Part 1 of 2
Notes:
Chapter 1
1 . The sources of this information and a more detailed examination of the organization and personnel of the Rhodes secret society will be found in Chapter 3 below.
2. On Parkin, see the biography (1929) started by Sir John Willison and finished by Parkin's son-in-law, William L. Grant. Also see the sketches of both Parkin and Milner in the Dictionary of National Biography. The debate in the Oxford Union which first brought Parkin to Milner's attention is mentioned in Herbert Asquith's (Lord Oxford and Asquith) Memories and Reflections (2 vols., Boston, 1928), 1, 26.
3. The ideas for social service work among the poor and certain other ideas held by Toynbee and Milner were derived from the teachings of John Ruskin, who first came to Oxford as a professor during their undergraduate days. The two young men became ardent disciples of Ruskin and were members of his road-building group in the summer of 1870. The standard biography of Ruskin was written by a protege of Milner's, Edward Cook. The same man edited the complete collection of Ruskin's works in thirty-eight volumes. See Lord Oxford and Asquith, Memories and Reflections (2 vols., Boston, 1928), 1, 48. Cook's sketch in the Dictionary of National Biography was written by Asquith's intimate friend and biographer, J. A. Spender.
4. The quotation is from Cecil Headlam, ed., The Milner Papers (2 vols., London, 1931-1933), I, 15. There exists no biography of Milner, and all of the works concerned with his career have been written by members of the Milner Group and conceal more than they reveal. The most important general sketches of his life are the sketch in the Dictionary of National Biography, the obituary in The Times (May 1925), and the obituary in The Round Table (June 1925, XV, 427-430). His own point of view must be sought in his speeches and essays. Of these, the chief collections are The Nation and the Empire (Boston, 1913) and Questions of the flour (London, 1923). Unfortunately, the speeches after 1913 and all the essays which appeared in periodicals are still uncollected. This neglect of one of the most important figures of the twentieth century is probably deliberate, part of the policy of secrecy practiced by the Milner Group.
Chapter 2
1. A. C. Johnson, Viscount Halifax (New York, 1941), 54. Inasmuch as Lord Halifax assisted the author of this biography and gave to him previously unpublished material to insert in it, we are justified in considering this an "authorized" biography and giving its statements considerable weight. The author is aware of the existence of the Milner Group and attributes much of Lord Halifax's spectacular career to his connection with the Croup.
2. H. H. Henson, Retrospect of an Unimportant Life (2 vols., London, 1942-1943), II, 66.
3. C. Hobhouse, Oxford as It Was and as It Is Today (London, 1939), 18.
4. On the role of Charles Hardinge in foreign policy, see A. L. Kennedy, "Lord Hardinge of Penshurst," in The Quarterly Review (January 1945), CCLXXXIII, 97-104, and Charles Hardinge, 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst, Old Diplomacy; Reminiscences (London, 1947). Although not mentioned again in this work, A. I.. Kennedy appears to be a member of the Milner Group.
5. Lord Ernie, Whippingham to Westminster (London, 1938), 248.
6. Lionel Curtis, Dyarchy (Oxford, 1920), 54.
7. Another exception was "Bron" Lucas (Auberon Herbert, Lord Lucas and Dingwall), son of Auberon Herbert, the brother of Lord Carnavon. "Bron" went from Balliol to South Africa as a Times correspondent in the Boer War and lost a leg from overzealous devotion to the task. A close friend of John Buchan and Raymond Asquith, he became a Liberal M.P. through the latter's influence but had to go to the Upper 1 louse in 1905, when he inherited two titles from his mother's brother. He was subsequently private secretary to Haldane (1908), Under Secretary for War (1908-1911), Under Secretary for the Colonies (1911), Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture (1911-1914), and President of the Board of Agriculture (1914-1915). He thus became a member of the Cabinet while only thirty-eight years old. He resigned to join the Royal Flying Corps and was killed in 1916, about the same time as Raymond Asquith. Both of these, had they lived, would probably have become members of the Milner Group. Asquith was already a Fellow of All Souls (1901-1916). On "Bron" Lucas, see the autobiographies of Lords Asquith and Tweedsmuir and the article in the memorial volume to Balliol's dead in the First World War.
