Rowton, w ho had been Disraeli's private secretary, left his papers to
used for a
first two volumes of the six-volume work. The last four volumes were written by George
E. Buckle, editor of
contemporary of Milner's at Oxford (1872-1876).
It is perhaps worth noting that when Monypenny resigned from the
he was replaced as editor by William Basil Worsfold, who held the post for two years,
being replaced, as we have
said, by Geoffrey Dawson. In the years 1906-1913 Worsfold published a three-volume
study of Milner's accomplishments in South Africa. This contains the most valuable
account in existence of the work of the Kindergarten.(4)
Fabian Ware (Sir Fabian since 1922), who had been a reporter on
(1899-1901), was Assistant Director and Director of Education in the Transvaal (1901-
1905) and Director of Education in the Orange River Colony (1903), as well as a member
of the Transvaal Legislative Council (1903-1905). He was editor of
1905-1911 and then became special commissioner to the board of the Rio Tinto
Company, on which Milner was director. During the First World War he rose to the rank
of major general. Since then he has been permanent vice-chairman of the Imperial War
Graves Commission. A book which he wrote in 1937,
subject in
Economic Consultation and Cooperation in 1933 and was a director-general in the War
Office in 1939-1944.
Main Swete Osmond Walrond was in the Ministry of Finance in Egypt (1894-1897)
before he became Milner's private secretary for the whole period of his High
Commissionership (1897-1905). He was then appointed District Commissioner in Cyprus
but did not take the post. In 1917-1919 he was in the Arab Bureau in Cairo under the
High Commissioner and acted as an unofficial, but important, adviser to Milner's mission
to Egypt in 1919-1921. This mission led to Egyptian independence from Britain.
Lionel Curtis is one of the most important members of the Milner Group, or, as a
member of the Group expressed it to me, he is the
as a statement, but a powerful defense could be made of the claim that what Curtis thinks
should be done to the British Empire is what happens a generation later. I shall give here
only two recent examples of this. In 1911 Curtis decided that the name of His Majesty's
Dominions must be changed from "British Empire" to "Commonwealth of Nations." This
was done officially in 1948. Again, about 1911 Curtis decided that India must be given
complete self-government as rapidly as conditions permitted. This was carried out in
1947. As we shall see, these are not merely coincidental events, for Curtis, working
behind the scenes, has been one of the chief architects of the present Commonwealth. It is
not easy to discern the places where he has passed, and no adequate biographical sketch
can be put on paper here. Indeed, much of the rest of this volume will be a contribution to
the biography of Lionel Curtis. Burning with an unquenchable ardor, which some might
call fanatical, he has devoted his life to his dominant idea, that the finer things of life—
liberty, democracy, toleration, etc.—could be preserved only within an integrated world
political system, and that this political system could be constructed about Great Britain,
but only if Britain adopted toward her Dominions, her colonies, and the rest of the world
a policy of generosity, of trust, and of developing freedom. Curtis was both a fanatic and
an idealist. But he was not merely "a man in a hurry." He had a fairly clear picture of
what he wanted. He did not believe that complete and immediate freedom and democracy
could be given to the various parts of the imperial system, but felt that they could only be
extended to these parts in accordance with their ability to develop to a level where they
were capable of exercising such privileges. When that level was achieved and those
privileges were extended, he felt that they would not be used to disrupt the integrated
world system of which he dreamed, but to integrate it more fully and in a sounder
fashion—a fashion based on common outlook and common patterns of thought rather
than on the dangerous unity of political subjection, censorship, or any kind of duress. To
Curtis, as to H. G. Wells, man's fate depended on a race between education and disaster.
This was similar to the feeling which animated Rhodes when he established the Rhodes
Scholarships, although Curtis has a much broader and less nationalistic point of view than