Milner Group, and this undoubtedly assisted his son, Richard, in his more precocious
career. Richard Latham was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford until 1933 and a Fellow of All
Souls from 1935. He wrote the supplementary legal chapter in W. K. Hancock's
famous book,
Richard Latham died a few years later while still in his middle thirties. It is clear from
Professor Wheare's book that Sir John Latham, although a member of the opposition at
the time, was one of the chief figures in Australia's acceptance of the Statute of
Westminster.
The new status of the Dominions, as enunciated in the Report of the conference and
later known as the "Balfour Declaration," was accepted by the Milner Group both in The
Round Table and in The Times. In the latter, on 22 November 1926, readers were
informed that the"Declaration" merely described the Empire as it was, with nothing really
new except the removal of a few anachronisms. It concluded: "In all its various clauses
there is hardly a statement or a definition which does not coincide with familiar practice."
The Imperial Conference of 1930 was conducted by a Labour government and had no
members of the Cecil Bloc or Milner Group among its chief delegates. Sir Maurice
Hankey, however, was secretary of the conference, and among its chief advisers were
Maurice Gwyer and H. D. Henderson. Both of these were members of All Souls and
probably close to the Milner Group.
The Imperial Conference of 1937 was held during the period in which the Milner
Group was at the peak of its power. Of the eight members of the United Kingdom
delegation, five were from the Milner Group (Lord Halifax, Sir John Simon, Malcolm
MacDonald, W. G. A. Ormsby-Gore, and Sir Samuel Hoare). The others were Baldwin,
Neville Chamberlain, and J. Ramsay MacDonald. In addition, the chief of the Indian
delegation was the Marquess of Zetland of the Cecil Bloc. Sir Maurice Hankey was
secretary of the conference, and among the advisers were Sir Donald Somervell (of All
Souls and the Milner Group), Vincent Massey, Sir Fabian Ware, and the Marquess of
Hartington.
In addition to the Imperial Conferences, where the influence of the Milner Group was
probably more extensive than appears from the membership of the delegations, the Group
was influential in the administration of the Commonwealth, especially in the two periods
of its greatest power, from 1924 to 1929 and from 1935 to 1939. An indication of this can
be seen in the fact that the office of Colonial Secretary was held by the Group for seven
out of ten years from 1919 to 1929 and for five out of nine years from 1931 to 1940,
while the office of Dominion Secretary was held by a member of the Group for eight out
of the fourteen years from its creation in 1925 to the outbreak of the war in 1939
(although the Labour Party was in power for two of those years). The Colonial
Secretaries to whom we have reference were:
Lord Milner, 1919-1921
Leopold Amery, 1924-1929
Malcolm MacDonald, 1935
W. G. A. Ormsby-Gore, 1936-1938
Malcolm MacDonald, 1938-1940
The Dominion Secretaries to whom we have reference were:
Amery, 1925-1929
Malcolm MacDonald, 1935-1938, 1938-1939
The lesser positions within the Colonial Office were not remote from the Milner
Group. The Permanent Under Secretary was Sir George Fiddes of the Kindergarten in
1916-1921. In addition, James Masterton-Smith, who had been Balfour's private secretary
previously, was Permanent Under Secretary in succession to Fiddes in 1921-1925, and
John Maffey, who had been Lord Chelmsford's secretary while the latter was Viceroy in
1916-1921, was Permanent Under Secretary from 1933 to 1937. The position of
Parliamentary Under Secretary, which had been held by Lord Selborne in 1895-1900 and
by Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland in 1915-1917, was held by Amery in 1919-1921, by Edward
Wood (Lord Halifax) in 1921-1922, by Ormsby-Gore in 1922-1924, 1924-1929, and by
Lord Dufferin (brother of Lord Blackwood of the Kindergarten) from 1937 to 1940.
Most of these persons (probably all except Masterton-Smith, Maffey, and Lord
Dufferin) were members of the Milner Group. The most important, of course, was
Leopold Amery, whom we have already shown as Milner's chief political protege. We
have not yet indicated that Malcolm MacDonald was a member of the Milner Group, and
must be satisfied at this point with saying that he was a member, or at least an instrument,
of the Group, from 1931 or 1932 onward, without ever becoming a member of the inner
circle. The evidence indicating this relationship will be discussed later.
At this point we should say a few words about W. G. A. Ormsby-Gore (Lord Harlech
since 1938), who was a member of the Cecil Bloc by marriage and of the Milner Group
by adoption. A graduate of Eton in 1930, he went to New College as a contemporary of