Part 3
Extracted from
Nexus Magazine
Volume 12, Number 3
April - May 2005
A Short History of
The Round Table
In 1909, members of Alfred Milner’s Kindergarten regrouped in London
to found the Round Table for the purpose of creating an imperial
federation covering Britain and all its dominions. |
THE KINDERGARTEN RETURNS HOME
More than a few researchers have found attractive Quigley’s argument
that Cecil Rhodes’s essential vision for the unity of the
English-speaking peoples was a benevolent one.
Commenting on the
"international Anglophile network" that had grown out of both
Rhodes’s money and vision of Anglo-American unity, Quigley described
as "commendable" this group’s "chief aims", including to "maintain
the peace" and "help backward, colonial and underdeveloped areas to
advance toward stability, law and order, and prosperity…"
86
Taking his cue from Quigley, one prominent researcher suggested that
Rhodes founded the Round Table "possibly with the best of
intentions", including "a desire to stop wars", but following
Rhodes’s death in 1902 "the big switch was made and
the Illuminati,
in classic fashion, hijacked his creation".87
To be sure, Rhodes was interested in world peace; but the Round
Table was founded seven years after his untimely death and we cannot
forget that in his "Confession" Rhodes dismissed non-British peoples
as "despicable". But if we put aside these elementary errors it is
worth noting that when the Kindergarten returned to Britain in 1909,
it was not Cecil Rhodes’s ideas they drew upon but Milner’s visions
and ambitions. More importantly, as we have already seen in part
two, Milner’s ideas on imperial federation fell somewhat short of
the Anglo-American world government sought by Rhodes.
The Kindergarten received many reminders of Milner’s commitment to
imperial consolidation and disinterest in expanding the British
Empire. Before his return to Britain in 1905, for example, Milner
had given a farewell speech on the "great ideal of Imperial Unity"
in which he argued for an empire "united not in an alliance - for
alliances can be made and unmade…but in a permanent organic
union".88
In 1904, also in Johannesburg,
Milner had declared himself
prepared,
"to see the Federal Council of the Empire sitting in
Ottawa, in Sydney, in South Africa - sitting anywhere within the
Empire - if in the great future we can only hold it all together".89
Another influence on the Kindergarten was
Frederick Scott Oliver
(1864–1934), an American businessman, aspiring politician and author
of Alexander Hamilton: An Essay on American Union (1906)
90 - a book
hailed by leading Round Table members Leo Amery and Lionel Curtis as
"the Bible" and "great inspiration" of their movement. According to
Nimocks, rather than its being merely a biography of the famed
American statesman, Oliver’s book "is more accurately described as a
five-hundred-page plea for imperial unity". Oliver drew comparisons
between Hamilton’s push to centralize authority in the North
American colonies, and then argued for the British Empire’s need to
consider a similar course.91 Like Milner,
Oliver was an advocate of
imperial consolidation, not further expansion.
He also shared a
disdain for democracy; in fact, Milner believed Oliver to have "an
aversion for Democracy".92
LIONEL CURTIS’S PLAN FOR
IMPERIAL UNITY
It was Lionel Curtis, probably the most zealous and idealistic of
the Kindergarten members, who took the initiative, devising a
step-by-step plan to unify the Empire based on their South African
experience. This was perhaps inevitable, as he was the most avid
proponent of the Kindergarten’s devotion to imperial unity - hence his
nickname, "the Prophet". As Amery noted, "His passionate sincerity
and energy, as well as the indisputable logic of his arguments,
tended to dominate our councils". 93
Educated at New College, Oxford, and one of the first of Milner’s
recruits in 1901, Curtis very much defined all that contemporary
critics disliked about Milner’s Kindergarten. According to one
biography of Curtis, the then young, confident, single-minded Curtis
was considered a "flagrant example of precocious Kindergarten
cocksureness" (Lavin). Curtis was also the Kindergarten’s most
enthusiastic advocate of the "organic union" of South Africa,
writing its two most important propaganda tracts, The Selborne
Memorandum (1907) and The Government of South Africa (1908). He
possessed an unbounded zeal for extending the project of "organic
union" not only to the British Empire but also to the world.94 Curtis sought the support of Milner and The Rhodes Trust both to
refine the plan further and bring it to fruition.
After returning to Britain in 1905, Milner turned to various other
pursuits. Despite his socialist orientation, he refused a government
pension and instead sought employment in the City, London’s
financial district, subsequently joining the boards of the London
Joint Stock Bank, the Bank of West Africa and the Rio Tinto Company.