8. On these clubs, see Lord Oxford and Asquith, Memories and Reflections (2 vols., Boston, 1928), 1, 311-325.
9. The chief published references to the existence of the Milner Group from the pens of members will be found in the obituary notes on deceased members in The Round Table and in the sketches in the Dictionary of National Biography. In the former, see the notes on Milner, Hickens, Lord Lothian, A. J. Glazebrook, Sir Thomas Bavin, Sir Patrick Duncan, Sir Abe Bailey, etc. See also the references in the published works of Lionel Curtis, John Buchan (Lord Tweedsmuir), John Dove, etc. Quotations to this effect from John Buchan and from Lord Asquith will be found at the end of Chapter 3 below. The best published reference to the Milner Group is in M. S. Geen, The Making of the Union of South Africa (London, 1946), 150-152. The best account originating in the Group itself is in the article "Twenty-five Years" in The Round Table for September 1935, XV, 653- 659.
Chapter 3
1. This section is based on W. T. Stead, The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes (London, 1902); Sir Francis Wylie's three articles in the American Oxonian (April 1944), XXXI, 65-69; July 1944), XXXI, 129-138; and January 1945), XXXH, 1- 11; F. Aydelotte, The American Rhodes Scholars (Princeton, 1946); and the biographies and memoirs of the men mentioned.
2. No such claim is made by Sir Francis Wylie, from whose articles Dr. Aydelotte derived most of the material for his first chapter. Sir Francis merely mentions the secret society in connection with the early wills and then drops the whole subject.
3. W. T. Stead, The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes (London, 1902), 1 10-1 1 1. The statement of 1896 to Brett is in Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher(4 vols., London, 1934-1938), 1, 197.
4. Dr. Aydelotte quotes at length from a letter which Rhodes sent to Stead in 1891, but he does not quote the statements which Stead made about it when he published it in 1902. In this letter he spoke about the project of federal union with the United States and said, "The only feasible [way] to carry this idea out is a secret one (society) gradually absorbing the wealth of the world to be devoted to such an object." At the end of this document Stead wrote: "Mr. Rhodes has never to my knowledge said a word nor has he ever written a syllable, that justifies the suggestion that he surrendered the aspirations which were expressed in this letter of 1891. So far from this being the case, in the long discussions which took place between us in the last years of his life, he reaffirmed as emphatically as at first his unshaken conviction as to the dream — if you like to call it so — a vision, which had ever been the guiding star of his life." See W. T. Stead, The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes (London, 1902), 13-11.
5. Sir John Willison, Sir George Parkin (London, 1929), 234.
6. This paragraph and the two preceding it are from Sir Frederick Whyte, The Life of W. T Stead (2 vols., Boston 1925), 270-272 and 39.
7. See Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher (4 vols., London, 1938), 1, 149-150. It should be noted that the excision in the entry for 3 February marked by three points (...) was made by Lord Esher's son when he edited the journals for publication.
8. See F. Whyte, Life ofW. T. Stead (2 vols., Boston, 1925), 199-212.
9. No mention of the secret society is to be found in either Sir Harry Johnston, The Story of My Life (London, 1923), or in Alex. Johnston, Life and Letters of Sir Harry Johnston (London, 1929). The former work does contain an account of Johnston's break with Rhodes on page 497. More details are on pages 145-148 of the later work, including a record of Rhodes's saying, "I will smash you Johnston, for this." Johnston was convinced that it was a result of this enmity that Milner rather than he was chosen to be High Commissioner of South Africa in 1897. See pages 338-339.
