Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I A Question about Which I Have Never Been Able to See the Other Side
- Part II Civilian Soldier of the Empire: South Africa
- Part III Constructive Imperialism
- 8 Constructive Imperialism
- 9 The Most Vital Link: Canada and the Empire
- 10 President of an Intellectual Republic: The Round Table
- Part IV Imperialism on the Anvil
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
10 - President of an Intellectual Republic: The Round Table
from Part III - Constructive Imperialism
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I A Question about Which I Have Never Been Able to See the Other Side
- Part II Civilian Soldier of the Empire: South Africa
- Part III Constructive Imperialism
- 8 Constructive Imperialism
- 9 The Most Vital Link: Canada and the Empire
- 10 President of an Intellectual Republic: The Round Table
- Part IV Imperialism on the Anvil
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
While Milner battled against the People's Budget, the Kindergarten had been busy hatching what would come to be called the Round Table movement, meant to take their successful South African work for imperial unity to a wider sphere. To this group Milner acted both as a father figure and elder statesman. John Dove, who became Lionel Curtis's travelling assistant and helped to establish Round Table branches in Sydney and Melbourne, later recalled that Milner was
entirely in agreement with the other members of the Round Table group that some form of organic union was necessary as the only means of securing the political ideals of the race – real nationality and self-government for those capable of exercising it … But he was by no means equally convinced that the moment for pressing for it had arrived. Nor was he in complete agreement with the particular theories or the details of the particular policies advocated by some of the younger men. He confined himself to giving his general support to the object of achieving organic union of the Empire in some form, some day: and to contribute, besides financial assistance, criticism and advice upon the proposals that were put forward … Milner wished to give the young men their head, confronting them with a vital problem, and eager to see what they would make of it … The role played by Milner, in fact, in the discussions of the Round Table, and in the direction of its policy, so far as he did direct it, was that of President of an intellectual Republic.
The real day-to-day directors of this republic were Lionel Curtis and Philip Kerr (later Lord Lothian), who both returned to England in 1909 as part of the delegation which brought the South African Union Bill to the imperial parliament. Earlier in the year, Curtis had reported to Amery about the Kindergarten's union efforts, that the group was ‘like Mary Magdalen of whom it was said “She hath done what she could”’.
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- Information
- A Wider PatriotismAlfred Milner and the British Empire, pp. 138 - 149Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014