He also continued his work with The Rhodes Trust, becoming its "most
active member" according to Marlowe. At the same time, Milner
renewed his acquaintance with Sidney and Beatrice Webb, founders of
the Fabian Society. It was an odd relationship. Milner viewed his
controversial departure from South Africa as proof that events were
moving their way, while his "house of cards" was "tumbling down".
Beatrice Webb in turn pitied Milner, thinking of him as "bitter and
obsessed" and lacking in spirituality; only "God and a wife", she
believed, would turn him into a "great man".
95
Milner also maintained his political interests, joining two dining
clubs devoted to his pet concerns of imperial unity and tariff
reform: the "Coefficients" and the "Compatriots". Founded by
Sidney
Webb in 1902, the Coefficients met monthly to discuss
defense,
imperial issues and the economy. The Compatriots, which concerned
itself with tariff reform and imperial unity, was established by Leo
Amery, a journalist who had associated with Milner and the
Kindergarten while working as a correspondent for the Times during
the Boer War and who, after the Kindergarten’s return to Britain,
was employed by Milner as one of his assistants. Milner provided
funding to these groups and other activities out of The Rhodes
Trust.
Quigley characterized the Compatriots and Coefficients as some of
the,
"numerous groups and organizations founded by Milner…to create
an immense nexus of influence and patronage for directing public
policy in imperial and other matters".96
This is an odd claim, given
that Milner abandoned the Coefficients on the grounds that it was
too divisive and then the Compatriots, once it was superseded by a
more enduring creation - the Round Table.97 There was no network
- at
that stage. Instead, with the return of the Kindergarten in 1909 and
the appearance of Curtis’s plan, Milner was suddenly seized with a
desire to establish a more substantial movement for imperial
federation, telling Amery of his newfound enthusiasm for creating a
"single Imperial Unionist party all over the Empire".98
During July and August 1909, Milner, Amery, Curtis, Oliver and other
members of the Kindergarten, plus a host of other British
establishment figures who were taken by Milner’s vision of imperial
federation, met in a number of exclusive London clubs to discuss
Curtis’s plan. Curtis’s scheme had three essential components:
1) to produce a
memorandum, similar to The Selborne Memorandum, which would
define the "imperial problem" as a basis for discussion;
2) to contact influential supporters of
imperial federation throughout the Empire, especially in the
press and parliaments, using the memorandum as a talking point,
to establish a political organization to promote the cause;
3) to publish magazines and other periodicals
throughout the Empire that would carry the message of imperial
unity, but under central supervision to ensure the message
remained consistent.
As for the preferred model of imperial
unity, according to Curtis biographer Deborah Lavin he proposed
establishing,
"a central sovereign imperial authority directly
elected by the people of the Empire to conduct foreign policy and
control the armed services, raising taxation through its own
officers". 99
CONFERENCE AT PLAS NEWYDD
In September 1909, Curtis’s proposals to create an
organization to
influence elite opinion in the cause of imperial federation were
debated at the estate of Lord Anglesey at Plas Newydd in Wales.
In retrospect, the Plas Newydd conference became the model for other
elite policy-planning groups in the 20th century - a model copied
faithfully, if unwittingly, by the founders of the
Trilateral
Commission,
the Bilderbergers, the
Club of Rome and the World
Economic Forum - with the power-elite gathering in exclusive and
isolated locations for private conferences on grand geopolitical
schemes.
Thus at Lord Anglesey’s well-appointed estate (it even had a golf
course and a cricket pavilion), with Milner leading the proceedings,
the gathered supporters of imperial federation discussed the plans
further. Curtis’s blueprints for the propaganda methods of the
organization underwent little modification, and the immediate
production of a memorandum on "imperial problems" was endorsed. That
the British Empire must unite or disintegrate was accepted as a
self-evident truth; however, the options of voluntary associations
or alliances between Britain and its dominions were rejected as
unstable and unsuitable alternatives to unity. As recorded by Philip
Kerr (later Lord Lothian; 1882–1940),
"it was thought that in the
long run some form of organic union was the only alternative to
disruption".
Funding for the movement was also discussed, and was
obtained from a number of benefactors including South African mining
magnate Sir Abe Bailey and The Rhodes Trust. According to Quigley,
The Rhodes Trust was to provide almost £24,000 to the Round Table in
its first decade.100
At a subsequent meeting, held on 23 January 1910 in Milner’s offices
in Manchester Square, "organic union" of the British Empire was
formalized as the ultimate aim of the Round Table movement.