10. Rhodes's reason for eliminating him (given in the January 1901 codicil to his will) was "on account of the extraordinary eccentricity of Mr. Stead, though having always a great respect for him, but feeling the objects of my Will would be embarrassed by his views." Milner's reasons (given in the "Stead Memorial" number of The Review of Reviews, May 1912) were his "lack of balance," which was "his Achilles heel.' See also the letter of 12 April 1902 from Edmund Garrett to Stead, quoted below, from F. Whyte, The Life ofW. T Stead (2 vols., Boston, 1925), 211.
11. The quotation is from the sketch of Lord Esher in the Dictionary of National Biography. The other quotations from Brett are from The Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher (4 vols., London, 1934-1938).
12. E. T. Cook, Edmund Garrett (London, 1909), 158. The excision in this letter marked by three points (. . .) was made by Cook. Cook was a protege of Milner's, found in New College, invited to contribute to the Pall Mall Gazette in 1881, and added to the staff as an editor in August 1883, when Milner was acting as editor-in-chief, during the absence of Morley and Stead. See F. Whyte, The Life ofW. T. Stead (2 vols., Boston, 1925), I, 94. Cook remained close to Milner for many years. On 4 October 1899 Lord Esher wrote to his son a letter in which he said: "Cook is the Editor of the Daily News and is in close touch with Milner and his friends" — Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher (4 vols., London, 1938), I, 240.
13. F. Whyte, Life of W. T. Stead (2 vols., Boston, 1925), 211. The quotation in the next paragraph is from the same place.
14. As an example of this and an example of the way in which the secret society functioned in the early period, see the following passage from the Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher (4 vols., London, 1938), under the date 21 November 1892: "I went to London on Friday and called on Rhodes. He had asked me to do so.... Rhodes asked for the Government carriage of his telegraph poles and 200 Sikhs at Blantyre. Then he will make the telegraph. He would like a gunboat on Tanganyika. I stayed there to lunch. Then saw Rosebery. He was in good spirits." From Sir Harry Johnston's autobiography, it is clear that the 200 Sikhs were for him.
15. S. G. Millen, Rhodes (London, 1934), 341-342.
16. In the House of Commons, Maguire was a supporter of Parnell, acting on orders from Rhodes, who had given £10,000 to Parnell's cause in 1888. Rhodes's own explanation of why he supported Parnell is a typical Milner Group statement. He said that he gave the money "since in Mr. Parnell's cause.... I believe he's the key to the Federal System, on the basis of perfect Home Rule in every part of the Empire." This quotation is from S. G. Millin, Rhodes (London, 1934), 1 12, and is based on W. T. Stead, The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes (London, 1902).
17. The first quotation is from Edmund Garrett, "Milner and Rhodes," in The Empire and the Century (London, 1905), 478. According to The Times obituary of Milner, 14 May 1925, Rhodes repeated these sentiments in different words on his deathbed, 26 March 1902. The statement to Stead will be found in W. T. Stead, The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes (London, 1902), 108.
18. See Cecil Headlam, ed., The Milner Papers, 1897-1905 (2 vols., London, 1931- 1933), 1 1,412-413; the unpublished material is at New College, Oxford, in Milner Papers, XXXVHI, ii, 200.
Chapter 4
1. The obituary of Patrick Duncan in The Round Table (September 1943), XXXIII, 303-305, reads in part: "Duncan became the doyen of the band of brothers, Milner's young men, who were nicknamed . . . The Kindergarten,' then in the first flush of youthful enthusiasm. It is a fast ageing and dwindling band now; but it has played a part in the Union of South Africa colonies, and it is responsible for the foundation and conduct of The Round Table. For forty years and more, so far as the vicissitudes of life have allowed, it has kept together; and always, while looking up to Lord Milner and to his successor in South Africa, the late Lord Selborne, as its political Chief, has revered Patrick Duncan as the Captain of the band." According to R. H. Brand, ed., The Letters of John Dove (London, 1938), Duncan was coming to England to the meetings of the Group as late was 1932.
