Anglo-American Establishment полностью

regarded as extreme anywhere outside the Milner Group. A recognized authority on Duns

Scotus, he wrote two volumes on this philosopher as well as the chapter on "Philosophy"

in The Legacy of the Middle Ages, but in 1935 he wrote Germany's Foreign Indebtedness

for the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Harris's literary versatility, as well as the large number of members of All Souls who

drifted over to the staff on The Times, unquestionably can be explained by the activities

of Lord Brand. Brand not only brought these persons from All Souls to The Times, but

also brought the Astors to The Times. Brand and Lord Astor were together at New

College at the outbreak of the Boer War. They married sisters, daughters of Chiswell

Dabney Langhorne of Virginia. Brand was apparently the one who brought Astor into the

Milner Group in 1917, although there had been a movement in this direction considerably

earlier. Astor was a Conservative M.P. from 1910 to 1919, leaving the Lower House to

take his father's seat in the House of Lords. His place in Commons has been held since

1919 by his wife, Nancy Astor (1919-1945), and by his son Michael Langhorne Astor

(1945- ). In 1918 Astor became parliamentary secretary to Lloyd George; later he held

the same position with the Ministry of Food (1918-1919) and the Ministry of Health

(1919-1921). He was British delegate to the Assembly of the League of Nations in 1931,

chairman of the League Committee on Nutrition (1936-1937), and chairman of the

council of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (since 1935). With help from

various people, he wrote three books on agricultural problems: Land and Life (1932), The

Planning of Agriculture (1933), and British Agriculture (1938). Both of his sons

graduated from New College, and both have been Members of Parliament, the older in

the period 1935-1945, and the younger since 1945. The older was secretary to Lord

Lytton on the League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into the Manchurian Episode

(1932) and was parliamentary private secretary to Sir Samuel Hoare when he was First

Lord of the Admiralty and Home Secretary (1936-1939).

Lord Astor's chief importance in regard to The Times is that he and his brother became

chief proprietors in 1922 by buying out the Harmsworth interest. As a result, the brother,

Colonel John Jacob Astor, has been chairman of the board of The Times Publishing

Company since 1922, and Brand was a director on the board for many years before 1944.

Colonel Astor, who matriculated at New College in 1937, at the age of fifty-one, was

military aide to the Viceroy of India (Lord Hardinge) in 1911-1914, was a Member of

Parliament from 1922 to 1945, and is a director of both Hambros' and Barclay's Banks.

This connection between the Milner Group and The Times was of the greatest

importance in the period up to 1945, especially in the period just before the Munich

crisis. However, the chief center of gravity of the Milner Group was never in The Times.

It is true that Lord Astor became one of the more important figures in the Milner Group

after Milner's death in 1925, but the center of gravity of the Group as a whole was

elsewhere: before 1920, in the Round Table Group; and after 1920, in All Souls. Lord

Astor was of great importance in the later period, especially after 1930, but was of no

significance in the earlier period—an indication of his relatively recent arrival in the

Group.

The Times has recently published the first three volumes of a four-volume history of

itself. Although no indication is given as to the authorship of these volumes, the

acknowledgments show that the authors worked closely with All Souls and the Milner

Group. For example, Harold Temperley and Keith Feiling read the proofs of the first two

volumes, while E. L. Woodward read those of the third volume.

While members of the Milner Group thus went into The Times to control it, relatively

few persons ever came into the Milner Group from The Times. The only two who readily

come to mind are Sir Arthur Willert and Lady Lugard. (4)

Arthur Willert (Sir Arthur since 1919) entered Balliol in 1901 but did not take a

degree until 1928. From 1906 to 1910 he was on the staff of The Times in Paris, Berlin,

and Washington, and was then chief Times correspondent in Washington for ten years

(1910-1920). During this period he was also secretary to the British War Mission in

Washington (1917-1918) and Washington representative of the Ministry of Information.

This brought him to the attention of the Milner Group, probably through Brand, and in

1921 he joined the Foreign Office as head of the News Department. During the next

fifteen years he was a member of the British delegations to the Washington Conference

of 1922, to the London Economic Conference of 1924, to the London Naval Conference