of the weakness of Milner’s position on the native question seems successfully to have disguised the Government’s own position, which was very much weaker. It was duly resolved that ‘in any settlement of South African affairs, the House desires a recognition of Imperial responsibility for all races.’ In this way the Liberal conscience was appeased, preparatory to handing over the native races of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony to the tender mercies of the Afrikaners. Three weeks later, on 21 March, Mr. Byles, presumably satisfied about the future of South African natives, but still in hot pursuit of Lord Milner,

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

and having noted the contents of the relevant Blue Book and Lord Portsmouth’s strictures in the Lords, moved that ‘This House expresses its disapproval of the conduct of Viscount Milner in authorising the flogging of Chinese labourers in breach of the law and without the knowl¬ edge and sanction of the Secretary of State for the Colonies.’ In moving the Resolution he remarked that, if it were rejected, ‘every prancing Proconsul in the Empire would be encouraged to pay regard not to the law but to their own sweet will....’ Churchill, on behalf of the Govern¬ ment, moved an amendment that ‘this House, while recording its con¬ demnation of the flogging of Chinese coolies in breach of the law, desires, in the interests of peace and conciliation, to refrain from passing censure on individuals.’ Moving this somewhat ungenerous amendment, he described Milner’s action in approving the floggings as ‘a grave derelic¬ tion of public duty’. But ‘he has gone from South Africa, probably for ever. The public service knows him no more. Having exercised great authority he now exercises no authority. Having held high employment he now has no employment. Having disposed of events which have shaped the course of history he is now unable to deflect in the smallest degree the policy of the day. Having been the arbiter of men who are rich beyond the dreams of avarice, he is to-day poor and honourably poor. After twenty years of exhausting service under the Crown he is to-day a retired Civil Servant without pension or gratuity. Is it worth while to pursue him any further?’ This is the sort of language which might have been used of a defeated enemy or of a Governor who had been guilty of very serious misconduct. Used by a young UnderSecretary (who in his previous capacity as a War Correspondent had published at least one article slavering Milner with praise for his work in South Africa) to a distinguished Government servant who had, within the last two years, been offered, and had refused, the offices of Colonial Secretary and Viceroy of India, and who, at the worst, had been guilty of an error of judgement, it reflected more discredit on the one delivering the rebuke than on the one who was so intemperately rebuked. Naturally, it aroused furious indignation, both among Milner’s friends and among Conservatives in general. And, although the two men later became colleagues, Milner never forgave Churchill. In the debate both Chamberlain and Balfour defended Milner. Chamberlain referred to ‘a single error of judgement in a long course of public service’, attacked the Government amendment ‘which on its merits would be rejected by any honest man’, and defied the Government

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to impeach Milner. ‘It would enable a verdict of complete acquittal and probably a subsequent Parliament would pass a most effusive Resolution of gratitude and respect to the person whom they had impeached.’ Balfour told the House that ‘if I were Lord Milner there is no Boer I would not prefer as an enemy to some of the gentlemen who attack him in this country.’ He called on the House to reject both Byles’ Resolution and the Government amendment, ‘not because they are zealous for justice but because they are afraid of their own countrymen in South Africa.’ But the voting was on Party lines and the Government amend¬ ment which was, in effect if not in form, a vote of censure on Milner, was passed by 355 votes to 135. Milner’s friends and supporters were determined that this should not be taken lying down. On 29 March the Earl of Halifax, in the Lords, moved ‘that this House desires to place on record its high appreciation of the services rendered by Lord Milner in South Africa.’ He tellingly quoted a speech made by Churchill six years before when he had said that the removal of Milner from South Africa would be ‘a greater blow to Imperial interests than the defeats at Magersfontein, Stormberg, Colenso and Spion Kop put together.’ But in those days Churchill had been a Conservative. Goschen told the House that they must pass the resolution in order to counteract the deplorable effect of the Commons resolution on the South African loyalists who ‘believe that British supremacy is threatened in South Africa and that feeling is increased by a belief that a blow has been struck at the man who represents the policy of British supremacy.’ Lord Roberts made the same point. Lord Halsbury repeated Chamberlain’s challenge to the Government to impeach Milner. The Government had its supporters in the Lords, some of whom pointed out that the motion was really an attack by the Lords on the Commons. Lord Ripon, an ex-Viceroy and a man high in the counsels of the Prime Minister, said that he had ‘never heard such an attack on the House as I have had the misfortune to hear to-night.’ Lord Cole¬ ridge, in a criticism of Milner which was more honest and nearer the truth than criticisms over the caning of coolies uttered by men who were about to hand over the natives of the Transvaal to people whose principal method of disciplining natives was the sjambok, said: Lord Milner was a slave to his bureaucratic ideas. He had formed the idea that all.the Dutch must be disloyal, all the British loyal, and that the British were in a minority .. . and that the only way to redress the balance was to expropriate the Boer and put the British in their place.

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

Lord Lansdowne, the Conservative leader in the Lords, winding up the debate, referred to the ‘exasperation’ caused by the way in which the matter had been dealt with in ‘another place’ where ‘a private member was allowed to put a motion directly criticising Lord Milner over a matter which had been fully dealt with. It is not for the sake of Lord Milner’s feelings that we are going to pass this resolution. We are think¬ ing of the manner in which this question is regarded in our own country and in our Colonies and especially by the loyal population in South Africa.’ On the Question being put the resolution was carried by 170 votes to 3 5. Thus ended what proved to be the first of a series of engage¬ ments between Lords and Commons under the Liberal Government, which eventually developed into a great constitutional crisis. The fury with which Milner was regarded by the Liberal Radicals caused him to be regarded as a hero by their opponents, who rallied enthusiastically to his defence after the Commons vote of censure. In its issue of 28 March, Punch, under the caption ‘The Stain of Censure’, pub¬ lished a cartoon depicting Milner as a knight in armour being addressed by the Muse of History; ‘Leave your shield in my keeping. I will make it bright again.’13 An Address containing 370,000 signatures of inhabi¬ tants of the UK indicating the desire of the signatories ‘to place on record our high appreciation of the services rendered by Your Lordship to the Crown and Empire’ was presented to him. Another Address was presented to him signed by 25,000 people in Cape Colony, praising his work in South Africa and deploring the fact that this work ‘had recently been attacked in a manner as ungenerous as it was ignorant in a quarter where continued misapprehension of its true character and tendencies might have the gravest consequences both to South Africa and the Empire.’ On 12 June he received an Honorary Degree of Doctor in Law from Cambridge University, where the Public Orator referred to him as our Scipio Africanus . A piquant feature of the ceremony was that Campbell-Bannerman and Lord Elgin were awarded Degrees at the same time. They may have been a little embarrassed by the ‘exceptionally prolonged applause’ with which Milner was greeted. On 24 May—Empire Day—a banquet in Milner’s honour was held at the Hotel Cecil, with Chamberlain in the Chair. In reply to the toast to his health Milner spoke deploring the Government’s decision to grant immediate self-government to the Transvaal and Orange River Colony and referred to his maiden speech in the Lords. ‘How could I be silent when a course was being pursued which could only lead to the economic

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ruin of South Africa and the complete political alienation of its people from the Motherland.’ He expressed the hope that ‘moderating influences are beginning to make themselves felt... and there is at least ground for hope that continuity of policy, may to some extent be re-established.... I hope that I may be able to watch in silence the affairs of South Africa developing, not altogether in accordance with my own views, but at any rate on lines not inconsistent with her own prospects ... or with her becoming more and more closely bound in interest and sympathy to the other members of the British family of nations.’ He ended his speech with a tribute to Chamberlain and an implied declaration of support for the policy fo Tariff Reform to which Chamberlain had devoted the rest of his political life. He referred to the immense debt owed to Chamberlain by ‘we who look beyond the Empire as it is to the Empire as it might be . . . for the immense impulse he has given to the thoughts and sympathies and movements which work for a more effective union of the scattered communities of the British race.’14 Until self-government had become a fait accompli in February 1907 Milner continued his efforts, by speeches in the Lords and otherwise, on behalf of the British agricultural settlers in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, for whom he felt a personal responsibility. In the event the Government, in the Letters Patent providing for the grant of selfgovernment to the two Colonies, provided also for a Land Board under Imperial control to look after British settlers, ‘which will have no power to put any more new settlers on the land, which will last only five years to enable the existing settlers to take root, and which may be dissolved sooner if it is found satisfactory to all parties.’ In this rather grudging manner did the Government discharge whatever obligations they felt were owing to the few hundred British colonists settled under Milner’s auspices as farmers in the two Colonies. There was no encouragement for any additional British settlers and there was in fact virtually no new British agricultural settlement under the self-governing regimes. When elections for the new Transvaal Legislative Assembly were held in February 1907 Het Volk candidates won 37 out of a total of 69 seats, the Progressive, or British Party, led by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, coming second with 21 seats, although Fitzpatrick himself was defeated. Botha, leader of Het Volk, accepted the Governor’s invitation to form a Govern¬ ment. In the Orange River Colony, renamed Orange Free State, elections were held in July 1907. Oranjie Unie won 29 seats out of 38. Abraham Fischer, leader of the Unie, was consequently invited to form a

i74

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Government. In both Colonies therefore Responsible government re¬ sulted in Afrikaner Ministries. Milner, in September 1907, gave his views on the resultant situation to Geoffrey Robinson, still editor of the Johannesburg Star. ‘My view is that the policy, to which we devoted years of labour... must be regarded as a thing of the past. I never had any doubt about it from the first moment that the election returns of January 1907 began to come in, though the disaster has been more rapid and more complete than I imagined. ... To reap the fruits of the war, and make a British South Africa which would have been a source of strength to the Empire ... we required a consistent policy for at least ten years. This was only possible if (i) The Unionists remained in office, or (ii) South Africa ceased to be a burning question in British Party politics, so that Unionist policy might still be carried on . . . even with a Liberal Government . . . (But) . . . when the whole power and influence of the British Government were thrown into the scale against a solution of the South African question in a British sense, the thing became perfectly hopeless, and a total collapse of what you may call the Milner policy and fabric was inevitable. I always knew it, the moment I saw a Liberal Government with an immense majority, and the South African piece still on the board. . . . One thing which is quite evident is that the South African British are entirely relieved . . . from any obligations to the Mother-country and can afford to think only of themselves.... They should devote themselves wholly to the problem of making life in South Africa, regarded as more or less a foreign country, bearable for self-respecting British men and women, not disposed to part with their own national feelings and traditions. . .. The British party, if it continues to exist, would necessarily be an Opposition party. . . . But there is opposition and opposition. Opposi¬ tion to the Boers because they are what they are i.e. Boers and not British, is out of date. The fight is no longer for predominance. That is settled. . . .’15

When Union came, with a predominantly Afrikaner Parliament and a predominantly Afrikaner Government, Milner made no public protest, partly because of the share which members of the Kindergarten had had in bringing it about, partly because he was, by that time, absorbed in other political matters. He was not enthusiastic. But, in deference to the views of the Kindergarten, who believed in Botha and Smuts, he ceased to express himself in public about South Africa. It had always been Milner’s view that South Africa would ultimately

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be lost to the British Empire unless there was a majority of British colonists in the Transvaal before the grant of self-government. He did not believe that the Afrikaners, so long as they were in the majority, would ever become loyal citizens of the Empire. He believed that their leaders were unalterably dedicated to the idea of an Afrikaner Republic, and that any cooperation with the British, or apparent acceptance of British Imperial ideals, was simply a matter of short-term tactics. In the short run, it appeared that Milner was wrong. But in the long run, after fifty years, Milner’s prognosis was fulfilled.

NOTES ON CHAPTER SEVEN 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Julian Amery, op. cit., IV, p. 332. ibid., pp. 334-5. Headlam, op. cit., II, p. 481. Worsfold Reconstruction, op. cit., I, pp. 334-5. ibid., p. 332. ibid., pp. 235-6. ibid., pp. 366-74. ibid., p. 336.

9. ibid., p. 367. Worsfold’s explanation is that ‘with the perverseness of children, the natives, seeing that they were no longer indispensable, began to offer their services to the white man with increased readiness.’ It is possible to argue that Worsfold, rather than the natives, was exhibiting childish perversity in advanc¬ ing this explanation. 10. Headlam, op. cit., II, p. 559. 11. For full text of Lyttleton’s despatch see Worsfold Reconstruction, op. cit., II, pp. 360-2. 12. ibid,. I, p. 386. 13. This drawing, by Mr. Linley Sambourne, was afterwards presented to Milner. 14. Milner, The Nation and Empire (Constable, 1913), pp. 116 et seq. 15. Wrench, Milner, op. cit., p. 268.

CHAPTER EIGHT

In the Wilderness

After all the alarms and excursions of the vote of censure and the

subsequent Imperialist ‘backlash’ in his favour, Milner retired for a short holiday to a ‘tiny house with a grand name in a lovely and absolutely secluded village [Sutton Courtenay] on a beautiful backwater of the Thames . . . until the end of September’ and spent much of his time boating on the river, his favourite outdoor recreation. During this time one of his visitors was Beatrice Webb. She and Sidney had known him in his Treasury days and had renewed their acquaintance the previous Autumn as a result of his membership of the Coefficients, a dining club of which Sidney was a founding member.1 In November 1905 Beatrice described ‘a really entertaining party’ at her house, at which Milner was present. She recorded that he had ‘grown grey and bitter and obsessed with the idea of a non-Party government, without having invented any device for securing it.’ He blamed the Party system for having ‘forced half the political world to be against him.’ She thought him ‘sufficient of a fanatic not to see that there was a genuine cleavage of opinion among thinking people—that it was not merely a knot of cranks who dis¬ approved of his policy.’ She set him down as ‘a strong and publicspirited man, but harder and more intolerant and more distinctly the bureaucrat than when he left England. And he is sore and bitter to opponents ... a little religion, or a purely intellectual pursuit, or perhaps some emotional companionship is needed if he is to get back his sense of proportion.’2 When she visited Sutton Courtenay the following August during a bicycle ride with Sidney and Granville Barker, she saw him ‘in an old Tudor house giving almost the impression of an inhabited ruin in a garden surrounded by a deserted backwater of the Thames.’ She thought it ‘a fit setting for that stern, rigid man brooding over South Africa.’ ‘We tried to cheer him, but he would not be comforted.’ He told her; ‘It it well for you to be optimistic. You say you are always in a minority,

In the Wilderness

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but events are moving your way, while my house of cards is tumbling down.’ ‘He practically admitted the mistake of Chinese labour, given the stupidity of the British electorate and the wicked lies of Radical agitators, but defended its introduction as inherently right in that you had to create material wealth before you could give a start to higher things. “Blood and money

had in fact been the underlying philosophy of Milner’s

government. . . . He seems to me enormously to over-estimate the value of the purely material forces’ he is willing to rely on these forces, though they be necessarily joined with at least a temporary demoralisation of character. Milner, although a public-spirited, upright and disinterested man does not believe in the spiritual, or even in the relevance of the spiritual, side of things—goodness is something to be arrived at after a course of money-getting by whatever means, and any bloodletting that may be necessary. As I listened to his feeble, forceful voice, watched his rigid face and narrow, wrinkled brow, noted the emphasis on plentiful capital, cheap labour and mechanical ingenuity, I thought there was some justification for Courtenay’s epithet of a “lost mind”. A God and a wife would have made Milner, with his faithfulness, persistency, courage, capacity and charm, into a great man. Without either he has been a tragic combination of success and failure. “He would have been made by being loved” summed up Granville Barker as we rode away.’3 In addition to boating, brooding and grumbling about the Govern¬ ment and the way things were going generally, Milner, during the Summer of 1906, occupied himself by arranging to earn some money (he had refused any pension or other monetary reward for his Govern¬ ment service and, although he had some private means, he was by no means a rich man according to the sort of standard a man of his eminence was expected to maintain), and by looking for a permanent home. In November he told a friend: ‘I have got a certain amount of City work which, while agreeably supplementing my income, rather interests me.’ He had joined the Boards of the London Joint Stock Bank, the Bank of West Africa, the Rio Tinto Company, and a mortgage company in Egypt. For the next few years he devoted a good deal of time to these directorships and visited Egypt almost every winter for a few weeks in connection with the affairs of the mortgage company. For the rest of his life, although he habitually described himself as ‘a poor man’ he was never in any way hampered by lack of money. Towards the end of August 1906 he purchased Sturry Court, a small estate on the banks of the River Stour, just outside Canterbury. He

I78

Milner: Apostle of Empire

described it to a friend as "a little tumble-down old manor house which, ‘with a little expenditure and more care can be made a comfortable house, not without a certain quiet dignity for those who have eyes to notice such things.’ It was a red-brick 16th century mansion which had been partially destroyed and used as a farmhouse. Milner restored what was left of it and ‘laid out gardens into the scheme of which the fine red-brick gateway and forecourt walls, the huge tithe barn and the River Stour were skilfully blended.’4 By November he had moved in, living in a fine muddle’ and hoping that ‘by the Spring ... the house will be approximately habitable’, but that ‘to get all the accessories, garden, outhouses, stable, lawn, meadow, shrubberies fit to be seen will take a couple of years.’ He told his correspondent that ‘it has the makings of a very pretty place and would be great fun if I had more time to give to it.5 For, by this time, he was, in spite of all his previous resolutions, up to the eyes in work and activity of every kind. There were his City director¬ ships. That was his bread and butter—or rather jam. There was an increasing amount of public work and public speaking over various matters of public policy with which he was becoming identified— National Service, Imperial Unity and Tariff Reform being the three most important, now that there was nothing more which he could use¬ fully do to arrest what he regarded as the Gadarene descent of British policy in South Africa. He also became extremely active as a Rhodes Trustee, now that he was no longer in Government service. He attended his first meeting of the Trustees in August 1905 and thereafter became the most active member of the Trust. He was particularly interested in the administration of what was known as the Rhodes-Beit a/c, through which was distributed, at the discretion of the Trustees, in accordance with the terms of Rhodes’s Will, any surplus income from Rhodes’s estate after providing for the scholarships and other specific bequests. This surplus income varied, but averaged about £10,000 p.a., most of which was spent, under Milner’s direction, in subsidising some of the English-language Press in South Africa, in contributions to the Pro¬ gressive Party’s election fund, and in assisting various Imperial projects such as the Round Table (q.v. below).6 In his political work Milner became, and was to remain, very closely associated with Leo Amery, a rising young Conservative journalist and politician. Milner had first met him when he was serving as The Times war correspondent in South Africa. After the war he edited the Times History of the South African JVar, about which he frequently consulted

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Milner. When Milner returned to England, he was still engaged on this, and looking for a parliamentary seat in order to pursue a political career. He was an ardent Imperialist and Tariff Reformer. While in South Africa he had been on friendly terms with most of the members of the Kindergarten. In 1906 he became a part-time secretary to Milner, with particular responsibility for Imperial affairs, being paid a small salary from the Rhodes-Beit a/c of the Rhodes Trust. Leo Amery was also a member of the Coefficients, which he regarded as a ‘brains trust with a political object’.7 As its members were divided over, or not very interested in, Tariff Reform, Amery got tired of it and, in 1904, started a new dining club, the Compatriots, membership of which was confined to ardent Imperialists and Tariff Reformers like himself. When Milner returned from South Africa in 1905 he invited him to join the Compatriots of which, soon afterwards, he became President. Among its members were Leo Maxse, H. J. Mackinder, W. A. S. Hewins, J. L. Garvin, John Buchan, Saxon Mills, and F. S. Oliver. The club adopted as their motto Communis Patna, the motto Milner had taken when elevated to the Peerage. F. S. Oliver was a remarkable creature who deserves a biography all to himself. He was a few years older than Milner and a Cambridge graduate. After leaving Cambridge he adopted the then unusual course for a graduate of going into retail trade. He joined the drapery firm of Debenham and Freebody and, being a very shrewd and clever business man, made a comfortable fortune for himself and an assured position for the firm, of which he became the head. But this was just his bread-andbutter. His real interests were authorship and backstairs politics. His biography of Alexander Hamilton, published in 1906, was said to have been the primary inspiration for the work done in South Africa by members of the Kindergarten in bringing about the Union of South Africa. His ‘Draper’s Letters’, a series of political essays published anonymously in the PMG attacking the doctrine of Free Trade, intro¬ duced him to the English world of politics and he became a friend and confidant of Austen Chamberlain—eldest son of Joseph, Chancellor of the Exchequer during the last year of the Balfour Government, and regarded as a probable future Unionist leader. Oliver had no overt political ambitions and preferred to work behind the scenes. He had an incisive and, in his private correspondence, uninhibited pen. He became one of Milner’s closest associates and was even more contemptuous than Milner of democratic institutions.8

i8o

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Another fairly close associate of Milner’s at this time was Rudyard Kipling, whom Milner had first met in South Africa during the war. Kipling shared Milner’s love of the Empire and Oliver s hatred of democracy. He and Milner formed the custom, observed over many years, of spending every Empire Day in each other’s company. They were both appalled by what they regarded as the Little Englandism of the Liberal Government, and they were both inclined to regard their political opponents as degenerates and traitors. There was a danger lest Milner, embittered by what he regarded as the jettisoning of all the work he had done in South Africa, and by the whole trend of political life in England, might retire into a kind of Timoneum, nourishing his rancours in verbal and written exchanges with men as disgruntled as himself, prophesying woe and heaping abuse on Liberals, Free Traders, cosmopolitans, Afrikaners, and everybody else who did not happen to agree with him. He was conscious, perhaps over-conscious, not only of the unfashionableness of his views, but also of his own in¬ ability to adapt to the realities of democratic politics. In October 1906 he told a friend: ‘I always feel myself a very poor judge of political tactics and am apt to be as weak and wobbly about them as I am . . . stiff and pig-headed about what I consider principles.’9 It was Amery, more than anybody else, who coaxed Milner back into something like the mainstream of politics. He was young and sanguine and ambitious and disposed neither to regard Imperial Unity and Tariff Reform as lost causes nor to refuse to pursue his political objectives within the framework of parliamentary democracy. He wanted Milner to contribute the great weight of his ability and prestige to the causes they both had at heart, and he used a good deal of tactful ingenuity in luring the sulking Achilles from his tent. For example, in July 1909, when the Union of South Africa was about to be consummated, he asked Milner to express his approval and to say something publicly in praise of Botha who ‘has looked to South Africa rather than to his own race alone.’ ‘There is no need for gush, but there is room and need for simple, straightforward approval of his conduct in public. Botha will be PM in South Africa when you are Colonial Secretary here—that is the reasonable prognosis for 1910-15.’ He added, charmingly, ‘My pre¬ sumption is immense and so is your toleration of me.’10 One reason why Amery, and others of his political views, were anxious to encourage Milner to return to the mainstream of political life was the illness of Joseph Chamberlain. In 1907 he suffered a stroke and it soon

In the Wilderness

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became apparent that he would never again be active in public life. The leadership of the movement for Imperial Unity and Tariff Reform was vacant. To Amery and others, including Chamberlain himself, Milner seemed the obvious successor. But Milner himself knew better. He knew that he had not got the qualities necessary for a political leader in a democratic State. But, with more alacrity than might have been expected, he did emerge from his Timoneum. One of the causes with which he identified himself was National Service, known to its opponents as conscription—compulsory military service for all fit young males. As early as the Summer of 1905, imme¬ diately after his return from South Africa, he persuaded a reluctant and hesitating Lord Roberts to take the matter up. A National Service League was formed, with the Duke of Wellington, a very evocative name, as Chairman. On 10 July 1906 Milner spoke in the Lords in a debate initiated by Lord Roberts who ‘rose to call attention to the unprepared¬ ness of the nation for war.’ Milner said, in part: ‘If you add together all the losses in which this country has been involved ... by its continued unpreparedness for war ... a system of universal military training . . . would, if only for the sense of security, make up for the sacrifices it would entail (which) . . . you would get back in vastly improved physique. One of the most serious problems which face the nation is the development of certain qualities of discipline, order, method, precision, punctuality and, above all, a great development of public spirit.’ He quoted from a book called Industrial Efficiency about the beneficial effect of universal military service in Germany—‘its educational value to the individual and its industrial value to the nation’. He expressed the conviction ‘that the nations which, like the Germans, adhere to the principle of universal military training are perfectly right and that . . . the people who are prepared to undergo the toil and face the danger of personal service will outstrip not only in war but also in peace the people who shrink from it.’u Milner attached at least as much importance to the social as to the military side of National Service. There was—and is—something to be said for the good effect of a period of military service on the health and general morale of young men of all classes. But Milner, in this and in some other speeches on the subject, rather clumsily managed to give the impression that he was primarily interested in the production of an obedient and disciplined proletariat. A year later, on 25 June 1907, when Haldane’s Territorial Army Bill

i82

Milner: Apostle of Empire

was being debated in Parliament, Milner again addressed the Lords on the subject of National Service. ‘No amount of patriotic willingness and devotion will save a militarily untrained nation from disaster in any great struggle. Given the necessities of the British Empire ... I am firmly convinced that you cannot produce any satisfactory scheme within the limits of voluntary service and £28 millions of money. . . . Only numbers far larger than are contemplated by Mr. Haldane and far larger than any British statesman has ever dared face would suffice to defend the State and Empire in contingencies which are far from im¬ probable. The existence of a trained nation here would go far to give greater effectiveness both to our regular army and our fleet. The strongest of all arguments for the general military training of all the people is that it would put this nation in a position effectively to defend any portion of the Empire. . . . The two vital points in the whole discussion are possible requirements and our actual capacity. I cannot see the difference between this principle and the principle of taxation. ... If this is a thing which is good for the nation as a whole, the convenience of employers cannot be allowed to stand in the way.’12 The National Service League never really got off the ground. Its leading proponent, Lord Roberts, whom Milner assiduously pushed forward, was an impressive figure and a national hero, but he was very old and no longer very highly regarded in professional military circles. The Government was against compulsory military service partly on the ground of cost, partly on the ground of its believed political unaccept¬ ability, and partly, no doubt, on the advice of its military experts. In spite of a general realisation that a European war was not unlikely in the near future, both the informed and uninformed view was that the Navy was a sufficient shield against invasion and that there was no question of a really major war having to be fought by the British Army overseas. The Royal Navy, absorbed in the bitter quarrels between the adherents of Admiral Fisher and Lord Charles Beresford, were not impressed with the National Service League thesis that a national militia capable of defending the UK against invasion would free the Navy for world-wide offensive operations instead of pinning down a large proportion of it in home waters. Amery was a close colleague of Milner’s in his National Service, as well as in his other, political activities. He helped to form the National Service League and produced much of its propaganda. But his most important contributions were in the other two related causes—Imperial

In the Wilderness

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Unity and Tariff Reform—with which Milner became identified. In spite of something like a master-and-pupil relationship between the two men, there was a certain divergence in their respective approaches to the problem of Empire. For Milner the central Imperial idea was that of federation—a ‘permanent organic union’—which necessarily implied complete free trade between its members and, probably, a common tariff against the rest of the world. Chamberlain’s Imperial Preference was, as it were, superimposed on the basic idea of federation in Milner’s mind, both as a programme which was good in itself as a means of encouraging Imperial development and protecting British industry, and as a means of commending Imperial federation to the British people both in the UK and in the self-governing colonies. For Amery, a hundred-per¬ cent Chamberlainite, and one of the founders of the Tariff Reform League, Imperial Preference was an aspect of Tariff Reform and Imperial Unity was seen primarily as a Zollverein arising out of Imperial Pref¬ erence. Amery stood as a Conservative and Tariff Reform candidate for Wolverhampton East in the January 1906 General Election and lost. He continued to ‘nurse’ the constituency and on 17 December 1906 Milner came down and spoke for him: ‘I am a free-lance, a sort of political Ishmael who has found hospitality in the Unionist camp. It is certain that I could not have found it in any other. ... I am simply anathema to

a

large section of the party in power. . . . There is one point which they (i.e. the Liberals) have in common and that is a certain suspicion of the Empire because they connect it with the idea of war. ... If you have an Empire you have have to fight for it; and if you may have to fight you had better know how to; and if you think that this is bad for you, you had better not set too much store by the Empire, or even by “little England”, which might need a lot of fighting for without the Empire, but go in frankly for internationalism at once. . . . Not only am I an Imperialist of the deepest dye—and Imperialism as you know is out of fashion—but I actually believe in universal military training. I have been an accomplice of Lord Roberts in his attempt to persuade his country¬ men not to rely entirely upon paying a small portion of their numbers to fight for the rest....’ After expatiating on this theme for several minutes, he went on with what he called ‘the list of my heresies’. ‘I am a Tariff Reformer and one of a somewhat pronounced type.’ After putting the case for Tariff Reform he said that he was ‘unable to join the hue and cry against socialism. . . . That there is an odious form of socialism I admit

184

Milner: Apostle of Empire

. . . that attacks wealth and lives upon the cultivation of class hatred. There is another socialism which is born of a generous sympathy and a lofty and wise conception of what is meant by national life. It realises the fact that we are not merely so many millions of individuals each strugg¬ ling for himself. . . but literally a body politic . . . and that what one member suffers all the members suffer. From this point of view the attempt to raise the well-being and efficiency of the people is not philan¬ thropy but business. I am an individualist and I am not a cosmopolitan. The conception which haunts me is the conception of the people of this island as a great family bound by indissoluble ties to kindred families in other parts of the world and striving after all that makes for productive power and social harmony.’13 In another speech made three days before, at Amery’s instance, to the Manchester Conservative Club, he developed the theme that Imperial¬ ism, so far from being opposed to social reform, was really a condition of it: ‘What is going to become of all your social well-being if the material prosperity which is essential to, though not identical with it, is under¬ mined? You cannot have prosperity without power, you of all people, dependent for your livelihoods not on the products of this island alone but on world-wide enterprise and commerce. This country must remain a great power or she will become a poor country. . . . Those who in seeking social improvements are tempted to neglect national strength are building their houses upon sand.... These islands by themselves cannot remain a Power of the very first rank. But Greater Britain may remain such a Power humanly speaking for ever and by so remaining will ensure the safety and prosperity of all the States comprising it. . . ,’14 In his campaigns for National Service, Imperial Unity and Tariff Reform Milner was engaged on a series of what, nowadays, would probably be called ‘crusades’. (Was it G. K. Chesterton who drew atten¬ tion to the semantic connection between a crusade and a cross?) But, in this sense, he was not a good ‘crusader’. His speeches read well, but were not always well-adapted to their audience. W. A. S. Hewins, the econo¬ mist and Tariff Reformer, while expressing gratitude at Milner’s having come down to speak for him at an election meeting, commented that the audience could not understand a word of what he said.15 Austen Cham¬ berlain refers to one of Milner’s speeches as being ‘full of good stuff, but badly delivered from vast sheaves of notes, from which he read largely, losing himself at intervals.’16 Another writer describes him as ‘lecturing to audiences in a wooden manner and reedy voice which betrayed his

In the Wilderness

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contempt for the mass of his compatriots.’17 His best, or at any rate his most effective, speeches were made either in the Lords, where he had a more or less instructed audience, or, on one or two occasions, as in his farewell speech in Johannesburg, when the sympathy and enthusiasm of his audience fired him to an unusual eloquence which really ‘got across’. So although, in the years following his return from South Africa, Milner made a great many speeches in support of a variety of causes, the impact was probably not very great. His principal effectiveness derived from his power of influencing with his ideas and with his personality a small circle of intimates to whom he became ‘the personification of the Imperial movement.’18 The Colonial Conference of 1907 was the first of these quinquennial conferences at which representatives from the two new South African Colonies were present. Botha himself represented the Transvaal. The Imperialists, in spite of the Government’s lack of enthusiasm, were anxious to make some definite progress towards their goal of Imperial Unity. The National Review, a monthly magazine edited by Leo Maxse, an ardent enthusiast for the Imperial idea, published in its April 1907 number an article by Milner entitled ‘Some Reflections on the Coming Conference’. In it he stated that he approached the Conference ‘from the standpoint of an Imperialist whose interest is centred on the question of how far if at all the Conference is going to promote the organisational unity of the self-governing States of the Empire.’ He thought it ‘essential that the Conference should . . . create some permanent machinery for carrying on its work in the long intervals between its brief and widelyseparated sessions.’ The other two most important problems to be dealt with, Milner suggested, were (i) Defence. ‘The greatest common interest of all the States in the Empire is security from external attack. This can only be attained by organised cooperation, by a system which will contribute to a force available for any Imperial purpose. But defence depends on policy and before we can expect the Colonies to contribute they must share in policy-making.’ (ii) India and the Dependent Empire. This was an aspect of Imperial Unity which had hardly been touched on at previous Conferences. ‘In the long run,’ Milner wrote, ‘the depen¬ dencies of the Empire will exercise a decisive influence in the relations between the Mother-country and the self-governing Colonies.... With all the difficulties and anomalies, the existence of the Dependencies may in the long run form a link between the Mother-country and the Colonies. . . . How seriously would the prospect of the self-governing

i8 6

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Colonies be clouded if the tropical and sub-tropical Dependencies of the Crown were to pass into other hands. ... At present the white man’s burden rests entirely on the people of the Mother-country, who also enjoy the lion’s share of the material benefits derived from their posses¬ sion, but the interest of the Colonies in these Dependencies is increasing and in time that interest should extend from the material into the political sphere and embrace the problems of administration and defence.’ The results of the Conference fell far short of the wishes of Milner and his friends. On the one hand the development of Imperial Preference was blocked by the Free Trade prepossessions of the British Govern¬ ment. On the other hand the start of a common central policy-making and executive organisation was inhibited by the attitude of Laurier, the Prime Minister of Canada, regarded as easily the most important of the self-governing Colonies. Laurier was a French Canadian and he was supported in his objection to any permanent central organisation by Botha, the other non-British Prime Minister at the Conference. The principal opponent of the Laurier-Botha combination was Alfred Deakin, Prime Minister of Australia, who was supported by Ward, Prime Minister of New Zealand, and Jameson, Prime Minister of Cape Colony. No appreciable progress was made over coordination of defence. About the only points on which agreement was reached were to change the name of the Conference from ‘Colonial’ to ‘Imperial’ and the title of the selfgoverning States from ‘Colonies’ to ‘Dominions’, and to meet every four years instead of every five. After the Conference Milner realised more fully than before the weight and extent of the obstacles in the way of Imperial Unity. Australia and New Zealand were ‘sound’. Nothing much was to be expected from South Africa. The real problem was Canada, the most important of the Dominions. Here everything seemed to depend on the delicate balance of power between the Liberal Party led by Laurier, then in office, and the Conservative Party, led by Sir Robert Borden, which was very much more inclined than the Liberals towards an Imperial policy. Conse¬ quently, Milner was persuaded by his friends to undertake a speaking tour of Canada. This was arranged for the Autumn of 1908. Writing to Earl (Albert) Grey, the Governor-General of Canada, of his intention, he told him: ‘I shall bring a Private Secretary with me, a volunteer, Steel-Maitland by name. Fellow of All Souls, married to an heiress. Unionist candidate for Rugby. First at Oxford. Rowed in the Eight.’ Within five years Steel-Maitland was Chairman of the Conservative

In the Wilderness

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Party and, subsequently, a Cabinet Minister. Milner certainly had a flair for picking winners. Or perhaps it was the winners who picked him. Or perhaps his association with them made them winners. Whichever it was, the Milner stable became a celebrated one. In the year’s interval between the end of the Conference and his visit to Canada Milner continued a vigorous propaganda on behalf of the Tariff" Reform League. Amery tells us that at one time Milner was seriously considering an invitation to take control of the League ‘and so give a new breadth and intellectual force to the whole movement. This came nearer to appealing to his preference for work for the things he cared for without public display.’ Amery thought that ‘with Milner to to lead and inspire it, and another Kindergarten to work under him, it might have been a far greater force in our national life.’19 But nothing came of this, although Milner continued to work for the League in other ways. Milner sailed for Canada at the beginning of October 1908 and returned before the end of November. He visited the Provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec, but had no time to visit the Maritime Provinces, which he went to later, in 1912. He made seven speeches on Imperial subjects in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto and Ottawa, and ended up with three in Montreal, in a part of Canada where Imperial sentiment was weakest. In these speeches20 he developed the case for Imperial Unity, well enough known in UK but heard perhaps for the first time by many of his hearers in Canada. In Winnipeg he told his audience that ‘if the policy adopted in South Africa after the war, like the war itself, had been regarded as an Empire business, if the organisation of the Empire had been sufficiently advanced to make such a course practicable, I think we should see a more satisfactory state of affairs in South Africa to-day.’ In Toronto, where he stayed with an old Balliol friend, Hugh Glazebrook, who had been settled there for some years, he advocated a common defence policy and a regular inter¬ change of soldiers, sailors and administrators between the various States of the Empire, and told his audience; ‘The last thing which the thought of the Empire inspires in me is a desire to boast. ... I am much more inclined to go into a corner by myself and pray.’ In Ottawa, where at Government House he renewed acquaintance with his old Military Secretary, Hanbury Williams and his wife, he said that in South Africa there was ‘no question of the black population ever becoming a danger to the supremacy of the whites.’ And in Montreal he prophesied that

i88

Milner: Apostle of Empire

‘the policy of Tariff Reform will at no distant date prevail in the UK. In another speech in Montreal he developed his favourite theme of the congruence between Imperialism and social reform. There is no room for a policy of laisse{ faire, go-as-you-please, the-devil-take-the-hindmost. . . . There is a great silent force always working on the side of nations which waste least of their human material. Patriotism must be choked in the squalor and degradation of the slums of our great cities. You cannot expect a casual labourer in an English town to set much store on being the citizen of a great Empire. . . .’ Soon after returning to England towards the end of 1908 Milner became involved in the great battle between the Lords and Commons, the first shots of which had, so to speak, been fired over his head in March 1906.

NOTES ON CHAPTER EIGHT 1. The Coefficients, formed in 1902, were restricted to 14 members, who included Milner, H. G. Wells, Sidney Webb, Bertrand Russell, Leo Maxse, Haldane and Amery. Its object was to bring together men of varying views to discuss the social, political and economic development of the British Empire. H. G. Wells refers to the Coefficients in his Experiment in Biography in which he writes that discussions there played an important part in his education and describes Milner as having the most oustanding intelligence of all its distinguished members. And in his novel, The New Macchiavelli, he describes the Club in fictional form as the Pentagon, where Milner appears under the name of Lord Gane. The Club faded out in about 1909. According to Amery this was because Bernard Shaw and J. L. Garvin, having been elected to the Club, both talked so much that nobody else could get a word in. 2. Beatrice Webb, Our Partnership (Longmans, 1948), p. 312. 3. ibid., pp. 351 et seq. 4. The Times 14.5.25. In a diary entry during 1907 Milner recorded that he had spent about £8,000 on Sturry Court, including £1,000 on furniture, and had got nearly 200 acres of ‘goodish land’, besides the house, garden and grounds. He also recorded that his income in 1907 was £2,600 and his expenditure £2,900, excluding capital expenditure on Sturry Court. 5. Wrench, Milner, op. cit., p. 265. 6. For details see MP 97. 7. L. S. Amery, My Political Life (Hutchinson, 1953), I, p. 225. 8. Here is an extract of a letter written by him to Milner in December 1914; ‘Democ¬ racy is not going to win this war or any other. If we win it will be because the spirit of the small remnant who hate and despise democracy will save the country

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in spite of its democratic government. Democracy has already proved its utter incapacity to prepare for war or conduct war.’ (MP 221) Milner’s own view was expressed to Lionel Curtis in a letter dated 27 March 1915; ‘I regard it as a necessary evil ... I accept it without enthusiasm, but with absolute loyalty, to make the best of it.’ (A. M. Gollin, Proconsul in Politics (Blond, 1964), p. 314.) 9. Letter to E. B. Iwan-Muller, MP 192. 10. MP 194. 11. Milner, The Nation and Empire, op. cit., p. 123. 12. ibid., p. 188. 13. Montefiore Papers. London Library Pamphlet, P. 1127. 14. ibid. 15. 16. 17. 18.

W. A. S. Hewins, Apologia of an Imperialist (Constable, 1929), I, p. 40. Austen Chamberlain, Politics from the Inside (Cassell, 1936), p. no. Walter Nimocks, Milner s Young Men (Hodder & Stoughton, 1970), p. 140. ibid.

19. L. S. Amery, op. cit., I, pp. 299-300. 20. Milner, Speeches Delivered in Canada in the Autumn of 1908 (W. Tyrell & Co., Toronto, 1909).

CHAPTER NINE

6Damn the Consequences

As Milner told a Wolverhampton audience in December 1906, he was ‘a sort of political Ishmaelite who has found hospitality in the Union¬ ist camp.’ A large number of his Unionist fellow-Peers had rallied to his defence in the Lords debate following the censure motion in the Com¬ mons in March 1906, and many of them had supported him in various South African debates in the Lords after that. He spoke fairly often in the Lords on matters which interested him and served on one or two all-Party committees and commissions, including a committee on a Port of London Bill introduced by the Government and on a Royal Commis¬ sion to consider the future of London University. He was usually invited by Lord Lansdowne, the Unionist leader in the Lords, to informal discussions by Unionist Peers on various matters of Party policy. A recurrent theme in these discussions was the policy to be adopted by the Unionist majority in the Lords towards Government Bills sent up to them from the Commons. For the built-in Unionist majority in the Lords could throw out any Government Bill coming up to them and thus, in the language of contemporary political controversy, ‘frustrate the will of the people’. This was a delicate position for a Second Chamber con¬ stituted entirely on an hereditary basis and it behoved the Unionist Peers, for the sake of their own order and its privileges, to use their powers responsibly. The Unionist case—when the Liberals were in office—was that the function of a Second Chamber, apart from being a revising body, was to guard that mysterious entity, the Constitution, and to protect the people from the ‘quinquennial dictatorship’ of an elected Government by amending or rejecting legislation for which the Government had received no popular mandate at the previous Election. Milner, in view of his dislike of parliamentary democracy generally, and of the current House of Commons specifically, certainly supported this view of the proper functions of the Second Chamber of which he

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was a member. But it may to-day be conceded that the Unionist Peers went a good way beyond their self-appointed role as guardians of the Constitution and protectors of the people against the tyranny of the majority. They threw out the Government’s Education Bill, which was intended to remove the grievances which the Government’s Noncon¬ formist supporters had expressed against the Unionist Government’s 1902 Act, on which State education was at that time based. They threw out the Plural Voting Bill which was intended to correct the anomaly by which people having more than one residence were entitled to more than one vote. But, in order to avoid antagonising organised labour, they let through the Trade Disputes Bill, by which Trade Union funds were given protection against actions for damages arising from strike action. The hold-up of so much Government legislation naturally led to a critical domestic political situation. The King’s Speech in February 1907 referred to ‘unfortunate differences between the two Houses’. In June 1907 a Government motion for a ‘suspensory veto’, restricting the right of the Lords to hold up Bills for more than two sessions was approved in the Commons by 432 votes to 147. But this had no effect on the Unionist Peers, who promptly threw out two more Government Bills. In April 1908 Campbell-Bannerman retired from the Premiership on grounds of ill-health (he died soon after) and was succeeded by Asquith. Lloyd George became Chancellor of the Exchequer in the new Govern¬ ment. The trouble with the Lords was still unsolved. A Bill providing for old age pensions was passed in deference to a Government threat that a Lords amendment to a money Bill would be unconstitutional. But, in November 1908 they threw out a Government Licensing Bill which, inter alia, rejected the treatment of publicans’ licences as property subject to compensation in the event of cancellation and which, mainly on this ground, was objected to by the wealthy brewing interests. Milner was in disagreement with his Unionist colleagues about this and voted for the Bill.1 It was clear that, sooner or later, there would have to be a ‘show¬ down’. Lloyd George, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, provided the occasion for this by introducing some more than usually controver¬ sial proposals in his 1909 Finance Bill which, as a money Bill, was traditionally exempt from amendment or rejection by the Lords. The most controversial part of the Budget proposals was a series of land taxes providing (a) for a 20 per cent tax on unearned increment in land values payable either when the land was sold or on the death of the

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owner, (b) a capital tax of|d in the £ on the value of undeveloped land and minerals, and (c) a 10 per cent reversion duty on any benefit coming to a lessor at the end of a lease. These taxes principally affected, and were designed principally to affect, the powerful, and mainly Unionist, landowning interest. But some Liberals were by no means enthusiastic about the proposals, which only passed the Commons, after some acrimonious debates, on 4 November 1909. Lords Rothschild and Rosebery, both Liberals, protested against the proposals, Rosebery publicly referring to them as ‘inquisitorial, tyrannical and socialistic’. Some Unionist Peers organised a Budget Protest League. Lansdowne, in a speech on 16 July, hinted, for the first time, that the Lords might reject the Finance Bill. There was a good deal of uncertainty among Unionists about the line to be taken. But, goaded perhaps by Lloyd George’s speeches in the country which, in effect, challenged the Opposition to a fight, Balfour and Lansdowne, in August, agreed that the Unionist Peers should destroy the Finance Bill when it came up to the Lords and so, almost certainly, provoke the Government into asking for a dissolution and holding a General Election.2 The Lords debate on the Finance Bill, which was on a motion pro¬ posed by Lansdowne that ‘this House is not justified in giving its assent to the Bill until it has been submitted to the judgement of the country’, started on 23 November and continued until 30 November. The burden of Lansdowne’s case was that the Government had tacked on to a Finance Bill matters of policy unconnected with finance with the inten¬ tion of evading an appeal to the country by relying on the convention that the Lords did not interfere with money Bills sent up to them from the Commons. It was the Lords’ duty, in the interests of the Constitution and of the people, to take up the challenge and reject the Bill. Milner supported him in a speech on the second day of the debate in which, as ‘an old tax gatherer’, he attacked the financial principles behind the Bill. ‘It is the cumulative effect of its many onslaughts on capital which con¬ stitute so grave a danger to national prosperity.’ After a detailed exam¬ ination of the proposed land taxes, on which, as the principal author of the 1894 Estate Duties, he could be regarded as expert, he continued: ‘When any source of revenue ceases to show expansion it is bad policy to increase your demands on it.... In common parlance it is killing the goose which lays the golden eggs. The effect of the proposed Estate Duty is not to transfer capital but to spend it as income. . . He then introduced a ‘plug’ for Tariff Reform. ‘It would be perfectly possible

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to raise all the extra money required by import duties.’ He defended the Lords’ right to ‘hang up’ a Finance Bill. ‘It is not the immediate financial problem which the Chancellor of the Exchequer cares about as much as the social revolution which he is initiating. If we believe that the nation is averse to the threatened changes we cannot shrink from the conflict which is forced upon us.’3 He repeated this point in Scotland during the week-end which inter¬ rupted the Lords debate. In a speech at Glasgow to the West of Scotland Unionist Association he made what has gone down to history as his best-known remark: ‘If we believe a thing to be bad, and if we have a right to prevent it, it is our duty to try to prevent it and to damn the consequences. All we claim to do is to refer the question to the nation. Let the people decide.’4 There is something a little disingenuous in this expressed confidence by Milner in the wisdom of the hoi polloi. The following day, in Stirling, addressing the annual conference of the Scottish National Union of Conservatives, he told them that the Government’s policy was to ‘alter the Constitution by taking away from the House of Lords powers it has always possessed. . . . Their attempt to use taxation to redistribute wealth will inevitably result in a diminu¬ tion of the wealth they are trying to distribute.’ On 30 November the Lords rejected the Finance Bill by 350 votes to 75. Only a handful of Unionist Peers voted with the Government. Asquith then asked for and obtained a dissolution. Milner made a number of speeches in the country during the ensuing General Election. On 17 February at Huddersfield he complained of ‘matters of the greatest moment being settled over the ordinary man’s head by people who took him in four years ago with the Chinese slavery imposture . . .’, and of ‘the despotism of a Single Chamber elected by the people but free when once elected from any effective control.... It could last long enough to do very considerable mischief.’ He advocated Tariff Reform, which, a little equivocally, was still part of Unionist policy. ‘Before we take any more money out of British purses, light or heavy, let us see whether we cannot, by way of a change, get just a little contribution out of the foreigner. . . . Let us free ourselves from the insane delusion that a nation grows richer by buying outside its borders what it can produce within them. It is not a blessing when, in the blind worship of cheapness, we undermine our own industries. Now is the time to strike a blow to free yourselves from the shackles of an antique creed, to open the door which has been banged and barred against our

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fellow-countrymen in the Dominions . . .’5 And on 18 December, at Stockport, he summarised the probable results of a Liberal victory. ‘No Tariff Reform, effective abolition of the Second Chamber, Home Rule for Ireland, Disestablishment of the Welsh Church and a blow at Church of England schools.’ He defended the Unionist record over social reform, stating that ‘beginning with the factory legislation of the late Lord Shaftesbury’ they had a better record than the Liberals. ‘I am entirely in sympathy with the view that it is necessary and desirable, by a system of voluntary contributions with State aid, to provide for insurance against old age, accidents, sickness and unemployment.’ He warned his audience that ‘the great position we have occupied in the world for more than a century is being menaced ... in the matter of armaments, in the field of industry and commerce.’ But the position was ‘not hopeless but full of promise’ if only ‘we bring to the solution of the problem . . . the energies and resources of the whole Empire. . . . The greatest question before the people to-day is the organisation of the Empire. What recognition of that do you find in the speeches of mem¬ bers of the present Government? The Unionist Party do at least realise it, though perhaps only dimly, and include as an essential part of their policy measures . . . directed not to pulling down but to building up Empire unity.’6 And on 23 December he told a Cardiff audience: ‘The Government has capitulated to the Irish Separatists, they are walking shoulder to shoulder with men who are not only hostile to all property, but hostile to all forms of national defence.... What the House of Lords has done over and over again is to prevent the country being rushed by the House of Commons into measures with which the people were not in sympathy. I am a free lance fighting on the side of the Unionist Party for Tariff Reform, for Imperial Preference, for the unity of the Empire, for the defence of the country and for practical social reforms. . . . The root of social trouble is the prevalence of unemployment.... Our policy is to preserve for British hands and British brains the maximum of productive work and to ensure for British exports the market of our own Dominions. . . . Other reforms will be like pouring sand into a sieve.’7 The references to Ireland in Milner’s election speeches reflected a grave disquiet felt among Unionists. Since the defeat of Gladstone’s Bill in 1893 the Home Rule issue had, to to speak, been in cold storage. But the Liberal Party were still theoretically committed to it and the Irish Nationalists were still intent on it. The late Government, which had a

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sufficient majority in the Commons to be able to do without Irish Nationalist support, and who knew that an Irish Home Rule Bill was certain to be rejected by the Lords, had made no move in the matter. But if, as seemed possible, the Liberals won the Election with a majority sufficiently reduced to make them dependent on the Irish Nationalists, it was certain that these would insist on the introduction of a Home Rule Bill after the House of Lords had been emasculated by a statutory restric¬ tion of their powers. This, in the event, was what happened. The result of the Election, declared in January, was: Liberals 275 seats, Conservatives 273, Irish Nationalists 82, Labour 40. And so the Government became the prisoners of the Irish Nationalists. It was only a question of time before the Home Rule issue would again dominate and distract British politics. Meanwhile the House of Lords had to be dealt with. Milner paid his annual visit to Egypt in January-February 1910. On his return he took little part in domestic politics, which were largely concentrated on the constitutional position created by the Lords’ rejection of the Budget and by the Government’s dependence on the Irish Nationalists. It was expected that the Government, spurred on by the Irish, would introduce a Bill restricting the powers of the Lords, and then go to the country again in accordance with HM’s insistence on a second Election before he would agree to give a contingent guarantee for the creation of sufficient Peers to overcome the Unionist majority in the event of the House of Lords proving obdurate. The Unionists were playing with the idea of a reformed House of Lords, which would limit the hereditary, and introduce an elected, element. But they suspected, correctly, that what the Liberals, and certainly the Irish, wanted was an unreformed House of Lords with restricted powers. They did not want to give the Second Chamber a new lease of life by reforming it. The Unionist leaders were also wondering what to do in the possible event of the Government resigning without asking for, or being granted, another dissolution, and preparing themselves for the more likely event of another General Election. Meanwhile, they allowed the previous year’s Finance Bill through the Lords, partly to relieve an impossible constitutional situation created by a backlog of unauthorised Govern¬ ment expenditure and partly because they regarded the proposals as having been (albeit rather dubiously) approved by the result of the Election. Then, in May, King Edward died. There was a general disposition to

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rry to avoid plunging a new and inexperienced King into a constitutional crisis, and there were attempts, which proved unsuccessful, to proceed by agreement. In November, Asquith, having obtained from King George V an undertaking that, in the event of a Liberal Government again being returned at an Election, he would, in his own words, ‘use my prerogative to make Peers if asked for’, requested and obtained a dissolution. During the Election campaign, Balfour, as a result of the urgent pleading of some of his advisers who thought that the Unionist Party’s semi-commitment to Tariff Reform and food taxes was losing them votes, particularly in the traditionally Free Trade Lancashire area, publicly undertook, if the Unionists were returned to office, not to introduce food taxes without previously consulting the electorate by means of a Referendum. The results of the Elections, declared in January 1911 were almost exactly the same as in the previous Election: Liberals 272, Unionists 272, Irish Nationalists 72, Labour 42. The Government was still dependent on the Irish Nationalists and Balfour’s sop to the Unionist Free Traders had made no difference to the Party’s fortunes one way or the other. But he had greatly annoyed the more ardent Tariff Reformers in his Party, including Milner, who had never been very enthusiastic about him anyway. In April 1910 he had written to Balfour telling him that Tariff Reform was ‘our one strong chance’, that ‘on the single issue of the Lords we stand a poor chance.’ and that Tariff Reform could win an Election ‘in spite of that damned dear food cry’. He could not have been very pleased that his advice was not taken and this probably explains his not having taken any part in the Election. The new Government introduced a Parliament Bill providing (a) that Bills certified by the Speaker as money Bills were excluded from the consideration of the Lords, and (b) that rejection or amendment of Bills other than money Bills by the Lords could be overridden by the Com¬ mons and, if the Commons insisted, had to be passed by the Lords in their original form within three Sessions of a single Parliament. This Bill was passed through all its stages in the Commons by 15 May. In July the Prime Minister informed Balfour of the undertaking he had received from the King the previous November. In the circumstances, Balfour and Lansdowne advised the Unionist Peers not to vote against the Parliament Bill when it came to the Lords in August. A section of the Unionist Peers, led by the veteran Lord Halsbury, which became known as the Die-Hards, refused to accept this advice and

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announced their intention of voting against the Bill. Among the DieHards was Milner. He had not been politically active during the Summer. He had been estranged from Balfour by the Referendum pledge. In January he had seen Lord Roberts on National Service League business and ‘explained to him the reason why I feel less inclined than ever to take a leading part in the game of politics and why I think the present an opportunity to commence a gradual but definite withdrawal for that reason.’8 He paid his usual visit to Egypt in February-March. On 3 April he attended but did not speak at a debate in the Lords on National Service. In May he underwent an operation on his nose, after which he went to Ems for a fortnight to recuperate, going on from there to see friends and relations at Tubingen. He returned to London in July, ‘dragged back into politics owing to the constitutional crisis.’9 On 26 July he attended a banquet in honour of Lord Halsbury given by his fellow Die-Hards, who became known as ‘Ditchers’ as opposed to the ‘Hedgers’ who had decided to accept their leaders’ advice and not to vote against the Parliament Bill, and who formed themselves into a Halsbury Club. By his attendance at this banquet Milner publicly announced himself as a Ditcher, together with Halsbury himself, Selborne and Salisbury from the Lords, and Austen Chamberlain, Carson, F. E. Smith and George Wyndham from the Commons. On the other side Lansdowne and Curzon were the two leading Unionist Peers who advocated letting the Bill through. The Parliament Bill had already been to the Lords once, been drasti¬ cally amended and sent back to the Commons, who returned it to the Lords, more or less in its original form. It came before the Lords for the second time on 9 August, which happened to be one of the hottest days England has ever known, the thermometer in London registering nearly 100 degrees in the shade. The debate lasted for two days. In the division 131 Peers, made up of 81 Liberals, 13 Bishops and 37 Unionists, ‘whipped’ by Curzon, voted for the Bill and 114 Die-Hards against. The rest abstained. The Government therefore had a majority of 17, created for them by Curzon’s efforts. If his 37 Unionists had abstained the Bill would have been lost. As it was, it became law. The effect of joining the Halsbury Club was to bring Milner, more or less willingly, back into politics. At a meeting in September with Amery, who had recently been elected to the Commons as Unionist MP for Sparkbrook, a Birmingham constituency, and with George Wyndham, a memorandum was compiled of his attitude towards resuming a part in

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active politics, and was initialled by Milner with the certificate ‘This represents my views in brief.’ The memorandum read: T. That it is desirable that the Die-Hards should remain as a working body, acting together “separate but not hostile”. (This need not neces¬ sarily include everyone of those who cooperated last Session nor exclude others joining.) ‘2. That it is further desirable that they should strike a common note and have an agreed general line of policy. The main features of that policy should be (a) Tariff Reform, (b) Imperial Unity, (c) Defence, (d) Social Uplifting, (e) a sound Constitution, (f) A real United King¬ dom. (a), (b), (c) and (d) are all closely interconnected and are the big Imperial issues and primary issues of principle. On (c) Lord M would welcome a bold and whole-hearted adoption of National Service but would be content with less if individual members of the group are left free to urge it. Under (d) he is very keen on including agricultural improvement. Under (e) he is for a completely elective Second Chamber on such lines as to eliminate the ordinary Party motives. On (f) he is ultimately for a federal United Kingdom on Canadian or South African lines.... If others demur to this he is prepared not to make a prominent feature of it. . . .’10 This note was sent to Austen Chamberlain who, in the not-unexpected event of Balfour’s resignation, was considered likely to succeed him in the Unionist leadership. Chamberlain who, in the family tradition, was a keen Tariff Reformer and who, like Milner, strongly objected to Balfour’s Referendum pledge, had long been anxious to bring Milner into the inner councils of the Unionist Party. But Milner ‘had held ostentatiously aloof’. Their mutual friend, F. S. Oliver, had told Chamberlain that Milner was antipathetic towards Balfour. So Austen regarded Milner’s new interest as encouraging and asked his father, as the only man who has any real influence with him’, to persuade him to take a more active part ‘especially in social reform and national defence’, and ‘dissuade him from making any false move on the Irish question.’11 (Austen was apparently afraid of Milner’s views on federation, which were shared by Fred Oliver who, under the name of ‘Pacificus’, had recently published a series of articles on the subject.) There is no record of whether Joe Chamberlain discussed the matter with Milner. In spite of his retirement as a result of his stroke, Joe’s mind was still alert and he followed current affairs closely. Milner went to Highbury to see him from time to time and was on terms of friendship with the whole family.