2. The above list of eighteen names does not contain all the members of the Kindergarten. A complete list would include: (1) Harry Wilson (Sir Harry after 1908), who was a "Seeley lecturer" with Parkin in the 1890s; was chief private secretary to Joseph Chamberlain in 1895-1897; was legal adviser to the Colonial Office and to Milner in 1897-1901; was Secretary and Colonial Secretary to the Orange River Colony in 1901- 1907; was a member of the Intercolonial Council and of the Railway Committee in 1903- 1907. (2) E. B. Sargant, who organized the school system of South Africa for Milner in 1900-1904 and was Director of Education for both the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony in 1902-1904; he wrote a chapter for The Empire and the Century in 1905. (3) Gerard Craig Sellar, who died in 1929, and on whom no information is available. There was a Craig-Sellar Fellowship in his honor at Balliol in 1946. (4) Oscar Ferris Watkins, a Bible Clerk at All Souls at the end of the nineteenth century, received a MA. from this college in 1910; he was in the South African Constabulary in 1902-1904, was in the Transvaal Civil Service in 1904-1907; was in the East African Protectorate Service and the E.A. Civil Service from 1908, being a District Commissioner in 1914, Acting Chief Native Commissioner in 1920-1927, a member of the Legislative Council in 1920-1922, Deputy Chief Native Commissioner of Kenya in 1921-1927; he was Director of Military Labour under Smuts in German East Africa in 1914-1918. (5) Percy Girouard (later Sir Percy) was chairman of the Egyptian Railway Board in 1898-1899; was Director of Railways in the Boer War in 1899-1902; was Commissioner of Railways and Head of the Central South African Railways in 1902-1904; was High Commissioner of Northern Nigeria in 1907-1908 and Governor in 1908-1909; was Governor of the East African Protectorate in 1909-1912; was director of Armstrong, Whitworth and Company in 1912- 1915; and was Director General of Munitions Supply in 1914-1915. He was fired by Lloyd George for inefficiency in 1915.
3. Douglas Malcolm's sister in 1907 married Neill Malcolm (since 1919 Major General Sir Neill Malcolm), who was a regular army officer from 1889 to his retirement in 1924. He was on the British Military Mission to Berlin in 1919-1921; Commanding General in Malaya, 1921-1924; a founder of the RIIA, of which he was chairman from 1926 (succeeding Lord Meston) to 1935 (succeeded by Lord Astor). He was High Commissioner for German Refugees in 1936-1938, with R. M. Makins (member of All Souls and the Milner Group and later British Minister in Washington) as his chief British subordinate. He is president of the British North Borneo Company, of which Dougal Malcolm is vice-president. Ian Malcolm (Sir Ian since 1919), a brother of Neill Malcolm, was an attache at Berlin, Paris, and Petersburg in 1891-1896; and M.P. in 1895-1906 and again 1910-1919; assistant private secretary to Lord Salisbury (1895-1900); parliamentary private secretary to the Chief Secretary for Ireland (George Wyndham) in 1901-1903; Secretary to the Union Defence League, organized by Walter Long, in 1906-1910; a Red Cross officer in Europe and North America (1914-1917); on Balfour's mission to the United States in 1917; private secretary to Balfour during the Peace Conference (1919); and British representative on the Board of Directors of the Suez Canal Company. He wrote Walter Long's biography in the Dictionary of National Biography.
4. See W. B. Worsfold, The Reconstruction of the New Colonies under Lord Milner (2 vols., London, 1913), II, 207-222 and 302-419.
5. The last quotation is from Dyarchy (Oxford, 1920), liii. The other are from The Problem of the Commonwealth (London, 1915), 18, and 200-219.
