Amery, since at that time the latter was Milner's active political lieutenant and one of the
chief movers in the effort to make him Chancellor.
Thus, in the period 1926-1929, the Milner Group held the Viceroy's post but did not
hold the post of Secretary of State. The relationship between these two posts was such
that good government could not be obtained without close cooperation between them.
Such cooperation did not exist in this period. As far as the constitutional development
was concerned, this lack of cooperation appeared in a tendency on the part of the
Secretary of State to continue to seek a solution of the problem along the road marked by
the use of a unilateral British investigatory commission, and a tendency on the part of
Irwin (and the Milner Group) to seek a solution along the newer road of cooperative
discussion with the Indians. These tendencies did not appear as divergent routes until
after the Simon Commission had begun its labors, with the result that accumulating
evidence that the latter road would be used left that unilateral commission in an
unenviable position.
The Government of India Act of 1919 had provided that an investigation should be
made of the functioning of the Act after it had been in effect for ten years. The growing
unrest of the Indians and their failure to utilize the opportunities of the Act of 1919
persuaded many Englishmen (including most of the Milner Group) that the promised
Statutory Commission should begin its work earlier than anticipated and should direct its
efforts rather at finding the basis for a new constitutional system than at examining the
obvious failure of the system provided in 1919.
The first official hint that the date of the Statutory Commission would be moved up
was given by Birkenhead on 30 March 1927, in combination with some rather "arrogant
and patronizing" remarks about Indian politics.
for his additional remarks, took up the suggestion regarding the commission and
suggested in its turn "that the ideal body would consist of judicially minded men who
were able to agree." This is, of course, exactly what was obtained. The authorized
biography
"It is interesting to speculate how far Geoffrey Dawson, the Editor, was again expressing
Irwin's thoughts and whether a deliberate
John Simon."
The Simon Commission was exactly what
"judicially minded men who were able to agree." Its chairman was the most expensive
lawyer in England, a member of the Cecil Bloc since he was elected to All Souls in 1897,
and in addition a member of the two extraordinary clubs already mentioned, Grillion's
and The Club. Although he was technically a Liberal, his associations and inclinations
were rather on the Conservative side, and it was no surprise in 1931 when he became a
National Liberal and occupied one of the most important seats in the Cabinet, the Foreign
Office. From this time on, he was closely associated with the policies of the Milner
Group and, in view of his personal association with the leaders of the Group in All Souls,
may well be regarded as a member of the Group. As chairman of the Statutory
Commission, he used his legal talents to the full to draw up a report on which all
members of the commission could agree, and it is no small example of his abilities that
he was able to get an unanimous agreement on a program which in outline, if not in all its
details, was just what the Milner Group wanted.
Of the six other members of the Commission, two were Labourite (Clement Attlee and
Vernon Hartshorn). The others were Unionist or Conservative. Viscount Burnham of
Eton and Balliol (1884) had been a Unionist supporter of the Cecil Bloc in Commons
from 1885 to 1906, and his father had been made baronet and baron by Lord Salisbury.
His own title of Viscount came from Lloyd George in 1919.
The fifth member of the Commission, Donald Palmer Howard, Baron Strathcona and
Mount Royal, of Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, had no special claim to fame
except that he had been a Unionist M.P. in 1922-1926.
The sixth member, Edward Cecil Cadogan of Eton and Balliol (1904), was the sixth
son of Earl Cadogan and thus the older brother of Sir Alexander Cadogan, British
delegate to the United Nations. Their father, Earl Cadogan, grandnephew of the first
Duke of Wellington, had been Lord Privy Seal in Lord Salisbury's second government
and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in Salisbury's third government. Edward, who was
knighted in 1939, had no special claim to fame except that he was a Unionist M.P. from
1922 to 1935 and was Chairman of the House of Commons under the National
Government of 1931-1935.
The seventh member, George R. Lane-Fox (Baron Bingley since 1933) of Eton and
New College, was a Unionist M.P. from 1906 to 1931 and Secretary of Mines from 1922