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In November, Balfour resigned die Unionist leadership. After the invariable process of intrigue which accompanies the selection of a new leader, the two front runners, Austen Chamberlain and Walter Long, who were personally and politically antipathetic to each other, and the election of either of whom would have created undesirable tensions within the Party, withdrew by agreement in favour of a compromise candidate, Bonar Law, who was then unanimously elected. In spite of Balfour’s retirement and of the Halsbury Club programme, Milner took very little part in politics during 1912. He spent much of his time abroad. The usual trip to Egypt in January-February. A trip to Spain in the spring on the business of the Rio Tin to Company. In June he spent a few weeks at Ems taking a cure for his throat which was troubling him. In September he paid a second visit to Canada when he visited the Maritime Provinces. The result of the Canadian General Election in 1911, which had brought a Conservative Government headed by Sir Robert Borden into office in place of Wilfred Laurier’s Liberal Government, had improved Imperial prospects in the Dominion. While in Canada he paid his one and only visit to the United States, spending a few days with friends in Massachusetts and a few days in New York. When in England he was busy—as usual; in the affairs of the London Joint Stock Bank; on the Council of Toynbee Hall, of which he was elected Chairman; on the affairs of the Rhodes Trust; on the affairs of the Round Table, which will be the subject of the next chapter. Under the tutelage of Christopher Tumour he was taking an interest in the rehabili¬ tation of English agriculture. He wrote a pamphlet on the subject in which he expressed the opinion that ‘the time has come when we must contemplate a re-enclosure which will not regard the interest of a single class, but will make the land generally useful to the whole community. In doing so it would no doubt be necessary to take some of the land from its present owners. . . . The institution of private property is seriously menaced at the present time. If the present social order is to endure it is necessary ... to effect a great increase in the number of people who have a direct personal interest in the maintenance of private property. There is no bulwark against communism at all equal to that provided by a large number of small property holders . . . and there is no form of property which has the same steadying effect on its owners as land.’ He referred to two proposals in a Bill then before the Commons sponsored by Jesse Collings, an old henchman of Joseph Chamberlain, who was also a great advocate of the small rural property holder. The first proposal was for

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Government loans to small agricultural tenants to enable them to buy the land which they rented, and the second was for the purchase of agricultural land by the State for re-sale to small farmers. Milner’s pamphlet supported both these proposals and also advocated the forma¬ tion of agricultural cooperatives by associations of small owners, and the rehabilitation of villages by giving powers to parish councils to acquire land for development purposes.12 Milner showed the pamphlet to Lansdowne who, after showing it to Prothero, regarded by the Party as their agricultural expert,13 had the substance of it incorporated in ‘A Unionist Agricultural Policy’ by ‘A Group of Unionists’ and published as a statement of Party policy in August 1913. In January 1913 Milner’s diary refers to ‘an awful upset in the Unionist Party over food taxes’. What had happened was that the new leader, Bonar Law, who was personally disposed towards Tariff Reform, in¬ cluding food taxes, and who had already publicly indicated that he did not regard himself, or the Party, as being bound by Balfour’s pledge of a Referendum, had been convinced by some of his back-benchers that food taxes were an electoral liability. He therefore decided that ‘if, when a Unionist Government has been returned to power, it proves desirable after consultation with the Dominions to impose new duties on articles of food in order to secure the most effective system of preference, such duties should not be imposed until they have been submitted to the people of the country at a General Election.’14 This decision was com¬ municated by Bonar Law to the Unionist Chief Whip on 13 January 1913. Austen Chamberlain’s reaction was that ‘the game is up. We are beaten and the cause for which Father sacrificed more than life itself is aban¬ doned.’ Milner, who was less committed than Austen to Tariff Reform, and who regarded it as a means to the end of Imperial Unity rather than as an end in itself, and who was probably influenced by the views of his Kindergarten disciples on the subject (see next chapter), took it more philosophically. But he continued in his abstention from active politics. In January 1913 he paid his usual annual visit to Egypt. In April he visited Ireland as the guest of Horace Plunkett, a Protestant landowner in the Catholic south. He spent Whitsun as a member of one of Curzon’s fashionable houseparties at Hackwood. In May, was published The Nation and Empire, a collection of Milner’s speeches, with an Introduction, which consisted of a long statement of Milner’s Imperial and political faith, and which aroused much interest. ‘Imperialism as a political doctrine has often been repre-

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sented as something tawdry and superficial. In reality it has all the depth and comprehensiveness of a religious faith. It is a mistake to think of it as primarily concerned with the acquisition of territory. . . . There is quite enough painted red already. ... It is a question of preserving the unity of a great race and of enabling it, by maintaining that unity, to develop freely on its own lines and to continue to fulfil its distinctive mission in the world. As it happens, that race ... is scattered over a large extent of the earth’s surface. This is accidental, not essential. Room for expansion is indeed essential but there might be room for immense expansion within a smaller but more compact territory. . . . That com¬ munities of the same origin, the same language, the same political and social structure, and the same type of civilisation, with all that they have to cherish, to develop and to defend in common, should fail to stand together and should, owing to that failure, run the risk of falling separately under alien domination, would be as unnatural as suicide. And it would be a dereliction of duty. For the British race has become respon¬ sible for the peace and order and just and humane government of 3/4 hundred million people who ... do not possess the gift of maintaining peace and order for themselves. The Pax Britannica is essential to the maintenance of civilised conditions of existence among 2/5ths of the human race. . . . Our share of the white man’s burden is an exceptional share... and we can bear it... only if we bring to the task the individual strength of the British race throughout the world, with all its immense possibilities of growth. Sooner or later the burden must become too heavy for the unaided strength of that portion of the race which . . . dwells in the United Kingdom.... The population of this island cannot greatly increase in numbers without declining in quality, and the quality of a large proportion of it... is already far below the standard which we ought to maintain.. . . Yet artificial restrictions on increase are undesir¬ able. They are the beginning of decay. . . . There is not the slightest reason to limit increase, provided that the stock be sound and as long as there are vast undeveloped areas under our own flag simply clamour¬ ing for more inhabitants. We can and ought to supply that need. ... It would only become an evil if this precious human material. . . were to be lost to us and the Empire. To prevent such a calamity, to keep the scattered communities of British stock, while severally independent within their own confines, one body politic among the sovereign nations of the world, maintaining their common history and traditions and con¬ tinuing to discharge their common duty to humanity . . .—that is the

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task which Imperialism seeks to achieve. I have emphasised the impor¬ tance of the racial bond. That is fundamental. It is the British race which built up the Empire and it is the undivided British race which can alone uphold it.... Deeper, stronger, more primordial than material ties is the bond of common blood, a common language, common history and traditions. What do I mean by the British race? I mean all the people of the United Kingdom and their descendants in other countries under the British flag. . . . What does matter is the relative strength of all the British stock collectively as compared with that of the peoples of other European races living side by side with them. South Africa is the weakest link in the Imperial chain... because the British element in its population is comparatively so weak, and because we have thrown away the oppor¬ tunity of strengthening it.... To direct a steady outflow of British stock to the younger countries of the Empire must be a constant object of Imperial policy.’ He then turned to the obverse aspect of his Imperialist creed—‘the condition of the people’ aspect at home. He advocated increasing the number of people on the land by improving methods of agriculture in order to restore a healthy balance between town and country. ‘Country¬ men are the best settlers. The tenacity and stubborn endurance which carried Great Britain through the severest trials of the past . . . belong to that time when the country element was still predominant.’ He advocated more legislation on the lines of the Factory Acts ‘to improve industrial conditions and consequently public health.’ He commended the Boy Scout and Garden City movements. On education he commented that ‘it is a waste of time to provide elaborate instruction for children who have not the strength to assimilate it, whether this inability is due to under-feeding or other physical defects. . . . Care for the health and physical development of the child is imperative. . . . There is waste in letting the education of boys and girls stop when it is beginning to be formative. The time will surely come when the vast output of halftrained young people will be recognised as a huge social and economic blunder, and when the State will keep a hold on a lad until he is fit to earn, not a precarious pittance, but a decent and continuous livelihood as a craftsman, and upon a girl until she is capable of discharging the duties of a wife and mother. It may be said that to complete the training of youth would be far too costly .. . (but) ... it would be trifling com¬ pared with the burden we are now carrying in the shape of a great multi¬ tude of people on the verge of destitution. There is plenty of work to

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be done in the world which can support in comfort the men who are capable of doing it. . . . It is the capacity which is lacking and not the opportunities ..He ended with a plea for National Service: ‘While the United Kingdom does not need an army of the size of the Continental armies, it does need an increase of military strength, which can only be obtained by calling on the whole able-bodied youth of the nation to undergo, on the threshold of manhood, a period of regular military training.’ To-day, our view of the creed set out in this Introduction—the unashamed racialism, the stress on lebensraum, on the regimentation of youth, on the Kirche kiiche kinder conception of women, on the impor¬ tance of physical fitness and so on—is inevitably affected by the discredit cast on this mode of thinking by Hitler and his Nazis. But Milner’s vision, like some of Hitler’s vision, had something of nobility in it, as well as much of common sense. Hitler had, or created, the opportunity of putting his ideas into practice, with results we have all seen and suffered from. Milner had no such opportunity. If he had, the results would not necessarily have been the same. Hitler was a demagogue addressing people who were both despairing and disciplined. Milner was no demagogue and the England of his day was neither despairing nor disciplined. What he had to say excited no enthusiasm, seemed to meet no widely-felt want. His public persona, admired by some and detested by others, did not kindle masses of people to fanatical devotion. And so his Nation & Empire, with its Introduction, was simply an interest¬ ing event in the London publishing season, and not the clarion call which, one suspects, Milner would have liked it to be. In June Milner went on what was becoming an annual Summer visit to Germany, to Ems to take the cure and to Tubingen to visit friends and relations. He spent most of August quietly at Sturry. His diary records a day spent on the Stour with his cousin, Oliver Ready, when they went rowing down the little river as far as Sandwich. In September he went for a motor tour through East Anglia. He visited St. Albans, Cambridge and Ely and stayed with Rev. Reginald Blunt, son of Rev. Gerald Blunt who had been Rector of Chelsea during Milner’s childhood there, at his Rectory at Thetford in Norfolk. Here the car broke down and he went by train to stay with Philip Gell in Derbyshire, where he went on a series of expeditions to Haddon Hall, Hardwick Hall and Chatsworth. On 8 October he went to stay with Neville Chamberlain in Birmingham, where he addressed the Birmingham & Midland

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

Institute on ‘The Scramble for Capital’. His theme was that a high demand for capital with accompanying high rates of interest also meant a brisk demand for labour. ‘The idea of antagonism between capital and labour is an obvious absurdity. In view of increasing demand for capital the only way to keep down interest is to increase savings by the old fundamental virtues of thrift and prudence.’15 This conception of an underlying identity of interest between capital and labour is one to which Milner was to revert in his thinking after the war. It is fundamental to his philosophy. Just before going to Birmingham he had been visited in London by an old acquaintance, Earl (Albert) Grey, an old henchman of Rhodes’s on the Board of the British South Africa Company, a fellow-Rhodes Trustee and an ex-Governor General of Canada. Milner noted that he was ‘much perturbed about the Ulster prospect’. A few days later, he had dinner with Bonar Law, the Unionist leader, at which they discussed Ulster. Milner was about to re-enter the political arena.

NOTES ON CHAPTER NINE 1. See diary for November 1908 in MP 221. 2. K. Young, Balfour, op. cit., p. 290. 3. Milner, The Nation & Empire, op. cit., p. 390. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

ibid., p. 400. ibid., p. 416. ibid., p. 427. ibid., p. 438. MP 221. ibid. Austen Chamberlain, op. cit., pp. 369-70. ibid., p. 369. MP 222. Prothero had been up at Balliol with Milner and has recorded that Milner was the only undergraduate there who kept a cat in his rooms. Prothero was after¬ wards Minister of Agriculture in the Lloyd George Coalition and was later created Lord Ernie. 14. Austen Chamberlain, op. cit., pp. 504-8. 15. MP 195.

CHAPTER TEN

The Round Table

When

Milner left South Africa in 1905 he left his Kindergarten—his

band of disciples—behind him, mostly occupying important positions inside or outside Government service. Patrick Duncan was Colonial Secretary, Lionel Curtis Assistant Colonial Secretary of the Transvaal, Lionel Hichens Treasurer of the Transvaal and the Inter-Colonial Council, Richard Feetham Town Clerk of Johannesburg, Robert Brand Secretary of the Inter-Colonial Council and Railway Committee, Philip Kerr Assistant Secretary of the Railway Committee, John Dove Municipal Treasurer of Johannesburg. Dougal Malcolm (who did not arrive in South Africa until after Milner’s departure but who was closely associated with the rest of the Kindergarten) was Private Secretary to Selborne, the new High Commissioner. William Marris, another postMilner arrival, was lent to the Transvaal Government by the Indian Civil Service ‘to set the Civil Service in order’. Outside Government service, Peter Perry was Chairman of the Rand Native Labour Association, Geoffrey Robinson editor of the Johannesburg Star, and Hugh Wyndham farming at Standerton. These young men did not share Milner’s pessimism over the future of South Africa in the Imperial sense after the grant of self-government to the two ex-republics. As early as August 1906 they had come to believe that a rapid political unification of the separate States offered the best hope of ultimate British supremacy on the ground that such unification would lead to economic prosperity, that economic prosperity would lead to immigration, and that this immigration would be mainly British. The proviso was that the Constitution of the unified State should allow for a periodical re-distribution of parliamentary seats in order to give adequate representation to new immigrants and ensure that representation was not unduly weighted in favour of the rural districts. It was therefore necessary

206

Milner: Apostle of Empire

that there should be adequate British influence in planning for the unified State. At first, there was little enthusiasm, either on the British or the Boer side. The British feared that immediate unification would consolidate Afrikaner influence in view of the existence of an Afrikaner majority in three out of the four self-governing States. The Boers wanted to wait, at all events until the existing Progressive Government in Cape Colony had been replaced. Milner, when told by Curtis in a long letter written in August 1906 that the Kindergarten intended to set up an organisation to work for union as soon as possible, was unenthusiastic. The object of Curtis’ letter was to try to get financial support for their plans from the Rhodes Trust. In spite of his lack of enthusiasm, Milner obtained the agreement of his fellow-Trustees to contribute a sum of £1,000 to finance the produc¬ tion of a detailed memorandum setting out the modalites and advantages of union, on the conditions (a) that Selborne be kept privately informed of, but accept no official responsibility for, what they were doing, (b) that Curtis resign his present Government appointment in order to devote himself to the scheme as ‘organising secretary’ and (c) that the Rhodes Trust’s financial support be kept secret. So the scheme got under way. Selborne, unlike Milner, was enthu¬ siastic. He agreed with the Kindergarten that ‘those who urge delay about federation on the ground of the present political preponderance of the Dutch are most short-sighted. While the general political instability of South Africa continues, all real prosperity will be impossible and all expansion, and the Dutch will continue to preponderate ad eternam.’1 Curtis’ memorandum, the fruit of numerous confabulations between members of the Kindergarten, was produced by the end of 1906 and before the elections in the Transvaal under the new Constitution had been held. It was presented to Selborne, who had taken an active interest in the whole business and who revised and shortened it with a view to making it more readable and more politically acceptable. For this reason it subsequently became known as the Selborne Memorandum. Its official title was ‘A Review of the Present Mutual Relations of the British South African Colonies.’ As it was important not to give the impression that the Memorandum had been inspired by HMG, Curtis arranged with Jameson, Prime Minister of the Cape, that he should request the High Commissioner to ‘review the current conditions in South Africa and the feasibility of

The Round Table

207

creating a united South African State.’ This enabled Selborne, in January 1907, to distribute the Memorandum to the Governments of the various States and to ask for their comments. It was necessary to secure Boer support. At first, this was not forth¬ coming. Botha and Smuts, the two most important Boer leaders, declined to cooperate. But one prominent Cape Afrikaner politician, F. S. Malan, editor of Ons Land, a leading Afrikaner newspaper, became interested and, through his influence, the Memorandum was published for general circulation in July 1907. From then on the Kindergarten embarked on a campaign of public persuasion and propaganda. (From October 1906 they had been holding their meetings at a house in Johannesburg which Feetham had had built for himself and which he called ‘Moot House’. It was from this circumstance that future meetings of the Kindergarten and their associates came to be called ‘moots’ after they had transferred their activities to the U.K.). Union became an immediate possibility when an Afrikaner Bond Government, with Merriman as Prime Minister, took office in Cape Colony early in 1908 in place of Jameson’s Progressive Government. At an inter-colonial conference in Pretoria in May 1908, on Merriman’s initiative, the following communique was issued: ‘The delegates from the self-governing Colonies have adopted the principle of closer union and undertake to submit certain Resolutions to their Parliaments in reference thereto. They also undertake to recommend to their Parlia¬ ments the appointment of delegates to a National Convention for the purpose of framing a draft Constitution.’ From this communique there flowed a National Convention, the drafting of a Constitution, its submission to the Parliaments of the various States, its approval by them (after a Referendum in Natal), the South Africa Act of August 1909 by which the British Parliament approved the Union Constitution, and the opening of the first Union Parliament in May 1910. The fact that the Constitution took the form of Union rather than Federation was in no way due to the influence of the Kindergarten, whose planning and propaganda had been on the assumption of a federal State. It emerged from the deliberations of the Convention, whose members were unanimous about the advantages which a union closer than federa¬ tion would provide. And so, with surprising alacrity, the four selfgoverning Colonies abandoned their self-governing Constitutions and re¬ duced themselves to provincial status. The influence of the Kindergarten

208

Milner: Apostle of Empire

on the course of events is uncertain. They had their regular Moots. They formed Closer Union Societies throughout white South Africa and an Association of Closer Union Societies, which met periodically. In December 1908 Kerr and Curtis started a monthly review called The State, financed by Abe Bailey and printed in English and Dutch, for circulation throughout South Africa, putting the case for unity. During the sittings of the Convention Brand and Duncan worked closely with Smuts hammering out the details of the draft Constitution. This was important from the Imperial point of view, since it was the details, and particularly the franchise conditions, which would determine whether or not the door was left open for eventual anglicisation. Smuts was ‘the principal architect of the South African Constitution’2 and it was impor¬ tant for the Kindergarten to build bridges to him. This they appear to have done, and it was mainly due to Smuts, in alliance with the Trans¬ vaal Progressives, that amendments to the draft Constitution put forward by Cape Colony, which would have had the effect of grossly over¬ weighting the rural vote, were defeated. The passing of the South Africa Act in August 1909 meant that the Kindergarten had achieved their immediate political objective. It also meant that most of those who were still in Government service had worked themselves out of jobs. Curtis, Kerr, Brand and Marris returned to England in 1909, Brand to join Lazards, the merchant bankers, Kerr and Curtis to devote themselves to the cause of Imperial unity world¬ wide. Marris later returned to India after accompanying Curtis and Kerr on a trip to Canada. Robinson stayed on as editor of the Johannesburg Star until late 1911 but was in England for the Colonial Press Confer¬ ence in the Summer of 1909. Hichens came to England in 1910 to join Cammel Laird, the shipbuilding firm, of which he eventually became Chairman. Malcolm also returned to England in 1910 and later joined the Board of the British South Africa Company. Most of the rest of the Kindergarten stayed on in South Africa. Apart from Perry, who went to Canada with Lazards in 1912, all the members of the Kindergarten remained in close touch with one another and, when they were able, attended the ‘moots’ in England, which became the focal point of the later activities of the Kindergarten and their associates.

One of these associates was F. S. Oliver, who has already been referred to. Another was Amery, who had been in close touch with the Kindergarten when in South Africa as The Times correspondent, and had renewed acquaintance on a visit to South Africa at the end of 1907.

The Round Table

209

A third was Edward Grigg (later Lord Altringham), a New College graduate and Imperial Affairs editor of The Times. Occasional attenders at Moots were Lord Lovat, one of Milner’s allies in the Lords on South African and other matters, George Craik, another New College graduate who became Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Lord Howick, Lord (Albert) Grey’s heir and Selborne’s son-in-law, and Lord Wolmer, Selborne’s son and heir. Selborne himself was a regular attendant after his return from South Africa in 1910. Later acquisitions included Waldorf Astor, son and heir of W. W. Astor, the American millionaire who, in 1911, bought from Northcliffe the Sunday newspaper, The Observer, whose editor, J. L. Garvin, was probably the most influential journalist in England. In a letter to Amery in March 1909, just before coming to England, Curtis told him something of his plans for tackling the problem of Imperial unity world-wide. His idea was to ‘state the Imperial problem’ in a comprehensive Memorandum, in the same way as had been done for South Africa, and from there to start discussions ‘for arriving at a common policy and for getting a number of minds to move automatically in the same direction.’ He had ‘undertaken ... to visit Canada, Australia and New Zealand ... as a sort of prospector’, and the other members of the Kindergarten had agreed to act as an ‘editorial committee’ in connec¬ tion with the Memorandum which Curtis had in mind. He wanted a journal with an Imperial circulation, of which Philip Kerr would make a suitable editor, and which would enable ‘everyone concerned in the movement from Lord Milner downwards to have at their disposal a medium through which the same train of thought can be set in motion through all the self-governing Colonies of the Empire at the same time.’3 So Curtis had it all cut-and-dried by the time he arrived in England at the end of June. He immediately got in touch with those Kinder¬ garten members who were in England—Kerr, Robinson and Brand—■ and with Milner. Whatever doubts Milner may have had about the Kindergarten’s activities in South Africa, he supported their plans for the future. After a number of meetings in London at which ‘Curtis’s scheme’ was discussed, a week-end house-party was arranged at Plas Newydd, the country seat of the Marquis of Anglesey, overlooking the Menai Straits, starting on 4 September. Milner’s diary entry for that day records: ‘This is a purely male party met to discuss Curtis’s scheme. Those assembled at dinner were, besides our host, Lovat, F. S. Oliver, Brand, Curtis, P. H. Kerr,

210

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Marris, Craik, Holland4, Howick and Wolmer. Jameson, who was expected, did not turn up.’ The result of the discussion was recorded by Kerr: ‘It was agreed that the principle of cooperation was insufficient as a means of holding together the Empire. It was thought that in the long run some form of organic unity was the only alternative to disrup¬ tion. It was agreed that it was important to examine what form of organic unity was likely to be best suited to the facts of the situation. It was how¬ ever also agreed that for the present and until the time was ripe for some constitutional measure, every effort should be made to extend the principle of cooperation. Organic unity would probably only be possible when people realised that the principle of cooperation had broken down. Arrangements were also made at Plas Newydd for financing (mostly by the Rhodes Trust) the employment full-time of Curtis and Kerr ‘to study how organic unity of the Empire could best be achieved and to organise the machinery necessary to promote such unity.’ As a result of the decisions taken at Plas Newydd, Curtis, Kerr and Marris went off on a tour of Canada. They returned early in the New Year and reported to the Moot. Milner’s diary records that on 23 January 1910 ‘at 3.0 there was a great meeting in my rooms of Curtis, Kerr, Duncan, Feetham, Oliver, Lovat, Craik, Hichens, and Amery to discuss our Imperial Union campaign. They stayed till past 7.’ Two more meetings, with much the same attendance, were held at the Rhodes Trust Offices over the next few days. At these meetings the goal of the movement was defined as ‘an organic union to be brought about by the establishment of an Imperial Government constitutionally responsible to all the electors of the Empire and with power to act directly on the individual citizens.’6 After these meetings Curtis went off on a trip to Australia and New Zealand. On the way he visited South Africa to attend the final meeting of the Transvaal Legislative Council, of which he was a member. While there, he met Perry, Feetham, Duncan and also Amery, who was on a visit there. On the way from there to Australia he completed what became known as the ‘green memorandum’ on the conclusions reached on his visit to Canada with Kerr and Marris, and circulated it to the Moot, asking for their comments. Meanwhile, in England, Philip Kerr, in accordance with a decision taken by the Moot, was making arrange¬ ments to publish a quarterly magazine, to be known as the Round Table, with the object of publicising and disseminating the Moot’s views throughout the Empire. All through 1911 there were fairly regular

The Round Table

211

meetings of the Moot to discuss the policy and contents of the Round Table and to receive Curtis’s reports from overseas. The first number of the Round Table appeared in November 1910. Its sub-title was ‘A Quarterly Review of the Politics of the British Empire.’ In a Preface the editor explained that its aim was ‘to present a regular account of what is going on throughout the King’s dominions, written with first-hand knowledge and entirely free from the bias of local political issues and to provide a means by which the common problems which confront the Empire as a whole can be discussed with knowledge and without bias. . . . The Round Table does not aim at propounding new theories or giving voice to ingenious speculations ... (but) .. . the founders ... have an uneasy sense that... the methods of yesterday will not serve in the competition of to-morrow. ... It is an anomaly that there should be no means of marshalling the whole strength of the Empire effectively behind its will, when its mind is made up. ... If there is a common problem . . . there should be some other means than the circulation of formal official despatches, or a meeting of Premiers only once in four years, whereby it can be publicly discussed and a decision quickly reached.’7 In an endeavour to avoid taking political sides the Round Table, as a matter of policy, avoided the subjects of Tariff Reform and Imperial Preference, although Amery, and probably some other members of the Moot, regarded these as a sine qua non of Imperial unity. Curtis, in his confidential ‘green memorandum’, declared that Canada and, by inference, all the other self-governing Dominions, so long as they depended on the Mother-country for defence, were not really independent at all, and that the time was approaching when the political leaders of the Empire must either create an Imperial Government which would enable the Dominions to contribute to their common defence in return for a voice in the determination of foreign policy, or achieve a genuine independence by severing the Imperial connection and looking after their own defence and foreign policy. This ‘pistol policy’, as Kerr called it, could not possibly be presented in public without defeating the end in view. For, as previous Conferences had shown, Dominion govern¬ ments, and Dominion public opinion, were extremely sensitive about the loss of sovereignty which would be involved in the creation of any kind of centralised organisation. The proceedings of the Imperial Con¬ ference (as it was now called) in 1911 demonstrated that this sensitivity was undiminished. A proposal for a permanent Imperial Council, rather

2I2

Milner: Apostle of Empire

clumsily put forward by Sir Joseph Ward, the New Zealand Prime Minister, and not unlike a proposal to the same effect unsuccessfully put forward by Deakin, the Australian Prime Minister, at the 1907 Conference, was decisively rejected. Curtis, after visiting Canada on his way back from Australia and New Zealand (where he was joined by John Dove, another member of the Kindergarten, recently returned from South Africa, who had been sent out by the Moot to assist him), arrived home at the end of March 1911, soon after the Imperial Conference had ended, and attended a full Moot’ on 4 April which started in the Round Table offices at 175 Picca¬ dilly and ended over dinner at Fred Oliver’s town house in Hereford Gardens. The Moot, ‘chastened by the discovery that a platform for constitutional reform agreeable both to themselves and to the residents of the Dominions was more difficult to create than they had originally assumed’,8 decided that Curtis, whom they suspected was partly res¬ ponsible for Ward’s indiscretions at the Imperial Conference, would have to be restrained. He was therefore found the job of Beit Lecturer in Colonial History at Oxford and instructed to use his ample spare time in this capacity to produce what became known, in the esoteric language of the initiates of the Moot, as the 'egg*—a considered statement of the procedure recommended and the organisation necessary for the creation of an organic Imperial unity, which could be used as a basis for a propa¬ ganda campaign to that end as soon as the time was ripe, when, in the words of one member of the Moot, ‘a conspiracy would be converted into a crusade.’ The first version of Curtis’s ‘egg’ was produced for private circulation to the Moot in the Autumn of 1913 and embodied proposals for a parliament for Imperial affairs containing British and Dominion repre¬ sentatives elected by and answerable to the electors and not the consti¬ tuent governments. The Moot decided that this was far too radical for publication and Curtis was sent off on another tour of the Dominions to try to produce something more generally acceptable. After visiting Canada at the end of 1913 Curtis returned to England in the New Year and, on 9 March 1914, put his latest proposal to a Moot at which 17 members—an unusually large number—were present. He argued that, in spite of the known objections to organic union, the Moot should come out openly in favour of it, while inviting detailed objections from dissenting opinion in the Dominions and elsewhere. He proposed that he should produce a revised ‘egg’ on these lines by the end of the year

RHODES

PHILIP KERR (lord lotiiian)

ELINOR GLYN

The Round Table

213

and that the Moot should reconstitute itself as ‘a propagandist organisa¬ tion consisting of all members willing to subscribe to the broad principles of the English Report’ i.e. the ‘egg’. 9At a Moot held during the week-end of 30 May-June 2 this policy was agreed. But, in view of the interven¬ tion of war, it was never implemented. Meanwhile, Kerr’s caution over Tariff Reform, and Curtis’s ‘pistol policy’ had alienated some members of the Moot and some supporters of the Round Table. Amery complained that Curtis ‘tended to dominate our councils’ by his insistence on the ‘necessity of facing without delay some definite act of federal union.’ Amery and his friends were thinking in terms rather of ‘a merging of our several national sovereignties for working purposes rather than a federal Constitution with an entirely separate executive and parliamentary system of its own.’ Nor could he accept that ‘the movement for closer union could be treated without reference to closer economic union, to my mind ... the master key to the whole problem.’10 Austen Chamberlain, a strong Tariff Reformer, was similarly critical. He thought that the Round Tablers, and particu¬ larly Curtis, ‘while they had done a lot of good work, had also ... done a lot of mischief’ by concentrating on organic union rather than Imperial Preference.11 Other members of the Moot, for one reason or another, became less enthusiastic about the affairs of the Round Table. Fred Oliver, in various letters to Milner, makes a number of sarcastic remarks directed at Curtis and Kerr.12 Geoffrey Robinson’s interest declined for another reason. He resigned the editorship of the Johannesburg Star at the end of 1910, joined the staff of The Times in February 1911, and was appointed editor in July 1912.13 There is no direct evidence which enables us to determine the extent to which Milner created, or influenced, Round Table policy. He was certainly in sympathy with Curtis’s views about the necessity for an organic political entity as the only ultimate alternative to separation, although he appreciated, to a greater extent than Curtis, its immediate impracticability. He also acquiesced in the immediate impracticability of Tariff Reform.14 He attended, and presided at, Moots regularly. And the Round Table continued to be financed largely by the Rhodes Trust, which Milner, to all intents and purposes, by this time controlled.15 It may be assumed therefore, that up to a point he approved of, although he may not have initiated, the policies pursued by Curtis and Kerr. Meetings of the Moot continued for some time after the outbreak of

214

Milner: Apostle of Empire

war. Milner’s diary records a dinner with the Moot in Cambridge Square on 14 January 1915 at which conscription was discussed, and another Moot dinner on 3 June at which two recently recruited members— Reginald Coupland and Alfred Zimmern—were present. At these and subsequent Moots Imperial unity continued to be discussed. In March 1916 Milner, in a letter to Hugh Glazebrook in Canada wrote, in connec¬ tion with ‘a scheme of Curtis’s’ to which ‘I am very far from subscribing’: ‘I am not sure that the Imperial Parliament as he conceives it is the best or only way of making the Dominions full partners in the management of the Empire. But that nothing less than full partnership is the only ultimate goal I am convinced.’16 Regular Moots, or at all events Milner’s attendance at them, ceased after Milner’s elevation to the War Cabinet at the end of 1916. But many members of the Moot, mainly as a result of Milner’s influence, found themselves elevated to positions of impor¬ tance in connection with the war effort. The Round Table continued publication, but the policy agreed at the Moot held at the end of May 1914 was never implemented. Curtis’s ‘egg’ was never published and the propaganda campaign in favour of organic unity was never launched. The Round Table continued for many years as a high-class magazine devoted to international and Imperial affairs, but without any specific propagandist intention. The idea of organic Imperial unity died with the promulgation of the Statute of Westminster in 1932 and the long battle for Imperial Preference was won at the Ottawa Conference the same year, after it had ceased to be of any use in the cause of Imperial Unity. By that time Milner was dead. But most of the Kindergarten were still alive, many of them occupying important positions in the world, and bound together by a common loyalty to each other and to Milner’s memory. Geoffrey Robinson (who changed his name to Dawson in 1919 as a condition of a legacy) was editor of The Times and a powerful influence in the counsels of the Government. Philip Kerr, by that time Lord Lothian, became British Ambassador in Washington during World War II. Robert (by that time Lord) Brand was a powerful figure in the world of finance. Patrick (by this time Sir Patrick) Duncan became Governor-General of South Africa. The Round Table, as a group, in contradistinction to various of its individual members, never attained much influence over events. But a legend grew up which attributed to the group an influence—beneficent or maleficent according to taste—which it never at any time possessed.

The Round Table

215

Wilfrid Laurier, who was an opponent of the Round Table conception of Imperial unity, is recorded as saying in 1917 that ‘Canada is now governed by a junta sitting in London, known as the Round Table, with ramifications in Toronto, in Winnipeg, in Victoria . . . receiving their ideas from London and insidiously forcing them on their respective Parties.’17 The right-wing Tory National Review described the Round Table group as a ‘clique which encourages every centrifugal force in the British Empire.’ The Morning Post, also of right-wing Tory sym¬ pathies, described it, in April 1923, as ‘a phalanx or palace guard of idealists who could be trusted by a sort of spiritual perversion to take a line injurious to British interests on every question.’ And Lloyd George, who recruited several of its members to assist his war-time Administra¬ tion in various capacities, described it as ‘a very powerful combination— in its way perhaps the most powerful in the country. Each member of the group brings to its deliberations certain definite and important qualities, and behind the scenes they have much power and influence.’18 And so the legend grew. In the Thirties, the most popular form which it took was that of a conspiracy to form an alliance with Nazi Germany as a means of protecting Europe from communism and of preserving the British Empire overseas. The support given by The Times, whose editor was Geoffrey Dawson (ne Robinson), to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policy, and the frequent presence of Joachim von Ribbentrop, who was known to be one of Hitler’s intimates, at the Astors’ week-end house parties at Cliveden, encouraged this aspect of the legend. Possibly it was also encouraged by the memory of Milner’s German ancestry and by the congruence of some of his views with the Nazi ideology. Milner had died in 1925, but his influence was believed to be perpetuated in the views of the Round Table group. But, if the influence of Milner’s views survived at all, it survived, not in the minds of Germanophil Round Tablers such as Dawson, Lothian, and Astor, but in that of Leo Amery, who was easily Milner’s closest political associate, and who maintained that close association over a period of twenty years, although he broke away from the Round Table group over the question of Tariff Reform in 1913.19 During the Twenties he was Secretary of State for the Colonies in Baldwin’s Conservative Government. In the ‘National’ Government of the Thirties he was without office. But he returned to office as Secretary of State for India in Churchill’s wartime Coalition, after he had helped to rout the Chamberlain Government in the Norway debate in May 1940, with his

2i 6

Milner: Apostle of Empire

quotation from Cromwell’s words of dismissal to the Long Parliament* ‘You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart* I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.’ This was more in the Milner tradition than anything said or done, or believed to have been said or done, by the Round Tablers.

NOTES ON CHAPTER TEN 1. Letter Selbome-Duncan quoted in Walter Nimocks, Milner s Young Men (Hodder & Stoughton, 1970), p. 81. 2. ibid., p. 104. ‘Smuts had never won the affection of the Kindergarten. From the first they had correctly understood that he was not only an implacable foe of Milner’s policies but also the most politically able and energetic of all the Boers. In their correspondence the Kindergarten sneeringly referred to him as ‘slim Jannie’ a nickname which followed him throughout his life.’ 3. L. S. Amery, op. cit., I, p. 104. 4. A. R. S. Holland, a Cape Colony civil servant, Secretary to Jameson when he was Prime Minister, and, later, a Rhodes Trustee. 5. Nimocks, op. cit., quoting from J. R. M. Butler, Lord Lothian (London, 1906). 6. ibid quoting from Butler, op. cit., p. 40m 7. ibid., pp. 188-90. The 1907 Conference had decided to meet at four instead of five-yearly intervals. 8. ibid., p. 177. 9. ibid., pp. 216-17. 10. L. S. Amery, op. cit., I, pp. 348-9. 11. Austen Chamberlain, op. cit., p. 353. 12. For example (a) 14.2.13. ‘I am becoming more and more convinced that keeping the Empire together is a vain and hopeless task. ... It is dreadful to think of how much money and time and energy we have already wasted on pap. Would it not be better to devote the funds and intrigues to fostering and promoting a civil war? (MP 195) (b) 26.12.14, expressing the hope that ‘somebody would draw the attention of the Round Table young men to the elementary fact that democracy has proved its utter incapacity.’ (MP 221). 13. On 30 December 1910, a few days after arriving in England, Robinson dined with Milner. A few days later Milner noted in his diary that he had had a talk with Northcliffe ‘about Robin’. In February ‘Robin’ started work in the Imperial and Foreign Department of The Times, for which he had been the South African correspondent. It seems likely that Milner had arranged with Northcliffe that he should be regarded as being on probation for the editorship, due to be relin¬ quished by Buckle the following year. At all events, after several searching interviews with Northcliffe at Sutton Place, ‘Robin’ was appointed editor in July 1912.

The Round Table

217

14. MP 195. 15. It has been stated—Nimocks, op. cit., quoting from an article in the Canadian Historical Review, XLIII, No. 3, p. 211, by Caroll Quigley—that between 1910 and 1921 the Rhodes Trust contributed a total of £24,000, or an annual average of about £2,000 to the finances of the Round Table. 16. MP 221. 17. Nimocks, op. cit., p. iv, quoting Richard Jebb, Empire in Eclipse (London, 1926), p. 8. 18. Lord Riddell, The Peace Conference & After (Gollancz, 1933), p. 329. 19. In a note written after Milner’s death Lady Milner recorded: ‘Of his juniors he thought of Amery as his true descendent, of Geoffrey Dawson and Amery as by far the ablest of his younger friends.’ MP 297.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The British Covenant ‘Asa result of the February 1910 election after the Lords’ rejection of the Budget the Liberal majority fell to such an extent that they once more had to rely on the Irish Nationalist vote. If the Liberals were to bring down the Lords they would need the votes of the Irish party and the price would be Home Rule.’1 So, once the Parliament Act had become law in August 1911, the Home Rule fight was on. For the first time since the defeat of Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill in 1893 Irish affairs dominated the foreground of English domestic politics. Milner, in his salad days, had joined his patron, Goschen, in opposition to Home Rule. In 1911, as a ‘free lance Unionist’, he could be reckoned as an opponent of it. But, at first, he seems to have shared, to some extent, the federal views which Fred Oliver, under the name of‘Pacificus’, had been publicising in 1910, and which were also held by Waldorf Astor and several members of the Round Table group. In a letter to Balfour in April 1910 Milner wrote: ‘I feel that we are in for Home Rule in some form, but it makes the whole difference whether it is provincial Home Rule or virtual indepen¬ dence. I don’t suppose that the Party can go in for Home Rule in any form, but if it comes in spite of us, not much harm can be done by pro¬ vincial Home Rule.... The Irish must see the advantage of being inside an English tariff fence . . .’2 Milner seemed to be saying that Tariff Reform, in addition to its other advantages, would have the effect of binding Ireland to the UK and would not be incompatible with some measure of Irish autonomy. But later, in November 1910, he again wrote to Balfour on the same subject: ‘Speaking as an Imperial Unionist of the most advanced type, I certainly do not hold that the grant of any measure of Home Rule to Ireland can be made a basis for the wider federation of the British Empire. I believe that it would be a move in the other direction. ... I don’t in the least mind fighting a losing battle if it is the right thing to do. But I doubt whether it would not be wise to take a less

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militant course, to admit that some changes may be necessary. . . . The Unionists are not strong enough to prevent anything whatever from being done. They are strong enough to turn the scales in favour of a better scheme against a worse. And certainly anything seems better than the Gladstone scheme of dealing with Ireland alone. . . . On the whole I should be glad if all-round devolution were found to be practicable. But if it were not I should fight for the status quo with a good deal more hope of victory than I feel to-day.’3 Thus Milner, at this time, seems to have favoured a compromise solution—‘devolution all round’— although doubtful of its practicability. There are no more references to Ireland in Milner’s correspondence for the next two-and-a-half years.4 During this time he was, like the Cheshire Cat at the Queen of Hearts’s croquet party, gradually with¬ drawing himself from politics, leaving behind, in place of the Cheshire Cat’s grin, nothing but a scowl. His sudden re-eruption on the political scene and his violent attitude towards the Irish question—as compared with the moderation and sweet reason expressed in his letters to Balfour —are not easy to explain. Leo Amery, who was very closely associated with him at the time, gave an explanation some forty years afterwards: ‘When after 1910 a Liberal Government was once again prepared to break up the United Kingdom for the sake of office, Milner was naturally strongly opposed. But, so long as the battle was fought on ordinary political lines, he was prepared to leave its conduct mainly to others. A very different issue arose for him if the Government really contemplated to coerce Ulster by military force. Whether technically legal or not, that would in his eyes have been an act of revolutionary illegality.’5 On 3 August 1911, just before the Parliament Act became law, and while there was still some doubt whether the Hedgers in the Lords would get their way, Winston Churchill, at that time Home Secretary, told a meeting at Dundee that the Government would introduce a Home Rule Bill during the next session of Parliament and ‘press it forward with all their strength’. It had already become apparent that one of the prin¬ cipal objections—if not the principal objection—to Home Rule was likely to come from the Protestants of Ulster, who had an ineradicable objection to being placed under the rule of an Irish Roman Catholic Parliament in Dublin. These Ulstermen were organised into the Irish Unionist Party under the leadership of Edward Carson, an Irish Protes¬ tant (from Dublin and not from Ulster), an eminent barrister at the English Bar (nearly twenty years before he had successfully defended

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

the Marquis of Queensbury in Oscar Wilde’s action against him for criminal libel), and a Unionist MP. On 23 September 1911 Carson, addressing a mass meeting of Ulstermen at Craigavon, told them that they must be prepared ‘to become responsible for the government of the Protestant Province of Ulster ... the morning Home Rule passes.’ A committee of five was elected to work out a Constitution for a Pro¬ visional Government in case its formation should be deemed necessary. The idea of rebellion was, therefore, already in the air. In February 1912, it was announced in the King’s Speech that a Home Rule Bill would be introduced during the current session. On the Tuesday after Easter, at a mass meeting held near Belfast, Bonar Law, the Unionist leader, in the course of a fiery speech, not only committed his Party to the support of the Ulster Unionist but, ‘by implying that Ulster could expect nothing from Parliament and that Conservative support did not necessarily depend on opposition being kept within the law . . . committed his Party to an extreme course.’6 In July 1912, at a Unionist rally in Blenheim Park, in a speech later described by Asquith as a ‘reckless rodomontade’, Bonar Law said: ‘I can conceive of no length of resistance to which Ulster can go in which I would not be prepared to support them.’ He accused the Government of having made a bargain with the Irish Nationalists to destroy the Lords in return for conceding the destruction of the United Kingdom. Such passionate declarations by a normally unemotional, teetotal, rich, Glasgow iron¬ master who had recently been rather unenthusiastically elected to the leadership of the Unionist Party, as a compromise candidate, cannot wholly be explained by a desire to unite behind him on some emotive issue a Party which was divided on Tariff Reform, which had been effectively deprived of the built-in support of the House of Lords, and which was getting tired of its long spell in Opposition. The Irish ques¬ tion did arouse almost ungovernable passions in the most unlikely people, both in Ireland and in England. On 11 June, a few weeks before the* Blenheim Palace rally, during the Committee stage of the Home Rule Bill in the Commons, AgarRobartes, a young Liberal MP, raised a possibility which had already been canvassed privately—he moved that the four indubitably Protes¬ tant counties of Ulster—Antrim, Armagh, Down and Londonderry— should be excluded from the operation of the Bill. Although Carson persuaded his own Unionist MPs to support this amendment it was defeated by 69 votes. By their votes the Irish Nationalists made it clear

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that they were determined to impose Home Rule on the Protestant majority of these four counties whether they wanted it or not, and most of the English Liberal MPs were obediently whipped in behind them. Carson’s reply to this, in September, was the launching of the Irish Covenant, under the terms of which the signatories pledged themselves ‘to stand by one another in defending . . . our cherished position of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom and in using all means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland.’ A mass open-air meeting to launch the Covenant was attended from England by a great many English Unionists, including F. E. Smith, a rising young Tory barrister, Lord Charles Beresford (in one of his ‘quick-change acts’ between the Royal Navy and the House of Commons), Lord Salisbury, the Die-Hard son of the great Victorian statesman, Lord Hugh Cecil, his brother, an extreme and excitable Die-Hard, and Lord Willoughby de Broke, a hard-riding, fox-hunting squire in the best Tory tradition. Meanwhile, the Home Rule Bill battled its way through the Commons to the accompaniment of periodical uproar. On one occasion, in Novem¬ ber, a Unionist member, Ronald McNeill (later Lord Cushenden) threw a book at the head of the Home Secretary, Winston Churchill, and hit him, thereby earning for himself that which he could not otherwise have received, a sentence in the history books. In January 1913 the Bill, having passed through all its stages in the Commons, was sent to the Lords, who threw it out by 326 votes to 69. In Ulster the committee of five elected at Craigavon 16 months before produced their provisional Constitution for Ulster. A by-election in Londonderry, conducted amid scenes of disorder unusual even in that town, resulted in the return of a Home Rule candidate. This had the effect of precisely reversing the balance of Ulster representation in the Commons, which had previously been 17 Unionists and 16 Nationalists. In January, also, the Ulster Unionist Council, the executive body of the Ulster Unionist Party, announced the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force, in which a maximum of 100,000 men between 17 and 65 were to be raised for military training by voluntary recruitment within Ulster. In March 1913 there was formed in England, on the initiative of Lord Willoughby de Broke, a British League for the Support of Ulster, which was joined by 100 Peers and 120 Unionist members of the Commons. In June the Home Rule Bill was introduced into the Commons for the

222

Milner: Apostle of Empire

second time. In September the Ulster Unionist Council announced plans for setting up a Provisional Government in Ulster in the event of the Home Rule Bill becoming law. This would consist of 77 members, with Carson at its head. At the same time the Council opened a fund to compensate such casualties as members of the Ulster Volunteer Force might suffer in the event of civil war. As this dangerous stage was reached, Lord Loreburn, an ex-Lord Chancellor, proposed an inter-Party Conference, and the King, under¬ standably perturbed at the possibility of civil war, asked Asquith whether it was proposed to use the Army for the coercion of Ulster. There were numerous confabulations. Carson told Bonar Law: My own view is that the whole of Ulster should be excluded, but the minimum would be the six plantation counties [the four counties proposed by Agar-Robartes plus Tyrone and Fermanagh]. If Home Rule were inevitable that would be the best settlement to make.... I am fully conscious of the duty there is to try to come to terms.’7 Asquith and Bonar Law had several meetings, at which Asquith, after consulting Redmond, the Irish Nationalist leader, rejected Carson’s offer of exclusion for the six counties. Sometime in December, Jack Seely, the Secretary of State for War, told General Paget, C-in-C British troops in Ireland, that £what has now to be faced is the possibility of action being required by HM’s troops in supporting the civil power to protect life and property if the police are unable to hold their own.’8 It was at about this point that Milner took a hand in the game. Towards the end of July he had received a letter from Lord Roberts, who was a keen, not to say rabid, supporter of the Ulster Protestants. In spite of his great age he had offered them his services in the organisa¬ tion of the UVF and had found for them a suitable commander. Roberts told him: ‘I had a long talk with Bonar Law this morning about Ulster and about your position in the Unionist Party. He said how much he regretted your keeping aloof and how valuable your help would be to the Party, and I gathered from what he said that there was not the least chance of your being let in a second time by the action of the Party in the House of Lords. In the event of a change of Government your many friends trust that a place would be found for you. That I know is Bonar Law’s wish. For the good of the country then, do you not think that the time has come for you to agree to take a more prominent part than you have of late in politics?’9 On 10 October Milner dined with Bonar Law and discussed Ulster.

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He was not on intimate, nor even on particularly friendly, terms with Bonar Law and it seems likely that Roberts had brought them together. On 2 November Roberts wrote another letter to Milner, apparently in reply to one which Milner had written to him. ‘You are quite right. We could not allow Ulster to be coerced without doing something to help them more than talking. I have already let the King know that a British regiment could not be called upon to fire on citizen soldiers who are fighting under the Union Jack without dangerously affecting discipline. I want to know the best way of telling Asquith so . . .’10 On 14 November Milner dined at Brooks’s Club with General Henry Wilson, Director of Military Operations at the War Office, with whom he had been in touch for some time about National Service and other matters. Wilson recorded Milner as being ‘emphatic in support of Ulster’ and saying that ‘the Unionists of England would soon have to pass from words to deeds.’ On 9 December Milner wrote to Carson asking for ‘ten minutes’ quite straight and confidential talk with you. ... For all ordinary purposes I have done with politics. But the business we have been brought face to face with goes far deeper than ordinary Party struggles. I am completely in accord with you about Ulster and what I want to know is whether there is not something which men like myself who disbelieve in mere talk at this juncture can do to help you. I don’t think the Government are serious in their advances.... If they are not serious, there must very soon, and certainly in less than a year, be what would be technically a rebellion in Ulster. It would be a disaster ... if that rebellion were to fail. But it must fail unless we can paralyse the arm which might be raised to strike you. How are we to do it? That requires forethought and organisation over here. ... I think people over here had better act, in appearance at any rate, independently of you. But I. .. can’t... make a plan without knowing . . . the probable course of events on your side. . . . Please realise (i) that I am speaking entirely for myself, (ii) that this thing goes very deep with me. . . .’u On 18 December Milner received a reply from Carson arranging for an interview. Milner’s state of mind at this time is revealed in a letter written to an American friend, Mrs. Chapin; ‘I am reasonably well in health. I fear I have nothing very cheerful to report about myself or our other English friends. . . . We have had a most disastrous year. . . . Loss of money, loss of friends, partly through death, partly through political differences, which are very bitter, are only some of its evil characteristics.... I have

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

never known public affairs in this country wear a more sombre aspect than they do at the present moment.’12 There is no record of the meeting with Carson but, from this time onward, Milner was right back in the vortex of domestic politics. He was in close touch with Bonar Law, with Carson, with Amery, and with Henry Wilson, who kept his Unionist friends closely posted as to what was going on in the War Office and in the Cabinet. On 6 January 1914 Milner was invited by Willoughby de Broke to join the committee of the British League for the Support of Ulster. On 11 January he attended a meeting at Londonderry House for thinking out plans for the support of Ulster.’ On 12 January he was at a com¬ mittee meeting of the British League for the Support of Ulster with Willoughby de Broke, F. E. Smith, Leo Amery and others. On 13 January he had a talk with Bonar Law about Ulster. On 14 January he dined with Henry Wilson, Carson, Jameson and Sir Charles Hunter (a retired General and Unionist MP) and plans for Ulster were discussed. On 15 January he went to Spain for a couple of weeks on the business of the Rio Tinto Company. Before leaving for Spain, Milner had already decided on his plan of campaign, which was later to appear in the form of the British Covenant, and was derived from ideas put forward by Leo Amery.13 These ideas, which Milner successfully ‘sold’ both to Bonar Law and to Willoughby de Broke’s committee, were set out in a note which Milner wrote on 16 January on his way to Spain, and had circulated to the members of the committee. ‘... Our job is .. . to devise plans. .. to make the coer¬ cion of Ulster difficult if not impossible if the Government should be driven to attempt it.’ He advocated ‘action over here . . . falling short of violence or actual rebellion, or at least not beginning with it. I assume that the Unionist Party will use all the ordinary means of political action by motions and speeches in Parliament, meetings in the country, distri¬ bution of literature etc., to dispose the public mind to take a disapproving view of the use of force against Ulster. But we are concerned with some¬ thing more than that, something abnormal and outside the methods of everyday political warfare, something maybe technically illegal and only justifiable on the ground that the Government’s own action is in violation of the spirit of the Constitution. The great object should be to create a diversion in England and Scotland which would make it impossible for the Government to concentrate its attention on the suppression of Ulster. . . . The moving of troops involves the assistance of civilians

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in supply and transport. If there were sufficient men in the railways, at the ports, in the service of army contractors, who had pledged themselves to strike rather than facilitate the movement of troops to operate in Ulster, great difficulties might be put in the way. But even before this, the existence of an organised body of people in Great Britain pledged ... to put obstacles in the way of the coercion of Ulster might give the Government pause.’14 Before going to Spain Milner had put these ideas to some Unionist politicians, besides Bonar Law, with not entirely satisfactory results. Lord Robert Cecil, Austen Chamberlain, and his brother Neville, all disapproved.15 But Amery, while Milner was in Spain, obtained the approval of Lord Roberts and Henry Wilson, and went on with arrange¬ ments for the Covenant. He also went over to Ulster to consult with the Unionist leaders there. Milner returned at the beginning of February and ‘threw himself, with all the ardour with which as a young man he had once worked against Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill, into securing for the opening manifesto a list of good names not primarily connected with Party politics.’16 On 12 February there was a Round Table Moot to discuss Ulster. It seems that Milner was unable to get their support for his proposed Covenant and Fred Oliver sent him a note setting out his reasons for his own disapproval.17 But he obtained the support of the Union Defence League, a highly respectable organisation founded some years before by Walter Long, whose committee approved Milner’s plans and allowed him to use the League’s offices at 25 Victoria Street for the launching of the Covenant. He also obtained a blessing from Lansdowne, Unionist leader in the Lords, who, like Bonar Law a few weeks before, approved the proposed Covenant provided that the Unionist Party was not offici¬ ally involved. On 3 March a letter appeared in all the leading English newspapers announcing the formation of the British Covenant. ‘The time is fast approaching when the evident intention of the Government to pass the Home Rule Bill into law without giving the nation, by General Election or Referendum, an opportunity of passing judgement on it, will plunge the country into civil turmoil. The resistance which will be offered to it will be a well-justified resistance. We appeal to all our fellow-country¬ men to join in a solemn protest that we shall decline to be bound by a measure altering the Constitution which has not received the sanction of the people.’ The text of the Declaration of the Covenant followed:

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

‘I . . . earnestly convinced that the claim of the Government to carry the Home Rule Bill into law is contrary to the spirit of our Constitution do solemnly declare that if the Bill is so passed I shall hold myself justified in taking and supporting any action which may be effective to prevent its being put into operation, and more particularly to prevent the armed forces of the Crown being used to deprive the people of Ulster of their rights as citizens of the United Kingdom.’ The letter was signed by twenty people including, beside Milner himself, Rudyard Kipling, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, Lord Roberts, Lord Lovat, Professor A. V. Dicey, a leading authority on constitutional law, Lord Halifax, Sir Edward Elgar, Lord Desborough and the Duke of Portland. In addition to collecting signatures, of which some two million had been obtained by the end of July,18 Milner and his friends arranged for the publication of a magazine, The Covenanter, to which Milner himself, Amery, Kipling and Carson contributed and which adopted as its motto the belligerent words, ‘Put your trust in God and keep your powder dry.’ In an article contributed to the first issue on 20 May, Milner wrote: ‘If the Government are driven by the more violent of their supporters to attempt the coercion of Ulster ... we may hope to paralyse the arm which is uplifted to strike. ... It is not desirable to be too explicit.’ In an interview given to the Morning Post on 19 March Milner stated; ‘We want to make it impossible for the Government to shoot down the men of Ulster and to find out afterwards that the men they have killed really represent the wishes of the majority of the nation.’ On 4 April an open-air rally in support of the Covenant was held in Hyde Park, at which Milner, Balfour, Carson, Austen Chamberlain (in spite of his refusal to sign the Covenant) and Amery all spoke. In addition to these overt activities funds were secretly raised for the principal purpose of buying arms for the Ulster Volunteer Force.19 Milner and his friends were also discussing a plan for the amendment of the Army Act by the Lords as a means of ‘paralysing the arm’ of the Government in any attempt which they might make to use the army against Ulster. The annual Army Act was first promulgated in 1689, after the deposition of James II, as a means of preventing any future attempts by the Executive to maintain a standing army in defiance of Parliament. It provided that Parliamentary authority for the mainten¬ ance of the Army had to be renewed annually. It had always been passed as a matter of course by both Houses. But the proposal to use it as a weapon against the Government over the Home Rule controversy was

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seriously considered by several Unionist leaders, including Bonar Law. On 4 February the possibility was considered at a Unionist ‘shadow Cabinet’. There was some division of opinion and the question was referred to a committee to study. Milner was in favour of the idea and so was Amery.20 In the event, the Government were prevented from using the army to coerce Ulster, if that was their intention, by their own blundering. What happened was this. On 9 March Asquith, on the second reading of the Home Rule Bill in the Commons, proposed a scheme of settlement, which had been thought out by Lloyd George and reluctantly accepted by Redmond, by which six of the Ulster counties should each be given a separate option of remaining outside Home Rule for six years, at the end of which they should be automatically included unless Parliament should have decided otherwise in the meantime. The point was that there would be a General Election in England during the course of these six years and, if a Unionist Government were to come into office as a result, they would be able to legislate for the permanent exclusion of any or all the Ulster counties. But Carson uncompromisingly rejected the proposal, telling the House: ‘We do not want sentence of death with a stay of execution for six years.’ This was a neat phrase, designed to conceal the fact that the Ulster Protestants had no intention of becoming part of a united Ireland, even if this should be the wish of the British people as a whole. His rejection made nonsense of the Unionist case in so far as it was based on the principle that the people of the United Kingdom as a whole should have the right to decide. Carson’s intransigence was followed by an equally intransigent speech by Churchill, now First Lord of the Admiralty, at Dundee on 14 March, in which he described the Ulster Provisional Government, which had been set up, ready to take over power, as ‘a self-elected body composed of persons who, to put it plainly, are engaged in a treasonable conspiracy’, and defied them, if they wished to challenge the Government’s authority by force, to ‘put these grave matters to the proof’. On the same day, Seely instructed General Paget to make adequate preparations to strengthen the guard on various ammunition depots in Ulster. On 16 March Paget was ordered by telegram to report personally to the War Office with details of arrangements made. He arrived in London on 18 March, having already advised the War Office by post of the steps he was taking to guard the dumps, which steps did not include the move¬ ment of troops into Ulster, since he considered that this ‘would create

228

Milner: Apostle of Empire

intense excitement in Ulster and possibly precipitate a crisis ... although I am keeping a sufficient number in readiness to move at short notice in case the situation should develop into a more dangerous state.’ At a conference in the War Office, at which Paget was present, on 18/19 March, it was decided (a) to appoint General Macready as GOC Belfast District to take command of the Brigade of troops then in Ulster and the local police and (b) to move troops from the south into Ulster. This latter step was insisted on by Seely against the advice of French, Chief of the General Staff, of Ewart, Adjutant-General, and of Paget. On Paget objecting that some of his officers might refuse to move against the Ulster Protestants, he was told by Seely that officers whose homes were in Ulster were to be allowed to go on leave but that all others would have to obey orders, on pain of dismissal from the Army, and would not be allowed merely to resign their commissions. At the same time the Admiralty was arranging for naval units to be sent into Ulster waters in support of the troops which Paget had been ordered to send.