6. Fisher was one of the most important members of the Milner Group, a fact which would never be gathered from the recent biography written by David Ogg, Herbert Fisher, 1865-1940 (London, 1947). He was associated with members of the Group, or persons close to it all his life. At New College in the period 1884-1888, he was a student of W. L. Courtney, whose widow, Dame Janet Courtney, was later close to the Group. He became a Fellow of New College in 1888, along with Gilbert Murray, also a member of the Group. His pupils at New College included Curtis, Kerr, Brand, Malcolm, and Hichens in the first few years of teaching; the invitation to South Africa in 1908 came through Curtis, his articles on the trip were published in The Times. He sailed to India in 1913 with Herbert Baker of the Group (Rhodes's architect). He refused the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1918, so it was given to Amery's brother-in-law; he refused the post of Assistant Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in December 1918, when Robert Cecil resigned. He played a certain role in drafting the Montagu-Chelmsford Report of 1919 and the Government of Ireland Bill of 1921, and piloted the latter through Commons. He refused the post of Ambassador to Washington in 1919. Nevertheless, he did not see eye to eye with the inner core of the Group on either religion or protection, since he was an atheist and a free-trader to the end. His book on Christian Science almost caused a break with some members of the Group.
7. H. H. Henson, Memoirs of Sir William Anson (Oxford, 1920), 212.
8. Cecil Headlam, ed., The Milner Papers, 1897-1905 (2 vols., London, 1931-1933), n, 501.
9. R. H. Brand, The Union of South Africa (Oxford, 1909), 39.
10. Smuts was frequently used by the Milner Group to enunciate its policies in public (as, for example, in his speeches of 15 May 1917 and 13 November 1934). The fact that he was speaking for the Milner Group was generally recognized by the upper classes in England, was largely ignored by the masses in England, and was virtually unknown to Americans. Lord Davies assumed this as beyond the need of proof in an article which he published in The Nineteenth Century in January 1935. He was attacking the Milner Group's belief that British defense could be based on the Dominions and the United States and especially on its efforts to reduce the League of Nations to a simple debating society. He pointed out the need for an international police force, then asked, "Will the Dominions and the United States volunteer as special constables? And, if they refuse, does it mean that Great Britain is precluded from doing so? The reply of The Round Table is 'yes,' and the most recent exposition of its policy is contained in the speech delivered by General Smuts at the dinner given in his honor by the Royal Institute of International Affairs on November 13" — The Nineteenth Century (January 1935), CXVII, 51.
Smuts's way in imperial affairs was much smoothed by the high opinion which Lord Esher held of him; see, for example, The Journals and Letters of Reginald Viscount Esher (4 vols., London, 1938), IV, 101, 224, and 254.
11. Lord Oxford and Asquith, Memories and Reflections 1852-1927 (2 vols., Boston, 1928), I, 213-214. Asquith was a member of the Cecil Bloc and of "The Souls." He was a lifelong friend of both Balfour and Milner. It was the former who persuaded Asquith to write his memoirs, after talking the matter over privately with Margot Asquith one evening while Asquith himself was at Grillions. When Asquith married Margot Tennant in 1894, the witnesses who signed the marriage certificates were A. J. Balfour, W. E. Gladstone, Lord Rosebery, Charles Tennant, H. J. Tennant, and R. B. Haldane. Asquith's friendship with Milner went back to their undergraduate days. In his autobiography Asquith wrote (pp. 210-21 1): "We sat together at the Scholar's table in Hall for three years. We then formed a close friendship, and were for many years on intimate terms and in almost constant contact with one another. ... At Oxford we both took an active part at the Union in upholding the unfashionable Liberal cause.... In my early married days [1877-1885] he used often to come to my house at Hampstead for a frugal Sunday supper when we talked over political and literary matters, for the most part in general agreement." For Milner's relationship with Margot Tennant before her marriage to Asquith in 1894, see her second fling at autobiography, More or Less about Myself (London, 1932). On 22 April 1908, W. T. Stead wrote to Lord Esher that Mrs. Asquith had three portraits over her bed: Rosebery, Balfour, and Milner. See The Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher (4 vols., London, 1938), 11, 304.
