Anglo-American Establishment полностью

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. 210-211): "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), II, 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