According to a memorandum of the meeting, this required the
"establishment of an Imperial Government constitutionally
responsible to all electors of the Empire and with power to act
directly on the individual citizens". The plan was to establish an
organization or "moot" (an old English word for "meeting" or
"assembly"), headquartered in England and with other branches
throughout the empire, to discuss, debate and, it was hoped, bring
to fruition the goal of "Imperial Union". In addition, a decision
was made to publish a quarterly journal, The Round Table,
as the
movement’s propaganda organ. It was at that point that Milner and
his supporters "finally took the plunge and resolved to launch a
political movement" (Watt). The movement quickly spread, with
numerous Round Table groups made up of local "men of influence"
forming in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India.101
This moment also marked the realization of Rhodes’s dream of an
empire-spanning political network supporting imperial federation.
With Round Table groups spread across the British Empire, and its
members located in parliaments and the press - including Geoffrey
Dawson as editor of the Times newspaper - the essential elements of
Rhodes’s original plan seemed in place. Could it succeed?
PROPAGANDA MESSAGE: "IMPERIAL
PROBLEMS"
The Round Table founders hoped to achieve the "organic unity" of the
British Empire, but in pursuing this goal they were motivated by
three concerns. The first was their growing realization that Britain
was in decline; its ability to project power worldwide was beginning
to ebb away. Milner, for example, in the introduction to a
collection of his speeches published in 1913, warned that even
though Britain was providing,
"peace and order" and "civilized
conditions" for "2/5ths of the human race", "[s]ooner or later the
burden must become too heavy for the unaided strength of that
portion of the race which… dwells in the United Kingdom".102
Second,
it was maintained that the British Empire in its current form was
quite inadequate to the task of providing for the defense of all the
dominions and colonies. Related to this was the third factor - and
according to Quigley, one of the "dominant considerations" behind
the founding of the Round Table - which was,
"the fear of Germany, and
federation was but one possible way of strengthening imperial
defense".103
Amery had best expressed these combined fears in a political speech
in 1906, in which he also named the United States as one of
Britain’s new rivals:
Every year the competition for power
among the great world states is getting keener, and unless we
can continue to hold our own…we shall be starved out, invaded,
trampled under foot and utterly ruined. But how can these little
islands hold their own against such great and rich Empires as
the United States and Germany are becoming…? How can we…compete
against states nearly double our size? 104
Believing the British establishment was
not sufficiently aware of this reality, the Round Table sought to
ensure that warnings of Britain’s inadequate defenses and the
growing threat from Germany formed an integral part of the
propaganda efforts. These messages were subsequently incorporated
into a two-stage program. In the first part, the litany of "imperial
problems" was to be given widespread exposure, while in the second,
once the message of a weakened and vulnerable British Empire had
sunk in, imperial union or federation was to be presented as the
obvious and only solution.
The primary means by which their propaganda message was transmitted
was through their journal The Round Table. As historian Walter Nimocks wrote in his study of the movement, this publication was
noteworthy for the "remarkable consistency" in the content of its
articles. This was because nothing the Round Table intended for
public distribution was released without having been reviewed and
debated at the moots and then revised to reflect the consensus
position. Issues which eluded agreement, such as trade, were left
out. This is clearly evident in the first four years of publication,
where:
The reader was constantly reminded
of deficiencies in imperial administration which imperilled the
future of the Empire. The irrational organization of the British
parliament, the ineffectual nature of Imperial Conferences, and
the injustice over the system which gave to Britain war-or-peace
authority over supposedly self-governing nations were frequently
examined… [and] the whole body of Milnerian criticism, and
usually the Milnerian solution, was offered.105
In the first issue of The Round Table
(November 1910), for example, all these themes, including the threat
from Germany, were explored. The preface, written by editor Philip
Kerr, introduced the new journal with the observation that,
"times
are changing… [and] the methods of yesterday will not serve in the
competition of tomorrow".
Noting the possibility of "conflict"
between Britain and Germany and that there was "no means of
marshalling the whole strength and resources of the Empire
effectively behind its will", Kerr hinted that there should be "some
other means" whereby Britain and the dominions could quickly make
the required decision.106
Another article in the same issue, also by Kerr, titled,
"Foreign
Affairs: Anglo-German Rivalry", asserted that "the central fact in
the international situation today is the antagonism between England
and Germany... [and] the solution of this rivalry...is the most
difficult problem which the [British] Empire has to face".