Chapter 5
1. The Times's obituary on Milner (14 May 1925), obviously written by a person who knew the situation well (probably either Dawson or Amery), said; "He would never in any circumstances have accepted office again.... That he always disliked it, assumed it with reluctance, and laid it down with infinite relief, is a fact about which in his case there was never the smallest affectation." It will be recalled that Milner had refused the Colonial Secretaryship in 1903; about six years later, according to The Times obituary, he refused a Unionist offer of a Cabinet post in the next Conservative government, unless the party would pledge itself to establish compulsory military training. This it would not do. It is worth recalling that another initiate, Lord Esher, shared Milner's fondness for compulsory military training, as well as his reluctance to hold public of flee.
2. E. Garrett, The Empire and the Century (London, 1905), 481. Eight years later in 1913, in the introduction to a collection of his speeches called The Nation and the Empire (Boston, 1913), Milner said almost the same thing. Milner's distaste for party politics was shared by Lord Esher and Lord Grey to such an extent as to become a chief motivating force in their lives. See H. Begbie, Albert, Fourth Earl Grey (London, 1918), especially p. 52, and The Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher (4 vols., London, 1938), passim.
3. Letter of Milner to Congdon, 23 November 1904, in Cecil Headlam, ed., The Milner Papers (2 vols., London, 1931-1933), H, 506.
4. Cecil Headlam, ed., The Milner Papers (2 vols., London, 1931-1933), I, 267 and 288; II, 505. Milner's antipathy for party politics was generally shared by the inner circle of the Milner Group. The future Lord Lothian, writing in The Round Table, August 1911, was very critical of party politics and used the same arguments against it as Milner. He wrote: "At any moment a party numbering among its numbers all the people best qualified to manage foreign affairs may be cast from office, for reasons which have nothing to do with their conduct of these matters. ... If the people of Great Britain manage to keep at the head of the great Imperial offices of State, men who will command the confidence of the Dominions, and who pursue steadfastly a . . . successful policy, and if the people of the Dominions are tolerant and far-sighted enough to accept such a policy as their own, the present arrangement may last. Does history give us any reason for expecting that the domestic party system will produce so great a combination of good fortune and good management?" (The Round Table, I, 414-418).
In the introduction to The Nation and the Empire, written in 1913, Milner expressed himself in a similar vein.
5. Marquess of Crewe, Lord Rosebery (2 vols., London, 1931), 615.
6. See John, Viscount Morley, Recollections (2 vols., New York, 1917), II.
7. The fact that a small "secret" group controlled the nominations for Chancellor of Oxford was widely recognized in Britain, but not frequently mentioned publicly. In May 1925 the Earl of Birkenhead wrote a letter to The Times to protest against this usurpation by a nonofficial group and was answered in The Times, by a letter which stated that, when the group was formed after the interruption of the First World War, he had been invited to join it but had never acknowledged the invitation! Milner's nomination was made by a group that met in New College, under the chairmanship of H. A. L. Fisher, on 5 May 1925. There were was about thirty present, including Fisher, Lord Astor, Lord Ernie, Steel-Maitland, Pember, Wilkinson, Brand, Lucas, M. G. Glazebrook, Sir Herbert Warren (classmate and friend of Milner's), Archbishop Davidson, Cyril Bailey, etc. The same group, according to Lord Halifax's biographer, nominated Lord Halifax to the Chancellorship in 1933.
8. The editors were assisted in the work of producing the two volumes by Margaret Toynbee. The influence of the Milner Group can be discerned in the list of acknowledgments in the preface to Weaver's volume. Among eighteen names listed may be found those of Cyril Bailey (Fellow of Balliol, 1902-1939, and member of the Ministry of Munitions, 1915-1918); C. R. M. F. Cruttwell (member of All Souls and the Round Table Group, Principal of Hertford College since 1930); Geoffrey Dawson, H. A. L. Fisher; and Ernest Swinton (Fellow of All Souls, 1925-1939). Apparently these persons decided what names should be included in the Dictionary.