these alone.... Political corruption, place-hunting, and party intrigue have their natural
home in small communities where attention is concentrated upon local interests. Great
public causes call into being the intellectual and moral potentialities of people.... The
phrases "national character," "national will," and "national personality" are no empty catchwords. Everyone knows that esprit de corps is not a fiction but a reality; that the
spirit animating a college or a regiment is something that cannot be measured in terms of
the private contributions of the individual members.... The people of the Empire are face
to face with a unique and an historic opportunity! It is their mission to base the policy of
a Great Empire on the foundations of freedom and law.... It remains for them to crown
the structure by the institution of a political union that shall give solidarity to the Empire
as a whole. Duty and the logic of facts alike point this goal of their endeavour.”
In this article can be found, at least implicitly, all the basic ideas of the Milner Group:
their suspicion of party politics; their emphasis on moral qualities and the cement of
common outlook for linking people together; their conviction that the British Empire is
the supreme moral achievement of man, but an achievement yet incomplete and still
unfolding; their idea that the highest moral goals are the development of personality
through devotion to duty and service under freedom and law; their neglect, even scorn,
for economic considerations; and their feeling for the urgent need to persuade others to
accept their point of view in order to allow the Empire to achieve the destiny for which
they yearn.
The Milner Group is a standing refutation of the Marxist or Leninist interpretations of
history or of imperialism. Its members were motivated only slightly by materialistic
incentives, and their imperialism was motivated not at all by the desire to preserve or
extend capitalism. On the contrary their economic ideology, in the early stages at least,
was more socialistic than Manchester in its orientation. To be sure, it was an
undemocratic kind of socialism, which was willing to make many sacrifices to the well-
being of the masses of the people but reluctant to share with these masses political power
that might allow them to seek their own well-being. This socialistic leaning was more
evident in the earlier (or Balliol) period than in the later (or New College) period, and
disappeared almost completely when Lothian and Brand replaced Esher, Grey, and
Milner at the center of the Group. Esher regarded the destruction of the middle class as
inevitable and felt that the future belonged to the workers and an administrative state. He
dedicated his book
Federation, and wrote him a long letter on 5 May 1919. On 12 September of the same
year, he wrote to his son, the present Viscount Esher: "There are things that cannot be
confiscated by the Smillies and Sidney Webbs. These seem to me the real objectives."
Even earlier, Arnold Toynbee was a socialist of sorts and highly critical of the current
ideology of liberal capitalism as proclaimed by the high priests of the Manchester School.
Milner gave six lectures on socialism in Whitechapel in 1882 (published in 1931 in
mildly socialistic kind, an effort that resulted in the founding of Toynbee Hall as a
settlement house in 1884. As chairman of the board of Internal Revenue in 1892-1897,
Milner drew up Sir William Harcourt's budget, which inaugurated the inheritance tax. In
South Africa he was never moved by capitalistic motives, placing a heavy profits tax on
the output of the Rand mines to finance social improvements, and considering with
objective calm the question of nationalizing the railroads or even the mines. Both
Toynbee and Milner were early suspicious of the virtues of free trade—not, however,
because tariffs could provide high profits for industrial concerns but because tariffs and
imperial preference could link the Empire more closely into economic unity. In his later
years, Milner became increasingly radical, a development that did not fit any too well
with the conservative financial outlook of Brand, or even Hichens. As revealed in his
book
socialist and objected vigorously to the orthodox financial policy of deflation, balanced
budget, gold standard, and free international exchange advocated by the Group after
1918. This orthodox policy, inspired by Brand and accepted by
1918, was regarded by Milner as an invitation to depression, unemployment, and the
dissipation of Britain's material and moral resources. On this point there can be no doubt
that Milner was correct. Not himself a trained economist, Milner, nevertheless, saw that