What the Government obviously intended, in the light of the simul¬ taneous naval and troop movements, was something more than merely reinforcing the guard on two or three ammunition dumps in Ulster, but almost certainly something less than a military occupation of the pro¬ vince. The orders issued amounted to a precautionary reinforcement of the armed forces in Ulster in face of a potentially insurrectionary situa¬ tion. Paget returned to his Headquarters at the Curragh on the night of 19/20 March. When he issued his orders to his senior commanders on the morning of 20 March, Brigadier-General Gough, commanding 3rd Cavalry Brigade, whether or not as the result of a genuine misunder¬ standing, considered that he and his Brigade were being asked to under¬ take offensive operations against Ulster. After consulting his Brigade he told Paget that he and most of his officers refused to obey their orders and were prepared to face dismissal from the Army in consequence. Paget informed the War Office and Gough was ordered to hand over his command and report to the War Office, with two of his regimental commanders. Paget was also ordered to report to the War Office. After a number of meetings in the War Office and consultation with the Cabinet, it was agreed that there had been a misunderstanding. The officers concerned were to be reinstated, as if nothing had happened, and were furnished with a statement, agreed by the Cabinet, that ‘HMG must retain their right to use all the forces of the Crown in Ireland and else-

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where to maintain law and order and support the civil power in the ordinary execution of its duty. But they have no intention whatever of taking advantage of this right to crush opposition to the policy or prin¬ ciples of the Home Rule Bill.’ Gough, after consultation with Henry Wilson, declared that he was not satisfied with this and added the following note and handed it back to French: ‘I understand .. . that the troops under our command will not be called upon to enforce the present Home Rule Bill on Ulster and that we can so assure our officers.’ French, with Ewart’s concurrence, and without referring the matter back to Seely or to the Cabinet, confirmed this in writing. Gough then returned to his Brigade. As soon as Asquith heard what had happened, he publicly repudiated French’s action. French and Ewart resigned their respective appoint¬ ments and, a few days later, Seely also resigned. But the damage had been done. Henry Wilson and Gough between them had ensured that the Army could not be used to coerce Ulster. The Government’s arm had been paralysed. There was no longer any object in trying to amend the Army Act. Milner heard about the Curragh ‘mutiny’ while at a dinner party on the evening of 20 March, at which Bonar Law, who was also present, received a telegram telling him the news. Next morning he heard the whole story from Sir Charles Hunter, who had heard it from Henry Wilson—‘how Paget had tried to coerce the officers etc. . . . that the whole WO was in revolt and would stand by Gough and the Curragh officers. I at once dashed off to see Garvin at his private address in Hampstead to tell him the whole story and ensure the right sort of article in the Observer to-morrow.’ He also saw his old disciple, Geoffrey Robinson, now editor of The Times, and ensured that he also would ‘take a very strong line’.21 For the next three weeks or so, the Government, as a result of their blundering over the ‘mutiny’, were mercilessly pursued by the Unionist Press, and by the Unionists in Parliament, on the ground of their having tried, and failed, to coerce the peaceful loyalists of Ulster. But the legend which the Unionists were busily building up of the peaceful intentions of the Ulster Protestants was a little tarnished when, on 24 April, a ship entered Larne harbour in Ulster with 30,000 rifles purchased in Germany for the Ulster Volunteer Force. The cargo was unloaded and distributed to UVF members throughout the nine counties without any interference from the British armed forces in Ulster which, as a result of the fiasco in

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

March, still only amounted to one Brigade. The landing of these arms, predictably, soon produced a similar import of arms by the National Volunteers, the equivalent Home Rule body in the south. Meanwhile, Milner and his friends, seeing that the Home Rule Bill was pursuing its way towards the Statute Book, and realising that there was now no reasonable possibility of the Government being able to use the army to coerce Ulster, began to think in terms of activating the Ulster Provisional Government, which was waiting in the wings for Carson to move. Amery drafted an ingenious-looking scheme by which the predominantly Protestant Justices of the Peace and Lords Lieutenant in Ulster would form themselves into a ‘provisional committee’, which would call upon the Provisional Government to assist the magistracy to keep the peace. This would, according to Amery, avoid illegality, and HMG would be unable to ‘prevent the provisional committee from rapidly extending its authority and so making things much easier for the subsequent taking over of the administration by the Provisional Govern¬ ment.’ Milner put the idea to Carson and to Dicey. Dicey was unenthusiastic and warned Milner that resistance to the Home Rule Bill, after it had become law, would be ‘crime and probably treason’.22 And Carson had become anxious for a settlement. In a debate in the Commons on 28 April, on a motion by Austen Chamberlain asking for an inquiry into the Curragh affair, Churchill, fortified by the recent Protestant gun-running into Ulster, at first adopted a belligerent attitude, but then appealed to Carson to ‘ask for amendments to safeguard the dignity and interests of Protestant Ulster and promise in return to use his influence and goodwill to make Ireland an integral unit in a federal system.’ In what was obviously a pre-arranged scene Carson replied offering to accept the exclusion of the six counties provided that the Government substituted the six-year limitation by the words ‘until this Parliament shall otherwise determine.’ On 12 May Asquith announced that the Government would introduce an Amending Bill into the Lords providing for the exclusion of the six counties simultaneously with getting the Home Rule Bill passed into law. On 24 May the Bill again passed through all its stages in the Commons and was sent up to the Lords. On 23 June the promised Amending Bill was introduced in the Lords. But it did not contain the amendment asked for by Carson and merely formalised the ‘suspension’ offer made by Asquith on 9 March and rejected by Carson. During the public sound and fury which followed the Curragh

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mutiny’, Milner continued to adopt an intransigent attitude. In a speech at Oxford to a British Covenant rally on 22 May, while the Home Rule Bill was receiving its third reading in the Commons, he told his audience: ‘Between the present moment and the earliest date at which the Home Rule Bill can be presented to the King, it is in our power, if we do not relax our efforts, to raise such a storm of protest as will make it impossible for any Minister, however desperate, to press HM to put his signature to that measure with any reasonable hope of his action being accepted. The real danger is that the Unionists will be enticed to leave the firm ground of principle.’ He ended by stating that the correct solution would be an appeal to the people either by General Election or Referendum.23 In other words, Milner was advocating putting pressure upon the King by means of popular agitation. It was abundantly apparent that that particular cock would not fight and Milner did not refer to the matter in public again. Towards the end of June Lansdowne invited Milner, for the first time, to join the Unionist ‘shadow Cabinet’ in their discussions about the policy to be adopted towards the Amending Bill. Milner told a friend that he was ‘in favour of simple but drastic amendments’, but added that ‘there is a considerable body of opinion in favour of the other view.’ The ‘shadow Cabinet’ met on 24 June, the day on which the Bill was introduced in the Lords. Next day Milner made a speech at the Constitu¬ tional Club which presumably reflected the decisions arrived at. He said that the Unionists could not ‘forego the chance, however slight, of preventing a disaster from which the Empire might never recover. ... I am not a Jingo. ... I will not be led by Jingoes nor always accept the leadership of Orangemen. But. .. Ulster is not asking to dominate, but to remain as they are, and not part of a State which might result in a total severance from the United Kingdom.’24 It had been agreed in shadow Cabinet that the Unionist Peers should amend the Amending Bill to provide for the exclusion of the whole of Ulster from the provisions of the Home Rule Bill. Such an amendment would not be accepted by the Government, as Milner recognised. Henry Wilson records that he saw Milner on 3 July, just before the Lords debate on second reading. ‘He told me that unless Asquith agreed to the Lords’ amendment, and he does not think there is a chance of it, as Redmond won’t allow it, Carson will set up a Provisional Government and will take over such Government offices as he can without bloodshed. This will bring matters to a head. Milner ... is entirely in favour of this action. .. . He says that of course

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the Ulster Government will at first be a ‘ragged thing’ but there are good men behind it and it will presently get into working order. . . . Milner wanted to know what the army would do. I told him ... I thought that if Carson and his government were sitting in the City Hall, and we were ordered down to close the hall, we would not do so.’25 Therefore Milner, when he spoke in the Lords on the Amending Bill on 6 July, did so in the almost certain knowledge that the Government would reject the Unionist amendment and in the expectation that Carson would set up a Provisional Government (or, in the modern jargon, ‘declare UDI’). After paying a tribute to Joseph Chamberlain, who had just died, Milner, speaking to the Unionist amendment, told the Lords: ‘Everyone dislikes the exclusion of Ulster; but if you insist on the exclusion of Ireland from the United Kingdom the exclusion of Ulster from the rest of Ireland is the only possibility.... It is only because I do not see how the rejection of the Amending Bill will prevent the main Bill from being passed into law that I want to let the Amending Bill through.’ He added that he gave this advice ‘with a heavy heart’. The Bill, at its second reading, as amended, was passed on that day by 273 votes to 80. It received its third reading on 14 July. Deadlock had been reached on the comparatively narrow issue of how many Ulster counties were to be excluded from the provisions of the Home Rule Bill and for how long. In an attempt to resolve it the King held a Conference at Buckingham Palace from 21 to 24 July at which both Party leaders, with Carson and Redmond, were present. The Conference broke down on the question of whether the counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh should be excluded, together with the four predominantly Protestant counties. On 26 July a cargo of arms and ammunition for the Irish National Volunteers was landed at Howth, near Dublin, and a collision with British troops resulted. It was at this point that the ‘little local difficulty’ over Ulster was superseded by the large difficulty arising from the imminent outbreak of a European war. It is not easy to trace a consistent pattern in Milner’s attitude towards Ulster. At first, he seemed to favour a federal solution on lines put forward by Fred Oliver and various members of the Round Table group. And he never seems entirely to have dissociated himself from this. There were several Moots during the crisis, at which the matter was discussed. On 6 April Milner recorded having seen Curtis and Grigg, who were ‘full of some scheme of theirs to settle the Irish difficulty.’ Three days

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later, his diary contains a more respectful reference to a meeting with Oliver, Henry Wilson, Curtis, Brand and Hichens about ‘some com¬ promise scheme which has met with encouragement from Bonar Law, Austen Chamberlain and Carson.’26 But, in spite of Churchill’s reference, in the Commons on 28 April, to ‘making Ireland an integral unit in a federal system’, a federal solution never seems seriously to have been considered by either side as a matter of practical politics. The reasons for Milner’s passionate commitment to the Ulster cause are traceable to his dominant Imperialist philosophy. He saw that the Government’s Home Rule Bill would lead inevitably to separation and Irish independence. And independence for the whole of Ireland would, as he saw it, reduce the Ulster Protestants to much the same condition as the Uitlanders in Kruger’s Transvaal. Home Rule with exclusion for Ulster was a solution which he only reluctantly accepted in that he regarded it as equivalent to secession and a possible precedent for e.g. the French in Quebec. And the Liberal Government, which wished to coerce Ulster, con¬ sisted of many of the same people, having the same anti-imperial ideas, as the pro-Boers with whom he had contended ten years before. His private correspondence at this time shows the extent of his bitterness against the members of the Asquith Government. In a letter to Lady Edward Cecil just after the Curragh ‘mutiny’ he wrote: ‘These people are capable of any treachery. They are crawling to-day, but, unless we are wary, and give them no chance, they may jump up again to-morrow.’ And, a few days later, to the same correspondent: ‘I do not think that the cry of “dictation by the army” and “the army versus the people” is going to save the criminals.’27 The principal target for the opprobrium of Milner and his associates was the Prime Minister. Milner’s previous friendship with him was one of the casualties in the way of ‘loss of friends . . . through political differences’ already referred to. The younger members of the Moot, who had a habit of inventing nicknames that stuck, referred to Asquith con¬ temptuously as ‘Squiff’, presumably on account of his alleged overindulgence in alcohol. Milner’s concern with Ulster continued almost up to the outbreak of war. On 25 July, just after the breakdown of the Buckingham Palace Conference, he lunched with Bonar Law and discussed future Ulster policy. And on 28 July he saw Lansdowne about ‘further support for Ulster’. The day before, 27 July, he had spent in the City and noted

234

Milner: Apostle of Empire

that things were ‘rather panicky’ owing to the threat of a European war as a result of ‘the crisis between Austria and Serbia’. This is the first reference in his diary to the imminence of that war which was to domi¬ nate his, and everyone else’s, life for the next four years. In his private life, Milner had decided to leave his London chambers at 47 Duke Street, where he had lived for twenty-eight years, and to move to a house of which he had taken a lease at 17 College Street, Westminster, convenient for the House of Lords and, as he told a correspondent, ‘an eminently suitable place for an old gentleman who was born a century and a half too late to end his days in. It is just about as big as a bandbox and rather in the same style.’28 He moved in on 19 December 1914, a few weeks after the outbreak of war. By that time Ulster had receded into the political background.

NOTES ON CHAPTER ELEVEN 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

A. T. Q. Stewart, The Ulster Crisis (Faber & Faber, 1967), p. 24. MP 194. ibid. Apart from a number of delightful letters from Moira Roche, his Irish god¬ daughter, and a granddaughter of Goschen’s. In one of these she gives the follow¬ ing description of one of the Roches’ country neighbours; ‘A small, yellow-faced, screw-haired specimen of the sporting woman, who has had every bone in her body broken at least twice, and thinks that nothing ought to be let live that does not conduce to the sport of hunting and the welfare of the hounds. She has a voice like a siren and collars anything that wears trousers the moment she sees it’. (MP 194). L. S. Amery’s Introduction to V. Halperin, Lord Milner & the Empire (tr.) (Odhams Press, 1952), p. 17. Stewart, op. cit., p. 50. ibid., p. 88. ibid., p. 107. MP 195. ibid. Wrench, Milner, op. cit., p. 280. ibid., p. 281. L. S. Amery, op. cit., I, p. 440. MP 239. Milner Additional Papers, c. 689. L. S. Amery, op. cit., I, p. 441. Milner Additional Papers, c. 689,

The British Covenant

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18. Stewart, op. cit., p. 135. 19. Among subscribers to this fund were Waldorf Astor and Rudyard Kipling, who subscribed £30,000 each, and Lords Rothschild and Iveagh and the Duke of Bedford, who subscribed £10,000 each. (Milner Additional Papers, c. 689). According to an historian of the period (Stewart, op. cit., p. 136) ‘it is virtually certain that some of the money was used for the purchase of arms and ammuni¬ tion in Hamburg which were later landed in Ulster and taken delivery of by the UVF.’ 20. Sir C. E. Calwell. F/M. Sir Henry Wilson, His Life and Diaries (Cassell, 1927), I, p. 139. 21. MP 99. J. L. Garvin, editor of the Observer, had, a week or two before, advo¬ cated the amendment of the Army Act by the Lords and could be relied upon 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

to write ‘the right sort of article’. MP 99. ibid. MP 221. Calwell, op. cit., I, p. 148. MP 221. Wrench, Milner, op. cit., p. 287. ibid., p. 291.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Frustration Looking back over the progress made by the various causes with which he had identified himself during the nine years since his return from South Africa, Milner, in August 1914, cannot have felt very satis¬ fied. No progress had been made over universal compulsory military service, and now Great Britain had been committed to a Continental war without having any adequate trained army reserve. The Colonial Conference in 1907, the Imperial Conference in 1911, and the policy of the Liberal Government throughout, so far from advancing, had some¬ what retarded the linked causes of Imperial Unity and Tariff Reform. Even the Unionists had virtually abandoned Tariff Reform and, since both Canada and South Africa were unenthusiastic about any approach towards organic Imperial unity, is seemed unlikely that a change of Government at home would mean a change for the better in these respects. The immediate result of the Lords having thrown out the Lloyd George Budget had been, not a Unionist victory at the polls in confirmation of the Lords’ stand, but the return of a Liberal Govern¬ ment dependent on the Irish Nationalists. The Unionist leaders, daunted by the threat of a mass creation of Peers, had run away from the Parlia¬ ment Act and exposed the country to what Milner described as the ‘quinquennial dictatorship’ of the House of Commons. Milner’s views on agriculture had, in theory, been accepted as Unionist policy, but he had a prescient suspicion that these views were much too radical to be put into practice by either of the two major Parties. His fight against the Home Rule Bill had neither prevented it from being passed into law, more or less in its original form, nor had it compelled the Liberal Government to test public opinion by means either of a General Election or a Referendum. The possibility of coercing Protestant Ulster had been scotched and the principle of Exclusion accepted, but only at the cost of virtually admitting the right of secession by the rest of Ireland, a right

Frustration

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which threatened to erode the already tenuous ties which bound the British Empire together. His work in South Africa had been, as he saw it, destroyed by the Liberal Government’s premature grant of selfgovernment to the two ex-republics, which had led to an Afrikanerdominated Union. The same Liberal Government, which had reversed his South African policies, and censured him personally, was still in office, with much the same men pursuing much the same policies. And these men whom he despised, and whose policies he hated, were in charge of the Empire’s destiny in the midst of a European war. The Unionists were not, in his eyes, very much better than the Liberals. He strongly disapproved of their lack of enthusiasm for social reforms, their ‘wobbling’ over Tariff Reform and National Service, and their subservience to the brewing interests as shown in their success¬ ful opposition to the Government’s Licensing Bill. In return, he was coolly regarded by many Unionists, who viewed him with much the same irritation as the Liberals viewed Lord Rosebery—brilliant but unpredictable, a bad member of a team owing to his independent attitudes and his liability to fits of what looked like sulking. On 2 February he replied to a correspondent who had appealed to him as ‘a Unionist leader’; ‘I am not a Unionist leader. I am less out of sympathy with the Unionists than I am with the Government because I think that they are at least public-spirited and well-meaning. But I am not enamoured of the policy of the Unionist leaders—if they have one—and I don’t think they would care a fig for anything I said. With regard to agriculture, they are a little, but I think only a little, less averse from anything like a bold policy—and nothing else is any use—than the other side.’1 In spite of all this, he was still a force to be reckoned with. Some of the more ardent Tariff Reformers among the Unionists—such as Austen Chamberlain and Amery—looked to him as the political heir of Joseph Chamberlain. Over the Ulster business he had established strong links with Carson and several others among what would nowadays be called ‘right-wing’ Tories. Some of his Kindergarten disciples were attaining positions of importance in public life. Geoffrey Robinson was editor of The Times and in continuous and close touch with Milner. Waldorf Astor, owner of the Observer, was a close friend, and J. L. Garvin, its editor, an influential and able exponent of Milner’s extremer views. ‘Taffy’ Gwynne, editor of the Morning Post, was also a supporter. Northcliffe, owner of The Times and Daily Mail, and several other papers, had been a staunch supporter of Milner’s since South African

238

Milner: Apostle of Empire

days and saw to it that his papers praised and defended him in face of Radical attacks. He also supported some of the causes including National Service but excluding Tariff Reform—with which Milner was associated. Milner did not care for Northcliffe personally, but he appre¬ ciated the value of his support and kept in fairly close touch with him. These friendly Press contacts were particularly valuable in an age when the Press—in the absence of TV and radio—had an influence on public opinion which cannot easily be imagined to-day. To-day, even the so-called ‘serious’ Press is primarily a medium for entertainment and advertisement, and has little or no influence on the course of events. Nowadays, politicians may use the Press to communicate their views, but no politician would ever dream of taking a journalist’s advice on a matter of policy. Then, the Press—even the so-called popular Press was primarily a means for the expression of political opinion. Many journalists—Garvin, Gardiner, Massingham, Chirol and others were high in the confidence of leading statesmen, who accepted them as equals, told them their secrets, and were not ashamed to ask, sometimes to take, their advice on political matters. Milner, although not a Party politician in the usual sense, was not the lonely and isolated figure depicted by Liberal journalists, and by no means the ‘political lightweight’ described by Randolph Churchill in his biography of Lord Derby. Lloyd George, with his keen political sense, appreciated that Milner ‘made a special appeal to the young intelligensia’ on the one hand, and that ‘the Die-Hard element... trusted him in the essentials of their faith’ on the other.2 When the time came, he ensured the support of these important elements by including Milner in his War Cabinet. As soon as war broke out, Milner determined to do what he could behind the scenes in order to keep the Government on what he regarded as the right lines. On 4 August he went to see Kitchener, who was home on leave from Egypt, persuaded him to go and see the Prime Minister and, generally, according to Amery, ‘worked for his appointment’ as Secretary of State for War, a step which, with the advantage of hindsight, he later came to regret.3 He also urged Balfour and Lansdowne to press the Government to send all six British regular army divisions imme¬ diately to France as an Expeditionary Force in accordance with what Henry Wilson, the Director of Military Operations, and Milner’s principal military contact and confidant, had told him was the official intention, and in accordance with secret arrangements made by Wilson

Frustration

239

with the French. In the event, it was decided, by Kitchener after he had been appointed to the War Office on 5 August, only to send four divisions.4 It was also decided that the Expeditionary Force should be commanded by Sir John French, the Chief of the General Staff who had resigned over the Curragh business, with Sir Archibald Murray as his Chief-of-Staff. Henry Wilson who, as Director of Military Operations, might reasonably have expected the job of Chief-of-Staff, was passed over, probably because the Government were annoyed about his in¬ trigues over the Curragh business. On 23 August Milner, in the Lords, asked the Government about wheat supplies and enquired whether there was any intention of encouraing an increase in the acreage of home-grown wheat. The Government’s answer was, in effect, in the negative. On 1 September a letter from him was published in the Press predicting a world shortage of cereals and urging that ‘it is a matter of supreme necessity to use every means that can be profitably employed ... for the production of the most necessary of all foodstuffs.’ Nobody seemed to take any notice. Immediately after the outbreak of war Milner and Roberts had agreed to suspend the activities of the National Service League in order not to embarrass Kitchener in his appeal for volunteers. When Roberts, by that time 82 years of age, died while on a visit to the front in November, the leadership of the League devolved on Milner. In August 1915, as we shall see, he revived its activities. On 29 October there was a Moot at which Selborne, Malcolm, Brand, Curtis, Kerr, Oliver, Coupland, Zimmern and Hichens were present and at which ‘the muddle at the Admiralty’ was discussed. Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty and, of all the members of the Government, Milner probably disliked and mistrusted him most, and he was no doubt receptive to any criticism of him. On 8 December he wrote to Hugh Glazebrook in Canada: ‘I neither anticipate nor desire such a victory as will ‘crush German militarism for ever’, whatever that may mean. ... I want to see Germany well beaten, but I do not want to see her crushed and, what is more, I know she can’t be crushed. If the Germans are well beaten you may trust them of them¬ selves to make an end of Junkerdom and the influences that have made Germany of late years ... the bully of the world and a nuisance to all her neighbours.’5 By the New Year he was convinced that the struggle would be a long one. To Bertha Synge, his childhood playmate from Chelsea days

240

Milner: Apostle of Empire

with whom he had kept up a regular correspondence ever since, he wrote on 3 January 1915: ‘The great struggle looks like being a very protracted one. I think the Allies will win, but I am always rendered uneasy by the persistent over-confidence of our people, especially as it takes the form of relaxing effort. Here at home I mean . . .6 In the Spring of 1915, after six months of war, things were going badly. On the Western front, the war of movement had come to an end and the opposing armies had entrenched themselves behind barbed wire in an unbroken line from Switzerland to the sea. British attempts to break through the German lines had been repulsed at Loos and Neuve Chapelle with heavy casualties, attributed by French, the C-in-C, and by the Northcliffe Press, to shortage of high explosive shells with which to cut through the barbed wire entanglements. Russian attacks against the Germans on the Eastern front had been repulsed with heavy casualties, although the Russians had gained some successes against the AustroHungarian armies in Galicia. The Turks had joined the Central Powers, thereby cutting the Allies off from Russia’s Black Sea ports and posing a threat to the Suez Canal. An attempt to knock Turkey out of the war by forcing a passage through the Dardanelles and landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula had got bogged down after heavily opposed landings by British and Dominion troops on the peninsula. There had been severe naval losses—the battleship Audacious off northern Ireland, three cruisers—all in the English Channel and in one day, two cruisers in the Battle of Coronel off Chile, several old battleships in the Darda¬ nelles. These losses were hardly offset by the destruction of some halfdozen of Germany’s commerce-raiding cruisers. The one bright spot was the entry of Italy into the war on the side of the Allies, an interven¬ tion which, in the event, was to be more of a liability than an asset. In the middle of May, Asquith, harassed by dissensions in the Cabinet, by a quarrel between Churchill and Fisher, First Sea Lord, over the Dardanelles expedition, resulting in the latter’s resignation, by vociferous Press criticism of the alleged shell shortage, and confronted with increas¬ ing public disquiet over the progress of the war, reconstructed his Cabinet by inviting Opposition leaders to join a Coalition. Lloyd George, the Government’s most active internal critic, went to a newlycreated Ministry of Munitions. McKenna, another Liberal, became Chancellor of the Exchequer in his place. Churchill was removed from the Admiralty to the sinecure of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Balfour made First Lord in his place. Carson and F. E. Smith, Unionist barrister

Frustration

241

MPs, one of whom had led, and the other of whom had actively en¬ couraged, lawlessness in Ulster, were made Law Officers. Haldane, Lord Chancellor, Milner’s old friend and ally, was thrust out of the Govern¬ ment altogether as a result of popular clamour about his alleged German sympathies (he had once described Germany as his ‘spiritual home’). Bonar Law was fobbed off with the Colonial Office. Grey remained at the Foreign Office and Kitchener at the War Office. Curzon received the sinecure post of Lord Privy Seal. An old friend of Milner’s, Lord Selborne, went to the Ministry of Agriculture. Austen Chamberlain, anothei friend and political ally, went to the India Office. Milner was not offered a place. Henry Wilson, who had been relegated to the position of Chief Liaison Officer between the British and French armies, told him on 26 May; ‘I don’t think you can have any idea how disgusted and dis¬ heartened I am that you are not in this new Cabinet.’ And Austen Chamberlain, when offered the India Office, told Asquith that he would be prepared to serve under Milner as Under-Secretary if Milner were offered a Cabinet post. But Asquith was only prepared to take those Unionists on whom the Unionist leadership insisted. And they did not insist on Milner. By forming his Coalition, the Prime Minister had safeguarded himself against organised opposition from the Unionist Party. Milner, the free lance, remained outside the charmed circle and soon became the new Government’s most formidable critic. Selborne, within days of his appointment as Minister of Agriculture, asked Milner to chair a departmental committee to consider food pro¬ duction in the United Kingdom. The committee started work on 15 June and produced an interim report7 by 17 July. It was very largely based on the Unionist statement of policy inspired by Milner in 1913. It recom¬ mended fixing a guaranteed minimum price of 45s. a quarter for wheat for the next four years to all farmers who increased their wheat acreage by at least one-fifth. Apart from encouraging increased production, the committee considered that this guarantee would enable farmers to grant ‘a further substantial increase’ in wages, which was, in the committee’s view, ‘imperative’. In addition the Report recommended setting-up a network of local agricultural advisory committees to ‘give farmers a clear lead as to the crops which are considered desirable.’ Selborne did his best to get the committee’s recommendations accepted by the Cabinet. On 5 August he told Milner: ‘I am going to fight to carry it. Asquith supported me, but my own political friends

242

Milner: Apostle of Empire

dished the scheme as much as the hide-bound Cobdenites. . . . The refusal of the Admiralty to admit that there is any real menace to our trade from increased activity by German submarines was regarded as the clinching argument.’ Later, when the committee s recommendations had been finally rejected, Selborne told Milner: ‘What really has beaten us is the absolute refusal of Balfour to admit that there is any risk to our overseas supplies, and I shall put the responsibility on him publicly. Milner, writing to Philip Gell on 20 August ‘re Government decision to do nothing about the agricultural report, told him: The Liberals were of course against it and the Unionists either ignorant or indifferent or hostile. . . . The old-fashioned Conservatives are almost if not quite as hopeless as the Cobdenites. I am fearfully disgusted and hope that there will be a row about it.’9 Although the National Service League had suspended its propagandist activities at the beginning of the war, the League remained in being, and Milner continued individually to urge the necessity for conscription. On 27 May, just after the formation of Asquith s Coalition, The Times published a letter from him on the subject: ‘The change of Ministry will not give us victory without a change of method. A country organised on the voluntary system cannot be a match for one which is organised on the principle of national service. The handicap is too enormous. It hampers us everywhere—in the provision of ammunition as in the provision of men. It is the root cause of nine-tenths of the hideous delays and blunders and of the widespread and justified uneasiness and discontent. . . . The State ought not to be obliged to tout for fighting men.... We still have great reserves of man-power. It is upon what we do now that it depends whether these reserves will be ready to be thrown into the scale at the supreme moment or whether they will remain unorganised, untrained, useless_The way we are going on at present is unfair to everyone. It is not the proper function of the heroic minority to die vainly and alone. We have relied too exclusively on the pick of our people and have lost too large a proportion of them. The nation is ready to obey the order. It only needs the captain on the bridge to give the signal. In August 1915, as a result of the Northcliffe Press having started a campaign in favour of conscription, Milner, now Chairman of the National Service League, decided to resume its propaganda. On 19 August he sent a letter to the Press announcing this. His decision not only embarrassed the Government. It also earned him royal displeasure. On 28 August the King, with whom Milner had never been on close

Frustration

243

terms and whom, in his private correspondence, he had accused of weak¬ ness over his handling the creation of Peers guarantee in 1911, sent for him at Windsor and delivered ‘a strong expression of opinion against the agitation for National Service’. In reply Milner sent HM a memorandum in defence of his action. He attributed the King’s disapproval to dislike of NorthclifFe. In retrospect the Government’s reluctance to introduce conscription seems extraordinary. The time had not yet arrived when the enormous casualties on the Western front necessitated scraping the bottom of the manpower barrel. But failure to introduce compulsion meant on the one hand that men needed for essential work in agriculture and industry were allowed to volunteer for the armed services, and on the other hand that men not needed for these were allowed to continue working at nonessential jobs. According to Milner, Kitchener was ‘the real difficulty’. His reluctance seems to have been based on pride at his success as a recruiting officer and appreciation of the fact that there was not enough equipment to fit out the men who had already volunteered. Milner went to see him at the War Office on 6 September but failed to convince him. The reluctance of most of the rest of the Cabinet was based on fear of public opinion. According to Lloyd George, one of the members of the Cabinet who were urging conscription, ‘not the least of the difficulties which had to be overcome . . . was the hostility engendered by its advocates. They were associated before the war in the popular mind with Jingoism and in consequence opposition to any suggestion of national military service had become an article of faith with some Liberals and Socialists. ... It would have been far easier for the Government to introduce national service at an early date if the matter had not taken on such a violently controversial colour.’10 This was, of course, a reference to Milner and his NSL friends. But the pressure of necessity gradually drove a reluctant Government forward. In July 1915 a National Registration Bill was passed by Parlia¬ ment which enabled the Government to compile a complete National Register of men and their circumstances and occupations, an essential preliminary to any form of conscription. The next step was known as the Derby Scheme—after the Earl of Derby, who was asked to administer it. Under this scheme all able bodied male civilians between the ages of 18 and 47 were asked voluntarily to ‘attest’—to pledge themselves to enlist when called upon—on the understanding that single men would be

244

Milner: Apostle of Empire

called up first. This scheme, which took no account of military versus industrial and agricultural needs, was a ludicrous failure. In January 1916 a Military Service Bill was passed applying compulsion to all ablebodied unmarried men and childless widowers between the ages of 18 and 41. This Bill had been opposed in Cabinet by Simon, McKenna and Runciman. When it was passed into Law, Simon resigned; McKenna and Runciman stayed on. Milner and his friends, and an increasing number of Cabinet Ministers, members of Parliament, and of the general public, were still not satisfied. On 19 April, Milner, in the Lords, and Carson, who had resigned from the Government some months before, in the Commons, moved identical motions that ‘in the opinion of this House it is necessary that an Act should be passed without delay rendering all men of military age liable to be called up for military service for the duration of the war.’ In the course of what The Times described as ‘by common consent the best speech he has delivered in the House of Lords’, Milner said: ‘For fully a year past the need for National Service has been evident to anyone who looks at the war objectively. . . . The voluntary scheme has clearly broken down.... Nothing disorganises industry more than a haphazard scheme of recruitment. You are not obliged to take men because you have the right to take them. .. . The arguments against compulsion are so weak that they cannot be the real motive for those who employ them. The real motive is fear.... They are afraid of the temper of the working class. I am convinced that they are entirely wrong.’ After the debate in both Houses had been adjourned until 25 April at the Government’s request, against their undertaking that a comprehen¬ sive Bill was being considered, over which ‘there are still material points of disagreement’, the Houses, after the adjournment, went into secret session to listen to the terms of the promised Bill. This still did not provide for the universal compulsion which Milner and Carson and their friends had been demanding and, such was the volume of criticism in both Houses, that the Government withdrew their Bill and substituted for it a Bill which conceded all that their critics were demanding. In May 1916 conscription was extended by law to all able-bodied males, married or unmarried, between the ages of 18 and 41. It was the pressure in Parliament, led by Carson in the Commons and Milner in the Lords, rather than Northcliffe’s newspaper campaign, which finally pushed the Government over the brink. It was the only overt political campaign with which Milner was associated that ever reached

Frustration

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its goal. And it is likely that Lloyd George was right in his view that the Government would have got to the point sooner and more easily if conscription had not been discredited in the eyes of so many people by the Jingoistic overtones conferred on it by the National Service League. Now that the immediate battle had been won, what was to be done with the National Service League? Was it to remain in being in order to pursue its campaign for universal military service after the war? In February 1916 Milner had written to Lady Roberts telling her that ‘the ultimate idea is a League of Patriots for the furtherance of all the objects which men who put country first have at heart.’ But later, having ascer¬ tained that League members did not, in general, support him over this, Milner agreed to the merging of the League with the Royal Colonial Institute, which ‘really amounted to a decent interment of the League’. He added, in a letter communicating this decision, that ‘if the experiences through which we are now passing do not convert the body of the nation to National Service . . . no amount of subsequent propaganda will be of any use.’11 In another part of the letter to Lady Roberts which has been quoted Milner told her: ‘I am trying very hard, but quietly, to further a purely working-class movement which I hope will knock out the ILP and start a Workman’s League among Trade Unionists which will make Imperial Unity and Citizens’ Service planks in its programme.’ Milner was very conscious that, mainly because of the class bias of the Unionist Party and its lack of interest in social reform, the causes with which he was most closely associated—Imperial Unity and National Service—• made little or no appeal to the working class. He wished also to divert working class opinion from the internationalism and pacifism represented by the Independent Labour Party. This wish was greatly intensified after the Russian Revolution, when he identified the ILP with communism and class warfare, tended to see communist influence behind labour unrest in the coal mines and elsewhere, and regarded with dismay the possible spread of the communist infection into the British and Western European countries. It would be difficult to imagine anyone less suitable than Milner to inspire a working class movement. In fact, the results of his more or less clandestine efforts in this direction were negligible. But he devoted a fair proportion of his time and energy to it. Unfortunately, owing to its secret nature, records of his activity in this direction are difficult to trace.12 Meanwhile, the war went on just as unsuccessfully as ever from the

246

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Allied point of view. By the end of 1915, after interminable hesitations and heavy casualties, the Gallipoli peninsula had been evacuated. An Anglo-French force sent to Salonika arrived too late and in too small numbers to prevent Serbia from being crushed. Bulgaria had entered the war on the side of the enemy. These reverses had caused Greece to retreat into a hostile neutrality. The Russian armies had sustained a series of defeats at the hands of the Germans. On the Western front, in spite of German preoccupations on the Russian front, a series of Allied offensives had brought heavy casualties and negligible gains. Sir John French was replaced as British C-in-C by Sir Douglas Haig. In 1916 the tale of disaster continued. The bloody battle of the Somme —which cost the British army 60,000 casualties on the first day alone— was fought and the ground gained was ‘not tomb enough and continent to hide the slain’. The Battle of Jutland was fought at sea; the British Grand Fleet suffered heavy losses, mainly due to the vulnerability of the British battle-cruisers against accurate gunnery, and an opportunity to destroy the German High Seas Fleet, inferior both in numbers and fire¬ power to the Grand Fleet, was missed. At the time, Milner recorded: ‘It is simply the case of an Admiral, with a free hand and quite reasonable instructions, being outwitted by the German Admiral.’13 Kitchener was drowned on his way to Russia, where he was to have discussed ways and means of sustaining Russian strength with supplies of munitions. Rumania entered the war on the side of the Allies and, in default of the help which the Russians were unable to give her, was almost immediately overrun by the Germans. Italy was providing the Austro-Hungarians with a unique example of an enemy whom they were able to beat. Most serious of all, the German submarine campaign against Allied and, later, against neutral shipping, began to emerge as the most serious menace facing the British war effort, a menace much more serious than the earlier fear of invasion. In these depressing circumstances, the Government suffered both from outside criticism and from internal dissension. Carson resigned in the Autumn of 1915 in protest against the failure to help Serbia, and became one of the Government’s severest critics in the Commons. After Kitchener’s death, Lloyd George who, behind the scenes, was the Govern¬ ment’s principal internal critic, became Secretary of State for War. From outside the Government Milner emerged as its most forceful and influen¬ tial critic in public and as one of its most active opponents behind the scenes.

Frustration

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On 14 October 1915 he made a much-criticised speech in the Lords in a debate about the war: ‘How about the Dardanelles? I am not attempting to say what is the right policy to pursue. What I am sure about is that there is no time to be lost in deciding what policy to pursue.... What¬ ever might result from the disastrous developments in the Balkans . . . they might have given us the advantage, which may never recur, of withdrawing from an enterprise, the successful completion of which is now hopeless. There may be reasons why that course cannot be pur¬ sued . . . but when I hear statesmen say that it would be a terrible thing to abandon our Dardanelles adventure because this would have a bad effect in Egypt, in India, and on our prestige in the East, I cannot help asking myself whether it would not have a worse effect if we persist in that enterprise and end in complete disaster.’ This speech was the subject of a memorandum by Hankey, Secretary to the Cabinet, to the Prime Minister expressing the opinion that public mention of the possibility of evacuation from Gallipoli, which was then under consideration, was of assistance to the enemy. ‘It is difficult to conceive a more unfortunate pronouncement.’ There was also some adverse public criticism. But, in a speech at Canterbury on 30 October, Milner was quite unrepentant. And he attacked the Government for their ‘delay in providing shells and their bare-faced attempt to conceal it, the way we piled blunder upon blunder in the Dardanelles, and the really phenomenal failure of our policy in the Balkans. . . . Timidity at home, irresolution, procrastination, want of foresight and of a clear-cut policy, can nullify and dissipate the greatest preponderance of power.’ At about the same time he wrote a private letter to a friend, defending his Dardanelles speech: ‘Any encouragement which the enemy may derive from speeches is trivial compared with the assistance they derive from the hopeless wobbling and irresolution of our rulers. . . . The spirit of the great body of our people will pull us through .. . (but) . .. whether we get the great victory which most people originally expected is doubtful. . . . Whether the future of the British Empire is one of greater progress or gradual decay depends on whether we are presently able to cleanse the Augean stables at Westminster.’14 On 5 November he wrote privately to Lansdowne, the Government leader in the Lords, telling him that he would refrain from public attacks on the Government if he could receive ‘some assurance that there is some¬ where a supreme authority for dealing with the situation in the NE Mediterranean as a whole.. .. Does the Government now know what it

248

Milner: Apostle of Empire

wants to do? All external symptoms point to divided counsels and con¬ stantly shifting policy. If you were able to tell me privately that the Government had made up its mind to adopt a definite line of action and was pursuing it with all its energy ... I should keep quiet . . ,’15 He had a talk with Lansdowne on 7 November but appears not to have received the assurances for which he had asked. Therefore, on 8 Novem¬ ber, in a Lords debate on a motion by Willoughby de Broke ‘drawing attention to the responsibility of Ministers with regard to the direction of the war’, Milner returned to the charge: ‘One of the main objects of this debate is to enlighten the nation and to stir it out of the delusions ... in which a great portion of it is now swathed. More havoc is wrought by want of thought than by want of heart. The country is guiltless of the baseness of a deliberate betrayal of Serbia. But that alone does not excuse us. . . . If we had prepared betimes against a contingency which for months past has been a likelihood it would have been possible to give Serbia such an amount of material as would have enabled her to with¬ stand the combined attacks of the Central Powers and Bulgaria.... We should have carried Greece with us. . . . Instead of that we seemed absolutely paralysed. ... I believe that foreign nations in future will examine very minutely our declarations and especially our promises and pledges of help.’ Over the Dardanelles, he urged that the decision whether or not to evacuate should be taken on purely military grounds. ‘To bring politics in is to court disaster. ... If military considerations are against it, do not let us persist in the enterprise from any delusion that persistence will help us with Rumania or Greece.... I have as great a belief as anyone in the value of prestige, but prestige is the child of solid success.... If our prestige has suffered in the Dardanelles, the way to recover it is to do better somewhere else.’ Then, dealing with the accusation that critics of the Government were working against the national interest, he said: ‘Those who call a spade a spade in these days do so metaphorically with a rope round their necks. . . . The truth is that critics, though they are denounced as mischief-makers and as encouraging the enemy, are very often the best friends of the Govern¬ ment, just as the docile portions of the Press, with their want of candour in their efforts to defend the indefensible, are very often their worst enemies.’ On 20 December, in a speech in the Lords on the Allied blockade of Germany, Milner asked whether ‘we really mean business with our declared policy of cutting off Germany from seaborne trade.... I dislike

Frustration

249

all the rumours with which the air is rife of the existence of some un¬ avowed reason for the tenderness which has been shown to enemy trade. I have no doubt that there is always some reason, good or bad, for every concession we make ... but it is not to be wondered at that the man-inthe-street is inclined to believe these rumours. If there is some persistent belief in the existence of some occult German influence in the very heart of our Administration ... the Government is largely responsible for it. No course short of the complete abandonment of the exercise of our superior power at sea . . . will enable us to obviate all difficulties with neutrals. You will always have difficulties with neutrals the moment you extend the exercise of sea-power to bring economic pressure upon the enemy.... If you want to obviate trouble with neutrals the best course is to shorten the war.’ The reference to ‘occult German influence’ pre¬ dictably provoked a counter-attack. In the commons, an Irish member, referring to Milner’s German antecedents, asked the Home Secretary if he had taken out naturalisation papers. The Home Secretary replied that Milner was a British subject by birth, and explained why. In addition to public denunciations, Milner was at work behind the scenes trying to undermine the Government. He was in close contact with Carson. He was in fairly close touch with Northclifle, whose papers were attacking the Government. In October 1915 he lent his house in College Street for a secret meeting between Northclifle and Lloyd George, who was intriguing against the Government from within. He had, using Geoffrey Robinson as an intermediary, put himself in touch with Lloyd George, and he, Lloyd George and Robinson lunched together in College Street on 30 September 1915. He was in frequent communication with Henry Wilson who, in a letter to Milner on 17 October, told him: ‘What we want are (i) conscription, (ii) ammunition, (iii) withdrawal from Dardanelles. We can save Serbia if we send at once 3/4 Divisions from Gallipoli, followed by remainder.’ In January 1916 Milner started a regular weekly series of Monday dinners at his house, which soon became a kind of ‘Cabal’, formed with the object of overthrowing the Government. These Monday night Cabals were attended fairly regularly by Fred Oliver, Geoffrey Robinson and Waldorf Astor, and from time to time by Leo Amery (who was in the army), Henry Wilson, Carson, Lloyd George, Philip Kerr and Jameson, for whom Milner, unaccountably, had an abiding affection and respect. Fred Oliver, on 19 February, wrote a note about the Cabal for Amery’s benefit. ‘They were unable to agree on the men who were

250

Milner: Apostle of Empire

worthy to lead the country, save . . . that they approved of each other. ... There was no unity of opinion.’ Carson and Oliver wanted Churchill in the Cabinet, but Milner ‘could not forgive his old opponent of the censure of 1906.’ Milner wanted a representative of the Labour Party in a War Cabinet including Lloyd George and Carson. Oliver did not. All except Oliver approved of Lloyd George. They were all, in private, inclined to be supercilious about democracy and that ‘will of the people’ which most of them were so fond of invoking in public. The sort of language the Cabal used about Asquith can be judged from a note which Henry Wilson wrote to Milner on 22 March 1916 in which he described the Prime Minister as ‘a callous, cynical blackguard, a liar, an extinct volcano . . . worth Army Corps unnumbered to the Boche.’16 In September 1916 Milner wrote to a friend: ‘It seems impossible for people to get the proper attitude about the war. They are either slack in the conduct of it, or indulge in insane speculations of the possible results of conducting it vigorously. The wise combination is unlimited energy in carrying on the struggle, with moderation in our aims and a readiness to terminate the fight at the first opportunity. . . . On these lines we may look for a fairly favourable result. Our resources in men and money... are not unlimited and the ‘absolute crushing’ of Germany and her allies ... is a chimera.’17 In October, on Haig’s invitation, Milner paid a visit, lasting about ten days, to the British armies on the Western front. One of his leading impressions was ‘the almost unbelievable progress made in aeroplane work in the last year’ and ‘the possibility of air power becoming the decisive factor in the war.’ Although, behind the scenes, Milner was working for the downfall of the Government, his public attitude towards them during late 1916 was considerably less vitriolic than it had been during the previous Autumn. This may have encouraged them to offer him some suitable work. He was invited, and refused, to become Chairman of the Dardanelles Com¬ mittee to investigate the reasons for the failure of that enterprise. In July he was invited by Lord Robert Cecil, Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, to coordinate the work of three existing coal committees—(i) the coal mining organisation committee, responsible to the Home Office; (ii) the coal exports committee responsible to the Board of Trade; and (iii) the central coal and coke supplies committee, also responsible to the Board of Trade. What was required, Lord Robert told him, was (a) to remedy the reduced output due to shortage of labour, (b) to allocate

Frustration

251

domestic demand, and (c) to allocate the balance left over for export. Milner accepted this task and immediately got down to it. He got in touch with representatives of the owners and miners. Of the former he was particularly impressed by Lord Rhonnda (later Food Controller), and of the latter by Robert Smellie, President of the Miners’ Federation, who expressed surprise that he found Milner to be quite different from and much more human than his public ‘image’. After appropriate consultations and investigations, Milner reported his findings to the Home Secretary (Herbert Samuel) on 6 November. ‘Our total output of coal in 1913 was 287 million tons. ... In 1915 it was 253 million tons. Somewhere halfway between the two is as much as we can reasonably hope to get at present. And if we did get it we should have enough for all really urgent requirements. But, in order to get to this point and keep there for as long as the war lasts . . . the conditions which are likely to meet with the greatest response . . . are good but not excessively high wages and the feeling that they are not being exploited to make excessive profits for their employers.... What the men want is not to get higher wages for themselves but to stop the piling-up of profits by their employers and to keep the price of coal at a moderate level. It is the general and growing resentment at profiteering ... which is undoubtedly the chief cause of the unrest among miners and that unrest is the greatest danger to the maintenance of an ample output of coal. It is not possible for the miners to prove that . . . their present wages are not adequate. It is more difficult to meet their contention that the profits of the owners are excessive. I doubt myself whether anything short of the State itself becoming the buyer of all the coal, leaving wages to be determined by the amount paid to the owners .. . will put an end to the controversy as to whether wages or profits are responsible for the increased cost of coal.’18 In his findings Milner proposed the setting-up of a Royal Commission to consider the whole future of the coal industry and recommended the immediate freezing both of coal prices and of miners’ wages.19 As in the case of the agricultural report the previous year, most of Milner’s findings were much too radical for the Government. But, unlike the agricultural recommendations, they were not rejected outright. On 2 December, Asquith invited him to become Coal Controller, a new office which he proposed to create. (Three days before, he had offered Milner, who had refused, the job of Food Controller.) Milner did not refuse, but replied to Asquith asking for more details about the nature and scope of the

252

Milner: Apostle of Empire

appointment. Before Asquith had had time to answer he had ceased to be Prime Minister. In late October, Henry Wilson, commanding the Fourth army corps in France during such time as he was able to spare from intrigue in England, called on Milner after his trip to the Western front. He found him ‘convinced that we could not beat the Boche army on the Western front. He saw no daylight, although he believed that, if Lloyd George broke with the Government and went boldly to the country, he would sweep the Government out. He would be willing to join Lloyd George and Carson.’20 All through 1916 the policy of the Cabal had been to try to induce sufficient resignations from the Government to make it impossible for Asquith to carry on. In April Milner and Fred Oliver tried, unsuccess¬ fully, to induce Austen Chamberlain to resign. But Austen was, com¬ paratively, a lightweight. The twin props of the Coalition were Bonar Law and Lloyd George. It was necessary to remove at least one of them to bring the Government down. Milner had little or no contact with Bonar Law, of whom he had a low opinion, referring in private corres¬ pondence to his ‘absolute brankruptcy as a politician’. Bonar Law was in any case very little susceptible to the influence of anyone apart from his impresario, Max Aitken, a young Canadian millionaire and Unionist MP. The Cabal therefore concentrated on Lloyd George, with whom Milner and Carson were in fairly frequent touch. Henry Wilson made a note of a Cabal dinner on 27 November: ‘I dined with Fred Oliver; also there Milner, Carson, Geoffrey Robinson and Waldorf Astor . . . Carson asked what he should advise Lloyd George and Bonar Law to do, as a crisis was coming. Our unanimous advice was that he should get Lloyd George to smash the Government and get Bonar Law to come out, so that Lloyd George should get the Unionist machinery for a General Election, should one come about. I think he agreed . . . that a real fighting Government should be formed round Lloyd George, Carson and Milner.’21 The next week was full of intrigue. Lloyd George trying to get Asquith to agree to a plan which would leave him as titular Prime Minister, with Lloyd George in effective control of the war. Max Aitken trying to ensure that Bonar Law did not get left out in the cold when the smash came. Churchill trying to manoeuvre his way back into office. On Monday 4 December a leading article appeared in The Times, to which has sometimes been attributed the fall of the Asquith Government. In

Frustration

253

this article it was stated that ‘Lloyd George has finally taken his stand against the present direction of the war’, that ‘he has an alternative scheme’, and that ‘we are within measurable distance of having a small War Council as a super-Cabinet as advocated in these columns for 1^ years.’ The article went on to state that the gist of the Lloyd George proposals was a small War Council, of which Asquith would not be a member, responsible for the supreme direction of the war. Of this War Council Carson would be a member. Bonar Law was believed to be in favour of the scheme. What was proposed ‘was neither a military coup, nor a coup against the military . . . Lloyd George’s real defect is too much rather than too little sympathy with the military mind.’ The article concluded: ‘Mr. Lloyd George has succeeded in impressing even the bitterest of his old opponents with his . . . passion for victory.’ This was an accurate statement of Lloyd George’s views and inten¬ tions. Asquith, with whom he was at this time negotiating an arrange¬ ment on these lines, was convinced that Lloyd George, in collusion with Northcliffe, had had this article inserted in order to put pressure on him. He therefore broke off the negotiations. As a result Lloyd George, followed by Bonar Law, resigned from the Government. Asquith sub¬ mitted his own resignation and that of the members of the Government to the King, making it clear that he would not serve in a Government headed by Bonar Law or Lloyd George. He was confident that neither of them would be able to form a Government. He was mistaken. Bonar Law, by agreement with Lloyd George, declined the King’s invitation to form a Government, and advised HM to send for Lloyd George, who succeeded in forming a Government which included most of the leading Unionist members of the previous Government whom Asquith had been led erroneously to believe would not serve under Lloyd George. It seems likely that The Times leader was the immediate reason for Asquith breaking off negotiations with Lloyd George, but that Asquith was mistaken in thinking that Lloyd George had ‘leaked’ the information contained in that article.22 It is clear that the breaking off of these negotiations led directly to the fall of the Asquith Government and to the installation of Lloyd George as Prime Minister. Milner was less than whole-heartedly delighted at these momentous events. On 8 December he wrote to Lady Edward Cecil: ‘I was absolutely right in insisting as I did, ceaselessly and with almost too much vehe¬ mence, that a clean cut was essential, and I rejoiced in the prospect of Lloyd George and Carson being left alone with a hostile House of

254

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Commons, then appealing to the country and getting rid of the whole truck-load of mandarins.... But the unexpected firmness of Bonar Law, while it certainly gave the coup de grace to Squiff, has resulted in the return of the Unionist tail—A J.B. and all the rest of them. So we have not sloughed off the old Party skin. My own disposition is strongly against being in the Government at all unless I am part of the Supreme Direction.’ The ‘old Party skin’ had not indeed been sloughed off. Most of the Liberals had remained loyal to Asquith. Of the Unionists—Bonar Law became Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the Commons, Balfour went to the Foreign Office, and Lord Derby, the ‘genial Judas’, to the War Office. Carson became First Lord of the Admiralty. The ostensible bone of contention between Asquith and Lloyd George had been the composition and powers of the War Council, or War Cabinet. There was general agreement that there must be some sort of inner Cabinet dealing specifically with the war and there had, in theory, been such a body in the Asquith Government. But, in Lloyd George’s opinion, it was too big and unwieldy and was unable to take the quick decisions necessary, as everything had to be referred to the full Cabinet for approval. Lloyd George wanted a small War Cabinet, which would be the supreme authority, giving orders to the departmental Ministers, subject to the overriding authority of the Prime Minister. Asquith, while not wholly dissenting from this, insisted that the Prime Minister must be the head of such a War Cabinet. Any other arrangement would have reduced the Prime Minister to a figurehead. The Lloyd George War Cabinet, when it was formed, was responsible for the supreme direction of the war, and was not merely a committee of the full Cabinet. It consisted of five members, none of whom, except the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had any departmental responsibilities. There was Lloyd George himself. There was Bonar Law. There was Lord Curzon. There was Arthur Henderson, as a representative of the Labour Party. And there was Viscount Milner. The years of frustration were over.

NOTES ON CHAPTER TWELVE 1.

MP

222.

2. D. Lloyd George, War Memoirs (Odhams Press, 1928), I, p. 622. 3. L. S. Amery, op. cit., II, p. 22. The office of SS for War was vacant as a result of Seely’s resignation over the Curragh incident and Asquith was doing the job himself pro tem. According to one of Kitchener’s biographers (Magnus), Kitchener, who was on his way back to Egypt, was recalled from Dover by Asquith on 3 August, and saw Asquith at the PM’s request on the morning of 4 August, a few hours after the declaration of war. On the morning of 5 August The Times came out with an article demanding Kitchener’s appointment as SS for War, and, on the evening of 5 August, after a Cabinet meeting, the appoint¬ ment was announced. It had been generally expected that Haldane, previously SS for War and at this time Lord Chancellor, would be appointed. According to Magnus, Kitchener did not want the appointment and would have preferred to return to Egypt. It is not clear whose idea it was to appoint a serving soldier for the first time since 1660. There is no evidence—apart from Amery—that it was in Milner’s mind, or that he inspired Geoffrey Robinson over The Times article. The inspiration is much more likely to have come from Northcliffe. (See Philip Magnus, Kitchener (Murray, 1958), pp. 277-8.) 4. A note in Milner’s diary states that Haig, C-in-C Aldershot, and Haldane, were both against sending all six Divisions to France. But the final decision was Kitchener’s, made after his appointment as SS for War. 5. MP 221. 6. Wrench, Milner, op. cit., p. 297. 7. Cmd. 8095 (1915)8. MP 104. Milner sought the advice of Fisher, in his retirement, who told him that ‘my carefully considered conviction is that the submarine menace can be got rid of. I can hardly imagine that so great a destruction of our food supplies can take place as very materially to affect us.’ (MP 222.) 9. MP 104. 10. Lloyd George, War Memoirs, op. cit., I, p. 42&. xi. Milner-Lord Amp thill 4.4.16. MP 222. 12. See Appendix A. 13. MP 222. 14. ibid. 15. ibid. 16. ibid. 17. ibid. 18. MP 102. 19. See Appendix B. 20. Calwell, op. cit., I, p. 298.

