and to this day is the Milner Group in its widest aspect. It is the legitimate child of the
Round Table organization, just as the latter was the legitimate child of the "Closer
Union" movement organized in South Africa in 1907. All three of these organizations
were formed by the same small group of persons, all three received their initial financial
backing from Sir Abe Bailey, and all three used the same methods for working out and
propagating their ideas (the so-called Round Table method of discussion groups plus a
journal). This similarity is not an accident. The new organization was intended to be a
wider aspect of the Milner Group, the plan being to influence the leaders of thought
through
The real founder of the Institute was Lionel Curtis, although this fact was concealed
for many years and he was presented to the public as merely one among a number of
founders. In more recent years, however, the fact that Curtis was the real founder of the
Institute has been publicly stated by members of the Institute and by the Institute itself on
many occasions, and never denied. One example will suffice. In the
Institute for 1942-1943 we read the following sentence: "When the Institute was founded
through the inspiration of Mr. Lionel Curtis during the Peace Conference of Paris in
1919, those associated with him in laying the foundations were a group of comparatively
young men and women."
The Institute was organized at a joint conference of British and American experts at
the Hotel Majestic on 30 May 1919. At the suggestion of Lord Robert Cecil, the chair
was given to General Tasker Bliss of the American delegation. We have already indicated
that the experts of the British delegation at the Peace Conference were almost exclusively
from the Milner Group and Cecil Bloc. The American group of experts, "the Inquiry,"
was manned almost as completely by persons from institutions (including universities)
dominated by J. P. Morgan and Company. This was not an accident. Moreover, the
Milner Group has always had very close relationships with the associates of J. P. Morgan
and with the various branches of the Carnegie Trust. These relationships, which are
merely examples of the closely knit ramifications of international financial capitalism,
were probably based on the financial holdings controlled by the Milner Group through
the Rhodes Trust. The term "international financier" can be applied with full justice to
several members of the Milner Group inner circle, such as Brand, Hichens, and above all,
Milner himself.
At the meeting at the Hotel Majestic, the British group included Lionel Curtis, Philip
Kerr, Lord Robert Cecil, Lord Eustace Percy, Sir Eyre Crowe, Sir Cecil Hurst, J. W.
Headlam-Morley, Geoffrey Dawson, Harold Temperley, and G. M. Gathorne-Hardy. It
was decided to found a permanent organization for the study of international affairs and
to begin by writing a history of the Peace Conference. A committee was set up to
supervise the writing of this work. It had Lord Meston as chairman, Lionel Curtis as
secretary, and was financed by a gift of £2000 from Thomas W. Lamont of J. P. Morgan
and Company. This group picked Harold Temperley as editor of the work. It appeared in
six large volumes in the years 1920-1924, under the auspices of the RIIA.
The British organization was set up by a committee of which Lord Robert Cecil was
chairman, Lionel Curtis was honorary secretary and the following were members: Lord
Eustace Percy, J. A. C. (later Sir John) Tilley, Philip Noel-Baker, Clement Jones, Harold
Temperley, A. L. Smith (classmate of Milner and Master of Balliol), George W.
Prothero, and Geoffrey Dawson. This group drew up a constitution and made a list of
prospective members. Lionel Curtis and Gathorne Hardy drew up the by-laws.
The above description is based on the official history of the RIIA published by the
Institute itself in 1937 and written by Stephen King Hall. It does not agree in its details
(committees and names) with information from other sources, equally authoritative, such
as the journal of the Institute or the preface to Temperley's
consisting of Lord Robert Cecil, Sir Valentine Chirol, and Sir Cecil Hurst. As a matter of
fact, all of these differing accounts are correct, for the Institute was formed in such an
informal fashion, as among friends, that membership on committees and lines of
authority between committees were not very important. As an example, Mr. King-Hall
says that he was invited to join the Institute in 1919 by Philip Kerr (Lord Lothian),
although this name is not to be found on any membership committee. At any rate, one
thing is clear: The Institute was formed by the Cecil Bloc and the Milner Group, acting
together, and the real decisions were being made by members of the latter.