14 FEBRUARY 1964, Page 22

The Great Administrator

Proconsul in Politics. By A. M. Gollin. (Blond, 63s.) is still almost impossible for an Englishman to see Lord Milner straight. He personifies, perhaps more than any other figure of this century, the main political problem that still torments us—the conflict between free institutions and efficiency.

Milner was bitterly attacked from the left during his life-time as a narrow, Germanic, bureaucratic anti-democrat and it is on these traits that many reviewers of Dr. A. M. Gollin's new study of Milner have almost obsessively fastened. On the other hand to his legion of admirers and followers Milner was the incarna- tion of noble intellect and the essential will to cut through red tape and get things done. Other reviews and some recent works on the great man prove that this religio Milneriana is by no means dead either. If one tosses into these scales deep national feelings' of guilt about Appeasement (of which Milner has been plausibly claimed to be the father) it is apparent why we have needed Dr. Gollin, an American, to strike a new balance.

He has done a superb job. Dr. Gollin wrote a very good book on J. L. Garvin and the Observer and he moves about this period like a fish in water. He has had access to an enormous amount of unpublished material which he has used with great freedom and skill. Above all, he is scrupu- lously fair. Some of Milner's impatience with the British democratic system and what he called the `Augean Stable of Westminster' certainly went back to his failure to get elected to Parliament in 1885. It was reinforced by his disgusted discovery as High Commissioner in South Africa that even a strong Imperial politician like Joe Chamber- lain was forced by political pressures to tread warily before actually provoking war with the Transvaal or allowing his proconsul to suspend the constitution of Cape Province. Milner, typi- cally, imported Chinese labour to South Africa because he knew it was the most economic solution of the specific problem. The doubts of the humanitarians merely proved to Milner their unfitness to hold an Empire.

But Dr. Gollin, who takes up his tale in earnest at the point where Milner returned from South Africa, demonstrates that the treatment he received over the Chinese 'slavery' question was, in fact, enough to put anyone off politicians for life. Milner was made the scapegoat by the vic- torious Liberals for all the Imperial sins of Bal- four's Government and, even more disillusioning, Grey, Haldane and Asquith, the Liberal Im- perialists who had promised Milner support, all voted against his actions.

Again, Dr. Gollin shows that on the Irish question Milner journeyed to the brink of treason —and over it. We now learn for the first time just how far he went in his efforts to see that if Home Rule was pushed on, a provisional Ulster government would be helped with funds and its overthrow prevented by 'paralysing' the military arm of the home government in Ulster. It is now impossible to doubt that Milner was, at least indirectly, involved in incitement to mutiny. This was the act of an extreme doc- trinaire and bears striking resemblance to the behaviour of the French right during the Algerian crisis. But here, as in his highly effective machina- tions against Asquith in 1915-16, Milner's actions were almost entirely disinterested. It was cool logic carried to almost insane lengths which brought him to where he found himself from Ireland and a perfectly correct conviction that Asquith's methods of political management were not winning the war which led him to a highly irresponsible attack on the Dardanelles cam- paign.

Dr. Gollin is equally good on Milner in government. Milner, characteristically, put all his money on Lloyd George. Incausz, although he was a demagogue, the man was, above all, supremely energetic and effective. Once. again, as soon as Milner had made up his mind, not even the appeals and complaints of his old army friends or the occasional insults of Lloyd George himself would shake him. It was a formidable contribution to victory.

All this leaves one with a clear picture of an able and obdurate mind of quite astonishing rigidity. Where logic led, there went Milner— and if common sense and practical politics could not follow, that was too bad for them. Often, of course, it led him aright. As befitted a great administrator, he was not opposed to semi- socialist ideas that would have appalled many of his allies—he even wanted to raise the school- leaving age to eighteen. But how, one wonders, could so intelligent a man have supposed that, simply because they had British blood, the Dominions would be prepared to give up any sovereignty for the sake of Imperial unity; and how could a concept of Imperial union be con- sidered as realistic if, as the Aga Khan pointed out, it omitted India—whose people were not of British blood? Again, how could Britain, as Milner believed, avoid involvement in Europe?

This last point raises the vexed question of Appeasement. The accepted theory seems to be that Milner left behind a group of immediate followers who had adopted his basic propositions

about the Empire and Europe and were instru- mental in persuading the British Government to give anything to Hitler in order to preserve them. This needs careful qualification. Leo Amery, who flits through Dr. Gollin's pages as the most assiduous and ruthless acolyte Milner ever had, was a strong opponent of Appeasement. So was R. H. Brand, the banker, another important member of Milner's kindergarten. Lord Lothian appears to have been more influenced by feelings of guilt about the peace treaties than by a wish to disengage from Europe. Dawson of The Times was ignorant about Europe, Curtis was unconcerned and Buchan doubtful. 0:her mem- bers of the 'Round Table' group, such as Patrick Duncan and Lionel Hichens, were either too far away in space or too remote from political affairs to affect the issue. Milner's general belief in the Empire was, of course, the perpetual back- ground of these men's activities, but until their papers are examined the details of Milner's in- fluence on them will remain uncertain.

Meanwhile, a more obvious and equally bale- ful legacy from Milner was the intellectual arro- gance of his followers and a belief in what one might call Establishment politics. When these men discussed matters at Cliveden or All Souls or the Round Table moots they were clear that between them they had covered all the relevant arguments. Individually they had learnt from Milner to be impatient with normal political channels and in more subtle ways to exercise influence on 'the people that mattered' or to exercise influence on their behalf. Milner's pres- sure group lost its direction without the master hand. But even when that was withdrawn the old skill remained. It was Milner's achievement that, while despising free institutions, he found an efficient way of outflanking them. DAVID WATT