256

Milner: Apostle of Empire

21. ibid., p. 299. Geoffrey Robinson has a note to the same effect. See History of the Times, Vol. IV, p. 290. 22. Geoffrey Robinson, approached long after the event by Cecil Headlam, editor of Milner’s South African papers, told him that he himself had written the article without any direction from Northcliffe and without any pre-arrangement with Lloyd George and that the information in the article was derived from conversa¬ tions with members of the Cabal, and particularly Carson. (MP 222.) The weight of this testimony is however lessened by a statement contained in it that Lloyd George was not at the time on speaking terms with Northcliffe. The breach between the two men took place much later. There is independent evidence that Lloyd George and Northcliffe met at least once during this period: e.g. Tom Clarke, My Northcliffe Diary (Gollancz, 1931), p. 106. ‘Dec. 3 1916. The Chief returned to Town... and at 7 o’clock was at the War Office with Lloyd George.’ 23. MP 222.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Power prophecy, made in 1903, about the possible advent of ‘a charlatan . . . who is also a statesman’ had come to pass. Lloyd George fulfilled with almost uncanny accuracy the conditions adumbrated by Milner for a great national leader who was also acceptable—as he himself would not have been—to the English people. In spite of an almost total incompatibility of temperament, in spite of his irritation at what he regarded as the Prime Minister’s slapdash methods of procedure, Milner remained his constant and loyal supporter until victory had been won. Sometimes it was Milner’s resolute insistence which caused changes initiated by the Prime Minister to be put through in face of Lloyd George’s tendency to compromise with opposition. Sometimes it was Milner’s mediation which found a way through or around apparently insuperable obstacles. Both Lloyd George and Milner were capable of intrigue. But neither intrigued against the other, and each supported the other, publicly and privately. When Milner wanted to ‘let off steam’ about the Prime Minister, he did so only to his intimates, as when he told Amery in July 1917 that he was ‘feeling disgruntled owing to the PM’s lack of method and harum-scarum ways.’1 Lloyd George himself wrote: ‘Milner was much the best all-round brain that the Conservative Party contributed to our councils. He had none of Curzon’s brilliancy nor Carson’s dramatic oratory. ... He had no flow of words, he had no colour, his voice had no resonance, his delivery was halting. ... Nor did he possess Balfour’s extraordinary analytical power, nor Bonar Law’s gifts as a debater. But in constructive power and fertility of suggestion he surpassed them all. ... He did not shine in general dis¬ cussion. He seemed to find a difficulty in giving expression in words to his ideas. He was at his best when I invited him, as I often did, to a quick talk in the Cabinet room on the perplexing questions which con¬ tinually rose during the war. He was dauntless; he never shrank from

Milner’s

258

Milner: Apostle of Empire

making or concurring in a proposal because it was original or might offend Party or professional prejudices. When he came to deal with food production his suggestions were revolutionary. . . .’2 After the war was over, relations between the two men deteriorated. But, so long as there was urgent work to be done, each supported and relied upon the other. Milner’s appointment to the War Cabinet was greeted with delight by his old friends and disciples. Percy Fitzpatrick, in a letter to Amery, referred to ‘the clean sweep of the muddlers and the long-delayed but most splendid coming in of “our man”.... It looks as if Milner and the Milner men are going to run the Empire. . . .’3 Milner was certainly at pains, as soon as he had entered the War Cabinet, to introduce as many of the ‘Milner men’ as possible into positions of influence. Amery was summoned from the army and, together with Mark Sykes, appointed as one of two political secretaries to the War Cabinet. Sir Maurice Hankey who, as secretary of the War Cabinet, was deep in Lloyd George’s con¬ fidence, and a great power in the land, was somewhat suspicious of this arrangement, and of Milner, whom he feared might want to get rid of him. He had always ‘hated Milner’s politics’ but, when he met him, he ‘found the man very attractive and we got on like a house on fire’.4 In addition to Amery, Milner tried, and failed, to get Arthur Steel-Maitland, a Unionist MP who had been his secretary, appointed as secretary to the War Cabinet for civilian work. Instead he got him appointed as Under¬ secretary at the Colonial Office, where he found ‘life almost unbearable with Long’.5 He found Philip Kerr a job as one of Lloyd George’s Private Secretaries, in which capacity, according to Lloyd George, ‘he gave me the assistance of a fine mind in all the work arising out of Imperial and Inter-Allied Conferences.’6 He intervened with the Prime Minister to have John Buchan, who had served under him in South Africa, appointed Director of Information. He arranged for Hugh Thornton, who had at one time acted as his secretary, to be appointed as his official Private Secretary. He appointed two young Unionist MPs, Ormsby-Gore (later Lord Harlech) and John Arkwright (author of the hymn ‘O Valiant Hearts’) as his PPSs. One of his less successful efforts in the way of appointments was to persuade Lloyd George to make Neville Chamberlain, younger son of Joseph, Director-General of National Service, in which capacity he managed to ‘get across’ almost everybody with whom he came into contact, from the Prime Minister downwards.7 In August 1917, on Milner’s advice, he resigned from the

Power

259

position, alleging that Lloyd George was prejudiced against him, and had never given him a chance. The creation by Lloyd George of an independent Secretariat, con¬ sisting largely of Milner’s young men, which was housed in temporary war-time huts in the garden of 10 Downing Street, and became known as the ‘Garden Suburb’, was not universally welcomed. The Liberal weekly, The Nation, had a leading article on 24 February, entitled ‘The New Bureaucracy’, which referred to ‘a little body of illuminad whose residence is in the Prime Minister’s garden and whose business it is to cultivate the Prime Minister’s mind. These gentlemen are rather of a class of travelling empiricists of Empire, who came in with Lord Milner and whose spiritual home is found somewhere between Balliol and Heidelburg. Their function is to emerge from their huts in Downing Street like the competitors in a Chinese examination with answers to the 1,000 questions of the Sphinx. It is in keeping with this loose conception of government that the raw materials of policy should no longer be tested by the House of Commons.... The future of these islands is being settled over the heads of the men and women who live in them. Reaction¬ ary Imperialism has seized the whole body of liberal and democratic doctrine and is making off with it under cover of war. The governing idea is not that of Mr. Lloyd George but of Lord Milner. This is the New Bureaucracy which threatens to master England unless England decides to master it.’ There were evidently other people beside Sir Percy Fitzpatrick who believed that ‘Milner and the Milner men’ were running the Empire. Milner, from the time of his appointment to the War Cabinet in December 1916 to the signature of the Armistice in November 1918, was undoubtedly a powerful figure. He had the ear and the confidence of the Prime Minister to an extent that nobody else, except possibly Bonar Law, had. ‘He understood the language of the soldiers and sailors and they trusted him even when he disagreed, as he had no hesitation in doing.’8 His competence, his integrity, a mellowness derived perhaps from ‘the sunshine of office’, and a certain charm expressed in old-world courtesy and consideration for people’s feelings, attracted the admiration and even the devotion of many people who had hated his politics and who were quite prepared to dislike him personally. For example, Christopher Addison, Minister of Munitions in the Lloyd George Government, a Liberal who had distrusted Milner before meeting him,

26o

Milner: Apostle of Empire

was completely won over, and came to ‘love and reverence him for his serene greatness’.9 The trust of the Prime Minister, the admiration of new colleagues and the devotion of old disciples, the mediating role into which he was thrust between the Prime Minister and the Armed Services, and between the Prime Minister and industry, his successful insistence on getting his own way over most of the matters with which he was charged, together with his sheer administrative competence and grasp of essentials—all these things conferred on Milner an enormous influence. But he never really attained the occult omnipotence ascribed to him by the more venomous of his enemies and the more undiscriminating of this admirers. Lloyd George was not a man who allowed himself to be dominated. Milner was his chosen instrument and his influence derived from his position as such. There was no question of his being the Prime Minister’s eminence grise, When Lloyd George’s countenance was withdrawn from him, his influence ceased to be operative. Almost simultaneously with the Lloyd George War Cabinet taking over in December 1916, the German Government, in a communication to the USA Government, expressed their willingness to discuss peace terms with the Allies. The US President Wilson called upon both sides to formulate publicly the terms on which they would make peace. The War Cabinet’s first task was to consider these two pronouncements. As a result of their deliberations, and of consultations with their Allies, a joint note was sent to the US Government on 19 January 1917 in which the Allies laid down, as essential conditions of peace; (a) the restoration of Belgian, Serbian and Montenegrin independence with compensation; (b) the evacuation of the invaded territories in France, Russia and Rumania, with reparation; (c) the restoration of Poland as an indepen¬ dent State; (d) ‘the liberation of Italians, Slavs, Rumanians, Czechs and Slovaks from foreign domination’ (which in effect meant the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire); and (e) ‘the liberation of the peoples who now lie beneath the murderous tyranny of the Turks and the expulsion from Europe of the Ottoman Empire’ (which in effect meant the break-up of the Ottoman Empire). The German reply, sent on 31 January, stipulated: (a) a frontier which would protect Germany and Poland economically and strategically against Russia; (b) the return of the captured German colonies overseas: (c) compensation for war damages; (d) ‘freedom of the seas’; (e) retention of Alsace-Lorraine plus ‘restitution of that part of northern Alsace

Power

261

occupied by the French.’ In return, they offered (a) ‘restitution of those parts of France occupied by Germany under reservation of strategical and economic changes of the frontier and financial compensation’, and (b) ‘restoration of Belgium under special guarantee for the safety of Germany.’ Neither side expected that its terms would be accepted by the other as a basis for negotiation. In the light of the war situation as it appeared at the end of 1916 the Allied terms seemed particularly unrealistic. The bloody 1916 offensives on the Western front had brought negligible territorial and no apparent tactical or strategic gains. The position re¬ mained one of deadlock with the Germans continuing to occupy most of NE France. On the Eastern front the Russians were still containing large German armies but seemed no longer capable of mounting any offensives. In the Balkans the enemy had overrun Serbia and Rumania and the Anglo-French force at Salonika seemed to serve no purpose apart from ensuring a precarious Greek neutrality. On the Italian front there appeared little prospect of the Italians being inclined, even if they were able, to mount a successful offensive against the Austrians. Most serious of all was the submarine menace, on which Germany was now relying to put England out of the war by reducing her to starvation. Germany had started the war with 30 submarines. They had built an additional 156 since the outbreak of war and were expected to complete another 130 during 1917. Of these, only 37 were known to have been sunk by the end of July 1916. As against this, the British had, from August 1914 to the end of 1916, built 2-5 million tons of new merchant shipping and lost 3*3 million tons by enemy submarine action. Thus, German submarine construction was greatly in excess of losses and British shipping losses were greatly in excess of new construction. In view of this, the position was likely to get progressively worse during 1917, unless some more effective means were found of attacking or evading the submarine. There seemed no ray of light anywhere. There was no certainty that the USA would join the Allies. Even if they did, it would be months, or even years, before they could make any appreciable military contribu¬ tion. The Admiralty seemed to have no more idea about dealing with enemy submarines than the War Office had about beating the Germans on land. The Admiralty recommended a reduction of imports; the War Office called for more cannon fodder for renewed offensives on the Western front. By the end of 1916 the British had already suffered over

262

Milner: Apostle of Empire

1,000,000 war casualties, mostly on the Western front. This created a serious manpower problem demanding decisions about allocation which could no longer be put off. Over Russia there hung a great questionmark. It was essential that the Russian armies be sustained. If Russia collapsed the Germans would be able to transfer to the West all those divisions which the Russians were containing in the East. It was neces¬ sary to find out what munitions Russia required and the best means by which they could be supplied. It seemed impossible to get any reliable information by correspondence. Kitchener’s mission to Russia had ended in tragedy. Now the need was more urgent than ever. It was therefore arranged, in January 1917, that Milner should lead the British delegation in an Allied mission to Russia. Its principal members, apart from Milner himself, were Henry Wilson, as military expert, Lord Revelstoke as finance expert, and Sir Walter Layton as munitions expert. The French delegation was headed by M. Doumergue, an ex-Premier and future President, and included General Castlenau, one of the leading French Generals, as its military expert. The Italians also sent a delegation. The mission sailed from Oban on 19 January and reached Petrograd via Romanoff on the Murmansk coast on 29 January. They remained in Russia until 25 February and arrived back in England on 2 March. The principal object of the mission was to determine how best the Western Allies could sustain the Russian war effort by means of finance and the supply of munitions of war. Milner himself seems to have had some doubt about the usefulness of the mission. In conversation with Robert Bruce-Lockhart, British Consul in Moscow, he ‘made no attempt to conceal his opinion that he was wasting his time’. He also told Lockhart that, although he had no confidence in the permanance of the Tsarist regime,10 he thought that there would not be a revolution until after the end of the war. Milner’s activities and impressions while in Russia are dealt with at length by Henry Wilson in the published extracts from his diaries.11 He was a close friend of Milner’s from Ulster days before the war and Milner had a, somewhat misplaced, confidence in his judgment and discretion, as well as in his military competence. After an audience with the Tsar and Tsarina Milner told Wilson that the royal pair had ‘made it quite clear that they would not tolerate any discussion of Russian internal politics.’ Members of the mission found the Russian military machine in an appalling state, as a result of heavy casualties, shortage of munitions, incompetence, corruption and lack of

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enthusiasm on the part of the fighting soldiers. Castlenau expressed the opinion that ‘the utmost we can expect is that the Russians can hold what is now in front of them.’ Wilson, whose military estimates were usually, as on this occasion, wrong, thought that the Russian army ‘may, and will, do great things.’ Milner, according to Wilson, was ‘in depression, tired, worried and listless’ as a result of what he had seen and heard. On the sea voyage home he had several long conversations with him. He noted that he ‘considers the defeat of the Boches in the field as impossible’ and ‘is prepared to consider terms of peace which I think quite impossible. Milner was already thinking in terms of trying to detach Germany s allies. Wilson, who was, and remained, a Western front man, was inclined to agree with this, provided it were regarded as a preliminary to beating Germany in the field. They also discussed the ‘question of the Dominions’. According to Wilson, who was a European rather than an Imperialist, Milner, ‘had a sort of vague hope that, in future, we might be able to keep out of European complications . . . that the Dominions have vast potentialities and that, if we link up closely, we should be strong enough to defy all comers.’ Wilson did not agree. ‘When Canada has 50 millions and Australia 30 millions, and when we really have command of the sea . . . then we may consider Milner s proposals. . . . And all this will take 100 years if we confine ourselves to English breed¬ ing. Meanwhile ... we must have alliances in Europe.’ In his report to the War Cabinet on his return Milner stated that the only important result of the mission had been to enable them to get an idea of Russia’s munitions requirements. He estimated that Russia had suffered about six million war casualties and that the Russian soldiers sense of grievance about the deficiencies of their equipment might have the gravest political consequences.’ ‘We have worked out a practical scheme for the supply of war material and have done what lay in our power to ensure the material being turned to the best account by arranging for a British military mission to assist in its distribution. In spite of all this the Russians will continue to be very weak compared with other warring nations. She will continue to contain a large proportion of enemy forces. W'e may reasonably hope that she will compel the enemy to send more reinforcements to the East. It is not impossible that she may break the enemy lines at some point and in such a fashion as to compel a general retreat. But I hardly hope for as much as this and we should be unwise to reckon on it. .. (But) ... it is absolutely necessary

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in our own interests to ... do whatever we can to assist them. The general discontent may easily turn into disgust with the war. . .. There is a great deal of exaggeration in the talk of revolution and especially about the alleged disloyalty of the army. Assuming for a moment that a revolution were successful I should regard with great apprehension its effect on the conduct of the war.’ He concluded that ‘the danger which threatens Russia is not so much deliberate revolution as chaos. If an upheaval were to take place its effect on the course of the war might be disastrous.’12 A fortnight after the mission’s return revolution broke out in Russia. For a short time, there was some hope in Allied circles that the over¬ throw of the Tsarist regime might even lead to an intensification of the Russian war effort, and plans for the implementation of the mission’s recommendations about supplies of munitions continued to be made. But these hopes were short-lived. On 15 May, in a letter to Sir George Buchanan, the British Ambassador in Petrograd, Milner wrote: ‘The work which our mission tried to do is as dead as Queen Anne. We must continue to carry out our part of the bargain, but it cannot be long before the futility of continuing to send arms to Russia . .. must lead to a breakdown of the whole thing. .. . The position in Petrograd is such a hopeless one that no amount of good management can produce the result we desire.’13 The members of the British delegation, and Milner in particular, were naturally criticised for not having foreseen more clearly the revolution which broke out almost immediately after their departure. Some years afterwards, Lloyd George wrote: ‘The memoranda and confidential reports prepared by the British delegates convey to their readers the impression of a general state of chaos and disorganisation, of open corruption and incompetent leadership, which made most of the work which the mission attempted to carry out as futile as cultivating quick¬ sand.’14 But, in spite of this, and of other warning signs, the delegation came back ‘fully convinced that there would be no revolution till after the war’.15 This was in fact Milner’s view. It was of course a mistaken view. Lloyd George, again writing some years after the event, ascribes Milner’s mistake to the fact that he was ‘by training and temperament a buraucrat. He knew nothing of the populace that trod the streets outside the bureau. He did not despise them. He just left them out of his calcula¬ tions.’16 The French delegation appears to have been more concerned with secret negotiations with the Russian Government about the terms

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of peace than with the ostensible object of the mission or with the domestic situation in Russia.17 For the next six months the Western Allies anxiously watched events in Russia as they unfolded in the hope that, out of the confusion, there might emerge some more or less stable regime, of whatever political complexion, which might carry on the war against the Central Powers and so avoid the two dread possibilities of (a) a massive transfer of enemy troops from the Eastern to the Western and Italian fronts, and (b) German access to the cornfields of the Ukraine and the oilfields of the Caucasus, which would nullify the effect of the Allied blockade and enable the enemy to replenish their dwindling supplies of food and food¬ stuffs. After the Bolshevists seized power in October 1917, it became apparent that they were intent on peace at almost any price and Allied policy towards Russia became concentrated on the support of dissident elements in south Russia with a view to encouraging them to set up and to defend regimes of their own and so deny to the Germans the supplies which the Bolsheviks would have ceded to them in return for a cessation of hostilities. The development of relations between the British and Bolshevist Governments on the one hand and the British Government and the various dissident regimes on the other, as well as the evolution of a common Allied policy in these matters, was primarily a matter for the Foreign Office. But Milner, as a member of the War Cabinet, and as the head of the British delegation to Russia, was naturally concerned and interested. The Foreign Office policy, which was suggested to them and carried out by Bruce-Lockhart, who remained in Russia as Charge d’Affaires after the October revolution, was to keep on as good terms as possible with the Bolshevist Government by recognising them in all those parts of Russia where they had established their effective authority, but to support and sustain dissident regimes in other parts. By this means it was hoped both to encourage the Bolsheviks not to make too hasty or abject a peace with Germany and to keep the Germans out of the Ukraine and Caucasus. There were, of course, differences of emphasis within the Cabinet as to the relative importance to be attached to appeasing the Bolsheviks on the one hand and sustaining their domestic opponents on the other, but it was implicit in all official communications that ideological considerations were irrelevant and that the only thing which mattered was to minimise any advantage the enemy might gain from the Russian collapse.

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

Bruce Lockhart came to London for discussions in December 1917 and had several meetings with Milner, for whom he conceived a great admiration. He recorded that ‘of all the great figures in public life with whom I have come into contact I found him the most understanding and sympathetic/18 ‘He was very far from being the Jingo or Conservative reactionary which public opinion at one time represented him to be.... Many of his views were startlingly modern. He believed in the highlyorganised State in which service, efficiency and hard work were more important than titles or money-bags. He had little respect for the aristo¬ crat who was effete or for the financier who had made money not by production but by manipulation of the market.’ Milner, in his turn, appears to have unbent considerably to Lockhart who, at this time, was a young man in his early thirties. He took him to dine at Brooks’s, where he ‘let his hair down’ about the Foreign Office, describing Balfour, the Foreign Secretary and Lockhart’s chief, as ‘a harmless old gentleman’, and expressing a desire to set fire to the Foreign Office building. About the war he was pessimistic, envisaging an eventual peace by negotiation. About Russia, he told Lockhart that his task, as Charge d’Affaires, was to ‘stiffen by whatever means the Bolshevist resistance to German demands’.19 This was in accordance both with Lockhart’s own views and with the Government policy. But, about three months later, the Bolshe¬ viks signed the Peace of Brest-Litovsk, giving the Germans pretty well everything they had been demanding and leaving the Allies with the only alternatives of stimulating dissident regimes into containing as many German troops and denying to the Germans as much corn and oil as possible, and of encouraging the Japanese to occupy as much of Siberia as possible. The desirability of this latter policy was expressed with characteristic clarity by Milner in a note to Balfour in January 1918, while peace nego¬ tiations were proceeding between the Germans and the Bolsheviks. Japanese intervention in Siberia was being opposed by the US Govern¬ ment and, in consequence, not viewed with favour in the Foreign Office. But Milner told Balfour, that ‘if Germany is to be allowed to help herself to anything she wants in all Russia . . . she cannot possibly be beaten. The only way to prevent Germany overrunning all Russia ... is to occupy as much of Russia as can be occupied by adequate military forces before the German wave of invasion sweeps over it. If only an Allied military force . . . could be set up as a barrier to the eastward advance of Germany . . . either that advance would be checked ... or

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Germany would have to send a large army a long way from her home base. The only Allied Power which can afford to send a force into Russia is Japan. The desirability of such an intervention would almost seem to have the force of a mathematically demonstrable proposition.’20 One of Milner’s first actions after joining the War Cabinet was to persuade the Prime Minister to summon an Imperial War Cabinet, including the Prime Ministers of the Dominions or their deputies, to meet in London during the Spring of 1917. The arrangements were put in the hands of Amery, under Hankey’s general supervision. The idea was that meetings of the Imperial War Cabinet should be held in con¬ junction with an Imperial Conference, so as to enable the Dominions, in the Prime Minister’s words to the Commons on 19 December 1916, ‘to be more formally consulted as to the progress and course of the war, as to the steps that ought to be taken to secure victory, and as to the best methods of garnering in the fruits of our efforts as well as their own.’ The Imperial War Cabinet, membership of which consisted of the British War Cabinet, plus Dominion Prime Ministers, plus a represen¬ tative from the Government of India, started its meetings on 20 March and thereafter met on alternate days with the Imperial Conference, consisting of the Colonial Secretary and Dominions representatives. All the Dominion Prime Ministers were present except for Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia. Fourteen sessions of the Imperial War Cabinet were held between 20 March and 2 May. The principal subjects discussed were concerned with the terms of peace on which the British Empire should insist. The non-territorial terms were considered by a committee of which Milner was chairman. Apart from stating the principal aims—disarmament, indemnities, a peace treaty embodying clauses by which all signatories bound themselves to submit all serious disputes to a conference etc.—the committee, not surprisingly, was not able to be more definite. In the committee on territorial terms, chaired by Curzon, the Dominion representatives made it clear that they were determined to retain any colonial territories which they had captured from the enemy. Apart from the question of peace terms, the Imperial War Cabinet considered the future of relationships between the Mother-country and the Dominions. This was Milner’s principal interest and the main reason why he had arranged for the meetings of the Imperial War Cabinet, which he hoped would be the precursor of some permanent structure of organic unity. The Imperial War Cabinet passed resolutions agreeing

268

Milner: Apostle of Empire

to the ‘principle that each part of the Empire . . . shall give specially favourable treatment and facilities to the produce and manufactures of other parts of the Empire’ and to ‘arrangements by which intending immigrants from the United Kingdom may be induced to settle in countries under the British flag.’ It was also agreed that the Imperial Cabinet should in future meet annually. But the Dominion Prime Minis¬ ters showed themselves insistent on ‘a full recognition of the Dominions as autonomous nations of an Imperial Commonwealth’ and opposed to any kind of organic unity, even a permanent Secretariat. One result of the meetings was an invitation by Lloyd George to Smuts, the South African representative, to stay on in England and become a permanent member of the British War Cabinet. Smuts accepted the invitation, which was extended at Milner’s suggestion, and the two ex-enemies became colleagues.21 Towards the end of the meetings, Milner told Hugh Glazebrook in Canada: ‘There should be a special Conference directly after the war to discuss the constitutional relations between the different parts of the Empire. It ought to contain representatives of all political parties in the Dominions and to result in a definite agreement to be submitted to the several Parliaments. This agreement would . . . probably set up some half-way house by which the Dominions would have permanent repre¬ sentatives in an Imperial Cabinet dealing with defence, foreign affairs, and communications and would undertake to provide a definite proportion of the cost of the Navy and the Diplomatic and Consular services, It would be a lop-sided arrangement, but might carry on for a time.’22 In the event, nothing of the kind happened, in spite of the fact that Milner, a few weeks after the war was over, himself became Colonial Secretary. But, by then, he seems to have lost his faith both in the practi¬ cability of organic unity and in the power of Imperial Preference as a substitute. He was perforce reduced to a hope that the ‘inevitability of gradualness’ would operate to bring the Empire together, although, intellectually, he was almost certainly in agreement with Curtis’s thesis that the only ultimate alternative to organic unity was separation. Meanwhile, as the members of the Imperial War Cabinet and Con¬ ference dispersed, there were other more immediate matters for Milner to worry about. The end of the Imperial Conference approximately coincided with the entry of the United States into the war on the side of the Allies. This, ultimately, was the decisive factor in ensuring an Allied victory. But it did not appear so at the time, when it was clear that the

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rate of American reinforcements would be much less than the probable rate of Russian military defection. The immediate reason for the US declaration of war on Germany was the German submarine campaign which, since the beginning of Feb¬ ruary, had been extended to the sinking of all merchant vessels, of whatever nationality, bound for British ports. The risk of American hostility had been deliberately taken by the German High Command, which calculated that the effect of an unrestricted submarine campaign would bring the British to their knees more quickly than American armed strength could affect the balance of forces in Europe. At first, it seemed that the Germans had not miscalculated. Allied shipping losses had increased from 350,000 tons in December 1916 to 493,000 tons in February 1917 and German submarine construction was still greatly in excess of losses. Jellicoe, First Sea Lord, wrote a succession of gloomy memoranda in which he admitted that there was no real prospect of dealing effectively with enemy submarines and advocated a restriction of imports and an evacuation from Salonika in order to save shipping space. Carson, First Lord of the Admiralty, would not listen to any criticisms of Jellicoe and supported him in his refusal to consider a system of convoying merchantmen with destroyers on the grounds that the speed of the convoy would be reduced to the speed of the slowest ship and that merchant captains were incapable of keeping station in a convoy. Milner was always inclined to be pessimistic about the war. After the first year, he expected nothing better than ‘a draw in our favour’.23 On 20 March he told Lord Sydenham: ‘I am always trying in the War Cabinet to get in a word indicating that we don’t want to crush or break up the German people, that our hostility is not to Germany as members of the European family but to German military domination of the world.’24 On 28 March 1917 he gave an interview to Sir Sidney Low, of the Daily Telegraph, a great admirer and old acquaintance of Milner’s. This is Sir Sidney’s note of the interview: ‘Lord Milner said that he was in favour of trying to detach Germany’s allies by offers of. .. moderate terms of peace. It was useless to go on insisting on the break-up of Austria and the expulsion of the Turks from Europe, thus compelling them to go to the last extremity with Germany, whereas, if they felt their existence was not endangered, they might make peace. He does not believe that we can inflict such a defeat on the Central Powers as will enable us to impose peace in terms of the Allied Note to President

270

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Wilson. He regards the creation of Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia and an enlarged Rumania as neither practicable nor desirable. Constantinople should be left with the Turks, with an agreement to free the Straits. We should only insist on our irreducible minimum—(i) Liberation of Belgium with reparation; (ii) Evacuation of Serbia and occupied Russian and Rumanian territory; (iii) Cession of some Austrian territory e.g. Trentino, to Italy; (iv) Restoration of some part of Lorraine to France. ... He thinks that if Germany came out of the war with no gain of territory in Europe and her colonies lost, the German people will see that militarism is a failure. If Germany’s allies are detached from her by a separate peace, Austria and Italy will themselves be barrier-States against German advance south-eastwards, and a new “Arabian protec¬ torate” will block the way to the Persian Gulf. 25This is Milner’s personal view; he has not yet got his colleagues to agree to it. That is why he wants independent writers to air it in the Press.’28 It is difficult to believe that Milner could have remained a member of the Government if the views expressed in this interview had been publicly attributed to him. As he himself recognised, they differed sharply from the statement of Allied war aims published a few weeks before. And his statement about restoring ‘some part of Lorraine to France’ would not have been received enthusiastically by England’s principal ally. In the event, Lord Burnham, proprietor of the Daily Telegraph, refused to publish the interview, and it was not published anywhere at the time. Milner had no patience with the school of thought which called for ‘unconditional surrender’. He was in favour of peace by negotiation, but realised that the terms obtainable were dependent on the military situation and that it was of no use attempting to negotiate from weakness. He was against any sort of peace which would necessitate continued British involvement in Europe in order to maintain its terms. For that reason he was against proposals for the ‘self-determination’ of Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats et al. on the ground that this would lead to perpetual instability. He looked forward to a British Empire, detached from Europe, closely allied with the United States, having command of the sea, and sufficiently powerful to impose a pax mundi on the rest of the world. As a racialist he was appalled at the reckless expenditure of the most priceless of British Imperial assets—the blood of the best of British male youth—on the battlefields of the Western front. As a man of partly German origin, and particularly after the communist revolution in

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Russia, he wanted to see the German nation after the war as a powerful element of order, discipline and stability in Central Europe. As a realist, he appreciated the necessity for husbanding—economising, developing, allocating and generally making the most of—British material and manpower resources, so as to tide over the time which must elapse before American strength was in a fair way to redress the imbalance caused by the Russian defection, and to place the Allies in a position of strength from which to negotiate a ‘draw in our favour’. This necessity for husbanding and conserving was the key to most of Milner’s multifarious activities as a member of the War Cabinet. His most immediate preoccupations were on the home front, where the increasing depredations of enemy submarines imposed the necessity for saving imports by an increase in agricultural production and by an allocation of import priorities. With regard to agricultural production, the War Cabinet accepted in principle the proposals for a guaranteed price for cereals put forward by Milner in 1915 and rejected by the Government at that time. They were embodied in a Corn Production Bill which Prothero, Minister of Agriculture, had to pilot through Parliament. While this was being done, Milner, on 8 May, was charged by the War Cabinet with the task of obtaining the extra fertilisers and labour necessary to implement the increased production expected under the terms of the Corn Production Bill. There was no difficulty about the fertilisers. The labour problem was more difficult. Milner estimated that another 100,000 men would eventually be required. But, as he told the War Cabinet, they would only be required if they got the Corn Production Bill through in face of opposition from Liberal Free Traders, led by Runciman and McKenna. ‘It is no use to begin fighting and upsetting people right and left unless we have made up our minds that the carrying out of the agricultural programme is a matter of vital and primary importance. Personally I think it is. But I am not sure whether that conviction is shared by my colleagues. Until I am sure I think I should be doing more harm than good by pressing for strong measures to get the necessary labour.’27 As a result of this note the War Cabinet, on 24 May, decided that the agricultural programme must be carried out and gave Milner authority to arrange for the necessary labour. As was now the practice, introduced by Hankey, this was embodied in a formal resolution, of which copies were sent to the Departments concerned. There was immediate trouble from Derby at the War Office who, briefed by the Army Council, told

272

Milner: Apostle of Empire

the War Cabinet that the proposed diversion of manpower from the army would ‘end in disaster’. But Milner was standing no nonsense. On 23 June he told the War Cabinet that most of the agricultural labour required would have to come from the army and could only be got by a direct War Cabinet instruction to the War Office. ‘The issue is quite simple and cannot be evaded. Are we or are we not prepared to give that instruction? The question must be settled now. It is for the War Cabinet to say whether the necessity is such that the men have to be made available.’28 Milner won his point. Derby was instructed accordingly and the men made available. This was the first step in the process of alienation between the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir William Robertson, and Milner, which was to end in Robertson’s dismissal some eight months later.29 Before he came into office Milner had been the Army Command’s favourite statesman. After Kitchener’s death Robertson said that he would have liked Milner to succeed him. In October 1916 Haig had especially invited him on a conducted tour of the Western front. One of the reasons for his inclusion in the War Cabinet was the army’s liking for and trust in him. This business of diverting men from the army to the cornfields was the first sign of the cloven hoof. Robertson, who had previously wanted Milner at the War Office, was soon describing him to Haig as ‘a tired, dyspeptic old man’.30 Milner adopted the same high hand over the Corn Production Bill. On 19 July he successfully insisted in the War Cabinet that the Bill should be passed into law before Parliament rose for the Summer recess. On 2 3 J uty he told the Lords that ‘you could not get increased agricultural production without giving to the farmer the security provided in the . . . Bill, and that I should not be prepared to share the responsibility for the future unless a very great increase in the home production of food is effected.’ Speaking on the second reading of the Bill in the Lords on 10 August, he answered complaints about ‘bureaucratic interference’ from several landowning noblemen by telling them that ‘the necessities of the situation in which we find ourselves require that the land should be cultivated in a particular way. It is right that the State should have the power ... to require changes is the methods of cultivation.’ He expressed the hope that in view of ‘the more general recognition which the war has brought about of the importance of a prosperous agricul¬ ture’ the controls and incentives provided for in the Bill would not be phased out after the war. The Bill received the Royal Assent before the end of August.

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Another agricultural problem was the amount of barley consumed in the manufacture of beer and whisky. If some of this barley could be diverted for food and fodder, important economies in wheat imports could be made. In a speech in the Lords on 20 March Milner expressed the hope that the Government would introduce ‘a system of liquor control’ which, he added, might be continued and developed after the war. In a private letter written on 12 April he referred to ‘the desirability and urgency of State purchase and control’ of the liquor trade, ‘coupled with local option and elimination of the individual interest in drink everywhere and ... in some districts the interesting experiment of pro¬ hibition.’31 It is difficult to imagine any set of proposals more anti¬ pathetic to Unionists at that time, in view of their traditional reliance on the financial resources of the brewers. But, in spite of this, he seems to have gone some way in getting the support of the War Cabinet for his views. For, on 17 April, he received a brewers’ deputation and informed them that the Government had decided to buy out ‘the Trade’.32 As might have been expected, he and his colleagues, in the midst of con¬ ducting a European war, were deluged with expostulatory deputations from liquor interests.33 The War Cabinet gave way beneath the pressure. On 21 June Milner recorded a meeting with Bonar Law, at which ‘we came to what I regard as a disastrous decision.’34 Next day he told Thornton, his Private Secretary, that the War Cabinet had decided to postpone any question of purchase or control of the liquor trade. Thornton recorded that Milner was ‘very angry at being let down in this way’ and attributed it to ‘LG having apparently been got at by Gretton and packing the Cabinet with Long, Younger and others.’35 On 29 June, when Cave, Home Secretary, asked Milner to come to a meeting on liquor control, ‘as you have recently gone into the whole matter and are more familiar than me with the whole history of the question’, Milner replied, refusing his invitation: ‘I have strong views about it, and as long as I believed they were shared by my colleagues, I would do anything in my power. But now I honestly do not know what they are driving at, and anything I might say to the Committee would be misleading.’38 Milner’s principal task during the Spring and Summer of 1917 was nothing less than the reorganisation of the British economy on a wartime basis, a task which had not been seriously attempted by the previous Government, but which had become necessary as the result of a growing shortage of materials and manpower. A number of wartime Ministries and Departments had been set up—Munitions, Shipping, Coal, Food,

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

National Service—headed by Ministers, Directors, or Controllers, mostly drawn from the world of business. It was Milner’s task to stimu¬ late their efforts, coordinate their activities and settle their disputes. Some of this was done formally by his chairmanship of standing committees, some informally by ad hoc interventions, usually at the request of one or more of the parties concerned. Addison who, as Minister of Munitions, saw much of Milner’s work at this time, wrote: ‘It was the favourite device of the War Cabinet to saddle Milner with tasks of this sort; he was so grandly efficient and had such well-balanced constructive faculties that he stood out as the man for the work.’37 Among his more important tasks were: (i) The allocation of shipping space for imports between raw material for munitions, food and other requirements. (ii) The allocation of man-power between the armed services, munitions, agriculture, coal-mining and other occupations. (iii) The allocation of coal production between industrial and domestic uses, and for export. (iv) Coordination between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Food Controller, which involved responsibility for price fixing and rationing. Probably his most difficult problems were in connection with man¬ power. He had to deal with Derby at the War Office who, as the obedient tool of the Generals and the Army Council, considered that the army should have absolute priority, and was continually demanding replace¬ ments for the troops which Haig was squandering on the Western front, without any regard whatever for other national needs. He had to resolve disputes between Neville Chamberlain and the Labour Exchanges. In August he had to get rid of Chamberlain.38 He was replaced by Auckland Geddes, one of two formidable Scottish brothers, the other of whom, Eric, after organising transport behind the British lines in France, became First Lord of the Admiralty. After that, things were a little easier, but he had to cope with increasing industrial unrest in the coal¬ mines, on the railways, in the shipyards, and elsewhere. This Milner believed was due partly to genuine grievances and partly to subversion. With regard to subversion, Milner was undoubtedly very suspicious of the activities of the ILP and of their believed connections with the Russian revolutionaries. As we have seen, he devoted a great deal of effort to the encouragement of a ‘patriotic’ working-class movement. In correspondence with Ian Colvin, of the Morning Post, who was advocat¬ ing tougher measures for dealing with working-class unrest, he wrote

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that it was first of all necessary ‘to remove the grievances on which agitators prey, e.g. the unscrupulousness of some employers who are taking advantage of the removal of Trade Union constraints, the high cost of living, and profiteering.’ When that had been done it would be necessary ‘to go for the agitators. The removal of grievances alone will not disarm them. They are out for mischief.’39 On the whole, Milner was a great success as economic ‘overlord’. He gained the respect of, without giving way to, Generals and Admirals, industrialists and Trade Union leaders, civil servants and Cabinet colleagues. Above all, he got on with, and mostly got his way with, the Prime Minister. And, in the two great trials of strength which took place, first between Lloyd George and the Admiralty, and then between Lloyd George and the General Staff, it was Milner who successfully sustained Lloyd George against attempted dictatorship by the armed services, when Lloyd George himself wavered and when his colleagues in the War Cabinet were all for adherence to the doctrine that the soldiers and sailors knew best how to run the war and that it was the business of the War Cabinet to provide them with the tools for the job. Although the immediate points at issue were the matter of convoys vis-a-vis the Admiralty and the setting up of a Supreme War Council vis-a-vis the General Staff, the real issue was the location of ultimate authority—with the Chiefs of the armed services or with the War Cabinet. And so Milner, ironically, found himself on the side of demo¬ cracy against an attempted dictatorship and the Imperialist Die-Hard and Ulster frondeur found himself in alliance with the pro-Boer Welsh attorney against a naval and military establishment which enjoyed the. political support of the leader of the Ulster Unionists, as well as that of the Asquith Liberals. Milner, like all his colleagues in the War Cabinet, was continually conscious of the depredations of the German submarines, and appre¬ ciated that the maritime approaches to the British Isles, rather than the Western front, was the battlefield on which the Germans were relying for a decisive victory. And, like all his colleagues in the War Cabinet, he was perturbed at the professed inability of the Admiralty to do anything much about it. Carson, First Lord, supported Jellicoe, First Sea Lord, in his determination not even to make a trial of the convoy system. On 25 April 1917 the War Cabinet agreed that the Prime Minister should personally investigate the submarine question at the Admiralty. Lloyd George invited Bonar Law to accompany him, but the Chancellor of the

2rj6

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Exchequer refused. Milner, Curzon, Robertson and Hankey together composed a brief for Lloyd George.40 The results of his intervention were almost instantaneous. The United States had entered the war on 6 April. On 30 April the US Admiral Sims had a meeting with Lloyd George, Carson and Milner. On 20 May the first convoy of merchant ships arrived without loss in UK ports after having been convoyed across the Atlantic. On the following day the Admiralty agreed to adopt the convoy system. But Milner was not satisfied. His dealings with the Admiralty had convinced him that a major reorganisation was needed. The difficulty was Carson. He was an old friend and ally of Milner’s, who had been put forward by him and his Cabal, together with Lloyd George, as the most suitable person to run the country in time of war. He had already demonstrated that he could be a formidable critic in Opposition and Lloyd George did not relish the idea of a possible alliance between Carson and the Asquith Liberals. Milner, in a letter written to Lloyd George on 5 June, indicated that he thought a change at the Admiralty was necessary.41 This assurance of Milner’s support, which probably ensured the backing of the Die-Hard Tories on the back benches, was helpful. But Lloyd George still hesitated. On 26 June the Prime Minister invited Milner to breakfast, together with Haig and Eric Geddes, Haig’s transport chief, whom Lloyd George had in mind as a successor to Carson at the Admiralty. (The Prime Minister had characteristically brought Haig into the plot in order to prevent a possible line-up between him and Carson.) Haig who, accord¬ ing to Lloyd George, was ‘apprehensive lest the war might be lost at sea before he had an opportunity of winning it on land,’42 agreed that Carson must go. But Lloyd George hesitated yet again. Immediately after the breakfast meeting Milner wrote to him suggesting that Carson be ‘kicked upstairs’ into the War Cabinet to make room for Geddes at the Admiralty. ‘The Prime Minister seized on the Milner plan. It brought a wonderful relief and a magnificent escape from the perils of political strife with Carson.’43 At the same time, Maclay, the Shipping Controller, told the Prime Minister that ‘the confidence of our Mercantile Marine in the Admiralty does not now exist.’44 A radical change was clearly over¬ due. But Lloyd George still had cold feet at the prospect of Carson refus¬ ing to join the War Cabinet and going into Opposition. So, in a lettei to him on 6 July inviting him to join the War Cabinet, he told him thal

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he could stay on at the Admiralty if he preferred it. At the same time, Milner, by arrangement with Lloyd George, wrote Carson a personal letter urging him to accept the War Cabinet offer. For ten days nothing happened, and it seemed that the Prime Minister might be prepared to leave things as they were. Then, on 16 July, Milner wrote an urgent personal note to him: ‘I am very anxious about the Admiralty. It is more than a fortnight now since I think you recognised there must be a change, and every week is precious. ... It would be best to make all Ministerial changes at once, but if this is not practicable, cannot the Carson-Geddes business be settled right away? It is very urgent.’45 In this letter there was something like a hint of resignation if Milner did not get his way. And Milner, unlike Derby and some other Cabinet Ministers, did not hint at resignation lightly. Within twenty-four hours, the elevation of Carson to the War Cabinet, the promotion of Geddes to the Admiralty, and the other Ministerial changes referred to by Milner, were announced. The other Ministerial changes included the appointment of Edwin Montagu, an Asquith Liberal, to the India Office in place of Austen Chamberlain, who had resigned as the result of severe criticism of the India Office in the Mesopotamia Commission Report, which had just been published, and the return of Churchill to the Cabinet as Minister of Munitions in place of Addison. Milner strongly objected to Churchill’s appointment and, when consulted, had advised Lloyd George against it.46 He noted in his dairy that ‘neither Montagu nor Winston is well received.’ _ But he had forced Lloyd George s hand over the Admiralty. Geddes was a great improvement on Carson as an administrator and organiser. Lloyd George later recorded that ‘Geddes’ overriding vitality was soon felt in every branch of activity. Difficulties and hesitancies disappeared in every direction. There was a quickening in action all round. The convoy system at last had a fair chance. It was extended, strengthened, improved in every direction. The naval officers who were whole¬ heartedly for it were encouraged. The attack on the submarine was developed.’47 One result of Geddes’ appointment was that, in December 1917, Jellicoe was replaced as First Sea Lord by Sir Rosslyn Wemyss. Another result was that shipping losses fell steadily and the rate of destruction of enemy submarines increased month by month. During the first half of 1917 British merchant shipping losses averaged 345,953 tons per month. During the second half of 1917 this was reduced to

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262,071 tons, and during the first half of 1918 to 187,219 tons per month. And the average of German submarine sinkings rose from an average of less than two to an average of more than seven submarines a month. By the end of 1917 the submarine menace had been substantially mastered, thus removing the most imminent peril which faced Great Britain and the one with which Milner had been most concerned with and cognisant of during the first half of 1917. Milner’s intervention over the Admiralty had been caused primarily by his special responsibilities for the allocation of imports and for the provision of food supplies. It is likely that his later increasing concern with the affairs of the War Office and General Staff, and with military military operations generally, was primarily caused by his responsibilities for the provision of manpower. ‘When Milner joined the Administration ... he placed his reliance on the soldiers for the attainment of victory. Lloyd George included him partly because of his popularity with the army.’48 Milner’s criticisms of and attacks on the conduct of the war during 1915-16 had been directed at the civilians and not at the soldiers. In view of his support of conscrip¬ tion and of his record over Ulster, the Generals regarded him as being on their side and, like most of them, opposed to ‘Squiff’. He was intimate with Henry Wilson, who was very much of a professional soldier and a ‘Western front man’, whose criticisms of the conduct of the war derived from the fact that he was not running it himself. The Generals, most of whom disliked and mistrusted Lloyd George even more than they had disliked and mistrusted Asquith, regarded Milner as a ‘friend at Court’ who could be relied on to protect them from too much political interference. At the Calais Conference in February 1917 (at which Milner was not present, being on his mission to Russia), Lloyd George had agreed with the French, without consultation with Haig or Robertson, that the British armies in France should be put under the command of General Nivelle, the French C-in-C, for the offensive which was then planned. This led to a great deal of trouble between the politicians and the Generals. Robertson, in his Memoirs, states that Lloyd George’s action at the Calais Conference, ‘created an atmosphere of mistrust between Ministers and military chiefs which never afterwards disappeared.’49 He told Haig that ‘Milner does not like the idea of what has been done, while Curzon also is not easy in his mind.’ The arrangement was later altered to provide that Haig would conform with Nivelle’s directives but had

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the right of appeal to the War Cabinet if he thought that his armies were being endangered. Milner, although not involved in the original decision, was present at several meetings of the War Cabinet at which the reactions of Haig and Robertson were dealt with. Haig complained to the King about what had been done. Milner came to the conclusion that this was due to pique. He was deputed by the War Cabinet to see Lord Stamfordham (the King s Private Secretary) about it, and presumably told him so. Henry Wilson had been appointed liaison officer between Haig and Nivelle, so Milner must have been kept well-informed about the course of the Nivelle offensive, which opened in mid-March and was called off in mid-April, after the usual holocaust, and without having achieved any decisive result. As far as the hard-driven French army was concerned, it was the last straw. There were widespread mutinies and Petain was appointed C-in-C in Nivelle’s place to restore discipline and morale. Haig resumed his independent command. In a diary entry on 4 June, Hugh Thornton, Milner’s Private Secre¬ tary, records his chief as being ‘very pessimistic’ about the war. ‘Muddle on the Western front and no real plan anywhere.’ The Prime Minister had suggested bringing Churchill into the ^Far Cabinet, but Milner was against this and ‘thought he was a bad influence. He wanted to have Addison instead.50 Three days later, on 7 June, Milner circulated a memorandum to the War Cabinet proposing that a committee of three or four people, includ¬ ing Smuts, should be formed to study the whole strategic situation in the light of the Russian revolution and America’s entry into the war, and make recommendations about future strategy. Next day, as a result of this proposal, the War Cabinet appointed a committee consisting of the Prime Minister, Milner, Curzon, Smuts and Hankey to do what Milner had suggested.51 . , The first and most urgent matter which this committee had to con¬ sider was a proposal by Robertson and Haig for a British offensive in Flanders that Summer with the objectives of (a) capturing the German submarine bases on the Belgian coast, and (b) relieving the strain on the French army, then in a state of mutiny. The Admiralty were strongly in favour. The French were also in favour. Robertson and Haig appeared before the committee and argued strongly in favour, both of the policy of concentration on the Western front and of the proposed offensive, expressing confidence that it would clear the Belgian coast and, possibly,

28o

Milner: Apostle of Empire

result in final victory. In the committee’s discussions, Lloyd George was strongly critical of the proposed offensive and was supported by Milner, whose view was put forward in a memorandum which stated: ‘We should not be justified in risking scores of thousands of British lives. I believe that another opportunity is presenting itself to the Allies and that the same prejudices and narrowness of outlook are conspiring to repeat our blunders.’ He advocated the Prime Minister’s proposal for knocking out Austria. ‘I firmly believe that it is within the compass of Allied resources, if properly directed, to inflict a heavy blow and possibly a decisive defeat on Austria this year.’62 But Curzon and Smuts supported the soldiers, and Bonar Law, although characteristically pessimistic about the prospects for the proposed offensive, was not prepared to over¬ ride them. Robertson and Haig were invited to reconsider their proposal in the light of the criticisms made, but each replied that they still favoured the proposed offensive and were confident of its success. It was eventually agreed to let Haig start his offensive but not to let it degenerate into a long-drawn-out, indecisive and expensive slogging-match. But, as Milner later remarked, it was not possible for civilian intervention to stop an offensive ‘with a jerk’. In this fashion was approved what later became known as the Passchendaele offensive, which turned out to be even more expensive and less rewarding than the numerous offensives which had preceded it. The Belgian coast was not captured and, as a result of the heavy casualties suffered, the manpower outlook became more depressing than ever. By this time Milner was as convinced as the Prime Minister of the ghastly futility of the Western front offensives, and of the desirability of considering whether it was not possible to turn the enemy’s flank else¬ where. On 8 June, the day on which the war policy committee was set up, he wrote to a correspondent on the Western front: ‘What you tell me about the hopelessness of the offensive is not new to me.... Person¬ ally I have been long leaning to that view, but it is not the view of the highest military authorities. . . . Your letter will be present in my mind and in that of my colleagues in their consideration of the matter.’63 If the matter had rested with Lloyd George and Milner, the Passchendaele offensive would probably have been vetoed, with results about which it is now idle to speculate. Having authorised Haig’s offensive, the war policy committee, on io August, produced its report on war strategy. The report stated: (a) that not much further help was to be expected from Russia; (b) that the

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French armies were in a state of exhaustion: (c) that ‘we have not felt justified in relying too much’ on Haig’s reports—derived from interroga¬ tion of prisoners—about lowered German morale, (d) that in naval affairs they urged ‘the continuous study of offensive operations and the development of convoys. The report stressed that it was impossible indefinitely to continue replacing heavy casualties, that this was ‘a factor that cannot be ignored’, and that, in the offensive which had just been authorised, it was necessary to ‘proceed methodically and consider the situation before making each bound’. Attention was drawn to the steady drain of submarine warfare’, to ‘financial difficulties with North America and, in general, to ‘misgivings about our ability to sustain the war with undiminished strength through 1918.’ It urged the advantages of an offensive on the Italian front against Austria, partly as a means of com¬ pelling the Italians to bear a more equitable share of the man-power burden, partly in accordance with a strategy of attacking the enemy where he was weakest instead of where he was strongest. With regard to the offensive which had been authorised, the report admitted the great advantages which would accrue from a clearing of the Belgian coast from the point of view of the submarine menace, but expressed a prescient scepticism as to whether ‘we could carry the entire operation through . The offensive must ‘not be allowed to drift into protracted, costly and indecisive operations as occurred on the Somme in 1916.... If a degree of success is not achieved commensurate with losses, the offensive should be stopped. If not too late, and if the offensive is stopped, there should be a rapid transfer of artillery to the Italian front. The report concluded that there was no case for an offensive on, or for reinforcements to, the Salonika front and that, on the Palestine front, the doubling of rail communications should enable Allenby (who had taken over the com¬ mand from Murray) to take the offensive without man-power reinforcement.64 Meanwhile the Passchendaele offensive, which opened at the end of July, was grinding to a halt in a morass of mud and blood. On 21 August Haig told the War Cabinet that, in spite of the failure of the attack so far, which he attributed to adverse weather conditions, ‘the right course to pursue ... is undoubtedly to press the enemy in Flanders without inter¬ mission and to the full extent of our power and, if complete success is not achieved before Winter sets in, to resume the offensive at the earliest possible moment next year.’ At last, in mid-November, when the dread¬ ful holocaust had finally been called off, Haig reported: ‘The positions

282

Milner: Apostle of Empire

already gained fall short of what I wished to secure. Our present posi¬ tions . . . may be costly to hold if seriously attacked.’ He admitted that any serious offensive in the following Spring was impossible and that ‘the enemy is not unlikely to seize the initiative and attack.’ Milner’s opinion of Haig is indicated in some blistering marginal com¬ ments on Haig’s various reports to the War Cabinet. On one, in which Haigh stated that he felt confident of success ‘even though Russia should collapse entirely and despite the weakened state of France’, Milner minuted; ‘The argument seems to be that, since we can’t overcome the unreinforced Germans, ergo we can reasonably hope to overcome them when strengthened by 30 divisions. Really lunatic.’ As early as 17 June Thornton noted that Milner was ‘coming to the opinion that we were not justified in throwing away so many men on the Western front.’55 On 3 September he noted Milner as being ‘very sceptical of success on the Western front, but did not believe in the PM’s plans for concentration on the Italian front.’56 He thought that Haig did not realise that our man¬ power was not inexhaustible and that his offensive meant locking up men who could be used elsewhere. ‘A landing in Syria and cutting the Baghdad railway would be the best gamble.... If only we had a soldier who was a real strategist.’57 In September Milner went to North Wales to stay with Lloyd George at Criccieth. It was a working week-end and his fellow-guests were Lord Riddell, the newspaper proprietor, and a kind of PRO to Lloyd George, and Hankey. Hankey, recording his impression of the discussions, wrote: ‘Milner seems to have completely come round to Lloyd George’s view that the Western front affords no opportunity for achieving complete success, and that it is necessary to devote our main efforts against Turkey. He ... agrees that success in the Turkish theatre can only be achieved if the soldiers are in it wholeheartedly.’58 Riddell recorded that both the Prime Minister and Milner considered that the continuation of Haig’s offensive was a mistake and were alarmed at the British casualties. But Milner warned the Prime Minister that ‘the soldiers stood well with the public, who do not know the facts’ and that a quarrel with them ‘would dishearten people.’ He expressed the intention of going back to London to see Robertson and try to make him ‘realise the necessity for an alter¬ native policy’.59 Milner appears to have been thinking in terms of weaning Robertson away from Haig and then getting rid of Haig. The Prime Minister’s thinking was rather the other way round; he was thinking in terms of

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detaching Haig from Robertson, and then getting rid of Robertson. General Sir William Robertson was a very remarkable man. Starting life as a domestic servant, he had enlisted as a trooper in a cavalry regi¬ ment at the age of 17. When he had been appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff at the end of 1915, while Kitchener was still Secretary of State for War, he had successfully insisted on Kitchener’s agreement to a written document defining his duties and responsibilities, in which it was made clear that the CIGS had direct access to the Cabinet and that he, and not the Secretary of State, was the Government’s principal military adviser. He was an extremely able administrator, but had had little or no experience of active service. He and Haig backed each other up in their insistence on the necessity for concentrating the Allied war effort on the Western front, and both Lloyd George and Milner recog¬ nised that it would be impracticable, from the point of view of public opinion, to get rid of them both simultaneously, even if they had the backing of the rest of the War Cabinet, which they had not. Both Curzon and Smuts were inclined to support the two soldiers and Bonar Law, while agreeing with the Prime Minister at heart, always got cold feet when it was a question of a ‘show-down’ with the High Command There appears to be no record of any meeting Milner may have had with Robertson after the Criccieth week-end, but there is the text of a revealing letter which Robertson wrote to Haig at about this time, on 27 September; ‘My views have always been defensive in all theatres but the West. But the difficulty is to prove the wisdom of this now that Russia is out. I confess I stick to it more because I see nothing better than because of any good argument by which I can support it.’60 When Haig resumed his independent command after the failure of the Nivelle offensive, Henry Wilson lost his job as liaison officer between the two commanders. After an interval of unemployment he received the relatively unimportant Eastern Command, which post provided him with both the time and the opportunity for intrigue. ‘He had nothing to do except think and talk, both gifts in which he excelled. For the first time in the war he was in a position to see it from a wider perspective than that of the Western front and, for the first time, headquarters in London gave him the opportunity for continuous intercourse with Lloyd George, Milner, and the rest of the War Cabinet.’61 He often spent the evening at Woldingham, on the North Downs, where Amery had rented a cottage for Milner to enable him to get some fresh air of a Summer evening at a convenient distance from London.62 Towards the end of August Henry

