generation (except Milner and a few other adopted members of that Group), namely that
they got everything too easily. Political power, wealth, and social position came to this
third generation as a gift from the second, without the need to struggle for what they got
or to analyze the foundations of their beliefs. As a result, while awake to the impending
disaster, they were not able to avoid it, but instead tinkered and tampered until the whole
system blew up in their faces.
This third generation, especially the Milner Group, which formed its core, differed
from its two predecessors in its realization that it formed a group. The first generation had
regarded itself as"England," the second regarded itself as "Society," but the third realized
it was a secret group—or at least its inner circles did. From Milner and Rhodes they got
this idea of a secret group of able and determined men, but they never found a name for
it, contenting themselves with calling it "the Group," or "the Band," or even "Us." (9) Chapter 3—The Secret Society of Cecil Rhodes (1)
When Milner went to South Africa in 1897, Rhodes and he were already old
acquaintances of many years' standing. We have already indicated that they were
contemporaries at Oxford, but, more than that, they were members of a secret society
which had been founded in 1891. Moreover, Milner was, if not in 1897, at least by 1901,
Rhodes's chosen successor in the leadership of that society.
The secret society of Cecil Rhodes is mentioned in the first five of his seven wills. In
the fifth it was supplemented by the idea of an educational institution with scholarships,
whose alumni would be bound together by common ideals—Rhodes's ideals. In the sixth
and seventh wills the secret society was not mentioned, and the scholarships monopolized
the estate. But Rhodes still had the same ideals and still believed that they could be
carried out best by a secret society of men devoted to a common cause. The scholarships
were merely a facade to conceal the secret society, or, more accurately, they were to be
one of the instruments by which the members of the secret society could carry out his
purpose. This purpose, as expressed in the first will (1877), was:
“The extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of
emigration from the United Kingdom and of colonization by British subjects of all
lands wherein the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour, and
enterprise, . . . the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral
part of a British Empire, the consolidation of the whole Empire, the inauguration of
a system of Colonial Representation in the Imperial Parliament which may tend to
weld together the disjointed members of the Empire, and finally the foundation of so
great a power as to hereafter render wars impossible and promote the best interests
of humanity.”
To achieve this purpose, Rhodes, in this first will, written while he was still an
undergraduate of Oxford at the age of twenty-four, left all his wealth to the Secretary of
State for the Colonies (Lord Carnarvon) and to the Attorney General of Griqualand West
(Sidney Shippard), to be used to create a secret society patterned on the Jesuits. The
reference to the Jesuits as the model for his secret society is found in a "Confession of
Faith" which Rhodes had written two years earlier (1875) and which he enclosed in his
will. Thirteen years later, in a letter to the trustee of his third will, Rhodes told how to
form the secret society, saying, "In considering questions suggested take Constitution of
the Jesuits if obtainable and insert 'English Empire' for 'Roman Catholic Religion.'"
In his "Confession of Faith" Rhodes outlined the types of persons who might be useful
members of this secret society. As listed by the American Secretary to the Rhodes Trust,
this list exactly describes the group formed by Milner in South Africa:
“Men of ability and enthusiasm who find no suitable way to serve their country under
the current political system; able youth recruited from the schools and universities; men
of wealth with no aim in life; younger sons with high thoughts and great aspirations but
without opportunity; rich men whose careers are blighted by some great disappointment.