284

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Wilson ‘suggested to Lloyd George and discussed more fully with Milner ... at Woldingham, a plan aimed both at securing strategic and political unity of action between the Allies and at providing Lloyd George with authoritative military advice which would make him more independent of Robertson.’63 As a result, probably, of these confabulations at Woldingham, Milner, on 9 October, circulated a memorandum to the War Cabinet in which he analysed the strategic situation. He concluded: (a) that there was no certainty of beating Germany in 1918; (b) that the Allies would probably be unable to continue the war after 1918; (c) that their only hope was to knock out one or more of Germany’s allies, ‘that Turkey was the one against whom we have the best hope of striking hardest’, and that ‘our chief immediate war aim should be to knock out Turkey even if it became necessary to reduce imports in order to supply munitions for this purpose.’64 Two days later, on 11 October, at a War Cabinet meeting at which Robertson and Haig were present, Lloyd George advocated an attempt to knock Turkey out of the war by an offensive in Palestine. He was supported by Milner65 and Smuts and half-supported by Bonar Law and Curzon. Robertson and Haig were both against him and were supported by Carson who, since joining the War Cabinet, had invariably supported the Generals in the same way as he had supported the Admirals when at the Admiralty. After Haig and Robertson had left, it was agreed, on Lloyd George’s proposal, to seek a second opinion on strategy from French, Haig’s predecessor as C-in-C, and Henry Wilson. This was obviously the result of Henry Wilson’s suggestions to the Prime Minister and Milner, French being thrown in as a make-weight. Robertson, when he heard about it, ‘could not pretend to be satisfied with the implied lack of confidence’66 and threatened to resign. Curzon told Hankey that if the Prime Minister drove Robertson to resignation, Carson, Balfour, Derby, Lord Robert Cecil, and probably Curzon himself, would resign from the Government.67 On 20 October Henry Wilson and French produced their report, of which the principal recommendation was that an inter-allied Supreme War Council should be set up consisting of Allied civilian and military representatives, who would advise the Allied Governments about war strategy independently of the Chiefs of Staff. Other recommendations were for a defensive strategy on the Western front and for an offensive against Turkey. Milner told Hankey that he thought that Robertson

Power

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should immediately be shown the report and asked to comment on it. He added that the Government would very likely come down over it.68 He told Thornton that either the War Cabinet, or Haig and Robertson, or all of them, might have to go. He added that he did not think that the Prime Minister would see the thing through and stand up to Haig and Robertson.69 There then occurred the shattering Italian rout at Caporetto at the hands of the Austrians, reinforced by a few German divisions transferred from the Russian front. This defeat underlined the necessity for closer inter-Allied cooperation and, on 2 November, Lloyd George obtained the agreement of the War Cabinet to the Wilson-French proposal for a Supreme War Council. On 7 November this proposal was also approved by a meeting of the Allied war leaders at Rapallo. The proposal for an offensive strategy against Turkey was abandoned owing to the prior necessity for reinforcing the Italian front. This did not prevent Allenby, with his existing force, from gaining an important victory over the Turks early in November which ended in the capture of Jerusalem. The other Wilson-French proposal for a defensive strategy in the West was no longer controversial in that Haig, deflated at last by his massive and costly miscalculations over Passchendaele, concurred in their recommendation. In a memorandum dated 13 November he wrote: ‘It is not possible for the Allies to defeat the Germans to such an extent as would induce them to agree to our peace terms until 1919, when the strength of the USA has developed.’ He concluded that there should be no offensive on the Western front in 1918 and that ‘it would be highly advantageous to induce or compel one or more of our less powerful enemies to make peace.’ He agreed to the establishment of a Supreme War Council and suggested that the next Allied offensive in the West should take place in 1919. He excused the failure of the Passchendaele offensive by blaming the weather, the ‘incomplete concentration of our resources’, and ‘very limited help from our allies’.70 The idea of a Supreme War Council which had as its principal function the giving of advice about strategy to Allied Governments independently of their respective Chiefs of Staff was neither a good nor a practicable one. It had been devised by Henry Wilson as a means of enabling Lloyd George and the War Cabinet to by-pass Robertson and to receive official advice from Wilson himself, who was named as British Military Representative on the Supreme War Council. Clemenceau, who became Premier of France in place of Ribot a few days after the Rapallo

286

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Conference, required much persuasion from Milner and Henry Wilson to induce him to take seriously the idea of setting up a Supreme War Council. And when he did so, he made Weygand, the French Military Representative, subordinate to Foch, the French Chief of Staff. Robert¬ son seems at first to have assumed that the Supreme War Council could safely be ignored and that everything would go on much as before. But Wilson was determined that it should become really operative, thus making himself, rather than the CIGS, the War Cabinet’s principal military adviser. Under his impulsion the Supreme War Council was set up at Versailles and fully staffed. Its first meeting on i December was attended by the three Prime Ministers of Great Britain, France and Italy —Lloyd George, Clemenceau and Orlando—and by Colonel House, President Wilson’s personal representative in Europe. Milner was asked by Lloyd George to act as his alternate and he stayed on at Versailles for a week or so to get the Supreme War Council under way. He took the opportunity to improve his acquaintance with Clemenceau, whom he had first met some years before the war at the house of Lady Edward Cecil. The close acquaintance which he developed at this time was to become important a few weeks later. On 28 January 1918 there was a full meeting of the Supreme War Council at Versailles at which Lloyd George, Milner and Henry Wilson were present. It was by this time likely that the German armies in France, reinforced by a number of divisions transferred from the Russian front, would launch an offensive in the early Spring. In view of this it was decided to create a General Reserve under the control of the Allied Military Representatives on the Supreme War Council—Wilson, Weygand, Cadorna and Bliss—who would dispose of it according to their estimate of the requirements of the Western front as a whole. It was decided that this General Reserve should, at the outset, consist of fourteen French, nine British and seven Italian divisions, which would be pro¬ vided by the various Allied C-in-Cs. Strategically, it was not a very good idea to place a General Reserve under the control of a committee of Allied Staff Officers. For Roberston it was the last straw. He had been prepared to tolerate the Supreme War Council so long as it was purely ornamental. Now that it had assumed executive powers he was deter¬ mined to oppose it a outrance. Haig adopted a more subtle mode of procedure. In agreement with Petain, and probably with the connivance of Clemenceau, he arranged that they should both refuse to relinquish any of their divisions to the General Reserve. By this means he hoped to

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defeat the whole Supreme War Council scheme without the necessity for a ‘show-down’ with the War Cabinet. Robertson was less subtle and more straightforward. On 6 February he sent a formal note to the Prime Minister telling him that he could not agree to the Supreme War Council decision about a General Reserve. On 8 February Milner returned to London from Versailles and went to see Lloyd George, who showed him Robertson’s note, and told him that he had decided to send him to the Northern Command and to make Plumer, an Army Commander in France, CIGS in his place, with General Harington as his deputy, leaving Wilson as Military Represen¬ tative at Versailles. Milner commented that ‘the scheme did not appear to me ideal.’ The same afternoon he again went to see Lloyd George, who had Lord Derby with him. He noted that ‘the scheme had now assumed another form. Plumer and Harington to GHQ, Haig and Lawrence (Haig’s Chief-of-Staff) to the War Office as CIGS and DCIGS respectively.’ He commented that ‘this did not smile to me much.’ The same evening there appeared an article in the Globe (which had been copied from the Morning Post) insisting that any decisions taken by the Supreme War Council should be subject to parliamentary approval. Milner attributed this, probably correctly, to Robertson’s inspiration and sent the cutting that same evening to Lloyd George with a covering note: ‘I think the sooner we make a move the better. I doubt whether Haig would make common cause with the War Office against the Government, but he is incapable of seeing any point of view but his own. It would be better to lose both Robertson and Haig than be at the mercy of either.’71 Next morning, 9 February, Milner and Derby breakfasted with Lloyd George, who showed them a draft defining relations between the CIGS and the Supreme War Council. Milner found this ‘on the whole work¬ able.’ Lloyd George then proposed that Henry Wilson be appointed CIGS and Robertson sent to Versailles. Milner thought this ‘likely to lead to many difficulties’, but the Prime Minister insisted that it would be the easiest plan to carry through without opposition. Milner noted that ‘further argument was of no use. I urged that H.W. should be sent for at once and the PM agreed.’ He also agreed that the new CIGS should revert to the status quo ante the Robertson-Kitchener agreement. (See p. 283 above) Milner thereupon telegraphed Henry Wilson at Versailles to come over at once. He arrived on 10 February and went straight to Milner, who noted that ‘he was not particularly pleased but prepared to

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

do what he was told’. Wilson noted that he and Milner then agreed that, if Robertson refused Versailles, somebody junior to Wilson should be appointed as British Military Representative there, so as to let Wilson, as CIGS, ‘have a directing voice there’.72 The same evening Lloyd George telephoned Milner from Walton Heath, his Surrey home, and told him that he had spoken to Haig, who had made no difficulty, and that Derby would advise Robertson and Wilson officially next day. Next day—n February—an article appeared in the Morning Post over the signature of Colonel Repington73, the paper’s war correspon¬ dent, giving details of the General Reserve arrangements made by the Supreme War Council at its last meeting and violently attacking them. ‘We know from the inclinations of Downing Street and the open advocacy of its hangers-on that the Prime Minister still hankers after the delivery of a knock-out blow to Turkey-It is completely inadmissible that anybody but the C-in-C himself should control the Reserve. The extraordinary decision gives us the measure of Lloyd George’s and Milner’s competence. . . . Mr. Lloyd George has clearly and finally proved his incapacity to govern England in a great war.’ In the same issue of the paper a leading article supported Repington’s thesis. This went beyond criticism. It divulged important and secret informa¬ tion which might have been of value to the enemy.74 Milner was satisfied that Repington’s information about the Supreme War Council’s decision came from Robertson, and this made him all the more determined that he must be got rid of. On the same day—n February—as the article appeared, Derby, on the War Cabinet’s instructions, informed Henry Wilson that he had been appointed CIGS. He also saw Robertson, who refused the Ver¬ sailles posting. At the War Cabinet meeting next morning—12 February—Derby, who was present, proposed that Robertson should remain as CIGS— apparently on the ground that he refused to go to Versailles—and that Wilson should, in effect, be his deputy at Versailles. Milner, supported by Barnes (the Labour Party representative in the War Cabinet who had taken the place of Henderson), ‘maintained that we could not go back on our decision.’ But, as he noted afterwards, ‘the feeling on the whole was that we could not afford to part with Robertson. The PM decided to leave the matter open and we came to no decision.’ After the meeting Milner lunched with Lloyd George and Hankey. Hankey noted that Milner was ‘very strong for getting rid of Robertson and hinted at

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resignation.’ He also noted that Ormsby-Gore, one of Milner’s PPSs, hold told him that Milner would not remain in office if Robertson and Derby got their way.76 That evening Milner saw Wilson and told him that ‘the whole thing was in a mess, that Derby insisted on keeping Robertson, that Lloyd George had agreed, that Curzon was backing Robertson, that Bonar Law was “washy”, and that only he and Barnes were in favour of insisting on Robertson doing what he was told.’78 Lloyd George’s hesitation, which was infuriating Milner, was under¬ standable. In his move to get rid of Robertson he was not supported by the whole of the War Cabinet. Part of the Press was hostile. The Govern¬ ment’s parliamentary position was weaker than it had been. Not only the Asquith Liberals, but a group of Unionists, who had formed themselves into a ‘Unionist War Committee’, were becoming increasingly hostile. And there was Carson who, ostensibly because of the Government’s refusal to apply conscription to Ireland but in reality because of his annoyance at Jellicoe’s dismissal and because of his support of Haig and Robertson, had resigned from the War Cabinet at the beginning of the year. So far, partly owing to his friendly relations with Milner, he had not yet attacked the Government, either in the Commons or elsewhere. But the departure of Robertson, following hard on that of Jellicoe, might well set him off. One tiresome obstacle was the King who, primed by Haig, who had married into Court circles, was strongly in favour of the soldiers and might well make himself difficult if Robertson were forced to go. Another difficulty was that Northcliffe had just started attacking Robertson in the Daily Mail. Lloyd George had already been criticised in Parliament for his alleged subservience to the Northcliffe Press, and to get rid of Robertson now might seem to confirm this allegation. This was the last thing Lloyd George wanted. And so he continued to search for a compromise and Milner continued to press for Robertson’s dis¬ missal. He wrote to Bonar Law complaining of Robertson’s leakages to the Press and told him: ‘If Robertson is going to fight us, it would be madness to let him do it from the inside.... The course we are pursuing, thanks to Derby, is the very course likely to produce a considerable military combination against us.’77 On 13 February Lloyd George came to the conclusion that Robertson would have to stay for the time being and asked Hankey to explain matters to Milner. So Hankey ‘hunted out Milner and lunched with him at Great College Street. He was difficult and only willing to stand it on

290

Milner: Apostle of Empire

condition that there was a clear understanding with Robertson that he should loyally carry out the Versailles policy and that a public statement was made explaining that Robertson had agreed to say on as CIGS with reduced powers after having been offered and having refused the Ver¬ sailles job. ... Later, Milner went to the PM and explained his point of view. The PM then saw Derby who, Milner told me, wants to have Wilson at Versailles subordinated to Robertson, Milner said that he would write to L.G. telling him that he would not stand for this.’78 There is no record of any written or other communication between Milner and the Prime Minister on the evening of 13 February. But, at the meeting of the War Cabinet next morning, the Prime Minister adopted a much stiffer attitude. After rejecting Derby’s proposal that Robertson should remain CIGS, with Wilson at Versailles subordinated to him, he sent for Robertson, who refused to remain as CIGS except on the terms proposed by Derby. It was then decided to offer Robertson the choice between remaining as CIGS under the new dispensation, or of going to Versailles as British Military Representative. The War Cabinet asked Balfour to see Robertson and to put these alternatives to him. He did so, and Robertson refused them both. The War Cabinet then invited Plumer to become CIGS in his stead. Plumer declined, making it clear that he supported Robertson. There followed two days of anxious confabulation at Walton Heath and Downing Street. There emerged a consensus of members of the War Cabinet and Balfour that Robertson was behaving intolerably and would have to go. Lloyd George saw the King who, briefed by a paper which Stamfordham had prepared for him, told his Prime Minister that, whatever his private feelings, he would make no difficulty over what the War Cabinet had agreed upon. Lloyd George then saw Haig, who ‘de¬ serted his friend without excuse or apology.’79 He made no objection, either to Robertson’s removal or to his replacement as CIGS by Henry Wilson. He suggested Rawlinson, one of his Army Commanders, to replace Wilson at Versailles, but refused the Prime Minister’s suggestion that Robertson might be offered an Army Command in France. And so it was all arranged. On 18 February Derby was told that he must either appoint Wilson as CIGS and find another job for Robertson, or else resign forthwith. It had been agreed with Lloyd George that Milner should take over the War Office in the expected, and hoped-for, event of Derby’s resignation. But Derby, after submitting his resignation, wrote to Bonar Law to tell him that he had decided, on reflection, to

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accept the War Cabinet’s decision, and that he had appointed Robertson to the Northern Command. Unless Lloyd George had been sustained by Milner’s determination, it is likely that Robertson would have won. The whole business of the Versailles Military Representative’s inde¬ pendence of the CIGS was a piece of nonsense, and was shown to be such when, a few weeks after Robertson’s departure, Rawlinson was restored to his Army Command and replaced at Versailles by SackvilleWest, a comparatively junior General, who had previously been Wilson’s deputy at Versailles and who, in effect, continued to be so after his promotion. More importantly, the Supreme War Council’s control of the General Reserve was made a nullity by the behaviour of Haig and Petain. On 25 February Wilson, the new CIGS, went over to France. He saw Haig, who ‘flatly refused’ to transfer any divisions to the Reserve. He then went to Paris and saw Clemenceau, who indicated that Petain had taken up the same position and that he was inclined to support him. When he got back to London, Wilson reported in this sense to the Prime Minister, who agreed that Haig could not be compelled to come into line. A meeting of the Supreme War Council held in London on 13 March was told that, in view of Haig and Petain’s attitude, the idea of a General Reserve would have to be abandoned. Wilson told them: I am clear that if we have to choose between Haig and the General Reserve, we must choose Haig, wrong though I believe him to be.’ Foch, the French Chief of Staff, wanted him to order Haig to make the contribution to the General Reserve agreed on by the Supreme War Council, and he had had to remind Foch that Clemenceau was supporting Haig and Petain, who had also refused his contribution. Lloyd George and Milner were both ‘very angry with Haig and seriously debated whether he should not be dismissed ... and replaced by Plumer. But Wilson insisted that it was now too late, as a German attack was imminent.’80 The expected German attack came a week later, on 21 March. It was launched near the junction between the British and French armies in the direction of Amiens on the front held by the British Fifth Army, com¬ manded by the General Gough who had made himself notorious at the Curragh almost exactly four years before. The Fifth Army was overrun and, as a result of the insubordination of Haig and Petain, there was no Reserve available to plug the gap. It appeared that Petain was thinking of retreating SW in order that his armies could cover Paris, while Haig

292

Milner: Apostle of Empire

was planning to retire NW to cover the Channel ports. This would have left a gap opposite Amiens, through which the Germans could be expected to pour. It was then likely that they would wheel right and pin the British expeditionary force up against the Channel. On the evening of Sunday, 24 March, at this moment of crisis, Milner, on the Prime Minister’s request, went to France, ‘in order’, in his own words, ‘to report to the Cabinet personally’.81 ‘I left Charing Cross on Sunday 24 March and reached Boulogne at 6.30 a.m. on 25 March.’ (He was seen off at Charing Cross by Henry Wilson who, next morning, himself went over to France to confer with Haig) ‘Colonel Amery was waiting at Boulogne and we went straight to GHQ at Montreuil. Here I saw General Davidson . . . who gave me a brief sketch of the situation, which had been developing rapidly and adversely all day. From Montreuil I was accompanied by Brig.-General Wake, a member of General Rawlinson’s staff at Versailles ... On the journey... he gave me an account of all that had happened. The great mystery was the break-down of the Fifth Army . . . There was no doubt that it was shattered and a break effected in the Allied line between the right flank of the 3rd. Army and the French ... We did not reach General Rawlin¬ son’s house at Versailles until 2.30 a.m.... A telegram from GHQ stated that the situation had somewhat improved. Next morning, 25 March, I saw Rawlinson ... Soon after 9 a.m. I had a message from Clemenceau to say that he urgently wanted to see me. I motored into Paris with Col. Amery and saw Clemenceau at the Ministry of War. ... He showed no despondency or confusion. ... He told me that he thought there were important decisions to be taken at once.... It was necessary at all costs to maintain contact between the British and French armies and Haig and Petain must throw in their reserves to stop the breach. ... It would be necessary to put pressure on Petain to do this. He wanted to meet the British and French Cs-in-C that afternoon, taking Foch and me with him. He had heard that Wilson was meeting Haig at Abbeville and wanted them to come to Petain’s HQ at Compiegne. I returned to Versailles to talk to Rawlinson. While there I had a message from Wilson at Abbeville asking me to meet him there at 3 p.m. As I was pledged to join Clemenceau at Compiegne I determined not to change my plans. I went to the Paris Embassy at 2 p.m. to see Bertie (British Ambassador) and at 3 p.m. got a summons from Clemenceau. The President of the Republic (Poincare), Clemenceau (Prime Minister), Loucheur (Minister of War), Foch (Chief of Staff) and I then motored to Compiegne and

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got there a little before 5 p.m. Petain met us there but it had been im¬ possible to get hold of Haig and Wilson. A conference was held at Petain’s HQ between 5 and 7 p.m. . . . Petain explained his view of the situation. He was very pessimistic about the Fifth Army which, he said, had ceased to exist. It had been placed by Haig under Petain’s orders. He was bringing up all the divisions he could spare in support. Six divisions were already engaged and he was bringing up nine more. That was all he could spare for the moment. Foch took a different view. He thought that the danger of a great German push between the French and British in the direction of Amiens was so formidable that all risks must be taken in other directions. Even more divisions must be thrown in more quickly than Petain thought possible. . . . Poincare and Clemenceau were in sympathy with Foch’s view and the latter appealed to me to express my opinion and especially to say what more the British could do to establish complete cooperation between the two armies. I replied that I could not answer without consulting Haig and Wilson. I suggested another meeting next day at which both would be present. Clemenceau agreed and it was decided to meet at Dury near Amiens at 11 a.m. on 26 March, when all present would come to meet the British Generals. Before leaving Compiegne I had a few words with Clemenceau82 in which I expressed the opinion that Petain was not prepared to take sufficient risks in bringing up the French reserves. Clemenceau agreed in general and also agreed with me in sympathising with the attitude of Foch.83 I got back to Versailles at 9 p.m. and found that Wilson had arrived from Abbeville. There was also a message from Haig asking for next mor¬ ning’s meeting to be at Doullens, where he was meeting his Army Com¬ manders, and that he would be there at noon.84 This was arranged. Wilson told me of his talk with Haig.85 All agreed that the Germans would push for Amiens and widen the gap between the two armies and that our object must be to keep in touch with the French and fill the gap. The greatest promptness in bringing up reserves and complete coopera¬ tion were necessary. We discussed the personal difficulties about such cooperation and Wilson suggested that it should be left to Clemenceau, in whom both the British and French Generals had confidence, to take any necessary decisions. He was on the spot, his country was at stake, and he would be guided by Foch, who saw the struggle as a whole and not merely from the French point of view. Then Wilson went to Paris to see Foch. ‘At 8 a.m. on 26 March Wilson and I drove to Doullens . . . arriving

294

Milner: Apostle of Empire

at five minutes past noon. On the way we discussed how things could be pulled together, which Wilson thought could only be attained by putting the supreme direction . . . into the hands of Foch. I asked Wilson what Foch had said to the idea of making Clemenceau Generalissimo, with Foch to advise him. Wilson said that Foch did not agree and wanted to have the express authority of the two Governments to bring about the maximum cooperation between the two Cs-in-C. He wanted the same power as he had had at Ypres when Joffre had asked him to get the British and French to work together. Wilson and I agreed that this was the best solution. It was in fact a return to the original idea of the Supreme War Council at Versailles, with Foch in the chair directing a General Reserve—the substitution of a man for a committee. There was also this in its favour—we knew that the British reserves had already been put in and the real question now was how many French reserves could be put in and how quickly. From what Wilson had often told me, and from what I had seen myself the previous day, I was convinced that Foch possessed to a quite exceptional degree the qualities of promp¬ titude, energy and resource necessary to get the most done in the time available, the whole question being evidently a race for time. ‘On arrival at Doullens I was at once seized by Clemenceau, who startled me by saying that Haig had just declared to him that he would have to uncover Amiens and fall back on the Channel ports. I told him that I was sure there had been a misunderstanding and that I wanted a word with Haig before the conference started. To this he readily agreed. I saw Haig and the Army Commanders.... Haig’s views about Amiens had been misunderstood. He had no doubt about the importance of Amiens and no intention of abandoning it. He meant that he would be outflanked and unable to cover Amiens unless the French came to his assistance south of the Somme on his right. ... I then talked to Haig alone about Foch and was delighted to find that, far from resenting the thought of Foch’s interference, he welcomed the idea of working with him. ‘The conference then assembled—Poincare in the chair, Clemenceau, Loucheur, Foch, Petain, Haig, Wilson and myself present. The idea that Haig was thinking of falling back on the Channel ports was cleared up and it was made evident that he was bringing up every division he could spare. Petain then explained the efforts he was making. He had advanced so far from his position on the previous day that he could bring up 24 divisions instead of 15, but he warned that it would take longer. He

Power

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generally gave an impression of coldness and caution, as of a man playing for safety. None of his listeners seemed happy or convinced... Foch said not a word. But I could see that he was dissatisfied and impatient. ... I asked if I could have a word with Clemenceau alone. I told him ... that Foch appeared to be the man with greatest grasp of the situation. Could he not be placed by both Governments in a position of general control, as Foch himself had suggested to Wilson? Clemenceau agreed but said he must speak to Petain. When he took Petain aside I did the same with Haig. When I explained to Haig what was contemplated he seemed not only willing but really pleased. Meanwhile Clemenceau had spoken to Petain, and immediately wrote the following form of words: ‘Le General Foch est charge par les gouvernments britannique et fra^aise de coordonner 1’action des armees britanniques et franchises sur le front ouest. II s’entendra a cet efi'et avec les generaux en chef qui sont invites a lui fournir tous les renseignments necessaires.’ I showed this to Haig, who readily accepted it, but suggested that it should be extended to cover the other armies, Belgian, American and possibly Italian, which might be employed on this front. To this Clemenceau agreed and the formula was altered ... accordingly. It was read out and, after a very short discussion, signed by Clemenceau and myself. Haig looked distinctly relieved and much happier than he had looked earlier in the morning. I gathered from Clemenceau that Petain had accepted the arrangement without difficulty. Later, I called at Haig’s GHQ on the way to Boulogne and he told me that he was sure the arrangement would work in that he had to deal with a man and not with a committee. Wilson . . . and I reached Boulogne just before 7 p.m. A destroyer was waiting to take us to Folkestone, where we landed at 9 p.m. and arrived at Victoria just after 11 p.m.’ So ended a busy and momentous trip. Next morning Milner reported to the War Cabinet, who approved what he had done. Milner’s account of his mission, written at the time, is different from that of Lloyd George, written some years after the event. He tells us: £I had decided that either Milner or myself must go over at once and see why and where the arrangements for mutual help had failed to operate and whether things could not be set right before possible disaster super¬ vened. I sent for Milner and discussed the whole situation with him. We both felt that there was only one effective thing to do, and that was to put Foch in control of both armies. . . . Accordingly we agreed that Milner should at once leave for Paris to see Clemenceau.... I authorised

296

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Milner to do what he could to restore the broken Versailles front by conferring upon Foch the necessary authority to organise a reserve and control its disposition.’86 Whether this is a piece of wisdom after the event, and an attempt by Lloyd George, writing after Milner’s death, to ap¬ propriate the credit for an arrangement which probably saved the Allies from defeat, or whether what was done—as Amery, who was with Milner at the time, wrote—was done by Milner ‘single-handed and without Cabinet sanction’,87 is something which the reader must decide for himself. A week later, on 3 April, after Foch had complained that the powers given to him at Doullens were insufficient, it was decided, at a conference at Beauvais, at which Lloyd George and Clemenceau were present, that ‘General Foch is charged by the British and French Governments and by the Government of the United States of America, with coordinating the action of the Allied armies on the Western front. To this end the three Governments have entrusted him with the strategic direction of military operations. The Cs-in-C of the three Allied armies will continue to exercise tactical control of their forces and will each have the right of appeal to his own Government if in his opinion his army is put in danger as a result of any order given by General Foch.’ In retrospect, and knowing the end of the story, it is not easy to re¬ member that, for Allied statesmen and Generals, the position appeared to remain one of extreme peril for the next three months at least. Milner, in particular, was consistently pessimistic until very near the end. In a speech at Plymouth on 21 February, a month before the German offensive had started, he told his audience: ‘We are now fighting for our lives, for the very existence of the free nations of Western Europe. The situation has been radically altered by the collapse of Russia. . . . The military party in Germany is once more firmly in the saddle. It is not now a question of defeating Prussian militarism. The question is whether Prussian militarism will destroy us.’88 Privately, he was even more forth¬ right. In an undated memorandum probably compiled towards the end of 1917 he had written: ‘Owing to the collapse of Russia and the entry of USA into the war, a slowly-developing force of immense potency has replaced a force of much greater immediate striking power which is now exhausted. The result is to give great importance to the element of endurance. ... I do not exclude the possibility of an early peace. ... If Germany plays her hand well it can hardly be resisted. ... It would be a victory for German militarism disguised as a drawn game. The de-

Power

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parture of Russia has defeated plans for vigorous offensives in France and Italy and a trilateral attack on Turkey from Palestine, Mesopotamia and Armenia, leading to a Turkish and Bulgarian collapse. Owing to the defection of Russia we cannot smash Turkey. Nothing is to be gained by a continuous offensive in the West. It is doubtful whether we are in fact losing less men than the Germans in the present offensive. Our policy should be to economise lives and build up a strategic reserve. The proposed campaign against Jerusalem is a doubtful gamble. A defensive policy for the time being seems justified by the necessity for conserving man-power. The Germans too have to husband their man¬ power and their real offensive is their submarine campaign. There is no real danger of starvation, but it is necessary to increase home supplies in order to use more tonnage for war supplies e.g. coal to Italy. It is necessary to regard the increase of home production as a prior necessity. There are very powerful reasons for economy in man-power, which is one of the most important factors in the struggle.’89 The question of man-power increasingly dominated the scene during the first seven months of 1918. There were the insatiable demands of the army for men to replace the casualties suffered in the Passchendaele offensive. These demands were backed in Parliament by the Liberal Opposition and by the Unionist War Committee, by much of the Press, by the Army Council and, most importantly, by the French Govern¬ ment, who became increasingly critical of what they were inclined to regard as an inadequate contribution compared with their own. There were the demands of industry and agriculture. And there was the eternal question of whether or not conscription should be extended to Ireland. In view of the pressing need, and in view of the inequity of exempting something like one-sixth of the population of the United Kingdom from compulsory military service, there was a considerable body of opinion in favour of extending conscription to Ireland. Carson resigned from the War Cabinet partly on this issue. But, in view of the rebellious state of Ireland, the War Cabinet hesitated to introduce a measure which, by bringing about an insurrection in Ireland, might, on balance, reduce the forces available for action against the enemy, besides wrecking any chance of a political settlement over Ireland. The man-power question also dominated a note written by Milner to Henry Wilson on 8 April, just after Foch had been made Generalissimo and while the German offensive was still being pressed home. The gap between the British and French armies had been plugged, but the

298

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Germans were pushing back the British lines further north. ‘The whole business of the vital issue of the war is on you. It is certain that the superiority of the Germans over both the Allies in numbers of the order of 5 to 4 cannot be denied. No readjustment of our forces can change the situation unless 40 British and French divisions can stand the shock of 50 German divisions. They can mass their reserves on any part of the line. Therefore their superiority is really greater.’ He went on to discuss the terms of the Beauvais agreement (see above). ‘It would be a great misfortune if we ever had to appeal to the Supreme War Council against Foch. The ideal thing would be for you and Foch to be agreed. I think you should be very certain that he is wrong before you disagree. . . . What made the recent disaster so great was the strategic blunder of the disposition of reserves and the tactical blunder of having made no pro¬ vision to hold the line of the Somme. We had no reserves and no plan about what to do in the event of a retreat. I hope you can satisfy your¬ self that GHQ know what to do if they have to retreat. We can’t afford to jump back 20 miles at a time, as we should be in the sea.’90 It is apparent from this note that Milner had lost all faith in Haig and that he was apprehensive lest he should sabotage the arrangements for Foch’s supreme command in the same way as he had sabotaged the arrangements for the General Reserve. His note to Wilson was an oblique appeal to him to support Foch against Haig’s intrigues.91 On 18 April 1918 Lord Derby was posted to Paris as British Ambass¬ ador and Milner took his place as Secretary of State for War. Lloyd George, and most of the War Cabinet, had long wanted, and tried, to get rid of Derby from the War Office. He was totally in the hands of his military advisers. He was accustomed to do exactly what they told him to do, but never succeeded in gaining their respect. Haig, in a rare flash of humour, once described him as being like a feather pillow, bearing the impress of whoever had last sat on him. He was continually tendering his resignation and then withdrawing it. But he had to be handled with kid gloves. He was one of the last of the great territorial magnates, and was believed to have great political influence, particularly in his home county of Lancashire. In December 1917 Lloyd George had tried, and failed, to get him out of the War Office with an offer of the Paris Embassy, which Derby refused. At the time of Robertson’s dis¬ missal it seemed as if he really would resign. But he stayed on. It is not clear why, a couple of months later, he accepted the job which he had refused in December and quitted the office which he had held onto so

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obstinately. Possibly it was because he found he could not get on with the new CIGS, whom he disliked. It is also not clear why Milner accepted to go to the War Office. As a member of the War Cabinet without Portfolio he had all the power and influence he wanted or needed. But there is no doubt that he wanted to go to the War Office. On 13 April he wrote to the Prime Minister: ‘A last word about the WO. Hankey or I. There is a good deal to be said for both ... I think I should be more generally acceptable to the army, could, if necessary, take drastic action with greater resolution and authority, and would be more easy to move if, the present push being over, I was wanted back in the War Cabinet or not wanted at all. . . . Personally I have absolutely no feeling one way or the other. I only want the best thing done.’92 He may have been attracted by the idea of a com¬ bination between himself and Henry Wilson, for whom he had a great admiration, which would keep both the Prime Minister and Haig in order over military matters. And, after his successful mission which resulted in the Doullens agreement, he may have decided that becoming Secretary of State for War was the best means of keeping control of the military situation without interference from colleagues, particularly Churchill, who fancied himself as an amateur strategist, and whom Milner greatly mistrusted.93 Although Milner ceased, formally, to be a member of the War Cabi¬ net, he suffered no diminution of influence, and the Prime Minister continued to rely on him as much as ever. Lloyd George, Milner, Henry Wilson, with Hankey as Secretary, formed a little triumvirate, known as the X Committee, ‘which met almost daily and sometimes twice a day’ and, according to Amery, who acted as its assistant secretary, ‘really ran the war during the critical Spring and Summer months of the German offensive.’94 When Milner took over the War Office, the Government was faced with growing discontent in Parliament which had been fanned, first by Robertson’s dismissal and then by the disasters on the Western front. The Government’s opponents attributed these disasters to the Govern¬ ment’s failure to reinforce the Western front in accordance with the recommendations of the ex-CIGS and the C-in-C. One of the changes made at the War Office as a result of Wilson’s advent as CIGS was that the Director of Military Operations under Robertson, General Maurice, was replaced, at the beginning of April, by General Radcliffe. On 6 May, Maurice, who was temporarily

300

Milner: Apostle of Empire

unemployed, although still a serving officer, published a letter in the Press which, in effect, accused the Prime Minister and Bonar Law of giving ‘cooked’ figures of man-power strength to the Commons in an attempt to disguise the depleted strength of the British armies in France at the time of the German attack. This, if true, would have gone far to justify the Opposition’s assertions that the Western front was being starved of men in order to feed the Prime Minister’s alleged passion for ‘side¬ shows’. The Opposition took the matter up and demanded an enquiry. In a debate in the Commons on 9 May on a motion tabled by Asquith calling for a Select Committee to investigate Maurice’s charges, Lloyd George enjoyed one of his greatest Parliamentary triumphs and As¬ quith’s motion was defeated by 293 votes to 106. Statistics can be made to prove or disprove anything. The Prime Minister, in his various statements to the Commons, had given figures as optimistic as possible of the relative strengths of the Allies and the enemy on the Western front in order to meet the Opposition’s charges that the Western front was being starved of men. Maurice, as a serving officer, had placed himself, and his supporters, in a vulnerable position as a result of his action, which was obviously inspired less by a passion for truth than by a desire to discredit the Government. The immediately important result of the debate was that it immensely strengthened the Prime Minister’s, and the Government’s, position in the country. Henceforward, the Government, in its conduct of the war, was able to concentrate its attention on the enemy, without having to pay too much attention to domestic oppo¬ sition and intrigue. Milner, although officially concerned in the Maurice incident, as being Secretary of State for War at the time, was not directly involved. But he was convinced that the Maurice accusation was part of a conspiracy against the Government, master-minded by Col. Repington and assisted by Robertson and Maurice.95 He determined to take the opportunity to strike back hard at Repington who, in the Morning Post of 26 April, had attacked Milner’s appointment as Secretary of State for War, stating that he was ‘deeply involved in the past errors and miscalculations of the War Cabinet of Mr. Lloyd George, whose henchman he is,’ accusing him of ‘want of judgement of men and events on his mission to Russia ... (and) ... in supporting the Prime Minister’s imaginative strategy in the East,’ and expressing his astonishment that ‘one so fully responsible as Lord Milner for the decisions which have led to the present result should be placed in charge of the Army.’ On 12 May, three days after

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the Maurice debate, J. L. Garvin, editor of the Observer, moved by the proprietor, Waldorf Astor, who was moved by Milner, blew Repington out of the water, in a vitriolic article which accused him of ‘a deliberate attempt to breed rivalry and dissension between M. Clemenceau and Mr. Lloyd George’, by such means as the Maurice letter, and dubbed him as a ‘mutinous nuisance’, with a ‘fatal strain of hysterical instability’, who was primarily actuated by a desire ‘to stab in the back the present CIGS’ because he had been instrumental in compelling Repington to leave the Army on account of his adultery with the wife of a brotherofficer. Milner, at times, professed to dislike and mistrust the Press, particu¬ larly the so-called ‘popular’ Press. In February 1918 he protested to Lloyd George against his having sent Northcliffe on a mission to USA and having appointed Beaverbrook as Minister of Information. He told him: ‘A number of people who are your friends and hate the notion of a return to Squiff & Co. are nevertheless seriously upset about the re¬ lations between the Government and the Press.... The less people hear and see of Northcliffe, Beaverbrook & Co. for the next few weeks the better.’96 But he was very adept, when he chose, at using the Press for his own purposes. He had been a journalist himself and, throughout his life, had a large number of journalist friends—G. T. Garrett, E. T. Cook, Spenser Wilkinson, H. W. Nevinson, E. B. Iwan-Muller, W. T. Stead, Sidney Low, Geoffrey Robinson (Dawson), Leo Maxse, ]. L. Garvin, Ian Colvin—to name but a few.

NOTES ON CHAPTER THIRTEEN 1. MP 152. 2. Lloyd George, The Truth About the Peace Treaties (Gollancz, 1938), I, pp. 261 et seq. 3. MP 117. 4. Lord Hankey, The Supreme Command 1914—1919 (Allen & Unwin, 1961), II, p. 60. 5. Walter Long, Colonial Secretary. 6. Lloyd George, The Truth About the Peace Treaties, op. cit., I, p. 643. 7. Lloyd George, who fancied himself as an amateur phrenologist, objected to the small size of his head when he met him for the first time (after he had been ap¬ pointed). After that he could do no right in Lloyd George’s eyes. When Neville Chamberlain was Prime Minister, Lloyd George was heard to refer to him as ‘that pin-head’. In return Neville Chamberlain nursed an undying grudge against Lloyd George.

302

Milner: Apostle of Empire

8. Stephen Gwyn (ed.) The Anvil of War (War-time letters of F. S. Oliver) (Mac¬ millan, 1936), p. 93. 9. C. Addison, Four and a Half Years (Hutchinson, 1934), II, p. 395. 10. R. H. Bruce Lockhart, Memoirs of a British Agent (Putnam, 1932), p. 163. 11. Calwell, op. cit., I, pp. 315-23. 12. MP 222. 13. MP 222. 14. Lloyd George, War Memoirs, op. cit., I, p. 841. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29.

ibid., p. 942. ibid. ibid., pp. 948-9. Bruce Lockhart, op. cit., p. 163. ibid., p. 207. MP 221. The two men had something in common intellectually and appeared to get on well together, although Hankey thought that Smuts remained somewhat suspi¬ cious of Milner (Hankey, op. cit., II, p. 657). But Amery described a dinner party at which Smuts ‘slipped his arm into Milner’s as they left the dining-room will all the deferential affection of a nephew for a respected uncle.’ (L. S. Amery op. cit., II, p. 99). MP 222. MP 302. MP 222. The British had just captured Baghdad and, some months previously, the ‘McMahon pledge’, which Milner must have known about, had been given to King Husain. It is apparent, from other references, that Milner envisaged a post¬ war Arab State, under British protection, consisting of the Arabian Peninsula and most of the Fertile Crescent. D. Chapman Houston, The Lost Horizon; A Memoir of Sir Sidney Low (Murray 1936), p. 286. MP 104. MP 106. The process of alienation was assisted by Lord Derby, who seems to have been one of the comparatively few people who, knowing Milner, disliked him per¬ sonally. In November 1917 he wrote to Lord Esher: ‘Milner is intolerable. I should like to put him in the ranks for six months and teach him what soldiering is like. That perhaps would stop his continual sneering at soldiers as if they were all damn fools. If only he knew how the country generally and the Labour Party in particular hate and distrust him, he might learn a little wisdom.’ (R. Churchill, Lord Derby (Heinemann, 1959), p. 293) Milner had as little use for Derby. In a letter to Lord Sydenham on 27.4.17. dealing with Derby’s attitude towards con¬ scientious objectors (on which subject Milner held very liberal views) he wrote: ‘I have tried over and over again to make him exercise his common sense, but in vain.’ (MP 222.)

30. Robert Blake, The Private Papers of Sir D. Haig (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1952), p. 251.

Power

303

31. MP 222. 32. MP 301. 33. e.g. the Licensed Victuallers on 15 June, a deputation from Burton-on-Trent on 18 June, and a deputation of Irish distillers on 22 June. 34. MP 222. 35. Gretton and Younger were both Unionist MPs and leading brewers. MP 301. 36. MP 222. 37. Addison, op. cit., II, p. 278. 38. Milner’s diary makes it clear that it was he and not Lloyd George who made the decision and that it was a case of Neville Chamberlain being sacked and not resigning of his own accord, although he was of course allowed to resign. 39. MP 222. This view about labour unrest was less robust than those expressed by some of his friends. F. S. Oliver, for example, in a letter to Austen Chamberlain in August 1916, told him that he was all for dating organised labour ‘to fly at my throat and beating him to a jelly if he does’. Other friends such as Henry Wilson, Kipling and Jameson, made no secret about holding similar views, and undoubt¬ edly contributed to the general impression of Milner as a social reactionary. In fact he was not. For example, in a reply written on 15 July 1917 to someone who had complained of the subversive influence being exercised by Toynbee Hall as a result of the opinions of its Warden, Milner told his correspondent that he had ‘a very high opinion indeed’ of the Warden, who was ‘a Quaker and a pacifist’ but . . thoroughly patriotic. His socialism is anything but revolutionary. The predominant note at Toynbee Hall has always been a certain academic socialism, which is not repugnant to me personally. . . (MP 222). 40. Hankey, op. cit., H, p. 650. 41. A. M. Gollin, Proconsul in Politics (Blond, 1964), p. 434, quoting Lloyd George Papers. 42. Lloyd George, War Memoirs, op. cit., I, p. 699. 43. Lord Beaverbrook, Men and Power (Hutchinson, 1956), p. 168. 44. ibid. 45. Wrench, Milner, op. cit., p. 333. 46. MP 301. 47. Lloyd George, War Memoirs, op. cit., I, p. 702. 48. Blake, Haig, op. cit., p. 251. 49. Sir William Robertson, Soldiers and Statesmen (Cassell, 1926), II, p. 206. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 5 6.

MP MP MP MP MP MP But

301. 301. 119. 222. 125. 301. see his memo, in the opposite sense in MP 119 as per Note 52.

57. MP 302. 58. Hankey, op. cit., H, p. 697. 59. Lord Riddell, War Diary 1914-1918 (Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1933), p.

75-

*

304

Milner: Apostle of Empire

60. Robertson, op. cit., II, p. 254. 61. L. S. Amery, op. cit., II, p. 125. 62. It ‘was near enough for him to be able to come out in time for a short walk before dinner some nights during the week, as well as at week-ends. He was a great walker and in the course of three Summer months we covered much ground together, including stretches of the old Pilgrim’s Way, which it was amusing to follow out with the help of Belloc’s The Old Road.’ (ibid.) 63. Calwell, op. cit., II, p. 10. 64. MP 302. 65. Who, according to Thornton, was ‘in general agreement with the PM but irri¬

75. 76.

tated almost to madness by his methods.’ MP 302. Robertson, op. cit., II, p. 256. Hankey, op. cit., II, p. 712. Hankey, op. cit., II, p. 715. MP 302. On this Milner’s comment was: ‘It is certain that our resources can never be more concentrated than they have been this year. As for the “very limited help from our Allies”, he has always known how limited it was likely to be and clearly took it into account in his calculations.’ MP 119. Gollin, op. cit., pp. 473-4, quoting Lloyd George Papers. Calwell, op. cit., II. p. 58. The real object of the Supreme War Council, in the minds of both Milner and Wilson, was not to create an improved organisation for the general direction of the war but to by-pass Robertson and enable Wilson to take his place as the War Cabinet’s principal military adviser. Colonel Repington (whose real name was a Court) was an ex-Regular who had had to leave the Service as the result of a scandal in his private life. He had become Military Correspondent to The Times, and gained the confidence, first of French, when he was C-in-C and, later, of Haig and Robertson. Ever since the Lloyd George Coalition had been in office Robertson had used Repington as his principal instrument in getting across to the public his, and Haig’s, con¬ ception of a Western front strategy against the Prime Minister’s advocacy of ‘side-shows’. When the Supreme War Council was formed Repington set him¬ self to attack it root and branch. At the beginning of 1918, as a result of Milner’s influence with the Editor, Repington was sacked from The Times, and was imme¬ diately taken on by the Morning Post, which was the principal journalistic advocate of the Haig-Robertson strategy. In fact both Repington and the editor of the Morning Post were charged with an offence under the Defence of the Realm Act in respect of this article, convicted and fined. Hankey, op. cit., II, p. 776. Calwell, op. cit., II, p. 54.

77. 78. 79. 80.

Beaverbrook, Men and Power, op. cit., p. 206. Hankey, op. cit., II, p. 777. Beaverbrook, op. cit., p. 208. Calwell, op. cit., II, pp. 64-8.

66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

71. 72.

73.

74.

81. The following account is taken from a memorandum written for the War

Power

305

Cabinet immediately after the event and published in the New Statesman on 23.4.21. 82. Milner knew French fluently and sometimes acted as interpreter between Lloyd George and Clemenceau. 83. Foch and Clemenceau were antagonistic. Inter alia, Clemenceau was a rabid anti-clerical and Foch was a clerical. 84. It was typical of Haig that, even in defeat, he expected everybody else to con¬ form to his own convenience. 85. Haig subsequently maintained that he had suggested to Wilson that Foch should be made C-in-C. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90.

Lloyd George, War Memoirs, op. cit., II, pp. 1730-1. L. S. Amery, op. cit., II, p. 146. MP 117. MP 146. MO 221.

91. Fred Oliver, for one, did not agree with Milner about Haig. He wrote to him at about this time. ‘I don’t agree with your judgement about Haig. I decline to be run away with by all the plausible and lucid conclusions we had last Monday from Amery. One of the greatest points about Haig is that he is a gentleman. You had to break with Wully [Robertson] because he did not come up to that test.’ (MP 221.) 92. Gollin, op. cit., p. 509 quoting from Lloyd George Papers. Also Lloyd George, The Truth About the Peace Treaties, op. cit., I, p. 267, in which LG writes that Milner ‘insisted on the succession’ to Derby. 93. On 30.3.18, Milner told Wilson that the Prime Minister, four days after his return from Doullens, had sent Churchill to see Foch and Clemenceau behind his back. He was furious at this and told Wilson that he was going to tell Lloyd George that he must have his full confidence if he were to remain in the Govern¬ ment. (Calwell, op. cit., II, p. 79.) 94. L. S. Amery, op. cit., II, pp. 157-8. Lloyd George, in Truth About the Peace Treaties, I, p. 267, on Milner’s tenure of the War Office, writes: ‘Physically he was not a strong man and the interminable variety of bothering detail. . . soon wore out his limited resources. The result was a tragic change in his quality.... His usefulness in the consideration of great issues gradually disappeared.’ But Lord Riddell quotes Lloyd George as telling him, on 17 June 1918, that ‘Milner improves every day’. (Riddell, VPar Diary, op. cit., p. 339.) 95. At about the time of the Maurice incident Robertson wrote to Lloyd George referring to ‘stories which have been persistently circulated insinuating that Asquith, Jellicoe, Trenchard and I met recently and conspired together to upset the Government. As far as I personally am concerned, this is a falsehood.’ Milner, asked by Lloyd George to comment on this, wrote :‘He himself was not the princi¬ pal intriguer, but he got into bad company, Repington and the Morning Post crowd being really the devils of the piece, while no doubt the Squiffites saw their chance of making use of him.’ (Beaverbrook, op. cit., p. 257). 96. ibid., p. 284.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Unexpected Victory some three months after his appointment as Secretary of State for War, Milner, usually accompanied by Henry Wilson, spent about half his time in France, conferring with Clemenceau, Foch and Haig, and dealing with the frequent disputes and misunderstandings which arose between Haig and Foch, between Haig and the War Cabinet, between Wilson and Foch, between Foch and the War Cabinet, and between the War Cabinet and Clemenceau. The French thought that the British were not contributing enough man-power to the Western front. The British thought that the French took insufficient account of British con¬ tributions on the sea, in the munitions factories, in the mines, and in the other theatres of war. Haig thought that Foch was over-manning the French front and under-manning the British front. Foch insisted that both armies should refuse to surrender another inch of ground, while Haig, whose previous offensive spirit seemed entirely to have evaporated, was thinking in terms of shortening his line by a planned retirement, relinquishing Ypres and Dunkirk. On 26 April, after breakfasting with the Prime Minister, Milner and Wilson crossed over to France and, the following day, had a conference with Clemenceau and Foch, at which Clemenceau developed his case for more British man-power. They also went to Haig’s GHQ at Mon¬ treal, where they had ‘a long and serious talk about the situation.’ Milner returned to London on 28 April and, on 1 May, again crossed over with the Prime Minister for a meeting of the Supreme War Council at Abbeville. ‘Usual dreadful crowd. I managed to get it somewhat re¬ duced, but we were still 32. Atmosphere awful, discussion time-wasting, great loss of temper and no positive results . . . LG and I had a private meeting with Clemenceau and Orlando [Italian Prime Minister]. Orlando accepted the extension of Foch’s authority to the Italian front.’ On 3 May Milner was back in London. He had an audience with the For

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King at Buckingham Palace and talked about Ireland with Bonar Law and with French, who had just been appointed Viceroy of Ireland. On 24 May, after the publication of the Maurice letter and Lloyd George’s subsequent triumph over his Parliamentary opponents, Milner again went to France, visiting Montreuil, Versailles and Paris, where he met Clemenceau. He noted; ‘The news of to-day’s battle is bad and things look ugly.’ On 28 May he was back in London, where there was a meet¬ ing of the War Cabinet, which Milner attended, about Japanese inter¬ vention in Siberia, advocated by Milner, but which the Foreign Office opposed in deference to the views of the US Government, who were terrified at the prospect of Japanese aggrandisement. Milner noted that he was feeling ‘very depressed about the war’. On 30 May there was a Cabinet about the eternal question of Irish conscription and another in¬ conclusive discussion about intervention in Siberia. On 31 May he went to France with Balfour, Geddes, Wemyss, Wilson and Hankey. They went to GHQ at Montreuil and Milner noted that there was ‘very bad news’ and that the French had been driven back. Hankey recorded that there was ‘a general air of pessimism at GHQ’ and that they ‘discussed the possibility of having to withdraw to the Channel ports.’ The German offensive had now been switched from the British to the French front, along the line of the Chemin des Dames, near Rheims. On 1 June, at a meeting of the Supreme War Council at Versailles, it was decided (a) to send a message to President Wilson asking the US Government to expedite reinforcements; (b) to pool Allied resources of food and munitions; (c) to send an Anglo-French military expedition to the Murman coast in North Russia; (d) to recognise as potentially independent nations Poland, Jugo-Slavia and Czechoslovakia; (e) to en¬ courage Japanese intervention in Siberia. Decision (d) was a far-reaching one, in that it committed the Allies to a break-up of Austria-Hungary, to which Milner was opposed. On 4 June Hankey noted: ‘The Germans are fighting better than the Allies and I cannot exclude the possibility of a disaster.’2 On 5 June, when they were all back in England, the Prime Minister, Milner, Wilson and Hankey met at 10 Downing Street to consider the possibility, ad¬ vocated by Haig, of shortening the British line by abandoning Ypres and Dunkirk. This was opposed by Foch, who ‘refused to budge an inch’. Wilson expressed the opinion that, if Foch did not change his mind, ‘there would be a disaster’. Milner and Wilson were delegated to go to France to discuss the matter with Foch. But, according to Hankey,

308

Milner: Apostle of Empire

‘the visit to Foch does not seem to have produced any noteworthy result’ in that Foch refused to authorise a British withdrawal.3 After two days in France, during which he saw Haig, Lawrence and Plumer at Montreuil, Weygand at Versailles and Foch and Clemenceau in Paris, Milner returned to London on 8 June, noting that ‘the situation in France is one of great gravity.’ According to a memorandum written by Milner after this visit, Haig and Lawrence (Haig’s COS) were ‘very pessimistic. We discussed shortening the line, especially in view of an eventual withdrawal behind the Somme, which had been decided on at Abbeville on 2 May, if we ever had to choose between the defence of the Channel ports and keeping contact with the French armies. The view taken at Abbeville was that the British should retire behind the Somme and abandon the Channel ports rather than lose touch with the French. Haig and Lawrence now seemed to think this impossible and, if we were going to retire behind the Somme, must do so at once ... I gathered they thought that if the French were unable to withstand the next German attack we should have to fall back on the Channel ports anyway’. On the subject of a request by Foch to transfer reserves from the British to the French sector, about which Haig had complained, Milner asked Haig: ‘At what point ought I to make a stand? What is the diversion of force beyond which you cannot be asked to go without endangering your whole army? . . . ’ It transpired that it was all a misunderstanding and that Foch had no in¬ tention of detaching any of Haig’s reserves until the development of the German attack was better defined. All that he had asked Haig was to make preparations for sending some of his reserves south in case it be¬ came ‘evident that the whole strength of the German attack was directed against the French_The general effect of the meeting was to improve relations between Foch and Haig, who always seem to get on well to¬ gether when brought face to face.’4 Neither Haig nor Foch could speak the other’s language with any approach to fluency and this may have been one cause of their frequent misunderstandings. The Dominion Prime Ministers, including, this time, Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia, arrived in London at the beginning of June for the Imperial War Cabinet and the Imperial Conference which, as in 1917, were to be held on alternate days. A note by Milner to the Prime Minister on 9 June, two days before the first session of the Imperial War Cabinet, shows what a grave view he took of the war situation: ‘It is fortunate that all the Dominion PMs are here at this time. It will give

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you a chance of telling them that we are really up against it.... We must be prepared for France and Italy both being beaten to their knees. In that case the German-Austrian-Turkish-Bulgarian bloc will be masters of all Europe and North and Central Asia to the point at which Japan steps in to bar the way, if she does step in and is not choked off by the more than disastrous diplomacy of the Allies. Unless the only remaining free peoples of the world—America, this country and the Dominions— are knit together in the closest conceivable alliance and prepared for the maximum of sacrifice, the Central Bloc, under the hegemony of Ger¬ many, will control not only Europe and most of Asia, but the whole world. To suppose that Germany will desist now ... seems quite out of the question. If all these things happen the whole aspect of the war will change. These islands will become an exposed outpost of the Allied position.... The Dominions and India will have to play an even bigger part than they have already played... . The fight will be for South Asia and above all for Africa (the Palestine bridgehead is of immense im¬ portance) and success may depend on what we can get from India and Australia.... All this is assuming the worst.... Last year we discussed terms of peace. If this year we were seriously to consider the necessities of the new war, it would be more to the point. ... Is not the time ap¬ proaching to ask USA what they will do in the event of a collapse of the Continental campaign against Germany? Unless President Wilson can be shaken out of his aloofness and drops non-belligerency, or whatever halfway house in which he loves to shelter himself, for an all-out alliance, I don’t see how the new combination can have sufficient cohesion or inner strength. He will have to be made to see—and so will the Dom¬ inions, who are just as stupid about this as he is—that he must wholly alter his attitude towards Japan. She must be made to feel that she is not only a convenience but a friend and an equal in the new partnership.... If the bonds with America and Japan were really tight, we could still win this war, though our position here will henceforth be one of constant and immediate peril, and the mastery of the sea is more than ever abso¬ lutely vital.’5 At the first meeting of the Imperial War Cabinet on n June, Lloyd George ‘dealt with the general war situation in an address which deeply impressed the Prime Ministers with the gravity of the situation. The Dominion Ministers, Borden [Prime Minister of Canada] in particular, spoke very frankly of what they had heard of the general incompetence of Army Headquarters. Their anxieties were not wholly allayed by

310

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Henry Wilson’s strategical review, which looked forward to a turn in the tide in 1919, after the Germans had spent themselves in trying to break through our front, or by Churchill’s brilliant advocacy of more highly-developed mechanical warfare. . . .’6 Hankey recorded that ‘a very strong anti-Western front bias was shown by all present, especially the Prime Minister, Milner and Smuts. Milner feared that they were running the risk of shattering the US armies as we had already shattered our own.’7 And Henry Wilson noted that ‘all the Dominion PMs except Hughes are of the opinion that we cannot beat the Boche in the West.’8 On the subject of future constitutional relations between the Mothercountry and the Dominions, the Imperial War Cabinet did not go beyond (a) a re-affirmation of the principle of Imperial Preference which, this time, was endorsed both by Lloyd George and Bonar Law, (b) making arrangements for the continuity of the Imperial War Cabinet by providing for the attendance of alternates in the intervals between the annual meetings, and (c) arranging for direct communication at all times between the various Prime Ministers. On 1 July Milner was back in France with Lloyd George. They at¬ tended a ‘quarrelsome’ meeting of the Supreme War Council, met Pershing, the US C-in-C in France, and discussed British man-power with Clemenceau, Foch, Weygand and Henry Wilson. On 5 July, on his way back to England, Milner visited Haig at Montreuil and watched a demonstration of ‘tanks’—an outlandish new weapon which Haig mistrusted and which he had grossly mishandled at the battle of Cambrai the previous Autumn. On 7 July he returned to England and, on 9 July, spoke in the Lords in support of a Government Bill on Agriculture. On 14 July, a Sunday, when he was spending one of his rare week-ends at Sturry Court, where he was not on the telephone, Hankey arrived by car with a message from Lloyd George, who was staying at Lord Riddell’s house at Limpsfield in Surrey, and who wanted Milner to join him there. Hankey records that ‘after a short talk with Milner, a short row on the Stour, and a look at Milner’s charming old church and beautiful garden, I motored back with him to Limpsfield. Borden and Smuts had already arrived, and Wilson and Radcliffe (DMO) arrived a few minutes later. After dinner we had a two-hour conference. All got the wind up about suspected German attacks and suspicions that Foch was intent on saving the French army and Paris at all costs. Milner, Wilson and Radcliffe were inclined to support Foch, as we had appointed him C-in-C. It was decided to send a telegram to Haig reminding him

The Unexpected Victory

311

that he had the right to appeal to the Government against Foch’s deci¬ sions.’9 Milner’s account of the conference noted: ‘A telegram I did not much like was despatched to Haig.’ It may be thought that Haig did not need any reminding of his right to appeal against Foch’s decisions. On 16 July Milner noted that ‘news from France indicates failure of German offensive against the French’. On 19 July came ‘news of French counter-offensive’. On 21 July there was news of ‘German retirement from the Marne’, and, on 22 July, ‘a reassuring telegram from H. W.’. On 24 July Milner noted that ‘news indicates a steady if slow advance by Allies.’ On 3 August came the news that the French had captured Soissons. It did appear that the tide had turned and that Milner’s confi¬ dence in Foch was being justified. It also appeared that Haig’s and Lawrence’s plans for withdrawing behind the Somme or on the Channel ports would not be needed after all. On 17 August Milner was commanded to Windsor and spent the week-end with the Royal Family. On 22 August he went to Criccieth to stay with Lloyd George and his family. His fellow-guests were Leo Amery, Philip Kerr, Hankey, and Addison, who had just been made Minister of Reconstruction. By this time the war news was very good and ‘Lloyd George was at the top of his form, full of humorous chaff about his own past, of sly and ribald comment on colleagues past and present, of imaginative schemes for the future, as well as of more mun¬ dane schemes for winning the next Election.’10 For Lloyd George and Bonar Law had already decided that, as soon as the war was over, instead of reverting to the old Party system, the Coalition Government should go to the country and seek a mandate for post-war reconstruction. Milner, with his dislike of the Party system and in spite of his frequent irritation with the Prime Minister, was in favour of this. As early as August 1917 he had talked to the Prime Minister about the formation of a Centre Party led by Lloyd George, which, he thought, would com¬ mand the support of two-thirds of the Unionist MPs11 Milner was back in London before the end of the month. On 2 Sep¬ tember he noted that the ‘news from France’ was ‘extraordinarily good.’ On 6 September he wrote to the Prime Minister about post-war pros¬ pects. ‘Who believes that we can ever go back to the old starvation wages in certain industries? Why go back to the old dog-fight between Free Trade and Tariff Reform? The real dividing-line is between those who believe in development on national lines and those to whom one country is as good as another and who are revolutionaries, so keen about

312

Milner: Apostle of Empire

developing class warfare that they have no energy left for other things. Tariff Reform means to develop the maximum productive capacity of this country and the Empire.’12 Milner was thinking in terms of a political line-up based on a continuation of the Coalition with a political pro¬ gramme sufficiently attractive to keep at bay that revolutionary socialism which had been stimulated by the Russian revolution and which Milner regarded as the greatest menace facing the post-war world. Meanwhile, although hardly anybody except Foch yet realised it, the war was moving into its final stages. On n September Foch told Henry Wilson: ‘Everybody is to attack, as soon as they can, as strongly as they can, for as long as they can.’13 On 20 September came the news from Palestine that Allenby had started a great forward movement which ended, within the next few weeks, in the destruction of the Turkish armies on the Palestine front and the British occupation of the rest of Palestine and the whole of Syria. Milner was still inclined to be sceptical. On 23 September, after a ten-day visit to France, he told Henry Wilson that he thought Haig ‘ridiculously optimistic’. He feared that he ‘may embark on another Passchendaele’, and had warned him that ‘if he knocked his present army about there was no other to replace it.’14 By the end of September the enemy were in retreat on all fronts. On the Western front ‘the allied victories of July, August and September had constrained the enemy to abandon all the furthest advanced areas of that huge salient within French territory which the German hosts had been holding in their grip since the early days of the war. But a blunt salient still existed, and Foch was taking full advantage of this by pushing forces forward on the two flanks, eastward from Flanders and north¬ wards from Lorraine, while Haig in the centre dealt with the problem presented by the formidable Hindenburg line where it was at its strong¬ est. In that formidable line a huge gap had been created by the armies under Horne, Byng and Rawlinson, and Ludendorff’s position had thereby been rendered precarious, if not indeed desperate.’15 On the Palestine front Allenby had captured Damascus and was pursuing the Turks northward towards Aleppo. On the Italian front, the Austrians were retreating and on the Salonika front the Bulgarians were in disorder and suing for peace. Then, on 5 October, came the news that Germany, Austria and Turkey had informed the US Government that they were ready to negotiate peace on the basis of President Wilson’s Fourteen Points, which had been proclaimed at the beginning of the year.

The Unexpected Victory

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These Fourteen Points, which included such matters as self-determin¬ ation for small nationalities, freedom of the seas etc., had never been accepted by the Allies. The British war aims, in so far as they had been formulated and published, had been approved by the War Cabinet and announced by the Prime Minister on 5 January 1918 at a meeting of Trade Union delegates, to whom he had stated: ‘Before permanent peace can be hoped for, three conditions must be fulfilled. First, the sanctity of treaties must be re-established; secondly, a territorial settlement must be secured based on the right of self-determination or the consent of the governed; and lastly, we must seek by the creation of some international organisation to limit the burden of armaments and diminish the proba¬ bility of war.’16 In the light of the enemy communication to the US Government it was necessary for the Allies urgently to consider the sort of terms on which they would agree to stop fighting. For the next few days there were hurried confabulations between the British and French Governments, and between the British Government and their military advisers. Meanwhile, the Turks, as well as the Bulgars, had asked for an armistice, and the Germans and Austrians had told the US Government that they were willing immediately to evacuate all occupied territories as a preliminary to peace negotiations based on the Fourteen Points. The real problem was Germany. Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bul¬ garia were ‘down and out’ and would have to settle on whatever terms the Allies were willing to grant them. But it was widely believed that the German army was still capable of fighting on. Because of this the War Cabinet were in disagreement with Henry Wilson’s view that the German army must surrender 95% of their arms and withdraw beyond the Rhine. On 8 October Wilson noted that he had ‘had a talk with Lloyd George and Bonar Law about my armistice terms. They both think them too severe. It is curious how nervous these politicians are. I don’t see what guarantee we shall get worth having unless we disarm the brutes.’ He added that Foch was not insisting on disarmament, but instead, wanted an Allied bridgehead 30 kms. wide on the east bank of the Rhine.17 Milner records a meeting on Sunday 13 October at Danny, Lord Riddell’s house in Sussex, at which the Prime Minister, Bonar Law, Churchill, Henry Wilson, Wemyss, Hankey and himself were present, to discuss what should be said to the Press about Germany’s peace offer. Nothing appears to have been decided and, on 19 October, there was another meeting in London, at which Haig was present, ‘about terms of

314

Milner: Apostle of Empire

armistice and peace’ with Germany. Milner noted that Haig was very reasonable and commendably moderate.’ Like Milner, he took the view that the German army was not yet beaten and that the German Govern¬ ment might refuse to accept severe armistice terms and decide to fight on. Milner had other than purely military reasons for not wanting to press the Germans too hard. Ever since the Russian revolution he had held that the real enemy was communism and that the Allied war aim should be to get themselves into a position of sufficient strength to negotiate with Germany ‘a draw in our favour’ which would leave both Western and Central Europe sufficiently strong to combat the menace of communism, without having to rely on being propped up by the British, who would then be able to detach themselves from Europe and concentrate on a consolidation of the British Empire. And now that the Allies, against his own expectations, were able to extort from Germany something a good deal better than ‘a draw in our favour’, he disliked the prospect either of a Carthaginian peace which would drive Germany to desperation and into the arms of communism, or of a ‘self-determin¬ ation’ for the subject peoples of the Austro-Hungarian Empire which would lead to the creation of a number of precarious national States whose instability would necessitate continued British intervention in European affairs. This attitude of Milner’s, which was shared to some extent by Lloyd George, was well-known to his colleagues, and to a number of people besides, although not to the general public. As we have seen, it had been expressed to Sidney Low in March 1917. Later, in October 1917, when it was becoming clear that the Russian revolution was a communist one, Beatrice Webb, in a diary note of a conversation with Tom Jones, one of the Prime Minister’s Secretaries, wrote: ‘The War Cabinet is much perturbed at the rumours of revolutionary feeling among the workers.... Milner is said to be the most alarmed and to be hankering after peace by agreement with the Hohenzollerns lest worse befall the British and German Junker classes alike.’18 Five months later, on 1 March 1918, she and Sidney were invited to dine with Haldane to meet the Prime Min¬ ister. She recorded: ‘It was clear from our talk that the PM and Milner are thinking of a peace at the expense of Russia. . . . His desire for us to meet Milner may be connected with the possible sacrifice of Russia and her revolution. He wants to know how the Labour Party would take such a peace.... I was not responsive. . . ,’19 Two days later she noted:

The Unexpected Victory

315

‘The surmise that Haldane is at heart an aristocrat and an Imperialist and an Imperialist and is working with Milner and Lloyd George was yesterday verified. ... We decided that peace at the expense of Russia would mean the defeat of all that Wilson and international socialism desired.’ And on 7 March: ‘I think it is unfair to blame Haldane and Milner for wishing to make peace with the German Junkers . . . Milner by birth, training and temperament, has an almost identical make-up with that of the German Imperialist—he admires the same characteris¬ tics in men and States. . . . Both these public-spirited and highly-gifted men honestly believe in German civilisation. . . . But neither Haldane nor Milner have the moral fastidiousness necessary to realise the sheer brutal devilry of the German world Empire....’ She concluded, gloom¬ ily, for at that time the war was going badly for the Allies: ‘It is of course conceivable that we may be forced to accept a German peace.’20 On 13 June, Clifford Sharp, editor of the New Statesman, wrote to Wickham Steed, Foreign Editor of The Times, about the conversation, recorded above, between the Webbs and Lloyd George and Haldane, telling him that ‘the chief exponent of the idea of a negotiated peace with Germany at Russia’s expense is Milner, who has converted twothirds of his colleagues. .. . The idea is moribund at the moment, but is likely to be revived shortly. Milner keeps his head, but in his heart is more of a believer in German culture than Haldane even.’21 Northcliffe was ‘scandalised’ at Sharp’s information and ‘agreed with Steed to attack the plan’.22 But there followed almost immediately the successful Allied counter-offensive in France and the ‘plan’ to open negotiations with Germany, if it ever existed, was not pursued. Northcliffe had to wait for an opportunity to attack Milner until it was presented to him by an interview given by Milner which was pub¬ lished in the Evening Standard on 17 October 1918. In this interview, given at a time when Milner was conferring with his Cabinet colleagues, with the French, and with the Anglo-French commanders, on the sub¬ ject of immediate armistice and eventual peace terms with Germany, he stated that he looked forward in the very near future to ‘a complete and final victory for the Allies either by the unconditional surrender of Ger¬ many or by an armistice on conditions imposed by our military leaders.’ The German people were faced with the complete collapse of their military machine. He believed that they would be ready of their own accord to reform their political system and thought that they should be left to do so in accordance with the principle of self-determination laid

316

Milner: Apostle of Empire

down by President Wilson. ‘What constitutes complete victory? The destruction of Prussian militarism. All other aims fade into insignificance compared with this primary object. The punishment of the men who made the war, and were responsible for its crimes, the question of re¬ parations, even territorial adjustments, are all secondary to the one object of making Prussianism impotent for evil. There is a danger of the des¬ truction of Prussian militarism being postponed by subsidiary questions being raised in such a fashion as to strengthen German resistance. . . . When the Germans see the complete and ignominious defeat of mili¬ tarism ... they will be as eager to do away with it as the Allies. A com¬ plete transformation of the German system of government is in pro¬ gress. ... We should not be in too great a hurry to denounce it as a sham. There is need to think more of victory and less of vengeance. The present holders of power are responsible to the Reichstag and the Reich¬ stag is the only popular elected assembly in Germany. It is in the interests of the Allies to see a stable government in Germany.... We do not want to see Bolshevism and chaos rampant there.’23 The Evening Standard interview seems to have been given without previous consultation with his Cabinet colleagues. In the Commons on 23 October, Bonar Law told a questioner that the interview had been given by Milner on his own responsibility. A leader in the Evening Standard on the same day stated: ‘Many people would be willing to accept Lord Milner’s view that the German masses dislike militarism if there were any convincing proofs. . . . Who speaks for the German people? The Reichstag applauded the invasion of Belgium, approved the submarine murders . . . and has taken no step to condemn Prussian militarism. How can such a body be trusted?’ Northclifie, who had been waiting for an opportunity to attack Milner for what he regarded as his ‘softness’ towards the Germans, and his popular Press, were less tem¬ perate in their criticisms. The Evening News, on 28 October, had a leading article entitled ‘Lord Milner in Paris’ in which it was stated that the interview had ‘caused a feeling of disagreeable surprise, not only here but in the USA. Lord Milner assumes that the German people were not really in love with militarism and that before the war public feeling against it was rapidly growing. ... He also deprecated attempts to dis¬ miss the democratisation of the German Government as insincere. . . . The whole tone of the interview, with its readiness to make excuses for the Huns, was entirely antipathetic to the vast body of public opinion in this country. We all know that as long as things appeared to be going

The Unexpected Victory

3*7

well for the Huns ... the whole German nation endorsed and applauded the worst outrages. Lord Milner does not represent public opinion in this country. Whom and what does he represent in Paris? Does he rep¬ resent the views of the Government or does he not? The question is one which demands an immediate answer/ On 4 November the Daily Mail followed this up with a leader en¬ titled ‘Lord Milner’s Blunder’, which complained that the interview had been given immediately after ‘President Wilson’s downright declaration that we had no faith in the present rulers of Germany and was capable of being read in Germany as an intimation that the Allies were not united on this point and that the British Government were prepared to give Germany easier terms in order to save it from Bolshevism. This illadvised utterance . . . has given rise to suspicion in democratic quarters where suspicion is undersirable and unfounded.... It has been rumoured that Lord Milner offered his resignation and that it was refused. If he should by any chance repeat the offer, there should be no second refusal.’ On 6 November another Daily Mail leader, entitled ‘Milner’s Mischief’, complained that ‘the Government have not disavowed the interpretation which has been placed on Lord Milner’s words. ... He himself has not done so but... has continued to express the same opinions. He has com¬ promised the Government and he has compromised the King. He has encouraged our enemies and has shaken the confidence of our Allies in us/ The interview was a deliberate, although inept, part of Milner’s at¬ tempts to try to ensure that the Germans were not driven to chaos leading to Bolshevism. It attracted no popular support at all. He had already alienated the Left by his fear and detestation of the Russian revolution. He was now alienating the Right by his ‘softness’ towards Germany. In a letter to Hugh Thornton, previously his Private Secre¬ tary, about the Standard interview, Milner wrote: ‘I think the rift in the lute which this incident has revealed ... is ominous for the future. When it comes to settling terms of peace it is certain that, unless the present hysteria has subsided, I shall find myself more out of touch with pre¬ valent opinion as represented by the Press than ever. And, as I am cer¬ tainly not going to join hands with the Ramsay Macdonald crowd, I think my chances of a long holiday are improving.’24 The interview, which had so excited the Northcliffe Press, does not seem to have disturbed Milner’s relations with his colleagues, British or Allied. On 24 October he crossed over to France with Amery. On 25

318

Milner: Apostle of Empire

October he spent the clay between Paris and Versailles, seeing Clemenceau in Paris and Henry Wilson and Haig at Versailles. On 27 October Lloyd George joined him at Versailles for armistice discussions at what was to prove the last war-time meeting of the Supreme War Council. ‘. . . The internal moral collapse of Germany, and more particularly of her High Command, had been gathering momentum at a rate which we never suspected . . . Ludendorff . . . was now insisting on immediate armistice on any terms. . . . Germany had announced her acceptance of President Wilson’s famous Fourteen Points. . . . We were prepared to swallow most of them. But Lloyd George made it clear to Colonel House, Wilson’s eminence grise, . . . that we would continue the war single-handed rather than accept the so-called freedom of the seas. Nor were any of the Allies, least of all Clemenceau, prepared to acquiesce in the idea that Germany should get off scot-free. .. . On 4 November the Supreme War Council accepted the armistice terms for Germany pro¬ posed by Foch. . . . On purely military grounds these demands went far beyond anything that the Germans could be expected to look at. At the meeting at which they were considered by the three Allied Cs-in-C Haig said so emphatically. . . . Foch brushed all this aside. “I know my Germans and they will accept.” He was right. Army and public had mutually infected each other with despair. Nothing could stop the rot. The Kaiser abdicated and fled. Erzberger, the emissary of a socialist President, came to bow to what the events of a week of chaos had made inevitable.’25 Milner, in his note of the armistice discussions, described the terms as ‘in my opinion absurd’.26 Immediately after the Supreme War Council meeting Milner had a talk with Henry Wilson about the ‘new situation in the East’. Now that the German war was over Milner was anxious to prevent any possibility of communist penetration into what is now’ known as the Middle East. Wilson recorded; ‘Much talk with Milner about our future action in Europe, in Russia, in Siberia. We are entirely agreed to keep out of Austria-Hungary, Poland, Rumania, Ukraine and north of Black Sea. But . . . from the left bank of the Don to India is our interest and our preserve.’ He agreed with Milner that ‘our real danger now is not the Boches but Bolshevism.’27 A week later, on 11 November, the armistice with Germany was signed and the war was over. A few days later, at a dinner party attended by Austen Chamberlain, Fred Oliver, Geoffrey Robinson (Dawson) and Leo Amery, it was

The Unexpected Victory

319

agreed in the course of a discussion that the four men on the British side who had contributed most to the winning of the war were, in order of merit, Lloyd George, Milner, Henry Wilson and Hankey.28 Next day, Oliver wrote to Milner to tell him about it, and added: ‘I think the Goat29 should get his due. ... Of course, if he lives he will be crucified head downwards in a year or two by a grateful country.’30 He was. As Secretary of State for War, Milner’s most immediate task, after the Armistice, was to make arrangements for demobilisation. It was a very tricky assignment indeed, and one which Milner was not particu¬ larly well-equipped to handle. There was the anxiety, if that is not too mild a word, of all ranks to get out of the army as soon as possible. This frequently led to conditions not far removed from mutiny. There was the desirability of releasing as soon as possible men in essential civilian occupations without regard to length of service. This obviously caused resentment from men with long service who had less essential civilian occupations. There was the necessity for keeping sufficient men in the army to enable the country to bear its share of policing half a world which had fallen into chaos. As Milner told the Prime Minister on 24 December: ‘It is impossible to reduce our military strength at the pace contemplated without throwing away the fruits of victory. The supreme duty of all Allied nations is to prevent disorder from spreading. If Ger¬ many falls to pieces, if the Bolsheviks overrun the Baltic Provinces, it is good-bye to the prospect of an orderly and peaceful Europe. ... And it is difficult to see how the Allies can prevent such disorder by military action.. . . But there are other great areas of the world where the Allies are not equally helpless. ... If Eastern and Central Europe are in the melting-pot there is all the more reason for saving Asia from a like fate.’31 Milner’s difficulties were increased as a result of his deteriorating re¬ lations with the Prime Minister who, what with reaction from the strain of war and anxiety about the forthcoming General Election, was be¬ coming very irritable and difficult to deal with. On 13 November, two days after the Armistice, Milner wrote to him, almost plaintively, asking him to get the Cabinet ‘to give one clear half-hour without delay to the future of the army.’ The War Office had made ample arrangements for demobilisation and the real risk was, that in six months’ time, unless some clear policy were decided on, the country would find itself without an army at all. On 6 December, there was a serious row. At a Cabinet meeting on demobilisation, at which several Civil Servants were present, Lloyd

320

Milner: Apostle of Empire

George lost his temper and criticised Milner’s administration of the War Office. Milner noted that the Prime Minister was ‘rather more than offensive in his complaints of the slowness at which miners were being released.’ Next day he recorded that he had written ‘a long and stiff letter to the PM about the rather indecent proceeding in Cabinet.’ This is what he wrote: ‘Ever since it became evident that the war . . . was practically over, I have been anxious to ask you for my “discharge”. During the two years that I have spent in your Ministry, I have till lately had the satisfaction of feeling that I was of some real use to you and the country, and I shall always be grateful to you for having given me the opportunity of doing such important work. I am sure no one else in that position would have given me that chance, and I have sought to repay you by strenuous and loyal service. But in itself official life has become very irksome to me in these days. I am extremely tired. ... To be quite frank, and I know how you love frankness, my desire to with¬ draw from the arena has been quickened by the impatience which you have of late frequently manifested at my conduct of affairs at the WO. ... What I am not willing to accept is a position in which I am exposed to such vehement charges of dilatoriness and neglect as you made yesterday, in the presence of a large number of people, many of them not Ministers. ... To submit to that sort of public rebuke without a protest, or to expose myself to a chance of repetition is, I feel, not con¬ sistent with self-respect. The last thing I wish to do is to add to your burdens.... I am quite ready to carry on at the WO until the Election is over.... At the same time I should like you to feel that, if you found it convenient to make a change even before then, I am prepared at any moment to fall in with your wishes.’32 Immediately on receipt of this letter, the Prime Minister sent for Milner and, we may assume, turned the whole battery of his considerable charm onto him. Milner recorded: ‘We had a friendly discussion ending in a compromise. We will wait and see what happens after the Election.’ The General Election, fought in December, on a register which for the first time included women voters over the age of 30, was called the ‘coupon’ election. Candidates of whatever Party who supported a con¬ tinuance of the Coalition were given a letter signed by Lloyd George and Bonar Law supporting their candidature. As far as sitting Members were concerned the sheep were separated from the goats by the way in which they had voted in the Maurice debate in May. Those who had supported the Government on that occasion were given the ‘coupon’.

The Unexpected Victory

321

Those who had voted against the Government or those who, being present, had abstained, were not. In the result, ‘coupon’ candidates were elected in an overwhelming majority of seats, giving the Coalition Government a mandate for negotiating the peace and for post-war reconstruction. The final figures were: 338 Unionists and 136 Lloyd George Liberals for the Coalition, 59 Labour and 26 Asquith Liberals for the Opposition. Milner took no part in the Election, which showed British democracy at its worst, with crowds demanding that the Kaiser be hanged and the Germans made to pay for the war by ‘squeezing them until the pips squeak’. The Prime Minister, on the subject of reparations, had induced the Imperial War Cabinet to agree to the following formula: ‘To en¬ deavour to secure from Germany the greatest possible indemnity she can pay consistently with the economic well-being of the British Empire and the peace of the world, and without involving an army of occupa¬ tion in Germany for its collection.’ But in the Election, Lloyd George, intent on carrying the electors with him, promised that the Germans would be made to ‘pay to the uttermost farthing and we shall search their pockets for it.’ All this was very distasteful to Milner. But, surprisingly, having made it up with Lloyd George, he agreed to become a member of his post¬ election Coalition Cabinet. He relinquished the War Office to his old enemy, Churchill, and accepted the Secretaryship of State to the Colonies, on condition that Leo Amery was appointed as his Parliamentary UnderSecretary. And so, on 10 January 1919, he entered upon a new term of office under Lloyd George’s Premiership. He was also appointed as one of the British Delegation to the Peace Conference, which was about to open in Paris.

NOTES ON CHAPTER FOURTEEN 1. 2. 3. 4.

Hankey, op. cit., II, p. 809. ibid., p. 813. ibid. Milner Additional Papers, c. 696.

5. ibid. 6. L. S. Amery, op. cit., II, p. 159. 7. Hankey, op. cit., II, p. 830.

3 22

Milner: Apostle of Empire

8. Calwell, op. cit., II, p. 119. 9. Hankey, op. cit., II, p. 825. 10. L. S. Amery, op. cit., II, p. 116. Amery also records that, while at Criccieth, they all ‘went for many long walks on the near hills’ and that, one day, Lloyd George and Milner took off their shoes and socks to paddle in the river Dwyfor and ‘both promptly walked into a deep pool over their waists.’ (ibid). 11. MP 302. 12. MP 146. 13. Calwell, op. cit., II, p. 125. 14. ibid., p. 126. 15. ibid., p. 129. 16. Lloyd George, War Memoirs, op. cit., II, p. 1493. 17. Calwell, op. cit., II, p. 134. 18. Margaret Cole (ed.) Beatrice Webb's Diaries 1912-1914 (Longmans Green, 1952), p. 97. 19. ibid., p. hi. 20. ibid., p.115. Intellectual socialists, like the Webbs, who were almost unanimously against the war at the beginning, became more belligerent than the most belli¬ gerent Tories when it was a question of defending, not their own country, but the Russian revolution. In the Second World war the same people, or their political descendants, displayed the same gyrations—enthusiasm for a war against Hitler until the Hitler-Stalin pact, followed by renewed anti-German belligerency when Hitler attacked Russia in 1941. 21. The Fabian socialists, represented by the Webbs and the editor of the New Statesman, were quite prepared, in the interests of the Russian revolution, to combine with Northcliffe, and all his jingo associations, in an endeavour to defeat what they regarded as a plot by Milner and Lloyd George to conclude a negotiated peace with Germany at a time when such a negotiated peace seemed the only alternative to a long, bloody, and possibly unsuccessful, war. For text of Clifford Sharp’s letter see History of the Times, Vol. IV, Part I, p. 360. 22. ibid. 23. The same idea had been expressed rather less tactfully by F. S. Oliver to Milner in August 1917. ‘Do you think that it would be a good thing if the German people put the Hohenzollerns into a lumber chest and set the crown on the head of our old friend Demos? . . . Would you trust the word of the German people further than the word of the Kaiser? I wouldn’t.’ (MP 222.) 24. MP 221. 25. L. S. Amery, op. cit., II, pp. 170-2. 26. MP 222. 27. Calwell, op. cit., II, p. 148. 28. L. S. Amery, op. cit., II, p. 172. 29. A nickname for Lloyd George which may have been invented by the Round Table group. 30. MP 222. 31. MP 146. 32. Gollin, op. cit., p. 580, quoting from Lloyd George Papers.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Colonial Secretary

It might have been expected that Lord Milner, as one of the most

influential members of a Cabinet which had seen the war through to a victorious conclusion, and of a Government which had, by an over¬ whelming majority, just won from the electorate a mandate for another five years of rule, would have been willing and able to use the political eminence which he had attained—his influence with the Prime Minister and his colleagues, his position in the Government, and his reputation in the country—to bring to fruition those political objectives—Tariff Reform, Imperial Unity, social reform, National Service—on which he had so long set his heart, and to lend the weight of his influence to the Prime Minister over the negotiation of the peace treaties on the lines with which he had publicly associated himself, and with which Lloyd George was in general agreement. He had, in 1917, suggested to the Prime Minister the formation of a Centre Party, based on the Coalition’s Parliamentary supporters, which he presumably envisaged as the instru¬ ment for carrying out the sort of programme he had in mind. And, shortly before the Election, he had pressed upon the Prime Minister a policy of Tariff Reform and the introduction of overdue social changes. But, when it came to the point, none of this came about. Milner took little part in the formation of the new Government’s domestic policy which, in spite of Lloyd George’s election rant about ‘homes fit for heroes’ and so on, was a purely opportunist one, directed by ‘hardfaced men who looked as if they had done well out of the war’, to use Baldwin’s phrase. The policy of rehabilitating British agriculture, adopted on Milner’s insistence during the war, and designed to provide more land under cultivation, greater security for the farmer, and better wages for the agricultural labourer, was abandoned. The war-time con¬ trols over coal-mining and the railways, which Milner considered should be extended to permanent public ownership, were allowed to lapse. The

324

Milner: Apostle of Empire

idea of compulsory National Service was dropped like a hot coal in the wake of several near-mutinies over demobilisation delays. In spite of agreement in principle over preferential tariffs, and in spite of the fact that Milner himself was Colonial Secretary for two years immediately after the war, virtually no progress was made towards Imperial Unity. After his retirement, an Irish settlement was arrived at clean contrary to his ideas and leading, as he had foreseen, to the separation of Ireland, less the Six Counties, not only from the United Kingdom but from the British Empire. Although he was one of the British delegates to the Peace Conference, his activities there were confined almost entirely to secondary matters, and he had no influence at all over the settlements of the larger questions—the German reparations and territorial adjust¬ ments, the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire—which were arrived at on terms directly contrary to his own ideas. Even after his abstention from political activity over the General Election, which might have been attributable to disgust at the prospect of having to pander to the worst instincts of an hysterically vindictive British electorate, it might have been expected that his acceptance of the Colonial Office in the new Government would have presaged some attempt to put his Imperial ideas into practice, some attempt to carry on the work of Joseph Chamberlain, his political mentor. But most of his two-year term at the Colonial Office was spent, first in attendance at the Peace Conference, where he was mainly engaged on comparatively unimportant matters, and then on a mission to Egypt, after which his recommendations, although destined to be a blue-print for the shape of things to come in that country, were not received with enthusiasm by his Cabinet colleagues at the time. In his tenure of the Colonial Office, he may have realised what was indeed the fact, that direct dealings with the British and with each other’s Governments without the intermediary of the Colonial Office had, during the course of the war, been conceded to the self-governing Dominions. As a result the effective functions of the Colonial Office were confined to the administration of the Dependent Empire, excluding India. The task of preparing the Dependent Empire for self-government had not yet entered the realm of practical politics. But the development of its vast, and largely untapped, natural resources, which might have been expected to appeal to Milner’s Imperial enthus¬ iasm, his administrative genius, and his business acumen, was very much a matter of practical politics. But, for some reason, he never got down to it.

Colonial Secretary

325

It is idle now to attempt to assess the reasons for this virtual abdication from power. It may have been due to fatigue. He was not an old man, as politicians go—he was only 64 at the end of the war, younger far than Clemenceau and only four years older than Curzon. But he was not a particularly strong man and, in his later years, seemed to lack vitality. He was seldom, or indeed never until his last illness, seriously ill, but he was often ‘not quite well’. Milner himself realised that he was no longer at the centre of things. In a letter dated 24 March 1919 to Bishop Hamilton Baynes, whom he had known in South Africa as Anglican Bishop of Pietermaritzburg, who was incidentally his twin, having been born on the same day, and with whom he maintained a correspondence extending over twenty years, he wrote: ‘I disapprove of a great deal that is being done and am not in as good a position as I was to influence things in what I consider is the right direction. In domestic politics the Government is I think doing what it should, and I believe that here at home we have got through our troubles. There will be great social changes, but there ought to be, so long as they are effected by reasonable means. . . . But the Peace Con¬ ference is making a mess of things. It is not wholly or mainly our fault, though we must bear some share of the blame. But unless we settle something quickly and approach Germany with terms far more moderate than those usually contemplated, we shall go to disaster. It would not take much to plunge all Eastern and Central Europe into Bolshevism and chaos.’1 And on 25 May 1919, writing to his old friend Henry Birchenough: ‘Personal influence is such a varying thing and just now I am not in the disposition to use it with the PM.’2 Going through Milner’s diary for 1919? there is, on 9 January, a record of a ‘long talk with Churchill’, his successor at the War Office, and a meeting with Bonar Law, who told him that his condition for going to the Colonial Office—having Amery as his Under-Secretary—• had been accepted by the Prime Minister. A few days later he took over at the Colonial Office and then, according to Amery, immediately ‘went off for a fortnight’s much-needed holiday to his country home at Sturry, telling me that I might as well begin to learn swimming by myself.’3 One old friend Milner met at the Colonial Office was Fiddes, now Sir George Fiddes, previously his Imperial Secretary in South Africa and now Permanent Under-Secretary at the Colonial Office. On 28 January there is a record of a Round Table Moot

the first for

some time at which Milner had been present—about finance. On 5

326

Milner: Apostle of Empire

February he went to Paris for the Peace Conference. On 7 February he had breakfast in Paris with Lloyd George who asked him to be British representative on a Committee of the Supreme War Council dealing with disarmament. The other Allied representatives were Tardieu, France, and Lansing, USA. On 8 February there was a meeting of the Supreme War Council at which there was ‘a row between Clemenceau and Foch’ and the adoption of‘a fluffy Resolution of President Wilson’s on disarmament’. On the same day Milner recorded having a talk with T. E. Lawrence. On 9 February there was another meeting of the Supreme War Council and lunch with Balfour. On 11 February he met Clemenceau and ‘came to a fairly satisfactory agreement about Syria’. He also met Orlando and Sonnino, the Italian Premier and Foreign Minister, and discussed peace terms with the Bulgarian delegation. On 13 February he had ‘a talk with AJB and Hankey about Prinkipo’ and saw ‘an unspeakably tiresome Syrian and an American missionary’. On 14 February there was a Plenary Session of the Peace Conference at which President Wilson read a draft Covenant of the League of Nations. Milner left Paris for London on 15 February, travelling with Smuts and Botha. On 18 February he saw Geoffrey Robinson, who had just resigned the editorship of The Times, owing to a disagreement with Northcliffe, who was by this time virtually off his head and insisting that The Times joined in his newspapers’ vendetta against Lloyd George and the Coalition Government. On 19 February he returned to Paris and called on Clemenceau, who had just been shot and wounded by a would-be assassin. He had ‘long discussions’ with Henry Wilson, Haig, Lawrence (COS to Haig), and Radcliffe about the ‘military preliminaries of peace’. On 20 February he attended a meeting of the British Empire Delegation to the Peace Conference (which consisted substantially of members of the Imperial War Cabinet), with Balfour in the chair. On 21 February he had ‘a long talk with T. E. Lawrence about Syria’, the disposal of which had become one of his principal and most tiresome responsibilities. On 22 February he had a ‘discussion about India and East Africa’ with Montagu (Secretary of State for India) and Colonial Office officials. He also attended a Plenary Session of the Peace Con¬ ference, at which there was ‘a row between Balfour and Sonnino’. On 23 February he ‘discussed the Egyptian situation with Balfour’. He was to become intimately concerned with this later in the year. On 25 February he saw Lucien Wolf, who told him about the views of nonZionist Jews. On 26 February he dealt with the future of Armenia. On

327

Colonial Secretary

27 February he dealt with the East African Mandate and with Zionism and had a talk about reparations with J. M. Keynes. On 1 March he chaired a meeting of the British Empire delegation, and on 3 March had ‘a long and unsatisfactory discussion about disarmament’. On 5 March he had a talk with Gertrude Bell, who was drafting the Mandate for Iraq (as Mesopotamia was by this time known). On 6 March he wrote a memorandum about Mandates, discussed proposed Mandates for the Cameroons and Togoland with the French Delegation, and saw the Prime Minister. On 7 March he took Lady Dawkins, the widow of his old friend, to Versailles for the day, and had dinner with Lloyd George in the evening. On 8 March he wrote a memorandum on Syria for the Prime Minister, and on 9 March he returned to London. Milner’s primary concern at the Peace Conference was with Mandates —the disposal of ex-enemy colonies and possessions which had been captured by the Allies during the war. In deference to President Wilson’s ideas about self-determination, the concept of a ‘mandate’ had been devised to provide for the exercise of a trusteeship answerable to the League of Nations by the Power to whose care each piece of ex-enemy territory was allocated. The object of the trusteeship was to prepare each of these territories for eventual self-government. The mandates were divided into three categories—A, B, and C

according to the estimated

extent of readiness for self-government possessed by the inhabitants of the various territories concerned. The B and C mandates

territories

whose inhabitants were regraded as being still in a comparatively primitive state, presented no serious difficulty and were, generally, allotted to the Power which had captured them—German East Africa, or Tanganyika as it was re-named—to Great Britain, with a small slice adjacent to the Congo—Ruanda—to Belgium, the Cameroons and most of Togoland to France, German South-West Africa (Namibia) to South Africa, German New Guinea to Australia, Samoa to New Zealand, the Caroline and Marshall Islands to Japan etc. There was some difficulty over colonial compensation to the Italians, who had not captured any enemy colonies, but who expected to be awarded something. But the principal difficulty was over the A mandates

the non-Turkish terri¬

tories of the Ottoman Empire. Milner’s views on Italian Colonial compensation in East Africa are interesting in the light of after-events. In a note dated 16 May to the Prime Minister he wrote: ‘It seems a bad plan to regard the existing British possessions under our direct control, which are all that we really

328

Milner: Apostle of Empire

own and are reasonably certain of maintaining, as something to be lightly parted with. ... We cannot afford to disinterest ourselves in Abyssinia. The plain and indeed avowed object of the Italians is the ultimate absorption of that country. One has only to look at the map to see how serious the setting-up of an Italian Empire, half as big as British India, in the NE corner of Africa, would be. It would cut right into the heart of that great sphere of British influence extending from East Africa, through the Sudan, Egypt, Arabia and the Persian Gulf, to India. The existence of a huge Italian block flanking our marine route to India and bringing Italy into close relations with Arabia and the Sudan . . . certainly means trouble for us in the future with both countries.... The independence of Arabia has always been a fundamental principle of our Eastern policy, but what we mean by independence is that it should be kept out of the sphere of European intrigue and within the sphere of British influence; in other words that her independent rulers should have no foreign treaties except with us. . . . We have certain vital interests in Abyssinia which we must safeguard, especially the headwaters of the Blue Nile upon which the cotton cultivation of the Sudan absolutely depends. If we give up Somaliland we give up the only lever we have got for ensuring the protection of these interests when the Italians pro¬ ceed to penetrate Abyssinia, which they certainly will do.’4 In a later memorandum to the Prime Minister dated 30 May, he wrote that, so far as Great Britain was concerned, he had agreed to give Italy what she asked for in Libya (at the expense of Egypt) and Jubaland (on the border between Italian Somaliland and Kenya), but had ‘declined to budge’ over British Somaliland. ‘As long as the future of Abyssinia, which is one of the most serious international problems of the near future, remains undecided, neither France, Italy nor England can be expected to give up any position now held by them from which they can exercise an influence on the future of that country. That is why France is so stiff over Jibuti. We are in the same position re Berbera. . . . Italy is dissatisfied with what we are prepared to offer and the committee has not come to any agreement.’6 Eventually the Italians settled for what Milner had already offered them. The disposal of the non-Turkish territories of the Ottoman Empire was be-devilled by conflicting commitments made during the war. (i) The ‘McMahon letter’ to King Husain had promised independence to the Arabs over the Arabian Peninsula and over an ill-defined area of the Fertile Crescent; (ii) the Sykes-Picot Agreement had allotted British

Colonial Secretary

329

and French ‘spheres of influence’ over the whole of the Fertile Crescent, except for Palestine, which was to be internationalised, (iii) The Balfour Declaration had promised Palestine as a ‘national home’ for the ‘Jewish people’, (iv) The Treaty of St. Jean de Maurienne had promised Italy the district of Adalia in S.W. Asia Minor; (v) The Greeks had been promised the area around Smyrna. In addition, there was a general feeling that those Armenians remaining in Eastern Asia Minor whom the Turks had neglected to massacre should be made independent of their Turkish oppressors and given their own homeland.6 It was Milner’s business at the Peace Conference to try to sort all this out. His general views were given to George Lloyd, a Unionist MP, a dedicated Imperialist, and a future Governor of Bombay and High Commissioner of Egypt, in a letter dated 2 April 1919: ‘I am strongly in favour of reasonable clemency to the Turks. ... It is certain that their domination over the Arabs has come to an end and I would like to do everything possible to save what remains of the Armenians from their clutches. But, once confined to their own boundaries, in which I should personally include a portion of Turkey in Europe as far as Adrianople, the Turks ought to be regarded as our potential friends.... This would enormously strengthen our position in South Asia and Egypt. In this limited sense I am pro-Turkish, though it means swimming against the current, which continues to run in the opposite direction. I have done and shall do anything in my power to mitigate the “bagand baggage” policy.’7 Virtually nothing about Turkey was settled during the sittings of the Peace Conference. A year later, the Mandates were allocated at San Remo, and a peace treaty signed with the Turks at Sevres, which aban¬ doned the Armenians to their fate, since nobody was willing to accept a Mandate for Armenia, confirmed the Mandates awarded at San Remo, and awarded large portions of Asia Minor to the French, Greeks and Italians respectively. The following year this disposal of Asia Minor was scattered to the winds as the result of a Turkish national revival under Mustafa Kemal, who overthrew the Ottoman Sultanate and established a Turkish Republic under his own Presidency. The new State concluded with the Allied Powers the Treaty of Lausanne, which confirmed Turkey in the possession of approximately her present boundaries, less the Sanjak of Alexandretta, ceded to Turkey by the French in 1938 in the exercise of their Mandate over Syria. Milner’s dealings over Syria at the Peace Conference were concen¬ trated on trying to find a modus vivendi between the French, who had

330

Milner: Apostle of Empire

been allocated Syria under the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and the Arabs, to whom the British had promised most of Syria in the McMahon letter to King Hussain of the Hijaz. After weeks of inconclusive negotiations, including some stormy sessions with his friend Clemenceau, who com¬ plained that ‘if Milner does not agree with you, he closes his eyes like a lizard and you can do nothing with him/8 the question was left un¬ decided, with the French in occupation of Beirut and the coastal area and the Arabs under the Amir Faisal in possession of Damascus and the interior. Milner’s views on the subject were expressed in a note to Lloyd George dated 8 March: ‘Although I am aware that I have almost every Government authority against me, I am totally opposed to trying to diddle the French out of Syria.’ He proposed a solution whereby the French would have the coast and the Arabs the interior, with a corridor to the sea at Tripoli. The French would have primacy in the Arab State to the extent that any foreign officials or experts the Arabs required would be French. ‘What this means is that the material development of the country would be undertaken by the French. The railways, ports and other public works would be run by them, while the Administration would be substantially native. . . .’ He added: ‘If we are to play the honest broker between the French and Faisal, the French must fulfil their promises to us over Palestine and Mosul.’9 In the event, in 1920, at the San Remo Conference the French ‘fulfilled their promises’ by letting the British have Palestine and Mosul, and the British, so far from acting as ‘honest brokers’, left Faisal to be dealt with by the French, who turned him and his Administration out of the interior of Syria, which they proceeded to administer themselves, together with the coastal region which they were already administering. The British compen¬ sated Faisal by elevating him to the throne of the British mandated territory of Iraq. At the Peace Conference, Milner also had to mediate between the French, the Arabs, and the Zionists over Palestine. This question, like the Syrian question, was not settled until the following year. Palestine, or most of it, had been given an international status under the terms of the Sykes-Picot Agreement arrived at in 1916 between Great Britain, France and Russia. In 1915, under the terms of the McMahon ‘letter* it had, rather equivocally, been awarded to the Arabs. In 1917 it had, under the terms of the Balfour Declaration, been allotted by the British Govern¬ ment as a ‘national home for the Jewish people’.

Milner’s task at the Peace Conference, as a member of the War Cabinet

Colonial Secretary

331

which had underwritten the Balfour Declaration, and as a convinced Zionist himself, was to try to reconcile the Arabs to the Declaration by negotiating an agreement with the French over Syria which would leave both French and Arabs reasonably satisfied. Not surprisingly, he failed to do this. Milner’s interest in Zionism seems first to have been excited by Herbert Samuel who, when Milner joined the War Cabinet in December 1916, sent him a memorandum suggesting that it would be desirable for Great Britain, from the point of view of the defence of the Suez Canal, to have possession of Palestine. This possession might be secured, the memorandum suggested, by British sponsorship of a Jewish National Home in Palestine. The memorandum had originally been prepared by Samuel when he had been a member of the Asquith Government. But Asquith had shown no enthusiasm for the idea. Samuel evidently hoped to have better luck with the members of the Lloyd George War Cabinet. Milner replied to Samuel expressing his interest and telling him that the idea of a British-sponsored Jewish National Home in Palestine was ‘new to him’ and seemed ‘attractive’. As a not a very ardent francophil and as one who was very insistent on the necessity for Great Britain asserting her predominance in the Middle East, he was no doubt impressed with Samuel’s argument about the possible danger of a French occupation of southern Syria on the ground that ‘we cannot proceed on the assumption that our present happy relations with France will continue always’. Leonard Stein, the historian of the Balfour Declaration, quotes Ormsby-Gore, one of Milner’s PPSs, as telling him that Milner, some¬ time in the Summer of 1917, had expressed himself as being ‘a convinced supporter of Zionism’. This recollection is confirmed in a report by Claud Montefiore, an anti-Zionist English Jew, who went to see Milner in May 1917. He told his colleagues on the Conjoint Foreign Committee (a British-Jewish community organisation) that ‘Milner agreed that Mr. Lloyd George was impressed by and sympathetic to many of the ideas of the Zionists. His own view ... seemed to favour the establishment of a Jewish community in Palestine, or parts of Palestine, under a British protectorate. Within its own borders such a community would be autonomous, but it would not be an independent State.... He was very emphatic in his opinion that I exaggerated the dangers of Zionism.’10 Several members of Milner’s entourage became converts to Zionism. Amery was converted by Mark Sykes, his co-assistant secretary to the War Cabinet. He tells us that his ‘interest was at first largely strategical’

332

Milner: Apostle of Empire

but that ‘it was not long before I realised what Jewish energy in every field of thought and action might mean for the regeneration of the whole of that Middle Eastern region which was the home of the world’s most ancient civilisations.’11 Amery describes Milner, together with Lloyd George and Smuts, as ‘whole-hearted sympathisers’ with Zionism.12 The Round Table group discussed Zionism at a Moot in March 1917, at which Milner was not present. In the June 1917 issue of the Round Table there was a sympathetic article about Zionism, with a reference to Palestine as ‘a British Protectorate with a prospect of being able to grow into a British Dominion’. In view of Milner’s position in the War Cabinet, and of his known relationship with the Round Table group, it can be assumed that this article was published with his approval. Amery describes the drawing-up, approval and issue of the Balfour Declaration. ‘By the middle of July negotiations (i.e. between the Zionists and the Foreign Office) had advanced so far that Balfour let the Zionists know that he was prepared to agree to a declaration accepting the principle that Palestine be reconstituted as the national home of the Jewish people. But at this stage strong objections were urged by a part of the Jewish community in this country . . . who viewed with the gravest misgiving a movement which might seem to cast doubt on their own status as British citizens. Their view was voiced in the ranks of the Government itself by Edwin Montagu.... Such doubts as some members of the War Cabinet had felt were reinforced. Decision was postponed from week to week and, when the matter came up for definite decision early in October ... the issue was by no means certain. Half an hour before the meeting Milner looked in. . . . He told me of the difficulties and showed me one or two alternative drafts which had been suggested, with none of which he was quite satisfied. Could I draft something which would go a reasonable distance to meeting the objectors, both Jewish and pro-Arab, without impairing the substance of the proposed declaration?’ Amery goes on to describe how he made out a draft which, with minor alterations, became the final text of the Balfour Declaration.12 Balfour presented the case for the Declaration to the War Cabinet. The arguments he advanced did not include the strategic argument, originally advanced by Samuel, which had converted Milner. He argued that the Declaration would (i) recruit support for the Allies among the Russian Jews who were thought to be influential in Russian revolution¬ ary circles; (ii) forestall an expected German pro-Zionist commitment; and (iii) attract to the Allied cause the powerful support of American-

Colonial Secretary

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Jewish finance. These arguments, although totally illusory, convinced the majority of the War Cabinet. In the debate in the War Cabinet, Lloyd George, Milner, Smuts and Barnes were in favour of the Declara¬ tion, Bonar Law neutral, and Curzon against. Curzon circulated to his colleagues a prescient note pointing out the folly of reducing the Arabs of Palestine to ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’ for the Zionists. But, faced with a near unanimity of opposition from his colleagues, he withdrew his objections. And so the War Cabinet came to one of the most important, and certainly the most unfortunate, decision they ever took, without realising that they had done anything of much importance in comparison with the tremendous decisions facing them every day during that disastrous Autumn and Winter, when the flower of British manhood was being mown down in the mud of Passchendaele, and when the revolutionary virus from Russia was threatening to infect the whole of Europe. Milner, in his diary, makes only one short reference to the matter. On 4 October 1917, the day on which what Stein refers to as the ‘Milner-Amery draft’ was produced, and the matter debated and decided, he made this note in his diary: ‘War Cabinet. A tiresome and time-wasting sitting largely concerned with Zionism.’ The decision to give publicity to the Declaration was made by the War Cabinet on 31 October and the letter, signed by Balfour and con¬ veying the news to Lord Rothschild for handing on to the Zionist Federation, was dated 2 November. The Mandate for Palestine, incorporating the terms of the Balfour Declaration, was allotted to Great Britain, at the San Remo Conference in April 1029, at the same time as the Mandate for Mesopotamia to Great Britain and the Mandate for Syria to France. After Milner’s return to London on 9 March he spent a busy week at the Colonial Office, during which time he appointed Plumer, previously an Army Commander in France, who had refused the office of CIGS when it had been offered to him, as Governor of Malta. On 10 March he presided at a meeting of the Rhodes Trust, of which he was the senior and only surviving original member.13 On 23 March he spoke in the Lords in a debate on the economy. He deprecated too much pessimism and ill-considered economies, remarking that waste of scarce resources was much more serious than mere waste of money. ‘Saving money’ often resulted in unemployment and under-development of material resources. On 27 March he had a talk on Egypt with Curzon, acting as Foreign Secretary in place of Balfour, who was at the Peace Conference. On 28

334

Milner: Apostle of Empire

March he attended a ‘gorgeous dinner’ given by Curzon for the Queen of Rumania. On 31 March he again saw Curzon about Egypt. On 7 April he dined with his old friend Birchenough, now Sir Henry Birchenough and Chairman of the British South Africa Company, and Dougal Malcolm, an old Kindergarten member and now a Director of the BSA Co., to discuss the future of Rhodesia, which was one of Milner’s res¬ ponsibilities as Colonial Secretary. On 9 April he went to Manchester to speak to the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, that citadel of Free Trade. He told them: ‘That blessed word economy may mean many different things. If it means the restriction of luxurious and indulgent expenditure it is a good thing at all times. If it means the reduction of overgrown establishments, especially government establishments, it is a very urgent necessity. But if it means turning down all proposals for productive expenditure, it would lead straight to disaster. The people who terrify me are those who talk about a restriction of credit. What we need is a bold and generous policy of going to the assistance of countries whose industries have been crippled. . . . The more fortunate countries must give them their credit. We should lose no opportunity to develop those parts of the world where immense natural resources are under civilised control. . . especi¬ ally the Crown Colonies, where the resources for expansion are enor¬ mous. It is no longer easy for us to pay for our imports, as we have lost about £ 1,000 million of our foreign investments, and have increased our indebtedness to that amount. Therefore, instead of being owed some £4,000 million as before, we are only owed £2,000 million. Therefore we must export more. That is difficult but, by the “triangle of trade” we may be able to pay for imports by goods supplied from countries which are debtors to us, because we have invested money in their development. Our creditors may not need manufactured goods, but they do need the rubber, oil, tin, cocoa etc. which East and West Africa, Malaya and the West Indies, can provide. And the Dependent Empire does need our manufactured goods.’14 On 15 April Milner attended a Cabinet meeting to discuss Austen Chamberlain’s Budget. He also saw Smuts about ‘Rhodesia and Portu¬ guese East Africa’. On 16 April the Cabinet approved the Budget after some ‘re-shaping’ by himself and Bonar Law. He spent the Easter week-end—19-21 April—at Sturry. On 22 April he attended a Cabinet meeting on ‘liquor ... to discuss proposed additions to beer duty.’ On 23 April he had a ‘serious talk with Curzon’ about ‘Egypt and the

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Eastern situation generally.’ On 24 April he ‘wrote a long letter to Curzon about Egypt, which seems to have got into a tangle.’ On 5 May he presided at a meeting of the Rhodes Trust, at which Amery was elected a Trustee. On 7 May he ‘saw Curzon and Graham (Sir Ronald Graham, a senior FO official) about Egypt.’ On 8 May he sat to Sir John Guthrie for his portrait. On 10 May he ‘flew to Paris’. (He usually went by train and ferry.) He spent the rest of May in Paris, dealing with the B and C Mandates and trying to sort out the imbroglio over Syria and Asia Minor. He discussed the terms of the proposed German peace treaty with Smuts and Barnes, the Labour Party representative on the British Delegation to the Peace Conference and, like them, was per¬ turbed by their harshness’. He seems to have had a frustrating time and, at one point, noted: ‘I can’t make out what I am supposed to be here for. On 2 June he went back to London and, on 3 June, after a Rhodes Trust meeting, saw the Prince of Wales about HRH s forthcoming visit to Canada. On 11 June he attended a Cabinet meeting about the Archangel expedition. On 12 June he gave Guthrie another sitting and on 15 June ‘dined with Perry and Bob Brand at the Travellers . On 20 June he again saw the Prince of Wales about his Canadian tour. On 24 June he went to Paris, by train this time, and, on 27 June, settled ‘the eternal question of Nauru’ with Massey and Hughes, the New Zealand and Australian Prime Ministers, who were disputing possession of the little ex-German Pacific island. In the event, it was allotted to Australia. He also came to an agreement with the French Delegation about Mandates for the Cameroons and Togoland. On 28 June he chaired ‘a meeting of five representatives of the principal Allied Powers to settle outstanding questions re Mandates’, at which all the B and C Mandates were agreed. The A Mandates in Turkish territory were left for later settlement. On the same day he went to Versailles for the signature of the Peace Treaty with Germany. He noted that it was all strangely unim¬ pressive’. Milner had little influence in arriving at, and disapproved of, what he considered as the harshness of the terms of the German treaty, particularly the financial ones. At about this time he wrote to Robert Brand, now a director of Lazards: ‘(i) The less we ask from Germany the more likely we are to get something; (ii) to take from Germany all she can imme¬ diately hand over does not help matters; (iii) to prolong the,paralysis of Germany is economically foolish and politically dangerous.15 With regard to the Covenant of the League of Nations, which was

33^

Milner: Apostle of Empire

incorporated into the treaty, Milner was presciently sceptical. In a private letter dated i August 1919 he wrote: ‘I am very doubtful about the success of the League of Nations, but I have no doubt that, if it is to be an effective instrument at all, it can only be so by virtue of the influence of the British Empire and America. The influence of the British Empire would be incomparably greater if the several members worked together and constituted a sort of sub-League of Nations. Without that I think that the larger League has no future. We must try to extend the pax Britannica into a pax mundi. But even if the pax mundi is unattainable we must make sure of the pax Britannica. We cannot do that without organisation. It may be of a very loose kind, but it cannot be looser than the League of Nations, into which all the self-governing States have willingly entered. If they can bind themselves to that extent to foreign nations they can surely bind themselves to an equal extent to one another. Yet they will never do so unless the Dominions take the lead. I believe the public opinion of the Dominions would support such an alliance if they understood what it meant. To make them understand it is the immediate objective. The next is to send representatives to an Imperial Conference to see it carried into effect.’16 In the event, the United States Congress repudiated their President, and the United States never became a member of the League. Partly because of this, the Dominions lost interest and, as Milner had foreseen, in these circumstances the League never became an effective instrument for peace. And the pax Britannica was only effective to the extent that, when another world war broke out, less than twenty years later, the British Empire entered it as a more or less united body. But it was never sufficiently united, and therefore sufficiently strong, to be able to prevent war. Before the end of the Peace Conference, Milner had accepted another assignment which was again to take him away from the Colonial Office. He had been paying very close attention to events in Egypt, and being kept regularly briefed about them by Curzon and the Foreign Office. What had happened was this. At the beginning of the war, the British Government, in order to regularise the anomalous situation in which Egypt was still legally part of the Ottoman Empire, had declared a Protectorate over Egypt. Kitchener, the British Agent in Egypt, became Secretary of State for War in the British Cabinet. After a short interregnum, Sir Henry McMahon, an Indian Civil Servant, was appointed High Commissioner, the new

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title of the British Agent under the Protectorate. He was succeeded in 1916 by Sir Reginald Wingate, Governor-General of the Sudan. Wingate was High Commissioner for the rest of the war, during which time Egypt, behind the facade of an indigenous ‘Sultan’ who had been appointed by the British, and an indigenous Government, was adminis¬ tered in reality by British officials. With the pre-war background of nationalist agitation, and with all the war-time Allied propaganda about ‘self-determination’, it was clear that autocratic British rule in Egypt could not be maintained indefinitely, or indeed for very much longer after the end of the war. Within two days of the Armistice, a deputation of Egyptian nationalists, led by Zaghlul Pasha, waited on Wingate with the demand that, as the real representatives of the Egyptian people, they be allowed to proceed to London to negotiate with HMG for the aboli¬ tion of the Protectorate and its replacement by a treaty of alliance. Two days later, Rushdi Pasha, the Egyptian Prime Minister, asked Wingate that he and one of his colleagues, together with one or two of the nation¬ alist delegation, be invited to London for negotiations to the same end. HMG turned down this request, in spite of Wingate’s advice to the contrary. Rushdi and his Government thereupon resigned. HMG, on Wingate’s advice, relented to the extent of agreeing to receive an Egyp¬ tian Government delegation in London, but instructed Wingate to come to London first for consultations. Rushdi then withdrew his resignation and Wingate went to London, where he repeated his recommendation that Zaghlul and some of his nationalist associates be permitted to come to London with the Egyptian Government delegation. HMG refused to agree to this, whereupon Rushdi and his Government again resigned. Strikes and riots, instigated and organised by Zaghlul and his associates, broke out. HMG authorised the Acting High Commissioner to arrest Zaghlul and three of his principal associates and deport them to Malta. This was done, but the rioting continued. Lloyd George, unimpressed by Wingate, decided to supersede him by appointing General Allenby, the conquerer of Palestine, who happened to be at the Peace Conference in connection with negotiations about the future of Syria, as ‘Special High Commissioner’ and directed him to proceed immediately to Egypt ‘to exercise supreme authority in all matters military and civil, to take all such measures as he considers necessary and expedient to restore law and order and to administrate in all matters as required by the necessity of maintaining the King’s Protectorate over Egypt on a secure and equitable basis.’ Allenby left Paris on 21 March and arrived in

338

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Egypt on 26 March. By that time the use of British troops had almost brought the violence to an end. On 31 March Allenby was able to inform HMG that order had been ‘outwardly re-established’. He induced them to agree to the release of the nationalist leaders and to restore freedom of movement to enable any ‘respectable Egyptian’ who wished to travel to London or Paris or anywhere else he chose. If HMG had agreed to this in the first place on Wingate’s recommendation, much of the subsequent trouble might have been avoided. On 5 April Curzon, as acting Foreign Secretary, proposed to Allenby the despatch of a Commission of Enquiry under Lord Milner to make recommendations for the future relationships between Great Britain and Egypt under the Protectorate. Allenby agreed and, on 15 May, Curzon announced in the Lords that the Government intended to send such a Commission ‘to enquire into the causes of the late disorders in Egypt and to report on the existing situa¬ tion in the country and the form of the Constitution which, under the Protectorate, will be best calculated to promote its peace and prosperity, the progressive development of self-government institutions, and the protection of foreign interests.’ He added that ‘HMG have no intention whatsoever of ignoring or abandoning the obligations and responsibili¬ ties which they incurred when the task of governing Egypt was placed on their shoulders.’ Besides Milner, the members of the Commission were: Sir Rennell Rodd, British Ambassador in Rome, who, earlier in his career, had served in Egypt under Cromer; General Sir John Maxwell, who had been GOC in Egypt during the first two years of the war; Sir Cecil Hurst, an authority on international law; Mr. J. A. Spender, an eminent Liberal journalist; and Sir Owen Thomas, a Labour MP. Partly on Allenby’s recommendation, partly in view of Milner’s other pre-occupations, the Commission did not go to Egypt until the beginning of December. But, from March onwards, Milner kept himself in very close touch with Egyptian affairs. Milner returned to England from Paris on 29 June with the rest of the British delegation. During the five months between the signature of the German peace treaty and his departure for Egypt he was fully occupied, both at the Colonial Office and as a member of the Cabinet. On 18 July he spoke for the Government in a Lords debate on coal.17 On 18 July he saw Ronald Storrs and T. E. Lawrence (presumably about the Middle East) and dined with Churchill. On 21 July there was a Cabinet which discussed the ratification of the peace treaties by the Dominions,

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‘in which I am much interested’. The point at issue was whether the Dominion Parliaments should each ratify the treaties separately or whether the Imperial Parliament should do so on behalf of all of them.

In

the event the Dominion

Parliaments all

ratified them

separately. On 22 and 23 July there were Cabinets about a coal strike at which the possibility of nationalisation of the coal mines was discussed—‘a very grave business’.18 In the evening there was a dinner at the House of Commons for the National Democratic Labour Party19 at which Milner and Barnes spoke. On 29 July Milner took part in ‘a discussion of financial problems at Downing Street with Lloyd George, Austen Chamberlain, Bonar Law, and Auckland Geddes.’ On 4 August he dined with Lloyd George, Lord Reading, Churchill and Hankey at the Athenaeum and then went back to 10 Downing Street for a discussion of Government policy, on which Milner commented: ‘I did not much like the tone of it.’ On 15 August there was a Lords debate on the Profiteering Bill20 at which Milner spoke for the Government. On 10 September the Austrian peace treaty was signed. On 12 September he dined with Lloyd George in Paris and discussed ‘the Syrian question’. Next morning he breakfasted with Lloyd George and again discussed the Syrian question preparatory to a meeting between Lloyd George and Clemenceau. On the same day he wrote to the Italian Government about ‘territorial compensation’ for Italy in N Africa, which had not yet been settled. On 14 September he saw Allenby, who had come over from Egypt, and had ‘a satisfactory talk’ about his forthcoming mission. He also talked to Sir Eric Drummond, Secretary-General of the League of Nations, about the British B and C Mandates. On 15 September he breakfasted with Lloyd George, Bonar Law and Churchill and talked about Russia. The same evening he dined with Lloyd George and Philip Kerr and discussed ‘the home political situation’. On 16 September he returned to London with the Prime Minister. On 22 September he discussed with Curzon and Allenby ‘provisional boundaries in Syria behind which we are to retire in agreement with Faisal.’21 He also talked with Curzon and Allenby about Egypt. On the same day there was a meeting of the Finance Committee of the Cabinet at 10 Downing Street with Lloyd George, Bonar Law, Austen Chamberlain, Churchill and Warren Fisher (Treasury official). Violent onslaught on Army expenditure. I was much disgusted with the whole proceedings. On 23 September there was another meeting of the Finance Committee

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Milner: Apostle of Empire

at which naval expenditure was similarly attacked. On 24 September there was a Cabinet on Russia and a talk with the Prime Minister on agriculture at which Milner unsuccessfully tried to persuade Lloyd George to maintain the guaranteed prices provided in the war-time Corn Produc¬ tion Act. On 30 September he had a talk with Curzon about Egypt, which was ‘in an indescribable muddle’, and about the Egyptian Govern¬ ment’s opposition to his mission, which opposition was apparently supported by Allenby. On the same day, he had a ‘financial talk’ with Austen Chamberlain, and also ‘discussed the acquisition of the Bloomsbury site for London University.’ On 2 October Milner produced a memorandum for the Cabinet on Malta, which was in progress of being provided with a Constitution. On 8 October, after a Cabinet meeting about a rail strike, he went to Curzon’s house to meet Allenby. It was ‘decided that Allenby should go to Egypt first and that the Mission was not to start until we had heard from him.’ On 6 October there was a Rhodes Trust meeting. On 7 October he ‘discussed Treasury business with Austen Chamberlain.’ On 8 October he saw the Prime Minister about British Somaliland, where there was trouble with a ‘Mad Mullah’, which was soon put down after ‘the cheapest war in history’22—costing £77,000. On the same day there was a meeting of the Finance Committee of the Cabinet, at which the Prime Minister made ‘a vehement and rather unreasonable onslaught against Churchill, who took it with remarkable good humour.’ On 11 October he saw Curzon about Egypt, and had a visit from Wingate who was ‘very sore about being displaced as High Commissioner’.23 On 13 October he again saw Curzon and Allenby about Egypt. On 14 October there was a Cabinet, lunch with the Prime Minister, ‘trouble in Ceylon’ to deal with, and a Finance Committee of the Cabinet at which the peace¬ time strength of the army was discussed. On 17 October there was another meeting of the Cabinet Finance Committee. On 18 October he ‘wrote a little article for The Times about Wingate.’ On 20 October there was a Cabinet Finance Committee at which Allenby was present and at which the strength of the army in Egypt and Palestine was discussed. On 24 October Milner -went to a meeting at the Foreign Office to discuss an American objection to the ‘British Empire’s six votes in the League of Nations Assembly.’ The question as to whether each of the self-governing Dominions should be regarded as a sovereign State in the League of Nations was a contentious one. In a federation, such as Milner had dreamed of, there would have been no separate

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Dominion representation. But, by this time, the Dominions were sufficiently intent on their independence and sufficiently influential successfully to insist that they could not be regarded as having an inferior international status compared with Costa Rica or Guatemala. On 27 October Milner noted that the Prime Minister had decided that the wartime system of a Cabinet limited in numbers should come to an end, and that they should revert to a Cabinet of some 22 members—‘an awful mistake’. On 28 October there was a Finance Committee at which reparations were discussed—the first of many such discussions. On 5 November the Cabinet decided to have a ‘two minutes’ silence’ at 11 a.m. each 11 November to commemorate the anniversary of the signature of the German armistice. Milner was appointed chairman of a committee to arrange this.24 On 10 November, at Sturry, ‘in pitch-dark and pouring rain I went to a dinner of the Sturry Special Constables at the Swan. About 26 present. A pleasant function.’ On 11 November Milner was late for the two minutes’ silence at the Cenotaph because of the crowds and also late for a luncheon to Poincare at the Guildhall. On 12 November there was a Cabinet on Russia, and on 14 November a meeting at the Italian Embassy about the cession of Jubaland to Italy in accordance with the ‘compensa¬ tion’ agreement which had at last been reached. On 22 November he had ‘a long talk with Bonar Law’ about matters he wanted looked after in Cabinet during his mission to Egypt and, in the evening, dinner with Amery to talk about Colonial Office work during his absence. On 24 November there was a meeting of the Cabinet Finance Committee, followed by luncheon at Buckingham Palace. On 25 November he went to the Lords to hear Curzon speak about his forthcoming mission to Egypt. In reply to a question, Curzon stated that Egypt’s ‘geographical position at the gate of Palestine, at the doorway of Africa, and on the high-road to India, made it impossible that the British Empire, with any regard to its own security, should wash its hands of responsibility for Egypt’, and that, not only British but universal interests ‘would best be secured by leaving Egypt under the aegis of a great civilised Power.’ He defended the continuance of the British Protectorate and told the Lords that ‘it will be the object of Lord Milner and his colleagues ... to devise details of a Constitution . . . British assistance and British guidance will still be required. . . . The Mission is not going out with a Constitution in its pocket. It intends to consult all parties. It is not authorised to impose a Constitution on Egypt. The fundamental principle of the

342

Milner: Apostle of Empire

inquiry is the progressive development of Egyptian self-governing institutions under British protection.’ Next day, 29 November, Milner left for Egypt with his Mission, travelling overland to Marseilles and from there by the P and O liner Mooltan, arriving at Port Said on 7 December.25 In an attempt to persuade Egyptian politicians to cooperate with the Mission, Allenby, before its arrival, and with the approval of HMG, had announced that its purpose was ‘not to impose a Constitution on Egypt’ but to ‘discuss the reforms that are necessary and to propose a scheme of government which can subsequently be put into force.’ This announce¬ ment had no emollient effect and, before the Mission arrived, there was renewed rioting. Milner was well-acquainted with Egypt. Apart from his service there thirty years earlier, and the book he had written about it, he had, between 1907 and 1914, visited Egypt almost every year in connection with his business interests. For several months before his departure with his Mission he had been regularly briefed by Curzon about the course of events there and, as a member of the Cabinet, he was well-informed of Government policy towards Egypt. He had had several discussions with Allenby and with Wingate, Allenby’s predecessor. He had been in correspondence with ‘Ozzy’ Walrond, his one-time Private Secretary, who lived in Egypt, had some kind of secret Intelligence job there, and was in touch with Egyptian nationalist opinion. One of the problems with which the Mission had to deal was the anomalous status of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. By the terms of the 1899 Anglo-Egyptian Agreement, imposed on Egypt by HMG after the re-conquest of the Sudan by Anglo-Egyptian forces, the Sudan had become an Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, in theory administered jointly by Great Britain and Egypt, in practice administered almost as a British Crown Colony. In communications to Milner before he arrived in Egypt, both Allenby and Wingate recommended that, if Egypt were granted ‘a measure of self-government as a result of the Mission’s find¬ ings,’ Great Britain should, in Allenby’s words, ‘assume complete political and administrative control of the Sudan.’ Wingate recommended that, in the event of Egypt becoming self-governing, the opportunity should be taken ‘to divorce the Sudan from Egypt’. In an (undated) note among his papers, Milner expressed his agreement with this: ‘It seems to me to be a paramount object of policy to dissociate the government of the Sudan as much as possible from that of Egypt and to differentiate

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the two countries by every means in our power. This is desirable both from the Imperial and from the Sudanese points of view.’ On 10 December, three days after his arrival, Milner wrote to Curzon: ‘The formula “complete independence” has caught on. . . . They have committed themselves, for the most part contre coeur, and are now looking for a way out which will not involve too great personal humilia¬ tion. Hence the idea which seems to be catching on of something like a formal alliance . . . which would secure to us all the powers of control which we may deem absolutely necessary. I think there is a great deal to be said for such a solution.’26 In a PS he added that he did not advocate the abolition of the Protectorate. In its terms of reference the Mission had been instructed to make its recommendations within the framework of the Protectorate. But the Egyptians were almost unanimous in their demand for its abolition. They regarded it as an humiliating status, which had been imposed on them, and which was associated in their minds with the undoubted inefficiency and oppression of the war-time adminis¬ tration. Partly as a result of HMG’s insistence on a continuation of the Protectorate status, the Mission was officially boycotted by all Egyptian political parties, and its offices were picketed in order to prevent Egyp¬ tians from giving evidence to it. As a result, Egyptians wishing to confer with the Mission were compelled to do so, like Nicodemus, by night. On 29 December, in an attempt to break the boycott, the Mission issued a declaration, stating that they ‘had been sent out by HMG with the approval of Parliament to reconcile the aspirations of the Egyptian people with the special interests which Great Britain has in Egypt and with the maintenance of the legitimate rights of all foreign residents in the country.’ In this declaration there was no mention of the Protectorate and, in spite of Milner’s PS in his letter to Curzon, he had already come to the conclusion that the Protectorate must be given up. But this was no longer sufficient to satisfy Zaghlul and his associates, who were now engaged in a kind of patriotic auction with their political rivals. On 18 December Milner wrote again to Curzon: ‘It is the young men who are taking the lead, and the leaders are being dragged along. How are we to frame or even suggest a Constitution for this turbulent and leaderless mob? Any country less capable of self-determination than Egypt to-day would be difficult to imagine. . . . No Egyptian dares to acknowledge the Protectorate, although they know perfectly well they can’t get rid of us.. . . It is wounded amour propre which is largely res¬ ponsible for the hostility to everything British.’ And, in a third letter to

344

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Curzon on 26 December: ‘I have very little hope that we shall be able to do anything in the way of negotiating with the Egyptians. The mot d’ordre is still that we can be worried out by a process of passive resistance. It will be time enough to discuss the future Constitution of the country when the Egyptians come to their senses. . . . The best remedy is a treaty—call it what you will—between Great Britain and Egypt. Public feeling is so strong that I doubt whether Zaghlul... could be induced to change his attitude, and even if he did whether his followers would not throw him over.’ On the same day—26 December—he wrote to George Lloyd, then Governor of Bombay: ‘Of course the leaders don’t really want to do the work of government, but only care for the patronage and the panache. Whether it is possible to given them a good deal of the former and all of the latter and leave us free to do the bulk of the work remains to be seen. I am trying to arrange something on these lines, with only moderate hopes of success. The only alternative is to carry on as we stand.’ On 28 December Milner wrote a short note to the Prime Minister: ‘Egypt is in a much worse mess than I imagined. The difficulty is to find a way of making Egypt relative to Great Britain more independent and more dignified than it can be without our abandoning that degree of control which, in view of native incompetence, we are constrained to keep. That is the crux. I hope to get over it, but we are bound to allow a very large amount of latitude to the native spouters.’ The Mission remained in Egypt for nearly three months, but did not succeed in breaking the nationalist boycott, although many Egyptian public men, including Wahba Pasha, the Prime Minister, saw Milner, or other members of the Mission, privately. On 17 February Milner told Curzon: ‘Our present plan is to wind up here in the first week of March. Zaghlul & Co. have encouraged their supporters to demand the im¬ possible ... and they are now afraid to approach us for fear of themselves being denounced as traitors.’ He added that he thought that the Mission, after its return to England, should not refuse to see Zaghlul, if he came to London. (Since his release from Malta, Zaghlul had been in Paris, trying without success to obtain a hearing at the Peace Conference.) Before Milner left Egypt he met Adli Pasha, a leading Egyptian politician, who was later to replace Wahba as Prime Minister, and whom Zaghlul regarded as his principal political rival. He suggested to Adli that the Sultan should appoint an all-party delegation to come to London

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to negotiate with HMG. If it were found impossible to send an official delegation, Milner suggested that an unofficial one, approved of but not appointed by the Sultan, and including Adli himself and Zaghlul, should come to London and talk with the Mission. Adli agreed and promised to discuss it with Zaghlul in Paris. The Mission left Egypt, as arranged, at the beginning of March. Milner paid a short visit to Palestine, in company with Ingram, a Foreign Office official who had acted as the Mission’s Secretary, on the way back. He arrived home on 26 March, and reported about his mission to the King at Buckingham Palace and to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street. At the beginning of April he paid a short visit to Tubingen for the funeral of his step-mother. After his return he became once more immersed in the routine of public life as Colonial Secretary and Cabinet Minister. At this time the Middle East was very much in the forefront of the Government’s thinking. British troops had been withdrawn from the Caucasus, as they had been from Archangel, in pursuance of the policy of military disengagement from Russia. An Anglo-Persian treaty was being negotiated in Tehran which, it was hoped, in conjunction with British Mandates for Palestine, Iraq and Transjordan, with unofficial British protectorates over the Persian Gulf Shaikhdoms and the Amirates of the Arabian Peninsula, and a satisfactory settlement with Egypt, would round off a new British ‘sphere of influence’ in the Middle East, stretching between India and the Mediterranean and providing a solid and secure link between the British Indian Empire and the no less exten¬ sive British possessions in Africa. At various Cabinet meetings, at which the Middle East was discussed, Milner strongly supported Curzon in his attempted insistence on retaining a British garrison in Persia. After a Cabinet on 12 August to discuss the rebellion which had broken out in Iraq he noted with satisfaction that ‘the proposal to scuttle from Persia’, put forward by Churchill had been ‘withdrawn’. On 7 June, after various complicated confabulations through inter¬ mediaries, Milner had his first meeting with Zaghlul in London. This was followed by another meeting three days later. On 13 August there was a full meeting of the Mission, followed by a meeting between Milner, Adli and Zaghlul which, Milner noted, ‘owing to the mulishness of the latter led to no result.’ Next evening he dined with Curzon and talked about Egypt. On 15 August he had ‘a friendly interview with Adli and Zaghlul.’ On 17 August there were more interviews and another meeting

346

Milner: Apostle of Empire

of the Mission at which was ‘settled the final draft of a memorandum recording the present state of negotiations.’ This memorandum, which became known as the Milner-Zaghlul Agreement, and was eventually published as an Appendix to the Mission’s Report, contained the following principal points: (i) Egypt to have diplomatic representation in foreign countries. (ii) Great Britain to retain military forces in Egypt. (iii) Great Britain to nominate a Financial and a Judicial Adviser to the Egyptian Government, who would supervise the interests of foreign creditors and foreign residents respectively. (iv) Egypt to have the right to dispense with the services of other British officials, subject to payment of adequate compensation. (v) Great Britain to secure from the Powers abolition of the Capitula¬ tions27 and thereafter herself to exercise, through the High Commis¬ sioner, the sole right to veto any proposed Egyptian legislation affecting foreigners. (The Sudan was not mentioned in the Agreement, and Milner had made it clear to Adli and Zaghlul that this would have to be dealt with separately.) On 18 August, Milner told Valentine Chirol, the foreign correspon¬ dent of The Times, that all Zaghlul’s followers, except Zaghlul himself, were ready to pledge their support for the terms of this draft agreement, but that Zaghlul ‘does not feel justified in doing so within the terms of his present mandate.’ Zaghlul was not inclined to commit himself because, although he still held the confidence of the Egyptian people as a whole, he had his rivals among the Egyptian political leaders and his dictatorial behaviour was already estranging him from some of his associates. He was also jealous of Adli and fearful lest Adli might get the credit for any agreement arrived at. He had in fact manoeuvred himself into a position in which he was neither inclined to come to any agreement with the British nor allow anybody else to do so. And so, he published the draft agreement ‘without the knowledge or consent either of Lord Milner or of HMG’,28 sent a delegation back to Egypt to consult public opinion in the shape of the surviving members of the pre-war Legislative Assembly, and published a manifesto in which he carefully refrained from express¬ ing either approval or disapproval of the draft agreement. 47 out of the 49 surviving members of the Legislative Assembly expressed themselves as in favour of the agreement, but various other bodies objected on the ground that it did not provide for ‘complete

Colonial Secretary

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independence.’ In October, Zaghlul returned to London and informed Milner that, while the reception of the Egyptian people had not been unfavourable, certain detailed modifications of the agreement would be necessary. Since it was clear by this time that no firm commitment could be expected either from Zaghlul or from any other figure com¬ manding popular support, Milner refused to re-open discussions. For the time being, any agreed settlement was impracticable. On 6 October Milner went to a meeting at the Foreign Office: ‘With Curzon in the chair, Allenby, Crowe (Sir Eyre Crowe Permanent US FO) Hurst (Legal member of Mission) and I had a long pow-wow about Egypt. Divergence of opinion between me and Curzon—also Allenby.’ On io October Milner ‘read first draft of Egypt Report prepared by Ingram.’ On i November he attended a ‘very unsatisfactory Cabinet about Egypt.’ On 4 November, Lord Salisbury, in the Lords, referring to the Milner-Zaghlul Agreement, the contents of which, as a result of Zaghlul’s action in publishing it, were now common property, depre¬ cated any proposals which might weaken the British position in Egypt. Curzon, in reply, stated that the proposals in the so-called ‘agreement’ were being considered by the Government, but were not binding on them. On 10 November Milner had a ‘farewell meeting with Zaghlul. On 22 November he met ‘Clement Attlee, a new Labour MP, at Toynbee Hall.’ On 27 November, after having had the Archbishop of Canterbury to dine with him at Sturry, he wrote to the Prime Minister, telling him of his wish to resign office. On 10 December the members of the Egypt Mission met for the last time to sign their Report. On the same day Milner saw the Prime Minister and confirmed his intention to resign early in the New Year. The Milner Mission Report29 was published in February 1921, just after Milner’s resignation from the Government. In dealing with the causes of Egyptian unrest the Report stated: ‘We have never honestly faced the Egyptian problem and our neglect to do so is in a measure responsible for the present situation. With the prolongation of the Occupation the number of British officials steadily increased and the principle that the aim of the Administration should be to train and ecjuip Egyptians to manage their own affairs fell into the background. ... A growing resentment at the number of positions occupied by the British was noticeable for a long period before the war. . . . The Report des¬ cribed how the Egyptian Government’s educational policy had pro¬ duced ‘an unnecessarily large and ever-increasing number of candidates

348

Milner: Apostle of Empire

for office posts . . . who could not find employment and so became dis¬ contented.’ It noted the extent of and the hardship caused by war-time requisitioning and controls. Referring to Wingate’s interviews with Zaghlul and Rushdi in November 1918, the Report commented that ‘in spite of the insistence with which the High Commissioner appealed .. . the real urgency of dealing with the Egyptian problem had not been realised. ... The High Commissioner, whose advice on the subject was fully justified by the sequel, would have done well to urge his view with even greater insistence.’ It observed that ‘nationalism has for the time being established complete dominion over all that is vocal and articulate in Egypt... it now permeates the official class and the upper ranks of the country.’ After stating that ‘no grant to Egypt of a measure of self-government would meet the case because Egyptians do not regard their country as a British Dominion’, but that, nevertheless, ‘Egypt is of vital importance to our Imperial system’, the Report continued: ‘We gradually came to the conclusion that no settlement was satisfactory which was imposed on Egypt and that it would be wiser to seek a solution by a Treaty between the two countries ... by which Egypt, in return for a British undertaking to defend her integrity and independence, would agree to be guided by Great Britain in her foreign relations and would confer on Great Britain certain rights in Egyptian territory.’ These rights were defined as including a right to maintain military forces in Egypt and to have a measure of control over Egyptian legislation and administration in so far as these affected foreigners. The terms on which such a Treaty might be concluded were adum¬ brated by the publication as an Appendix of the Milner-Zaghlul Agree¬ ment. In face of criticisms of the Report by some members of the Cabinet, Milner circulated to the Cabinet a justificatory memorandum. ‘Sooner or later, and the sooner the better, we must settle the . . . status of Egypt and our own position in that country. Why did we ever occupy Egypt at all? In order to prevent it falling into other and possibly hostile hands. . . . The security of our communications with India and other parts of the Empire beyond India was the supreme object which led to our intervention. That object is more vital to us now, since Egypt is not only the road to our Eastern Empire but has also become the road to the new territories under the British flag which stretch in an unbroken chain from the southern confines of Egypt to the Cape. It is the nodal point of

Colonial Secretary

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our whole Imperial system. But is it necessary that we should own it? Is it not sufficient to have a firm foothold there without antagonising the whole of the educated and semi-educated classes of the Egyptian people? ... Even Zaghlul was ready to admit our right to safeguard the Suez Canal and that Egypt was also very important for us as a station for the RAF and as a centre for W/T. ... I entirely agree with Henry Wilson in his description of Egypt as the Clapham Junction of Imperial communications. ... It is a mistake to think that this point of view was left out of consideration by myself or my colleagues ... or that it was not made clear to the Egyptians . . . (But) . . . the Egyptians will never again be content to be the servants of any master foreign nation. The experiment of giving them their independence may be a failure but it is not so certain to be a failure as any half-measures would be. . . . The next few weeks or months will show whether the saner elements are the stronger. If they are the great experiment may be tried with some hope of success. If they are not the experiment will not be made. Certainly I should be the last to recommend it. . . . The Egyptians think the number of British officials excessive, as indeed it is, and they resent having them imposed on them. They desire that they should be really, as they always have been nominally, Egyptian civil servants. . . . The blessed word “independence” will get us round many awkward corners, just as the unfortunate word “protectorate” would make even Paradise unattractive to the Egyptians.’ He expressed a fear lest any agreement might be wrecked by interference from the Powers, who would wish to preserve for their nationals in Egypt the extra-territorial rights they possessed under the Capitulations, and stressed the necessity of safe¬ guarding legitimate foreign rights. He envisaged, not the abolition of, but great changes in the Capitulations. ‘Cases in which foreigners are interested will still be dealt with by Courts in which European judges preponderate. Laws which cannot now be made applicable to foreigners will still require the consent of the British High Commissioner, and the administration of all such laws will be supervised by a British Judicial Adviser. ... As far as foreigners are concerned, the Protectorate is completely maintained in substance if not in name. . . . The really important question is whether the moderates can carry the day in their attempt to conquer nationalist opinion.’ The Times, on 8 January, before the Report had been published, in a leading article on Milner’s impending resignation, referred to ‘sweeping proposals for the future control of Egypt by the Egyptians themselves’,

350

Milner: Apostle of Empire

which were adumbrated in the Milner Report and which ‘are not acceptable in all quarters.’ The leader expressed the view that the pro¬ posals should, nevertheless, be adopted by the Government. On 25 January, Milner, in a letter to Walrond, told him that his impending resignation had nothing to do with Egypt, but indicated that his Cabinet colleagues had some reservations about the Report. ‘I have been feeling for months that I was a fish out of water, and the strain of the work was such . . . that it was no use going on . . . when one was no longer able to do much good. As far as Egypt is concerned I can do more to promote a settlement out of office than in. I only carried on as long as I did in order to finish the Report. . . . About the Report. The position is not as bad as you think. The Cabinet has so far only given it a superficial consideration and come to no decision. We have only had one discussion, just before the New Year. I hope that the Government will not turn the Report down, but will express a general agreement to the concept of a treaty.’ Meanwhile, early in January, Curzon had sent the Report to Allenby with a covering despatch in which he proposed that ‘an official delegation from Egypt’ should be appointed by ‘the Sultan and the Egyptian Government... so that they may be available for consultation by HMG in the forthcoming Spring’, on the understanding that ‘both parties will enter the discussion with free hands . . . since HMG have not thought it right to arrive at a final judgement on either the principles or details of the proposals contained in the Report.’ Allenby replied that the proposals in the Milner-Zaghlul Agreement‘were from the first regarded by the public opinion of Egypt in general as proposals which must eventually constitute a substantive offer by HMG’, and that it would be impossible to form a delegation unless HMG made it clear that these proposals were accepted as a basis for negotiation. In reply to this, Curzon, in a despatch dated 22 February, just after the publication of the Report, told Allenby that ‘HMG . . . have arrived at the conclusion that the status of protectorate is not a satisfactory relation in which Egypt should stand in relation to Great Britain’, and that ‘while they have not reached final decisions in regard to Lord Milner’s recommendations, they desire to confer regarding them with a delegation nominated by the Sultan.’ And so, in effect, HMG, albeit with some reservations, accepted the conclusions of the Milner Report. In the Summer of 1921 an Egyptian delegation led by Adli came to London to negotiate on the lines of the

Colonial Secretary

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Milner recommendations. Zaghlul, although invited, refused to join the delegation and made it clear that he would ensure the popular rejection of any agreement arrived at, however favourable. As a result, no agree¬ ment was arrived at and, in November, the delegation returned home. Allenby then proposed that, in order to break the deadlock, HMG should, by unilateral declaration, abolish the Protectorate and inaugurate the type of regime adumbrated in the Milner Report. In face of HMG’s objections, Allenby threatened to resign and eventually got his way. On 28 February 1922 the British Government’s unilateral Declaration, pro¬ viding for the abolition of the Protectorate and for the inauguration of a Constitutional regime in Egypt with powers reserved to Great Britain in connection with defence, Imperial communications, the rights of foreigners, and the administration of the Sudan, as recommended in the Milner Report, was promulgated. The Milner Mission’s recommendation for a treaty relationship with Egypt set the pattern for that British Imperial retreat from the Middle East which took place over the next thirty years. Curzon disliked Milner’s proposals and only agreed to them, if indeed he did agree to them, reluctantly. The Cabinet were unenthusiastic. But Milner had, in effect, committed them over the Milner-Zaghlul ‘agreement’, which Zaghlul, with his usual astuteness, had hastened to make public. As Allenby pointed out at the time, and as, a year later, he insisted on to the point of resignation, there was no viable way of retreat from Milner’s proposals. It is ironic that Milner, the foremost exponent of a ‘forward’ Imperialist policy in 1899, should have been the first to sound the signal for retreat twenty years later. His argument that it was not necessary to own Egypt in order to safeguard Imperial interests there is reminiscent of Palmerston’s argument about a traveller between London and York not wanting to own all the inns on the road provided he could be sure of getting his mutton chop at each of them. But did Milner really believe it? A comparison of the letters he wrote at the beginning of his mission with the proposals he made at the end of it, suggest that, under the pressure of what he regarded as necessity, he recommended giving up rather more than he had originally intended. Nevertheless, the Milner proposals, as interpreted by Allenby and his advisers under the terms of the 1922 Declaration, did keep Egypt under effective British control for the next 25 years, and provided for the use of Egypt as an essential base of opera¬ tions during the Second World War. They also deprived Great Britain of what Imperialists were wont to regard as the ethical justification of

352

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Empire by relinquishing control of Egypt’s internal administration, in so far as it affected native Egyptians. The white man’s burden was relinquished, while the compensating advantages were temporarily retained. Stanley Baldwin has been quoted as citing ‘the disastrous effect of Milner’s senility in the Egyptian negotiations as a warning of what happens when old and tired men carry on too long.’30 Apart from the obvious comment that Baldwin might well have applied that comment to himself during the years of his last Premiership, when he was older than Milner was at the time of the Egypt negotiations, there is no evidence of Milner’s ‘senility’ either during or immediately after these negotiations. Also, he had experienced and competent colleagues, who must share with him the blame, if any, for the Mission’s findings. Another writer has described Milner’s proposals as an example of ‘that failure of nerve, that weakening of the will to rule, which began to afflict the ruling classes in the aftermath of the First World War, and which was to make the dissolu¬ tion of the British Empire so ugly and ruinous, for subjects and rulers alike.’31 This judgement comes nearer the truth than Baldwin’s maunderings about Milner’s ‘senility’. It does seem possible that, towards the end of his life, Milner, the arch-imperialist, affected by the Zeitgeist of selfdetermination and, after four years of a war in which Great Britain had lost the flower of her youth, unwilling to face the possibility of further conflict, was beginning to lose his faith in the facultas regendi of the Anglo-Saxon race. Why did Milner accept the Egypt assignment? It took him away from the Colonial Office, from the deliberations of the Cabinet, and from the centre of things generally. Important as Egypt was in the Imperial scheme of things, he could have influenced HMG’s views on Egypt at least as much from within the Cabinet as by leading a Commission of Enquiry, a body whose recommendations are almost traditionally ignored by British Governments. It is not clear whether Milner himself suggested that he should go, or whether the Prime Minister suggested it, as Kitchener s mission to Russia had been suggested, as a means of getting rid of him for a time from the Cabinet where, as he told Walrond, he had ‘been feeling for months that I was a fish out of water.’ Milner knew Egypt fairly well and had always been interested in it since his term of service there. He had several Egyptian friends. As over the War Office, he may have felt irritated at the way things were being handled and that he could put things right if given a chance of looking

Colonial Secretary

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into them for himself. At all events, the Egypt mission was a curiously anti-climacteric end to what was, by any standards, a brilliantly dis¬ tinguished public career. Milner’s last weeks in office were mainly devoted to arrangements for an Imperial Conference in 1921. On 8 October he told the Prime Minister: ‘We do not want a “constitutional” or other “conference”— viz. a big pow-wow to discuss “constitutional relations” between the Mother-country and the Dominions. That may have to come some day, but it is too soon. . . . What we do want is . . . not to evolve a new Imperial Constitution but to discuss and settle on the basis of our existing institutions the various practical and urgent problems which affect the Dominions as well as the Mother-country and to ensure harmony and cooperation between them. That is to say, we want very soon a meeting of what we once called the Imperial War Cabinet. . . . The only essential thing is to get the different PMs together under your Presidency.’32 This view, coming from Milner, who had been so insistent on the necessity for an ‘organic union’ between the self-governing States of the Empire, is in strange contrast to a note by Dougal Malcolm circulated a few weeks later to the Round Table Moot. ‘The ultimate choice between the sovereign independence of the Dominions on the one hand and a real organic Imperial Federation on the other, remains inevitable. . . . Sooner or later, sooner rather than later in South Africa, the choice between independence and Imperial Federation will have to be faced. It will be objected that it is a mistake to be too logical-It is an argument often used, but it has never been used by anyone who could find any other.’33 On 31 December there was ‘a tremendous discussion’ in Cabinet ‘about Mespot and the proposed Middle East Department.’ In April 1920, at the San Remo Conference, Mandates had been awarded to France over Syria and Lebanon, and to Great Britain over Iraq, Palestine and Transjordan. There had been a serious rebellion against British rule in Iraq. The French had turned Faisal off his throne in Syria and had taken over the whole country. Abdullah, Faisal’s brother, advancing from the Hijaz towards Syria in his brother’s defence, had been stopped short by the British. Later he was given in compensation the Amirate of Transjordan, lying between Palestine and Iraq and between Syria and the Hijaz. On 31 December, the Cabinet, in face of opposition from Milner, agreed to a proposal, emanating from Churchill, to form a Middle East Department of the Colonial Office to supervise the administration

354

Milner: Apostle of Empire

of the Mandated territories of Iraq, Palestine and Transjordan. Next day —New Years Day 1921—the Prime Minister asked Milner, as Colonial Secretary, to arrange for this in accordance with the Cabinet’s decision. Milner replied: ‘I will not discuss the scheme, with which I do not agree. It is a Government decision and has to be carried out by members of the Government. But not by me, who am on the very eve of retirement and only hanging on from day to day. ... I do beg that we may soon come to a final understanding as to the actual date when I may count upon being free from official duties.’34 On 7 January an obviously inspired note in The Times from ‘Our Political Correspondent’ announced: ‘Lord Milner is now known to have decided to resign the Colonial Office in the near future. He tendered his resignation some time ago, but consented, in view of prospective changes in the Cabinet, to remain in office until the end of this month.’ For the next few weeks there were numerous rumours about Milner’s successor and about prospective Cabinet changes generally. Churchill was almost unanimously ‘tipped’ for the Colonial Office. But Milner’s resignation, and Churchill’s appointment in his place, were not announced until 14 February. On 24 February the Prime Minister wrote him the following letter: ‘My dear Milner, The Cabinet at a recent meeting asked me unanimously to explain to you their deep regret that you have felt it necessary to relinquish office, and their huge appreciation of the counsel and assistance you have given them during the last four years. They earnestly hope that the services you have given so unstintingly and so selflessly will not be lost to the Empire and that, after a rest, you will be able to devote time and energy to public affairs for many years to come.... May I also say personally how much I regret your resignation. I could not have had a more hard-working, a wiser, or a stauncher colleague during the War Cabinet days. . . . They were great days to have lived through and I shall never forget your loyal and most efficient cooperation, which contributed enormously to the victory of the Allies.’35 On his retirement Milner was awarded the Garter and, in addition to his other Orders and distinctions, became a Knight of that Most Noble Order. The two great periods of Milner’s public service—his High Commissionership of South Africa and his membership of two Coalition Cabinets—were served respectively under the leadership of two of the greatest statesmen of the age—Joseph Chamberlain and Lloyd George.

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There is something feminine in the way Milner responded to the leader¬ ship of these two essentially masculine statesmen. He was frequently irritated by them, he sometimes quarrelled with them, and occasionally sulked with them. But he was always loyal to them in public, put up with a

great deal from them in private, and had a genuine admiration for both

of them. He had little in common with either of them, temperamentally or intellectually. The extrovert, thrustful, calculating and ruthless Chamberlain, the mercurial, unscrupulous, persuasive and imaginative Lloyd George, were each as different as could be from the donnish, introverted, pessimistic and idealistic Milner. One quality only perhaps did the three men have in common—tenacity, a refusal to let go, a refusal to be daunted by obstacles or deterred by opposition. But their methods of defeating obstacles and opposition were different. Chamberlain undermined them; Lloyd George found a way round them; Milner met them head-on. That is another way of saying that Chamberlain and Lloyd George were politicians and that Milner was not. That is why he had to serve them, and not they him.

NOTES ON CHAPTER FIFTEEN 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Milner Additional Papers, c. 490. ibid., c. 696. L. S. Amery, op. cit., II, p. 176. Lloyd George, Peace Treaties, op. cit., II, p. 898. MP 152. There had also been (a) a ‘Declaration to the Seven’ issued by HMG on 16.6.18. to seven Arab nationalists residing in Cairo which inter alia promised ‘complete and sovereign independence to Arab territories liberated by the Arabs them¬ selves, and that ‘the principle of the consent of the governed’ should be applied to Arab territories liberated by the Allied armies. This Declaration was delivered to the seven Arab nationalists by ‘Ozzy’ Walrond, Milner’s ex-Private Secretary, who was engaged on secret Intelligence work in the Middle East, (b) an AngloFrench Declaration issued on 7 November 1918, which stated that ‘the object aimed at by France and Great Britain ... is the complete . . . emancipation of the peoples so long oppressed by the Turks and the establishment of national governments and administrations deriving their authority from the initiative and free choice of the indigenous populations.’ Both these Declarations received wide publicity in the Middle East. It seems likely that the Anglo-French Declara¬ tion derived from a suggestion by Walrond in a letter to Milner on 6.10.18. in which he recommended that ‘as soon as the Turks are driven out of Syria’ HMG

3 5^

Milner: Apostle of Empire

should “issue a Proclamation, in conjunction with their Allies, announcing their intention of non-interference with the government of this country (i.e. Syria) and inviting the inhabitants to meet together to decide what government they desire.’ He went on to warn Milner against ‘the natural inclination of young people out here ... to create for themselves billets of pro-consuls’ and to tell him that ‘the Syrians will not have France.’ If Syria was not to be independent Walrond thought that USA should have it, as well as Palestine. ‘If we keep Palestine, the French will be sore if they don’t have Syria.’ (MP 164). 7. Milner Additional Papers c. 704. 8. Lord Riddell, The Peace Conference and After (Gollancz, 1937), p. 120. 9. Lloyd George, Peace Treaties, op. cit., II, p. 1045. 10. Leonard Stein. The Balfour Declaration (Valentine Mitchell, 1961), pp. 3 6-17. 11. L. S. Amery, op. cit., II, p. 115. 12. ibid. 13* By this time Kipling and Lord Lovat had become Trustees in place of Jameson and Albert Grey, who had died during the war. Also, Otto Beit had replaced his uncle, Alfred Beit, who had also died. 14. MP 307. 15. MP 221. 16. Milner Additional papers c. 690. 17. See Appendix B. 18. A Royal Commission chaired by Mr. (later Lord) Justice Sankey had just reported in favour (by a majority) of nationalising the coal industry. A few days later there is a note in Milner’s diary of a dinner given by Haldane at which Milner, Sankey, Tom Jones, one of the PM’s Private Secretaries, and R. H. Tawney and William Beveridge, two young economists, were present and at which coal nationalisation was discussed. 19. See Appendix A. 20. This was a Bill introduced by the Government to empower the Board of Trade to investigate prices and profits and to enable local authorities to set up trading ventures. 21. It was agreed that British troops should withdraw from that part of Syria which was being administered as Occupied Enemy Territory by the Sherifian Govern¬ ment, as they had already withdrawn from the coastal area, which was being similarly administered by the French. 22. L. S. Amery, op. cit., II, p. 202. 23. Sir Reginald Wingate was an old colleague of Milner’s, having been a senior officer in the Egyptian Army when Milner was in the Egyptian Ministry of Finance. After Kitchener’s departure for South Africa in 1900 Wingate had succeeded him as Governor-General of the Sudan, where he remained until 1916, when he was appointed High Commissioner in Egypt. His abrupt sacking by Lloyd George in March 1919 was an act of injustice, since most of the trouble in Egypt had arisen as a result of HMG having ignored his advice. It was not sur¬ prising that Wingate felt ‘very sore’ about it. Milner, while at the Colonial Office, offered him the Governorship of the Straits Settlements which Wingate declined.

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24. According to Amery, the idea of the two minutes’ silence was suggested to him by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick. He passed it on to Milner who, after getting the King’s approval, put it to the Cabinet, who agreed. (L. S. Amery, op. cit., II, p. 173m) 25. The following account of the activities of the Mission in Egypt has been largely derived from correspondence etc., in MP 161-5. 26. This was in fact what had been demanded by Zaghlul and his associates in November 1918. Later, it became apparent that they had raised their terms for such a treaty. 27. The Capitulations, which derived from a number of treaties concluded in the past between the Ottoman Empire and most of the European Powers, conferred what were virtually extra-territorial privileges on European nationals resident 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

in Egypt. Egypt No. 2 (1921). Cmd. X131 (1921). Thomas Jones, A Diary with Letters (OUP, 1954)5 P- I75E. Kedourie, Saad Zaghlul and the British, St. Anthony’s Papers, No. 11. Gollin, op. cit., p. 596, quoting Lloyd George Papers.

33. MP 152. 34. Gollin, op. cit., p. 597, quoting Lloyd George Papers. 35. ibid., pp. 597-8. He gives the date of the letter as 24 March; it should be 24 February.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Last Years O n 25 January, when his resignation from the Government was generally known to be imminent, Milner, in the letter to Ozzy Walrond which has already been quoted, wrote: ‘I am now beginning to revive my old City connections.... I am about to be re-elected a Director of the Northern (Assurance Co.), so that will bring me again into the heart of the Insurance world. I shall be in our new house until the end of February. This will give me time to fix up my City relations and to take part when the Egypt debate comes on. After that I propose to go to the South of France and do absolutely nothing, as I am tired out.’1 At the end of 1920 Milner had given up his little house at 17 College Street and moved to a larger one at 12 Manchester Square. This was in anticipation of his marriage to his old friend Violet, Lady Edward Cecil, whose husband, Lord Edward Cecil, a high official in the Egyptian service, had died two years before. Violet was a sister of Leo Maxse, editor of the National Review and, like Milner, an ardent Imperialist. They had been close friends, political allies, and regular correspondents for the past twenty years. They were married towards the end of Febru¬ ary and went to the south of France for a few weeks’ honeymoon. After their return, Milner was soon almost as busy as ever. With his City directorships. With the Rhodes Trust. With the Round Table. With a series of essays on contemporary questions which were published in the Observer and, later, in book form.2 In his directorships, Milner was by no means a ‘guinea-pig’, content to draw his remuneration in return for providing his name. For example, in 1922, he was elected Chairman of Rio Tinto, after having been invited to re-join the Board when he resigned from the Government. In conjunction with his old secretary, Arthur Steel-Maitland, who was also a Director, he worked out, and got accepted by the Board, a scheme for a pension fund for the Rio Tinto staff. He also settled a major dispute

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359

with a commercial rival in which the previous chairman had involved the Company. In March and April 1922 Milner and his wife visited Palestine, Syria and Transjordan, staying on their way across France with Clemenceau. In the Levant they had a strenuous round of sight-seeing, visiting, among other places, Petra and Baalbek. Milner, who seemed to be in full vigour throughout, kept a detailed diary.3 Among the entries is a comment on the Balfour Declaration policy made during his stay in Palestine; ‘I have no doubt that the chief cause of all the fuss is the tactlessness with which some of the Zionists have boosted their cause and which has frightened the Arabs. But the later are crying out before they are hurt and their ceaseless denunciations of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate are really not denunciations of what either the Declaration or the Mandate really contain but of what the Zionists and the Arabs them¬ selves have chosen to read into them.’ Just over a year later, in a debate on Palestine in the Lords on 27 June 1923, initiated by Lord Islington, one of the leading British opponents of the Balfour Declaration policy, Milner vigorously defended this policy, at a time when the Conservative Government, which had re¬ placed the Lloyd George Coalition some six months previously, was feeling increasingly doubtful about it. He told the Lords that any change in policy away from the Declaration would be disastrous for British prestige. In reply to allegations that Palestine was a drain on the British Treasury, he pointed out that its cost to the Treasury had fallen from four million pounds in 1920 to an estimated million and a half pounds in 1923 and stated his conviction that before long it would cease to be any burden at all on the British taxpayer. He acknowledged his share of responsibility in the issue of the Declaration and stated that he did not regard its terms as being in any way incompatible with pledges given to the Arabs.

1 am absolutely convinced that, when all the documents have

been made public, it will be quite clear that, in the promises made to us by King Husain, Palestine was definitely excluded.’4 ‘I am convinced that we only have to pursue consistently the policy of the Balfour Declaration, as we ourselves have interpreted it,5 in order to bring about great material progress in Palestine and a gradual diminution of the present agitation, which I believe is largely incited from outside Pales¬ tine.’ He thought there was little real discontent among the Arab in¬ habitants of Palestine and that there was plenty of room for considerable Jewish immigration ‘without bringing the smallest prejudice to the

360

Milner: Apostle of Empire

existing Arab population; on the contrary the Arabs will, in many respects, benefit from it.’ He ended by saying: ‘A great mission has been entrusted to England and we are bound in honour to accomplish it in such a way that the world will recognise that Palestine is in good hands. We have to pursue a policy leading, not to a Jewish State in Palestine, but to a Jewish National Home, which will receive as many Jews as it can reasonably support, on condition that Arab interests do not suffer. We have only to pursue consistently the policy which has been laid down, and I believe that, before many years, Palestine, instead ofbeing as we are told, a burden for England, will become a strnegth and credit to us.’ At the end of 1922, after Northcliffe’s death, and the purchase of The Times by the Astor family, who formed a Trust to administer it, Geoffrey Dawson was again offered the editorship. On Milner’s advice, he accepted it and, with Milner’s assistance, drew up a contract of service to safeguard his editorial independence. Milner shared the growing dislike of most Conservatives for the Lloyd George Coalition, although his reasons for disliking it were probably different from theirs. In November 1922, after Lloyd George’s fall, Bonar Law, who had been called upon to form a Conservative Administration, invited Milner to join it. Milner refused. But he approved of the change of Government. In a letter to an Egyptian friend on 13 December, after Bonar Law had formed his Administration and been confirmed in office as the result of a General Election, he wrote: ‘I think that the change of Government is an improvement. The new lot are far from perfect. . . . Undoubtedly our attitude to Turkey was wrong6 . . . We shall be all right when we have got over our economic troubles, especially unemployment. ... I don’t regret the strength of the Labour Party7 . . . They are not fit to govern . . . (but) . . . will compel the actual Government not to be too supine about bad industrial conditions. I think people who do not know England are needlessly worried about Labour, thinking them all to be red revolutionaries.’ He added that this might be true of a small minority, but expressed confidence that the moderate majority ‘would keep their wild men in order.’8 In December 1923, just a year later, Baldwin, who had succeeded Bonar Law as Prime Minister, convinced of the necessity for Tariff Reform as a means of safeguarding industry, but convinced also of the necessity for consulting the electorate about it, went to the country. The General Election left the Conservatives as the largest Party in the

Last Years

361

Commons, but without a clear majority over the other two. With the temporary and uncertain support of the Liberals, a Labour Administra¬ tion was formed, with Ramsay Macdonald as Prime Minister. As a result of this set-back, Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain became interested in a scheme for ‘educating’ the electorate on Tariff Reform, and they induced Milner to preside over a Tariff Reform Committee. But nothing came of it. Within a few months, there was another General Election, during which the Conservatives ‘soft-pedalled’ Tariff Reform which, as the last Election had demonstrated, was electorally unpopular. The Conservatives came back with a clear majority and took office, fortified by the return to the fold of Austen Chamberlain, Balfour and Birkenhead, who had remained loyal to Lloyd George in 1922, and by the accession of Churchill from the Liberals. And with Churchill, a Free Trader, at the Exchequer, Tariff Reform was forgotten for the next few years. In November 1924 Lord and Lady Milner left England for an unofficial visit to South Africa, Milner’s first and only visit since his departure in 1905. They landed at Cape Town, spent about a fortnight in the Cape, and then went to the Transvaal, where they stayed with the GovernorGeneral, the Earl of Athlone, and Princess Alice. They also visited Smuts at his Transvaal farm, Irene. A projected visit to Rhodesia was cancelled as a result of Lady Milner being indisposed. They left Cape Town for England on 12 February after attending the opening of the Union Parliament. The visit passed uneventfully, without any popular demonstrations either of approval or enmity. As Smuts put it soon after¬ wards: ‘Old enemies combined with old friends to make the tour agree¬ able.’ At the end of March, soon after his return to England, Milner was invited to put his name forward for the Chancellorship of Oxford University which had just become vacant as a result of Curzon’s death. Milner declined, but he was nominated nevertheless and, in the absence of any other candidate, ‘Viscount Milner, MA, Hon. DCL, KG, GCB, GCMG, was deemed to be duly elected Chancellor as from Monday 25 May.’ But by that time Milner was dead. He had been unwell since his return from South Africa. At the end of April it was announced that he had been advised by his doctors to take a complete rest and that he would be unable to attend to business for several weeks. A few days later it was announced that he was suffering from encephalitis lethargica (sleeping

362

Milner: Apostle of Empire

sickness), which he was believed to have caught in South Africa, and that his condition was giving rise to anxiety. At 11.30 on the morning of Wednesday 13 May he died at his Kent home, Sturry Court, in the presence of Lady Milner and her daughter and son-in-law, Captain and Mrs. Alexander Hardinge. The funeral service, conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, was held in Canterbury Cathedral on the morning of Saturday 16 March. It was attended by most of his South African ‘Kindergarten’ and by a large number of his personal friends and acquaintances and local and business connections from all walks of life. In the afternoon his body was interred in the village churchyard at Salehurst, near Robertsbridge, in Sussex, after a service conducted by his old friend and twin, Bishop Hamilton Baynes, then Assistant Bishop of Birmingham, and in the presence of Lady Milner and a very few relatives and close friends, including Mr. and Mrs. Rudyard Kipling and Mr. and Mrs. Leopold Amery. On Monday 18 March there was a Memorial Service in Westminster Abbey, attended by members of the Cabinet, Diplomatic Corps and leading public men generally. The official farewell, so to speak. On the same day there was a Memorial Service in the Chapel of New College Oxford attended by the Warden and Fellows.

NOTES ON CHAPTER SIXTEEN 1. MP 165. In the event, Egypt was not debated at this time. 2. Lady Milner, in a note written after Milner’s death, stated: ‘Alfred meant to have written a book called “My Political Gallery' which would have contained sketches of men with whom he had worked and whom he thought really great— Arnold Toynbee, Goschen, Cromer, Joseph Chamberlain, Roberts, Kitchener, Rhodes, Jameson, Clemenceau, Foch, Henry Wilson, Carson.’ She added that, in the list he had made, Milner had crossed out Stead and Kipling and added Lloyd George, and Bruce, the Australian Premier (MP 297). 3. MP 291, 292, 293. 4. When the documents were published in 1939 it was by no means clear that Palestine had been excluded from the McMahon ‘pledge’. All that was clear was that the area included in the ‘pledge’ had deliberately been left unclear. 5. The Balfour Declaration was officially ‘interpreted’ by HMG in the 1922 White Paper on Palestine (Cmd 1700 (1922)) which, inter alia, rejected the idea of a Jewish State in Palestine.

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6. One of the reasons for the fall of the Coalition Government was their encourage¬ ment of the Greeks in their war against the Turks in Asia Minor, and the sub¬ sequent confrontation with the victorious Turks at Chanak, which nearly led to war. 7. The Labour Party had 140 seats in the new House of Commons. 8. MP 164.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Religio Milneriana

Towards

the end of his life, Milner jotted down a note under the

heading ‘Key to My Position’, which his widow described as his ‘Credo’ and had published in The Times on 27 July 1925 and subsequently, in September 1925, in a second edition of Milner’s collected post-war articles on ‘Questions of the Hour’. In this Credo Milner wrote: ‘I am a Nationalist and not a Cosmopolitan.... A Nationalist is not a man who necessarily thinks his nation better than others, or is unwilling to learn from others. He does think that his duty is to his own nation and its development. He believes that this is the law of human progress, that the competition between nations, each seeking its maximum develop¬ ment, is the Divine order of the world, the law of Life and Progress. I am a British (indeed primarily an English) Nationalist. If I am also an Imperialist, it is because the destiny of the English race, owing to its insular position and its long supremacy at sea, has been to strike fresh roots in distant parts of the world. My patriotism knows no geographical but only racial limits. I am an Imperialist and not a Little Englander because I am a British race patriot. ... It is not the soil of England . . . which is essential to arouse my patriotism, but the speech, the traditions, the spiritual heritage, the principles, the aspirations, of the British race.... It is only a question of time when the expansion of the race will compel a new juridical conception, that of a common citizenship of all the countries which that race inhabits or controls. The wider patriotism is a practical necessity. . . . Great Britain is no longer the power in the world which it once was or, in isolation, capable of remaining a power at all. It is no longer even self-supporting. But the British Dominions as a whole are not only self-supporting, they are more nearly self-sufficient than any other political entity in the world ... if they can be kept an entity. . . . The British State must follow the race, must comprehend it, whenever it settles in appreciable numbers as an independent community.

Religio Milneriana

365

If the swarms constantly being thrown off by the parent are lost to the State, the State is irreparably weakened. We cannot afford to part with so much of our best blood.... The time cannot be far distant when this practical aspect of Imperial unity will become apparent to everybody. The work of British Imperialists during my lifetime has been to hold the fort, to keep alive the sentiments which made against disruption, which delayed it, against the time when its insanity became generally apparent. Their business has been, and still is, to get over the danger¬ ous interval during which Imperialism, which for so long appealed only to the far-seeing few, should become the accepted faith of the whole nation.’ Milner’s views

on Imperialism

remained remarkably consistent

throughout his life. In spite of the experience of several Imperial Con¬ ferences at which Dominion leaders made it clear that they were aiming at sovereign independence under the Crown rather than provincial status in an Imperial Federation, Milner maintained his belief that common self-interest would eventually bring about some form of organic political unity. He was an ardent Tariff Reformer, but he did not believe in an Imperial Zollverein as an alternative to political unity. For Milner, probably the principal attraction of Tariff Reform was its function as a protection for British industry and agriculture and, at one time, as a means of raising revenue for social reforms. Milner’s enthusiasm for social reform became an integral part of his Imperialist creed. In accordance with his racial views, it was all-important that the blood-stock which was at the root of it all should remain sound and healthy. For this reason he was increasingly affronted by the con¬ ditions under which so much of the population of the United Kingdom lived—slum dwellings, ill-paid and casual employment, inadequate food, education, recreation and medical attention. He was repelled by the comparative indifference to these conditions shown by the Conservative and Liberal Parties. But he was almost equally repelled by proposals to raise money for social services by the heavy taxation of wealth, since he regarded this as the economic heresy of spending capital as income—an improvident process which, with nations as with individuals, could only result in progressive impoverishment. In pre-war days he advocated the provision of funds for social reform from revenue raised by import duties. After the war, his proposals were much more radical. He advo¬ cated ‘the increase of national or communal property, the income from which will supplement the yield and ultimately in a great measure relieve

366

Milner: Apostle of Empire

the burden of taxation.’1 In other words, he advocated the nationalisation of a number of privately-owned enterprises as an alternative and more desirable means than increased taxation—whether direct or indirect— of providing the revenue required for financing improved social services. ‘The policy of setting about here and now to “nationalise” the whole capital of the country seems to me as impracticable as it is un¬ attractive. But there must surely be a halfway house between universal State ownership and the complete exclusion of the community from any participation in the growth of national wealth. . . . There seems some¬ thing bizarre in a system under which the State first allows the whole product of industry to go into private pockets and then proceeds to “search” these pockets in order to extract from them the amount requisite to provide for its own needs. Would it not be better to raise that amount, or at least part of it, by giving the State some share in the product of industry before it got into private hands at all. . . . Would it not be possible for the State to become, so to speak, a sleeping partner in industry, leaving the initiative and management, under reasonable control, to private enterprise, but reserving to itself a share in any surplus profit, after the active partners, Labour and Capital, had received an adequate reward. . . . The object of the scheme ... is to relieve the burden of taxation upon the whole community by providing the State with an automatic source of revenue.’2 Milner’s experience of the necessity for some measure of public control of industry and agriculture under war conditions had made him sympathetic to an extension of public control in peace-time, not only for revenue-raising purposes, but also as a possible means of resolving the deep antagonisms between Capital and Labour, which he regarded as the principal menace facing the United Kingdom after the war. In an essay entitled ‘Peace in Industry’ Milner wrote: ‘The mass of the people are not better but worse off than before the war and a great deal worse off than they were while the war lasted. And in the industrial world the relations of masters and men are greatly embittered.’ He commented that ‘while the case for Capital is pretty generally understood ... it is really remarkable how many educated people still fail to realise on what grounds, apart from what might be called humanitarian considerations, the case for Labour rests.’ He asked ‘whether our present national production is anything like as great as it might be and ought to be.’ ‘The real gravamen of the charge against our present industrial system is not that it involves an unfair distribution of the product, but that it mis-

Religio Milneriana

367

directs and therefore unduly limits production itself.’ He pointed out that the private enterprise lauded by the capitalists, which had been practised before the war, and to which the country had returned imme¬ diately after the war, had produced a state of things in which some 11,000,000 people in the country were living on the verge of starvation. After the war ‘many of us had hoped for better things. ... I find it perfectly impossible to believe that abject poverty ... is the inevitable lot of any considerable number of people in this country under present conditions—that there needs must be men and women to be reckoned by the million who are underfed, underclothed, miserably housed, and lacking the barest necessities for health and comfort. It may be true . . . that we do not produce enough to supply their elementary needs. But why don’t we? ... We did it pretty well during the war, though we were cut off from obtaining many things from abroad and the bulk of our productive energy was devoted to creating instruments of destruc¬ tion. It cannot be impossible, for there is no lack of the ... raw materials of production . .. and no lack of hands to convert them into the articles required for human use. Still less is there any lack of machinery-All the physical conditions exist for a degree of production which should place the whole population of the country . . . beyond the reach of destitution. And yet ... we are far from attaining even this modest ideal.... Except in the war years the number of our paupers has seldom in the last century fallen below a million. . . . And the problem of un¬ employment is ever with us. . . . Why, with so many wants unsatisfied, are so many hands idle that could help to satisfy them and are only asking for the opportunity to do so?’ He put the blame on the system of undiluted private enterprise by which goods were or were not produced and services were or were not provided solely according to the test as to whether or not their production or provision was regarded as profitable by the entrepreneur. He attacked the wastefulness of much of the com¬ petition which capitalists professed to regard as the incentive for enter¬ prise. ‘The absorption of an excessive number of people in the work of distribution and in mere buying and selling is injurious alike to the producer and to the consumer.... Nothing is more characteristic of our present industrial and commercial system than the hordes of middlemen ... the huge army of salesmen, of advertisers, of brokers, of commission agents, whose activity is devoted to getting business for one firm at the expense of another.’ He pointed out that in the booms and slumps characteristic of the capitalist economy, ‘the wage-earners are the chief,

368

Milner: Apostle of Empire

though not the only, sufferers’, and that they were ‘the victims of trans¬ actions over which they could exercise no possible control. They have nothing whatever to say in the direction of capital, upon which their employment depends, and yet they may at any moment be reduced to penury by its misdirection. ... He has to play the piper, though he has never had the fun of calling the tune.’ It was not surprising that ‘in view of the many and patent defects of the present system of produc¬ tion, there should be a growing revolt on the part of Labour against the losses which it suffers through the waste of national resources and the misdirection of capital.’ ‘As long as capital is the master and not the servant of productive industry, the majority of mankind derive no benefit from its accumulation’ and ‘it is surely conceivable, as it is in every respect to be desired, that the people actually engaged in any industry should themselves be its capitalists or, in so far as they need the assistance of external capital, should pay for the use of it without becoming subject to the control of its possessors.’ He concluded that an increase in ‘the area of public ownership of the means and instruments of production’ was ‘humanly speaking, certain.’ In the meantime, the Joint Industrial Councils, comprising represen¬ tatives of employers and employed in equal numbers, rather half-heartedly inaugurated by the Government for the settlement of disputes, should be extended towards the joint running of the industry by cooperation between employers and employed. He envisaged giving these Councils ‘statutory power enabling them to make their decisions, when agreed to by three-quarters of the capital and three-quarters of the workers employed in the trade, binding on all the rest.’ He looked forward further still to an ‘Industrial Parliament’ for the self-government of industry. These ideas were equally subversive of laisseifaire Liberalism and of big business Conservatism, both of which, in theory, placed the in¬ terests of the individual above those of the community. Milner, on the contrary, had this in common with Socialism—he placed the interests of the community above those of the individual. In his case it was a national community based on race; in the case of the Socialists it was, theoretically, an international community based on the brotherhood of man. Milner, as a racialist, was necessarily a collectivist. The ideal State, as he saw it, had boundaries co-terminous with the Race. Democracy was, for him, the collective expression of the aspirations of the Race, and not the highest common factor of the individual desires of a group of people

Religio Milneriana

369

living under the same government. For Milner, the highest destiny of the individual was to serve the State, as being the political expression of the racial community. For the average Liberal or Conservative, the business of the State was to perform on behalf of the individual, and at his expense, such necessary duties as the individual found it inconvenient or impracticable to do for himself. For Milner the individual was the servant of the community; for the average Liberal or Conservative, the State was the servant of the individual. This was, and is, the real political dividing-line, which makes non¬ sense of the conventional antithesis between right and left. Within the Conservative Party there were collectivists like Milner, as well as extreme devotees of capitalist ‘free enterprise’ who regarded State inter¬ ference with horror. And in the Labour Party there were people who, in Milner’s view, had inherited the worst traditions of Victorian laisse£ faire Liberalism, as well as people who believed in the collectivism of Karl Marx. The Liberal Party still theoretically believed in individualism, laissei faire, and Free Trade, but humanitarianism and political oppor¬ tunism were already challenging their validity and creating that intellec¬ tual muddle of permissive humanism which survived the political demise of the Liberal Party and still dominates the political and social climate of Great Britain. Milner’s primary Imperial interest was in the promotion of political unity between the United Kingdom and the self-governing Dominions, between the various communities of predominantly British race. He told the Royal Colonial Institute in June 1908: ‘If I had to choose between an effective union of the self-governing States of the Empire without the Dependent States, and the retention of the Dependent States, accom¬ panied by complete separation from the communities of our own blood and language, I should choose the former.’ But, he added, ‘We should certainly be mad if we neglected the development of those great posses¬ sions which are absolutely ours to-day.’ How did the Dependent Empire which, for him, included India, fit into his Imperial philosophy? He believed that the self-governing Dominions should eventually share with the United Kingdom the responsibility for the administration and development of the Dependent Empire since, sooner or later, ‘the burden must become too heavy for the unaided strength of that portion of the race which dwells in the United Kingdom.’ He believed that the economic resources of the Dependent Empire should be developed to the maximum extent for the benefit both of the Empire as a whole and of

37°

Milner: Apostle of Empire

the inhabitants of the Dependent Empire. For this would help to make the Empire economically self-sufficient and, by means of the ‘triangle of trade’, enable the rest of the Empire to pay for imports from the outside world with exports of tropical and semi-tropical products from the Dependent Empire. This would also enable the countries of the Depen¬ dent Empire to purchase machinery and other equipment from the United Kingdom, the manufacture of which ‘would set idle hands to work in many industries. It would increase employment and purchasing power at home as well as in the countries where the work of development was proceeding.’3 Milner did not envisage the extension of ‘Dominion status’ to India or to any other parts of the Dependent Empire and, in 1908, ridiculed the idea of self-government for India, ‘which seems to have a fascination for some untutored minds’, as ‘a hopeless absurdity.’ But he did come to recognise that some sort of political evolution, both in India and in other parts of the Dependent Empire, was inevitable. In an Appendix to ‘Questions of the Hour’, Lady Milner published posthumously some thoughts he had jotted down on the subject before his death. ‘What now wants developing is the double character of the Empire. We cannot “fraternize” except with people who have some common moral or spiritual capital. It is the community of race, language, civilisation, history, traditions, ideals, which is the basis of whatever political associa¬ tion is possible between Great Britain and her Dominions. Between us and the different parts of the Dependent Empire the same bonds do not exist. Hence we probably took a wrong road in trying to convert India into a Dominion. There is no natural basis for such a relationship ... as there is for the relationship now in process of development between the predominantly British communities. ... On the other hand, the more important units of the Dependent Empire will not be content, as they grow up, to remain dependent. And, if we cannot successfully attempt to convert them into Dominions, and yet do not want them to become foreign nations, what is to be done? Political wisdom has to find a means, a new form of organisation, a new tie which will keep them connected with the nations of predominantly British character, who until recently were alone regarded as Dominions and alone represented at the Imperial Conference, where the presence of India is and will remain an embarrassment and a weakness, not satisfying her and not contributing to the solidarity of the other members. The one thing fatal to the maintenance of the Empire as in any sense an effective political

37i

Religio Milneriana

unit is the attempt to develop it on uniform lines. We have abandoned the idea of its hierarchical organisation, its government from the centre, the supremacy of Great Britain. It is to be a “Britannic alliance” of nations of equal status. In the absence of formal bonds, permanent alliance and cooperation is to be secured by nothing more than the strength of family feeling, the sense of relationship, strengthened by the increase of intercourse and the development of common material interests. But it is no use pretending that these bonds exist, or ever can exist to the same degree, between the peoples of the Dependent Empire and those of the British nations.’ In these, his last published thoughts on the subject, written in June 1923, Milner seems to have abandoned the concept of an organic political unity between the ‘British nations’ of the Empire and, ‘in the absence of formal bonds’, to have placed his hopes on a gradual growing together brought about by ‘the strength of family feeling, the sense of relation¬ ship, strengthened by the increase of intercourse and the development of common material interests.’ He also foresaw the development of selfgovernment in India and the rest of the Dependent Empire, the countries of which would, he hoped, form part of the ‘Britannic Alliance’, but united with it only by the ‘development of common material interests.’ One oft-repeated thesis of Milner’s was that, apart from any philo¬ sophical theories about race, the preservation, consolidation and develop¬ ment of the British Empire was a necessary condition, not only of the prosperity of the British race, but of its survival. ‘It is a practical neces¬ sity even from the point of view of “Little England .

He argued that

the United Kingdom, by itself, had neither the population nor the material resources either to produce the goods or maintain the armed forces necessary for survival among the great Nation States—Russia, the United States of America, and a probable German State dominating Central Europe—with which, as he believed, the future of the world lay. ‘He was enough of a philosopher to know that empires fall and that the British Empire was not exempt from the breath of common mortality; he was enough of a realist to see that Britain alone could never regain her unchallenged and effortless supremacy, that she could, at the most, hope henceforth to sustain a proud position as leader of the Empire, and thus as one World Power among equals; he was enough of an economist to realise that England had to be great or nothing, and could never, even if she willed it, cosily subside into a Scandinavian neutrality.’4 Is there any basis for the view that the United Kingdom could not, by

372

Milner: Apostle of Empire

relinquishing her Empire, and by abandoning the struggle to remain a Great Power, ‘cosily subside into a Scandinavian neutrality’ and, at the same time, maintain that political freedom, that high material standard of living, and, for want of a better word, that ‘civilisation’ which, for most Englishmen, represent the principal, if not the only, objectives of national policy? In the Nineteen Sixties, when the luxuriance of the Affluent Society happened to coincide with the dissolution of the British Empire, it was possible to feel with confidence that Milner was mistaken. Now, in the mid Nineteen Seventies, with standards of living falling, with increasing unemployment, with a falling pound, with rising inflation, and with a rapidly-increasing foreign debt, it is not possible to be quite so sure.

NOTES ON CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 1. Essay on ‘Taxation and Economy’ in Questions of the Hour, (Nelson, 1925). 2. ibid. 3. Essay on ‘Our Undeveloped Estate’ in Questions of the Hour, op. cit. 4. Edward Crankshaw, The Forsaken Idea (Longmans, Green, 1952), p. 6.

APPENDIX A

The British Workers’ National League and The National Democratic Labour Party On 7 June 1915 there is a note in Milner’s diary about ‘a meeting of working men re means of getting over labour difficulties for purpose of increasing output of munitions.’ This meeting was with a body called the Socialist National Defence Committee which, in March 1916, was re-named the British Workers’ National League and, in May 1918, the National Democratic and Labour Party. It produced a magazine which was originally called The British Citiien and Empire Worker and, later, The Citizen. The editor was Victor Fisher, whom Milner once or twice invited to his Monday night ‘Cabals’. When in the War Cabinet, Milner introduced Fisher to Addison, who was unfavourably impressed. (Addison, Four and a Half Years, II, p. 458.)

The party had offices at 52 Victoria Street and a budget of about £4,500 P-a-> mostly subscribed by various industrialists at Milner’s behest. Its policy has been described as follows: ‘Support of the Coalition Government and the war effort. Broadly socialist in outlook and claimed to represent “the patriotic working class.” It was bitterly opposed to the pacifist elements within the Labour Party.’ (F. W. S. Craig, Minority Parties at British Parliamentary Elections 1885— 19J4-, Macmillan Press, 1975.) In November 1917 Ormsby-Gore, one of Milner’s PPSs, in a parlia¬ mentary report to him, mentioned ‘the association of some of the younger Tories with representatives of the British Workers’ League.’ Before the 1918 ‘coupon election’ Milner exerted himself to raise money for the party s parliamentary can¬ didates, whom he described as ‘Trade Unionists who are neither pro-Boche nor Bolshevists.’ The party put up 27 candidates ‘in seats which would otherwise go to Bolshevists and is acting ... in cooperation with Unionists and Lloyd George Liberals. ... Its candidates are in most cases acknowledged as the regular Coalition candidates.’ (Milner Additional Papers, c. 704.) Of these 27, 10 were elected and 6 forfeited their deposits. Thereafter Milner’s liaison with the party was carried on principally through Arthur Steel Maitland, a Unionist MP, once his private secretary and later to be Minister of Labour at the time of the General Strike. The ‘coupon election’ proved to be the party’s high-water mark. In November 1919 and January 1920 they fought and lost by-elections at Chester-le-Street and Louth respectively. (At Louth their candidate was Christopher Tumour who had previously helped Milner to devise an agricultural policy for the Unionist Party.) There were difficulties over finance—Milner complained that ‘our widow’s cruse is

374

Milner: Apostle of Empire

drying up’ (MP 117). In the 1922 General Election, the party only put up nine candi¬ dates, who fought as part of the National Liberal Party organization under Lloyd George, and all of whom were defeated. In 1925 the party again changed its name to the Empire Citizens’ League, described as a ‘purely patriotic propaganda pressure group’ (Craig, op. cit.). Its journal, re-named Empire Citiien, ceased publication in September 1927 and ‘the League probably disbanded soon afterwards.’ (ibid.).

APPENDIX B

Milner and Coal Nationalisation

The Royal Commission recommended by Milner was set up with Mr. Justice Sankey as Chairman and with equal numbers of mineowners’ and mineworkers’ representatives. When it reported in 1919 it produced majority and minority reports. The Chairman and the mineworkers’ representatives recommended nationalisation, the mineowners’ representatives a continuation of private ownership, with various proposals for the ‘rationalisation’ of production and distribution. On 16 July 1919 the Commission’s Report was debated in the Lords, on a motion by Lord Brassey drawing attention to the ‘disastrous effects’ attending nationalisation and moving for papers. In a debate in which almost all the speakers expressed horror at the mere possibility of nationalisation, Milner, speaking for the Government, made one of his most interesting speeches, and one which has some continuing relevance. After a reference to the ‘conflicting reports’ he went on: ‘It is freely recognised by the miners themselves that some means must be found to compensate for the great increase in the cost of production, caused mainly but not wholly by the rise in wages and the shortening of hours, of which they have got the benefit.’ In order to achieve this ‘compensation’, ‘greater energy and skill on the part of the workers, better appli¬ ances, better methods, better organisation of production and distribution, and the more scientific use of coal’ were all necessary. ‘That is the only real road to salva¬ tion. . . . The men will not work their hardest if they are in a permanent state of dis¬ content, a sort of latent rebellion, sometimes an open rebellion, against the system under which they work . . . (But) . . . they must realise that, if they succeed in bringing about a radical change, it is up to them to make the substituted system a success. .. . This is not a matter in which we can afford to take any chances. It is not enough to have the assurances of the workers’ leaders that, if certain changes are effected, the men will respond by increased activity and make good . . . any fresh benefits which are conferred on them. The community really is entitled to look before it leaps. . . . The same applies to such things as labour-saving machinery, improved methods of working, unification etc. . . . The soundness or unsoundness of any system is whether it promotes or retards . . . compensation for the greater cost of producing coal. It has been suggested that the Government is committed or half-committed to nationalisation. I am not very fond of discussing vague and general phrases like nationalisation which may mean many different things. ... For my¬ self ... I think it hardly possible to doubt that there is an irresistible trend of opinion ... in all countries of advanced civilisation which will result in a greater

376

Milner: Apostle of Empire

measure of public ownership and public control of so fundamentally a national asset as coal than has existed in the past. .. (but) ... I must emphatically repudiate the suggestion that . . . great industrial and commercial concerns can be run from Whitehall on the ordinary principles of the Civil Service.... Without public control of food, shipping and food ... during the latter years of the war I believe we should have come to complete disaster. ... It is not fair to condemn any system by the faults and defects which it has been found to produce when suddenly extem¬ porised. . . .’ He derided the idea that war-time public control was the cause of existing problems in the coal industry, and reminded his audience that, before the war, under private ownership, ‘the cost of production was increasing and output per head falling off’, and that there had been ‘the biggest strike in the history of this country’. ‘In my opinion we have to face, not necessarily nationalisation . . . but great changes in the system under which coal is produced and distributed. . . . The old industrial order is passing away and we all of us have to lend a hand in the establishment of the new. ... I believe that there will be room alike for developing private enterprise and for an increasing amount of public control. ... I believe that the trend of modern thought, modern social development, and political development, is all in favour of the socialisation of certain fundamental and basic industries. Coal may be one of them ... I have never been able to make out why we should not try the experiment of public ownership and control of a certain area of mines and see what was the result. ... It might lead to favourable results, in which case your Lordships might be converted to a view which is very unpopular in this House at present. . . .” The unpopularity of nationalisation in the Lords had, of course, little or nothing to do with any estimate about its efficiency or otherwise. It is clear from this speech that Milner was in favour of, at all events, a limited measure of nationalisation. But the Coalition Cabinet thought otherwise and, as in the case of other public controls introduced during the war, reverted as rapidly as possible to uncontrolled private ownership.

Bibliography of Published books, pamphlets, etc.

1. Works by Viscount Milner England in Egypt, Arnold, 1892. Never Again (text of a speech), Cape Town, 1900. Arnold Toynbee; A reminiscence, Arnold, 1901. Imperial Unity (two speeches in Dec. 1906), National Review, 1907. Constructive Imperialism (five speeches Oct.-Dec. 1907), National Review, 1908. Speeches Delivered in Canada in the Autumn of 1908, W. Tyrell & Co., Toronto, I9°9The Nation and the Empire. A Collection of Speeches and Addresses with an Intro¬

duction, Constable, 1913. Fighting for Our Lives (text of a speech), Constable, 1918. The British Commonwealth (text of a speech), Constable, 1919. Questions of the Hour, Nelson, 1925. 2. E. L. A. V.

Works about Viscount Milner

Crankshaw, The Forsaken Idea; A Study of Viscount Milner, Longmans, 1952>* Curtis, With Milner in South Africa, Blackwell, 1951. M. Gollin, Proconsul in Politics, Blond, 1964. Halperin, Milner et VEvolution de V Imperialisme, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1950. Cecil Headlam (ed.), Milner Papers 1897-1905, 2 Vols, Cassell, 1931-3. E. B. Iwan-Muller, Lord Milner in South Africa, Heinemann, 1902. Walter Nimocks, Milner s Young Men, Hodder & Stoughton, 1970. E. A. Walker, Lord Milner and South Africa, Raleigh Lecture, British Academy, 1942. W. B. Worsfold, Lord Milners Work in South Africa 1897-1902, Murray, 1906. -The Reconstruction of the New Colonies under Lord Milner, 2 Vols., Kegan Paul, Trench and Truebner, 1913. Evelyn Wench, Alfred Lord Milner: The Man of No Illusions, 1854—1925, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1968. 3. Relevant Biographical and Autobiographical Works and Memoirs (excluding those specifically concerned with South Africa or with the First World War and aftermath q.v. below). L. S. Amery, My Political Life, 3 Vols., Hutchinson, 1953.

378

Milner: Apostle of Empire

Sir George Arthur, Life of Kitchener, 3 Vols., Macmillan, 1926. Margot Asquith, Autobiography, 2 Vols., Thornton Butterworth, 1922. -More Memories, Cassell, 1928. John Biggs-Davison, George Wyndham; A Study in Toryism, Hodder & Stoughton, I95I-

W. S. Blunt, My Diaries, Vol. I, Seeker, 1921. John Buchan, Memory Hold the Door, Hodder & Stoughton, 1940. Austen Chamberlain, Down the Years, Cassell, 1935. -Politics from the Inside, Arnold, 1936. Margaret Cole (ed.), Beatrice Webb's Diaries 1912-1924, Longmans Green, 1952. Ian Colvin, Life of Lord Carson, 3 Vols., Gollancz, 1934. E. T. Cook, Edmund Garrett; A Memoir, Arnold, 1909. A. D. Elliot, The Life of George Joachim Goschen, Viscount Goschen, 1831—1909, 2 Vols., Longmans Green, 1911. Viscount Esher. Journals and Letters, 4 Vols., Nicholson & Watson, 1934. Geoffrey Faber, Jowett, Faber & Faber, 1957. A. G. Gardiner, The Life of Sir William Harcourt, 2 Vols., Constable, 1923. Anthony Glyn, Elinor Glyn, Hutchinson, 1955. W. A. S. Hewins, The Apologia of an Imperialist, 2 Vols., Constable, 1929. Sir F. Lindley, Lord Lovat, Hutchinson (undated). Philip Magnus, Kitchener,- Portrait of an Imperialist, Murray, 1958. Sir F. Maurice, Haldane, 2 Vols., Faber & Faber, 1937. H. W. Nevinson, Changes and Chances, Nisbet, 1923. Earl of Oxford and Asquith, Memories and Reflections 1854-192j, 2 Vols., Cassell, 1928. J. Saxon Mills, Sir Edward Cook, Constable, 1921. J. A. Spender, Life of Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, 2 Vols., Hodder & Stoughton, 1923. -Life, Journalism and Politics, 2 Vols., Cassell, 1927. Spenser Wilkinson, Twenty Four Years 1894-1909, Constable, 1933. Beatrice Webb, Our Partnership, Longman 1948. Frederic Whyte, The Life of W. T. Stead, 2 Vols., Cape, 1925. Sir John Willison, Sir George Parkin, Macmillan, 1929. Evelyn Wrench, Geoffrey Dawson and Our Times, Hutchinson, 1955. 4. Works about South Africa Julian Amery, Life of Joseph Chamberlain, Vol. IV, 1900-1914, Macmillan, 1951. L. S. Amery (ed.), The Times History of the War in South Africa (1899-1902), 7 Vols., Sampson, Low, Marston & Co., 1900-1909. R. H. Brand, The Union of South Africa, OUP, 1909. J. Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, Macmillan, 1900. Sir William Butler, Autobiography, Constable, 1910. E. T. Cook, The Rights and Wrongs of the Transvaal War, Arnold, 1901. A. C. Doyle, The Great Boer War, Smith, Elder, 1902. F. V. Engelberg, General Louis Botha, Harrap, 1929. John Fisher, The Afrikaners, Cassell, 1969.

Bibliography

379

John Fisher, Paul Kruger, Seeker & Warburg, 1974. J. P. Fitzpatrick, South African Memories, Cassell, 1932. J. L. Garvin, Life of Joseph Chamberlain, Vol. Ill, 1895—1900, Macmillan, 1930. J. A. Hobson, The War in South Africa, Nisbet, 1900. — Capitalism and Imperialism in South Africa, Nisbet, 1900. J. H. Hofmeyr, The Life of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, de Villiers Printing Co., Cape Town, 1913. Sir James Rose Innes, Autobiography, (ed. B. A. Tindall), OUP, 1949. Marjorie Juta, The Pace of the Ox; The Life of Paul Kruger, Constable, 1937C. W. de Kiewiet, The Imperial Factor in South Africa, CUP, 1937. Sir Percival Lawrence, The Life of John Xavier Merriman, Constable, 1930. R. I. Lovell, The Struggle for South Africa, 1898-1899, Macmillan, NY 1934. J. S. Marais, The Fall of Kruger’s Republic, OUP, 1961. P. Merimee, La Politique Anglaise au Transvaal’ Bonnet, Toulouse, 1913. G. B. Pyrah, Imperial Policy and South Africa, 1902—1910, OUP, 195 5S. G. Millin, Smuts, Faber & Faber, 1936. E. A. Walker, A History of South Africa, Longmans, 1928. -W. P- Schreiner; A South African, OUP, 1937. C. R. de Wet, Three Years’ War, Scribner, NY 1902. 5. General Works on Imperialism Sir N. Angell, The Defence of the Empire, Hamish Hamilton, 1937. E. Barker, The Ideas and Ideals of the British Empire, CUP, 1941. Victor Berard, Angleterre etl’Imperialisme, Armand Colin, Paris, 1900. Christine Bolt, Victorian Attitudes to Race, Routledge & Kegan Paul, I971* Sir C. Bruce, The True Temper of Empire, Macmillan, 1912. Cambridge History of the British Empire, Vol. VIII, CUP, 1936. W. L. & J. F. Courtney, Pillars of Empire. Studies and Impressions, Jarrold, 1918. L. Curtis, The Problem of the Commonwealth, Macmillan, 1917* _The Commonwealth of Nations. An Enquiry into the Nature of Cidienship of the British Empire, Macmillan, 1918. C. C. Eldridge, England’s Missionj The Imperial Idea in the Age of Gladstone and Disraeli, 1868-1881, Macmillan, 1973. Jacques Gazeau, L’Imperialisme Anglaise; Son Evolution, Rousseau, Paris, i9°3J. G. Godard, Racial Supremacy, Studies in Imperialism, Simpkin Marshall, 1905. L. Hennebicq, L’Imperialisme Occidentale. Genese de l Impenalisme Anglaise, Paris,

1913. R. Hinden, Empire and After; A Study in British Imperial Attitudes, Essential Books, i949E. J. Hobshawm, Industry and Empire, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1968. J. A. Hobson, The Psychology of Jingoism, Grant Richards, 1901. -Imperialism, Nisbet, 1902. H. L. Hoskins, European Imperialism in Africa, Holt, NY, 193°W. Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1890—1902, Knopf NY, 1935L. Lemonnier, Kipling, Chantre de l’Imperialisme Britannique, Tallandier, Pans, 1939. George Lichtheim, Imperialism, Penguin, 1971.

380

Milner: Apostle of Empire

G. R. Parkin, Imperial Federation; The Problem of National Unity, Macmillan? 1892. Sir C. Petrie, The Chamberlain Tradition, Lovat Dickson, 1939. A. P. Thornton, The Imperial Idea and Its Enemies, Macmillan, 1959. E. M. Winslow, The Pattern of Imperialism, Columbia Univ., USA, 1948.

6.

Works concerned with the First World War and its Aftermath

C. Addison, Four and a Half Years, 2 Vols., Hutchinson, 1934. Lord Beaverbrook, Men and Power, Hutchinson, 1956. R. H. Bruce Lockhart, Memoirs of a British Agent, Putnam, 1932. Sir C. E. Calwell, F-M Sir Henry Wilson; His Life and Diaries, 2 Vols., Cassell, 1927. D. Chapman-Houston, The Lost Historian; A Memoir of Sir Sidney Low, Murray, 1936. Randolph Churchill, Lord Derby, Heinemann, 1959. Duff Cooper, Haig, 2 Vols., Faber & Faber, 1936. Marshal Foch, Memoires pour Servir a I’Histoire de la Guerre de 1914-18, 2 Vols., Plon, Paris, 1931. Stephen Gwyn (ed.), The Anvil of War. Letters from F. S. Oliver to his brother 1914— 1918, Macmillan, 1936. Lord Hankey, The Supreme Command, 1914-1918, 2 Vols., Allen & Unwin, 1961. D. Lloyd George, War Memoirs (cheap edition), 2 Vols., Odhams, 1938. -The Truth About the Peace Treaties, 2 Vols., Gollancz, 1938. F. S. Oliver, Ordeal by Battle, Macmillan, 1915. Lieut.-Col. C. Repington. The First World War, 2 Vols., Constable, 1920. Lord Riddell, War Diary 1914-1918, Nicolson & Watson, 1933. -The Peace Conference and After, Gollancz, 1937. Sir William Robertson, Soldiers and Statesmen, 1914-1918, 2 Vols., Cassell, 1926. John Terraine, Douglas Haig, Hutchinson, 1963. 7. Miscellaneous Works David Avery, Not on Queen Victoria’s Birthday, The Story of the Rio Tinto Mines. Collins, 1974. E. Halevy, Histoire du Peuple Anglais au XIXieme Siecle. Epilogue (1894-1914), Vol. I, ‘Les Imperialistes au Pouvoir, 1895-1905,’ Hachette, 1926, Vol. II, ‘Vers la Democratic Sociale et vers la Guerre’ (1905-1914), Hachette, 1932. History of The Times, Vol. IV, 1912-1948, Part I, 1912-1920.

F. S. Oliver, Alexander Hamilton. An Essay on American Union, Constable, 1906. -Federalism and Home Rule, (Letters of Pacificus), Murray, 19x3. A. T. Q. Stewart, The Ulster Crisis, Faber & Faber, 1969.

8. Papers and Pamphlets London Library Pamphlets, P1127, P 1333. Montefiore Papers M23(i893), M86(i897), Mi88(i9o6), M467(i922>.

381

Bibliography 9. Government Publications Interim Report of Departmental

Committee

on

Food

Production

Cmd. 8095, HMSO, 1915. Special Mission to Egypt Report (1920), Cmd. 1131, HMSO, 1921.

(1915),

INDEX

Addison, Rt. Hon. Christopher, 259-60, 274, 277, 279,311,373 Adli Yeghen Pasha, 344-5, 350 Admiralty, 261, 269, 275-8, 279 Afrikaner Bond, 31, 32, 33, 34, 41, 49,78, 123, 124-5, 146, 207 Agar-Robartes, T. C. R., 220-1, 222 Aitken, Max (later Lord Beaverbrook), 252,301 Allenby, Field-Marshal Sir Edmund (later Viscount Allenby of Megiddo), 281, 312,337-8,339,340,342,347, 35°, 351 Amery, Rt. Hon. L. S.: first contact with M, 178-9; coaxes M back to public life, 180-1; continued political co¬ operation with M, 182-4; connection with Tariff Reform League, 187, 188 n. 1; elected MP, 197; connection with Kindergarten, 208-9; activities in con¬ nection with Round Table, 210—13; subsequent career of, 215-16, 217 n. 19; explains M’s attitude to Home Rule, 219; involved with M over Ulster, 224-5, 226; advocates amend¬ ment of Army Act, 227; makes plans for Ulster, 230, 249; appointed Asst. Secretary to War Cabinet, 258; organ¬ ises meetings of Imperial War Cabinet, 267; 283-4; accompanies M on mission to France re supreme command, 292295; assistant secretary to X Com¬ mittee, 200; stays with PM at Criccieth, 311; 318; Pari. US at Colonial Office, 321; takes post at Colonial Office, 325; converted to Zionism, 331-2; becomes Rhodes Trustee, 335; at M’s funeral, 362

Anglesey, Marquis of, 209 Anglo-German Convention 1898, 53-4, 61,68 Arkwright, John, 258 Army Act, 226-7, 229 Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H. (later Earl of Oxford and Asquith), 3-4, 21, 23, 25 n. 3, 38, 61, 91; becomes PM, 191; wins election and returns to office, 193-5, 2225 proposes Home Rule settlement, 227; promises amendment to FI.R. Bill, 230; loss of M’s friend¬ ship, 233; forms first Coalition, 240-1; negotiations with LI. George re con¬ duct of war, 25 2-3; resigns as PM, 253; 278, 300 Asquith, Margot, see Tennant, Margot Astor, Waldorf, 209, 235 n. 19, 237, 249, 252 Attlee, C. R. (later Earl Attlee), 343 Austin, Alfred, 35 Baden-Powell, Sir Robert (later Lord Baden-Powell), 138 Bailey, Sir Abe, 208 Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (later Earl Baldwin of Bewdley), 352, 360-1 Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (later Earl Balfour), 38, 64, 90, 112, 144,149,157? 171, 192, 196; resigns Unionist leader¬ ship, 199; 218; becomes 1st Lord of Admiralty, 240; 242; becomes Foreign Secretary, 254; 266, 284, 290, 307, 326, 332-3, 361 Balfour of Burleigh, Lord, 144, 226 Balfour Declaration, 331-7, 359-6°, 362 n. 5

384

Index

Balliol College, Oxford, 3-8, 12, 18, 21, 56, 75, 104, 134, 135, 187 Baring, Sir Evelyn (later Earl of Cromer), 16, 18, 19, 20, 23 Barnes, Rt. Hon. G. N., 288, 289, 333,

335?339 Basutoland, Basuto, 29, 42, 50-1, 134 Beauvais, Conference at, re supreme command, 296 Bechuanaland, Bechuana, 25 n. 11, 33, 42, 50,134 Bedford, Duke of, 235 n. 19 Belgrave, Lord (later Duke of West¬ minster), 61, 71, 103 Bell, Gertrude, 327 Beresford, Lord Charles, 182, 221 Birchenough, Sir Henry, 12, 334 Bloemfontein Conference, 67-75 Bonar Law, Rt. Hon. Andrew: becomes Unionist leader, 199; attitude to Tariff Reform, 200; sees M re Ulster, 204; attitude to Home Rule, 220; 222, 225, 229, 233; becomes Colonial Secretary, 241; 252; resigns from Asquith government, 243; becomes Chancellor of Exchequer in LG government, 259; gives way to liquor interests, 273; refuses help to LG over Admiralty dispute, 275-6; indecisive views on war strategy, 280; 283, 284, 289, 290,

3°7, 3X3? 3I 306-8, 310, 312, 326 Foreign Office, 32, 61, 265, 266, 307, 336, 340 Forster, Rt. Hon. W. E., 166 Fourteen Points, 313, 318 Fowler, H. H. (later Viscount Wolver¬ hampton), 91 Fraser, Mr. (Acting C-G in Pretoria), 59-60 French, General Sir John (later Earl of Ypres), 97, 228, 229, 239, 240, 246, 284, 307 Garrett, G. T., 75, 301 Garvin, J. L., 179, 188 n. 1, 209, 229, 235 n. 21, 237, 301 Gatacre, General, 97 Geddes, Sir Auckland, 274, 339 Geddes, Sir Eric, 274, 276-7, 307 Gell, Philip Lyttleton, 3,10,162,203,242 George V, accession of, 196; 222, 232, 242~3> 279, 289 Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., 13, 14, 20 Glazebrook, Hugh, 187, 214, 239, 268 Globe, 287 Glyn, Elinor, 148-9, 158 n. 25

Evans, Mr. (Government Superintend¬ ent of Chinese Labour), 165-6 Evening News, 316 Evening Standard, 315

Goodenough, Major-General, 41, 55 Goold-Adams, Sir Hamilton, 174 Goschen, Rt. Hon. G. J. (later Viscount Goschen), 12-16, 18, 21, 22, 38, 61, 163, 218

Faisal, Amir (later King Faisal of Iraq),

Gough, Brig.-Gen. (later General Sir Hubert), 228-9, 292—2

33°> 353 Feetham, Richard (later Sir Richard), 136, 205, 207, 210

Graham, Mr. F. (Colonial Office official), 61, 7 6

~6°

Fiddes, George (later Sir George), 41, 63,71, 101, 325 Fischer, Abraham, 70-1, 78, 88, 173

Graham, Sir R. (FO official), 335 Greene, Mr. Conyngham (later Sir Conyngham), 42, 46, 47, 48, 62-3, 68, 79> 84, 85, 89

3°7

Index Grey, Albert (later Earl), 115, 186, 204,

Hely Hutchinson, Sir William, 41, 65-6,

356 n. 13 Grey, Sir Edward (later Viscount Grey

105, 124 Henderson, Rt. Hon. Arthur: joins LG War Cabinet, 254; resigns from War

of Falloden), 91, 104, 114 Grigg, Sir Edward (later Lord Altrin¬ cham), 209,232, 241 Gwynne, H. A., 237 Haig, Field-Marshal Sir Douglas (later Earl Haig): made British C-in-C, 246; invites M to visit Western front, 250; 272; squanders troops on Western front, 274; supports PM in Admiralty dispute, 276; temporarily subordina¬ ted to Nivelle, 2.78-9; advocates Western front strategy, 279-81; re¬ sponsibility for Passchendaele, 281-2; relations with CIGS (Robertson), 283; abandons previous strategy, 285; in¬ trigues with HM, 289; deserts Robert¬ son over Supreme War Council dis¬ pute, 290; sabotages Supreme War Council reserve, 291; acquiesces in Foch’s appointment as Generalissimo, 292-5; opinion of Lord Derby, 298; pessimism of, 308; attitude to tanks, 210; views on armistice terms, 314; 326 Haldane, Rt. Hon. R. B. (later Viscount Haldane), 21, 91, 104, 114, 181-2, 188 n. 1, 241, 314-15 Halifax, Earl of, 171, 226 Halsbury, Earl of (previously Sir Hardinge Giffard), 171, 196-7 Hamilton Baynes, Bishop, 325, 362 Hanbury Williams, Major (later MajorGen. Sir Hanbury Williams), 41, 71? 120, 132-4, 187 Hanbury Williams, Mrs. (later Lady), 41,56, 187 Hankey, Sir Maurice (later Lord), 247, 258, 267, 271, 276, 279, 282, 284, 288289, 299, 307, 310, 3x1, 3D? 339 Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Sir William, 22, 25, 38, 91, 104, 169 Harington, General Sir C., 287 Harris, Rutherfoord, 54

Cabinet, 288 Hereford, Bishop of, 163-4 Het Volk, 151-2, 168-73 Hewins, W. A. S., 179, 184 Hichens, Lionel, 135-6, 205, 208, 233, 239 Hicks Beach, Sir M., 22, 90, 128 Hofmeyr, J. H., 41, 66, 68, 78, 79-80, 82, 83,145, 146,148 Holland, A. R. S., 210 House, Colonel, 286, 318 Howick, Lord, 209, 210 Hughes, W. M., 267, 308, 310, 335 Hunter, Sir Charles, 224, 229 Hurst, Sir C., 338, 347 Imperial Conference 1911, 236 Imperial Conference 1917, 267 Imperial Conference 1918, 308-10 Imperial Federation League, 6 Imperial Preference, 144, 150, 183, 2x1, 214, 268 Imperial War Cabinet, 267-8, 308-10 Independent Labour Party (ILP), 245, 274 Inter-Colonial Conference, 139-43? 161 Inter-Colonial Council, 137, 143, i48? 154, 157, 205 Irish Home Rule, 15, 194—5, 2x8 et seq. Irish National Volunteers, 230, 232 Islington, Lord, 359 Iwan-Muller, E. B., 157, 301 Jameson, Dr. L. S. (later Sir Starr), 34, 35, 124, 145, 150, 186, 206, 207, 210, 303 n. 39, 356 m 13 Jellicoe, Admiral Sir John (later Earl Jellicoe of Scapa), 269, 275-77, 289 Johannesburg Star, 135, I55~6, I74> 2°5> 208, 213 Jones, Thomas, 314 Jowett, Dr. Benjamin, 3, 6, 10, 21

388

Index

Kerr, Philip (later Lord Lothian), 136, 205, 208, 209, 211, 213, 214, 239, 249, 258,3II,339 Keynes, J. M., 327 Kindergarten, 134-6, 174, 200, 205-8,

237, 334, 362 King’s College, London, 2-3 Kipling, Rudyard, 20, 35, 56, 180, 226, 235 n. 19, 303 n. 39, 356 n. 13, 362 Kitchener, Sir H. (later Earl Kitchener of Khartum), 17, 97, 104; becomes C-in-C in SA, 105-6; peace negotia¬ tions with Botha, 107-9; proposals for tough measures against Boers, 113-14; 116-17; peace negotiations, 117-22; signs peace of Vereeniging, 121-22; leaves SA, 134; 157; made SS for War, 238-9; attitude to conscription, 243; death, 246 Kruger, President Paul, President of Transvaal, 33; 34, 35; reaction to Jameson Raid, 36; 43; corrupt prac¬ tices of, 46; attitude to Uitlanders, 52; at Bloemfontein Conference, 70-3; attitude after Bloemfontein, 78-9; intransigence of, 83; criticised by Chamberlain, 85; belligerence of, 8889; goes into exile, 98

War, 91; becomes Chancellor of Ex¬ chequer, 191-2; opinion of Round Table, 215; works out abortive Home Rule settlement, 227; assessment of M’s political influence, 238; becomes SS for War, 246; meets M secretly, 249; negotiations with Asquith re conduct of war, 252-3; resigns from government, 253; becomes PM, 254; opinion of M, 257; opinion of M’s mission to Russia, 264; invites Smuts to join War Cabinet, 268; showdown with Admiralty re convoys, 275-8; chairs War Policy Committee, 279281; develops ‘eastern’ strategy, 282285; struggle with Robertson re Supreme War Council, 285-91; account of meeting at Doullens, 295296; meets Clemenceau and Foch at Beauvais re supreme command, 296; triumphs in Maurice debate, 299—300; anti-Western front bias of, 310; wins ‘coupon’ election, 320-1; attitude to Zionism, 332-3; sundry discussions with M, 339-41; accepts M’s resigna¬ tion, 354 Lloyd, Sir George (later Lord Lloyd of Dolobran), 329, 344 Loch, Sir Henry (later Lord), 37, 61

Labouchere, H., 82-3, 99 Ladysmith, siege and relief of, 97-8 Lagden, Sir Godfrey, 51, 134 Lansdowne, Marquis of, 15, 37, 61, 83, 9°, 172, 192, 196, 197, 225, 231, 233, 247-8 Laurier, Wilfred, 186, 199, 215 Lawley, Sir Arthur (later Lord Wenlock), 134, 152, 166 Lawrence, General Sir H., 287, 308, 326 Lawrence, T. E., 326, 338 Layton, Sir Walter, 262 League of Nations, 326, 335, 336, 340 Leyds, W. J., 43, 47, 67-8, 85, 88, 95 Lippert, E. A., 46 Lloyd George, Rt. Hon. David (later Earl Lloyd George): attitude to Boer

London Convention 1884, 25 n. 11, 30,

35,36, 43,46,58, 7i Long, Rt. Hon. Walter (later Viscount Long of Wraxall), 199, 225, 273 Loreburn, Lord (previously Sir R. Reid), 222 Loucheur, Louis, 292-5 Lourenco Marques, see Delagoa Bay Lovat, Lord, 209, 210, 226, 356 n. 13 Low, Sir Sidney, 269-70, 301, 314 Mackinder, H. J., 179 Maclay, Sir Joseph, 276 Macready, General, 228 Mafeking, siege and relief of, 98 Magersfontein, battle of, 97, 98 Majuba Hill, battle of, 30, 34, 35

Index Malan, F. S., 207 Malcolm, Dougal, 136, 205, 208, 239,

334,353 Malcolm, Mr., 1, 2, 3, 26 n. 25 Malcolm, Marianne, 1-3, 8, 9, n, 12, 26 n. 25 Mandates, 327 Marris, William, 205, 208, 210 Martin, Sir Richard, 44 Massey, W. F., 335 Maurice, General Sir F., 299-300 Maxse, Leo, 179, 185, 188 n. 1, 301, 358 Maxwell, General Sir John, 338 Mayor, Mr., 3 McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald, 240, 244, 271 McMahon, Sir H., 336 McNeill, Ronald (later Lord Cushenden), 221

Merriman, F. X., 40, 57 n. 3, 75, 113, 134, 207 Methuen, General, 97, 98 Michell, Sir Lewis, 124, 145, 150 Milner, Alfred, Viscount: birth, 1; Ger¬ man education, 2; at King’s College, London, 2-3; at Balliol College, 3-8; reading for the Bar, 8-9; abandons Bar, 9-10; visits France, 11; works on PMG, 11-12; private secretary to Goschen, 12-16; stands for parliament, 13-14; at Ministry of Finance in Cairo, 16-21; in love with Margot Tennant, 21; chairman Board of Inland Revenue, 22-4; KCB, 22; appointed High Commissioner in SA, 24; sendoff to SA, 38-9; duties as HC, 39-40; first weeks in Cape Town, 40-4; visits Rhodesia, 44-6; first dealings with Rhodes, 45-6; attitude to Transvaal, 47-9; Graaf Reinet speech, 49-50; visits Basutoland, 50-1; attitude to Delagoa Bay, 52-4; attitude to Cape elections, 54-5; reaction to first eight¬ een months in SA, 55-7; on leave in UK, 60-2; reaction to Edgar incident, 60; impressions of visit to UK, 61-2;

389

attitude to Uitlander Petition, 63; attitude to policy of HMG, 65-6; atti¬ tude before Bloemfontein Conference, 67-70; during Bloemfontain Confer¬ ence, 70-4; attitude after Bloemfon¬ tein Conference, 76; hardening atti¬ tude towards negotiations with Trans¬ vaal, 78-81; continued intransigence of, 84; nervous state of, 86; reaction to outbreak of war, 90; attitude to Afrikaners, 92-3; attitude to Schreiner, 93; relations with Cape Ministry, 9899; on post-war plans, 99-100; on Schreiner’s resignation, 101-2; atti¬ tude to Cape rebels, 101; attitude to HMG, 102; euphoric attitude of, 103; fears re British General Election, 103; relations with Liberal opposition, 104105; awarded GCB, moves HQ to Johannesburg, 105; relations with Kitchener, 105-6; attitude to Cape Constitution, 106-7; attitude to Kit¬ chener’s peace negotiations, 108-9; attitude to concentration camps, in; visit to UK, 112-15; receives peerage, 112; warns Kitchener re unpopularity of war, 114; relations with Liberals, 114; relations with Rhodes, 114-15; attitude to House of Commons, 115; relations with Kitchener, 116-17; atti¬ tude to renewed peace negotiations, 118-21; signs Peace of Vereeniging, 121-2; becomes Viscount, 122; opinion of peace terms, 122; attacks British Party system, 122-3; attempts to abrogate Cape Constitution, 123-6; reaction to Rhodes’s death, 124-5; trouble with Chamberlain over Cape Constitution, 126-9; plans for recon¬ struction, 132-4; arrangements for resettlement and rehabilitation, 136-7; creation of Inter-Colonial Council, 137; nationalises SA railways, 137-8; plans for local government, 138; plans for law and order, 138; plans for agri¬ culture, 138; plans for unity, 139;

390

Index

plans for land settlement, 140; plans for education, 140-1; plans for guaranteed loan, 141; reaction to Chamberlain’s visit to SA, 145-6; attacks British Party system, 146-7; pessimism re SA, 147-8; leaves for Europe on leave, 148; affaire with Elinor Glyn, 148-9; offered and refuses Colonial Office, 149-50; re¬ turns to SA, 150; anticipates departure from SA, 152; farewell speech, 153-5; views on future of SA, 156-7; returns to UK, 157; offered and refuses Vice¬ royalty of India, 157; opinion of new Liberal Government, 157-8; advocates import of Chinese labour, 160-3; maiden speech in House of Lords, 167-9; censured in House of Com¬ mons re Chinese labour, 169-71; de¬ fended in House of Lords, 171-2; various tributes to, 172-3; efforts on behalf of British settlers in SA, 173; last views on SA, 174; on holiday by the Thames, 176-7; city directorships, 177; activities as Rhodes Trustee, 178; advocates National Service, 181-2; political speeches by, 183-5; visits Canada, 187-8; views on democracy, 189 n. 8; sundry political activities, 190-1; attacks Lloyd George Budget, 192-3; election speeches, 193-4; visits Egypt, 195, 197; relations with Bal¬ four re Tariff Reform, 196; opposes Parliament Bill, 196-7; political views, 198; second visit to Canada, 199; interest in agriculture, 199-200; atti¬ tude to Tariff Reform, 200; publishes Nation and Empire, 200-3; sees Bonar Law re Ulster, 204; assists Kinder¬ garten re plans for SA federation, 206; activity in setting up Round Table, 209-14; views on Home Rule, 218-19; becomes involved over Ulster, 222-3; pessimistic outlook, 223-4; forms British Covenant, 224-6; advocates amendment of Army Act, 226-7;

reaction to Curragh ‘mutiny’, 229-30; continued intransigence re Ulster, 231; invited to join shadow Cabinet, 231; accepts principle of Ulster exclusion, 231-2; bitterness against Asquith government, 233; continued concern with Ulster, 233-4; moves from Duke St. to College St., 234; political atti¬ tude and influence in Aug. 1914; activity at outbreak of war, 238-9; views on war aims, 239-40; agric. recommendations rejected by govern¬ ment, 241-2; activity re conscription, 242-5; criticised by HM, 242-3; con¬ tinual denunciations of government, 249- 54; references in House of Com¬ mons to German antecedents, 249; tries to undermine government, 249-54; animosity towards Churchill, 250; viewsonwar, 250; visits Western front, 250; invited to reorganise coal industry, 250- 1; recommendations for coal in¬ dustry, 251; reaction to fall of Asquith government, 253-4; joins LG War Cabinet, 254; attitude to LG, 257; outside reactions to M’s appointment to War Cabinet, 258-60; mission to Russia, 262-5; opinion of FO, 266; in¬ terview with Sidney Low re war aims, 269- 70; views on post-war settlement, 270- 1; arranges increased agricultural production, 271-2; unsuccessful fight with liquor interests, 273; co-ordinates British war-time economy, 273-4; views on labour unrest, 274-5; clash with Admiralty, 275-8; objects to Churchill joining War Cabinet, 277; inaugurates War Policy Committee, 279-81; opinion of Haig, 282; views on strategy, 282-4; supports PM over Supreme War Council, 285-91; mis¬ sion to France re supreme command, 292-5; pessimism re war, 296-7; on man-power, 297-8; becomes SS for War, 298-9; mistrust of Churchill, 299; membership of X Committee,

Index 299; arranges with Garvin for attack on Repington, 300-1; attitude to Press, 301; visits to France as SS for War, 306-11; pessimism re war situation, 308-9; anti-western front bias, 310; stays with PM at Criccieth, 311; on post-war prospects, 311-12; scepti¬ cism re war news, 312; views on peace terms, 313-15; interview with Evening Standard on peace terms, 315-16; un¬ favourable reactions to interview, 316—17; visits France for armistice dis¬ cussions, 317-18; views on post-war situation in East, 318; demobilisation plans, 319; rows with PM, 319-20; becomes Colonial Secretary, 321; declining influence of, 323-5; British delegate at Peace Conference, 326-36; work on Mandates, 327; views on Italian colonies, 327-8; views on dis¬ posal of Ottoman Empire, 329; views on disposal of Syria, 329-30; views on Zionism and Balfour Decla¬ ration, 330-3; on post-war economy, 334; sundry activities in London and Paris, 334-5; disapproves of German peace treaty terms, 335; views on League of Nations, 335-6; detailed for mission to Egypt, 336-8; sundry dis¬ cussions on Egypt, Syria, finance, etc., 339—40; sundry discussions, 341-2; mission to Egypt, 342-5; returns from Egypt, 345; negotiations with Zaghlul, 345-7; meeting at FO re Egypt, 347; report on mission to Egypt, 347-8; memo to Cabinet on Report, 348—9; outside views on mission to Egypt, 350-3; resignation from government, 354; award of Garter, 354; relations with J. Chamberlain and Lloyd George, 354-5; moves house and marries, 358; work with Rio Tinto, 358-9; visits Palestine, Syria and Transjordan, 359; defends Balfour Declaration policy, 359-do; opinion of Bonar Law’s Tory government,

391

360; visits South Africa, 361; nomi¬ nated as Chancellor of Oxford Uni¬ versity, 361; death, 361-2; beliefs, 364372; views on coal nationalisation, 375-6 Milner, Charles (M’s father), 1, 2-3 Milner, James Richardson (M’s grand¬ father), 1 Milner, Mary (M’s mother), see Crombie, Mary Milner, Violet, Viscountess, see Cecil, Lady Edward Milner-Zaghlul Agreement, 346, 347, 348, 350 Milton, Sir W., 44 Montagu, Rt. Hon. Edwin, 277, 326, 332 Montefiore, Claud, 331 Montefiore, Mrs., 26 n. 25 Morley, John (later Viscount Morley), 8, 11,38,91,99, 100, 113 Murray, General Sir Archibald, 239, 281 Nation and Empire, 200—3

National Democratic Labour Party, 339,

373 National Review, 185, 215

National Service, National Service League, 178,181-2,184, 203,237,238, 239, 242-5 New College, Oxford, 6, 8, 135, 136, 209, 362 New Statesman, 305 n. 81, 315

Nivelle, General, 278-9 Northcliffe, Viscount, 209, 216 n. 13, 237-8, 253, 256 n. 22, 289, 301, 315—

3X7, 326> 36° Observer, 209, 229, 237, 301

Oliver, F. S., 179,188 n. 8, 208, 209, 210, 212, 213, 218, 225, 232-3, 239, 249-50, 252, 303 n. 39, 318-19, 322 n. 23 Oranjie Unie, 151-2, 173 Orlando, Signor, 286, 306, 326 Ormsby-Gore, W. G. A. (later Lord Harlech), 258, 289, 331, 373

392

Index

Paget, General Sir Arthur, 222, 227-9 Pall Mall Gaiette, 8, 11-12, 19 Palmer, Sir Elwin, 17, 21 Parkin, Sir George, 4, 6, 18, 21, 23, 24 Passchendaele, battle of, 280-2, 297 Perry, J. F., 135,205,208,335 Petain, Marechal, 279, 291, 293-5 Plumer, General Sir H. (later Lord Plumer of Messines), 287, 290, 291, 308, 333 Plunkett, Horace, 200 Poincare, Raymond, 292-5, 341 Portland, Duke of, 226 Portsmouth, Earl of, 168 Pretoria Convention 1881, 30 Prinsloo, General, 98 Progressive Party, 41, 54, 101, 114-15, I24, i25> *45, 178 Prothero, R. E. (later Lord Ernie), 200, 204 n. 13, 271 Radcliffe, General P. de B., 299, 310, 326 Rawlinson, General Sir H. (later Lord Rawlinson), 290, 291, 292 Rawson, Vice-Admiral, 41 Ready, Charles, 2 Ready, Major-Gen. John (M’s maternal grandfather), 1 Ready, Oliver, 203 Redmond, John, 222, 231, 232 Reitz, F. W., 89 Rendel, James, 75, 81, 102, 128, 152 Repington, Colonel, 288, 300-1, 304 n. 73

Roberts, Field-Marshal Earl, 97-8, 100ioi) 105, 171, 181-2, 222-3, 225, 226, 239 Roberts, Lady, 245 Robertson, General Sir William (later Field-Marshal), 272, 276, 278, 279-80, 282-3; manoeuvres re Supreme War Council ending in his dismissal as CIGS, 284-91; 305 n. 91, 305 n. 95 Robinson, Geoffrey (later Dawson, Geoffrey), 135, 155-6, 174, 205, 208, 209, 213,214,216 n. 13, 2x7 n. 19, 229, 237) 249) 252) 256 n. 22, 301, 318, 326, 360 Robinson, Sir Hercules (later Lord Rosmead), 24, 33, 35-6, 37 Rodd, Sir Rennell (later Lord), 338 Rosebery, Earl of, 20, 21, 22, 38, 61, 77, 91, 114, 192 Rose Innes, Sir James, 40, 134 Rothschild, Nathan, 1st Baron, 61, 192, 235 n. 19 Rothschild, Walter, 2nd Baron, 333 Round Table, 178, 199, 214-16, 225, 232-3, 239, 325, 332, 353) 358 Round Table, 210-14, 332 Royal Colonial Institute, 245 Runciman, Walter (later Lord), 244, 271 Rushdi, Husain, 337, 348 Ruskin, John, 5

Russell, Bertrand, 188 n. 1

Revelstoke, Lord, 262 Rhodes, Cecil, 5, 21, 30, 32, 33, 34, 41, 44, 45> 54)

Ripon, Marquis of, 104, 171 Ritchie, C. T. (later Lord Ritchie of Dundee), 144

61, 89, 90, 95 n. 76, 114-15,

124 Rhodesia, 25 n. 11, 41, 44-6, 334 Rhodes Scholarships, 115 Rhodes Trust, 6, 115, 178, 199, 206, 210, 213,217m 15,

333) 335) 340, 35 66, 67, 78, 79, 82, 83, 93, 101-2, 106

Index Seeley, Professor ]. R., 5, 20 Seely, J. E. B. (later Lord Mottistone), 222, 227—9 Selborne, Earl of, 40, 48, 54-5, 61-2, 7576, 77, 81-2, 90, 100, 122, 136, 148, 152, 156, 163, 166, 197, 205, 206-7, 239,241-2 Sharp, Clifford, 315, 322 n. 21 Simon, Sir John (later Viscount Simon), 244 Sivewright, James, 66 Smellie, Robert, 251 Smith, F. E. (later Earl of Birkenhead), 197, 221, 224, 240-1, 361 Smuts, Field-Marshal J. C., 71, 73, 75, 84, 85, 120, 122, 164, 174, 207, 208, 268, 279-80, 283, 284, 302 n. 21, 310, 332-3, 334, 375, 361 Solomon, Sir Richard, 134 Sonnino, Baron, 326 South African League, 34, 59, 62, 75

Spender, J. A., 338 Sprigg, Sir Gordon, 41, 51, 54, 101, 123, 124 Stamfordham, Lord, 279, 290 Stead, W. T., 11-12, 21, 301 Steed, Wickham, 315 Steel-Maitland, Sir Arthur, 186-7, 258, 358, 373

Steyn, President M. T., 42, 66, 68,70,78, 88, 90, 116, 117 Stormberg, battle of, 97 Storrs, Sir Ronald, 338 Sturry Court, 177-8, 188 n. 4, 203, 310, 325, 334, 347, 3 312, 316, 326, 327, 336 Wingate, Sir Reginald, 337-8, 340, 342, 348, 356 m 23

Zaghlul Saad, 337, 344-5, 345-7, 348, 349,351 Zimmern, Sir Alfred, 214, 239

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