Kerr
characterized Germany as inherently aggressive and expansionist, as
it was dominated by Bismarck’s approach to world affairs: the
relentless use of power. The growth of the German Navy meant that
Britain could no longer protect the dominions. Moreover, Britain
could not hope to rely upon an alliance with the other European
powers, France and Russia; nor could it anticipate that an outbreak
of "true democracy" would overthrow Germany’s existing regime,
curtailing its push for "world domination". There was only "one
policy" left: that of shoring up British power to the extent that it
would become "impossible for Germany to achieve her ambitions except
by force". The logic was simple: Britain could no longer protect its
empire under existing defense arrangements.107
THE SOLUTION: IMPERIAL
FEDERATION
The preferred solution to this dilemma was conveniently explained in
the May 1911 issue of The Round Table on the eve of that year’s
Imperial Conference:
The conclusion is inexorable. Either
the nations of the Empire must agree to cooperate for foreign
policy and defense, or they must agree to dissolve the Empire
and each assume the responsibility for its own policy and its
own defense... There is no third alternative. The present system
cannot continue.108
This is, however, the high watermark of
what the movement was prepared to reveal of its ultimate goals, at
least in the early years. Most Round Table members agreed that
advocating imperial federation too soon could prove unpopular. These
fears were soon proved justified at the 1911 Imperial Conference,
when the New Zealand prime minister, Sir Joseph Ward, proposed
forming a permanent "Imperial Council of State" consisting of
representatives from all the dominions. The British and Canadian
prime ministers rejected his proposal outright, causing Milner to
despair that the conference outcome had been "calculated to
dishearten Imperialists everywhere". Opponents of the proposal were
somewhat more joyous. "We have destroyed root and branch the
proposal for an Imperial Council of State or Parliament", as South
Africa’s new prime minister, Louis Botha, cheerfully reported
home.109 Within the Round Table, dismay and anger abounded as
suspicions grew that Curtis, who had coincidentally visited the New
Zealand prime minister just before the conference, must have
encouraged Sir Joseph to make his statement. The accusation was
perhaps unfounded, yet it demonstrated their fear that Curtis’s zeal
for federation was such that he would recklessly disregard his own
propaganda plan.
The other reason for the Round Table’s reluctance to provide a
detailed solution in its first few years is that its consensus
position on imperial federation had yet to be finalized. The
movement’s hope was that it would soon have its own equivalent of
the Kindergarten’s Selborne Memorandum from which, in the words of
one Round Table member, the "conspiracy would become the
crusade".110 Yet the ensuing process of developing this model would
not be smooth, revealing not only the growing divisions among these
self-appointed crusaders for imperial federation but their failure
to foresee the impending failure of their grand scheme.
THE "GREEN MEMORANDUM"
The task of devising an acceptable model of imperial federation fell
to Lionel Curtis. Immediately after Plas Newydd, Curtis was
dispatched to Canada on a fact-finding mission on dominion
nationalism. The report of his trip, the Green Memorandum (1910),
followed a standard pattern. It identified the growing danger to the
British Empire posed by a militant Germany, and then, after
dispensing with other proposed remedies including "Imperial
Cooperation", it launched into Curtis’s preferred solution of
"organic union".
Curtis called for the creation of an "Imperial Government" that
would have absolute and unfettered control over all Empire defense
and foreign policy matters. It would have the power to raise taxes,
and there would be an "Imperial Federal Parliament" with two
chambers to make necessary legislation.
Britain and the dominions would retain some powers, including
setting tariffs, but would still be beholden to the imperial
government on other matters. It was an ambitious document but one
that seemed to cause more problems than it purported to resolve,
spurring a long debate within the movement over the means and ends,
which would overwhelm even Curtis’s "mesmeric hold" (Rose) over his
associates.111
According to Quigley, the Round Table,
"pretended to represent
diverse opinions when as a matter of fact it insisted on
unanimity…and eliminated diverse points of view very quickly".112
The inaccuracy and illogic of Quigley’s charge become evident when
we consider the scope and vehemence of the Round Table’s internal
disagreements. In fact, the façade was the Round Table’s outward
image of ideological unity, maintained through the anonymous
articles in The Round Table - a practice that merely hid the diversity
of views and bitter debates within.
These divisions were most evident in Curtis’s stormy relationships
with his peers, his grandiose schemes on imperial unity leading to
frequent clashes with Milner and Amery. While Curtis put his faith
in a political solution, Milner and Amery both believed that
economic unity was the key to establishing an imperial federation.
For Milner, this meant complete free trade amongst its members but
with a common tariff against the rest of the world that would bind
Britain and its dominions more closely together.
Amery took a similar view, believing that economic solidarity would
form the bedrock upon which a federal structure could then be
placed. Closer economic union, he maintained, was the "master key of
the whole problem". Milner also found fault with Curtis’s idea of an
imperial parliament, preferring full partnership for the dominions
rather than their remaining permanently subservient to London.113
These were important criticisms. However, Curtis had a number of
personality faults, including a dogmatic indifference to
inconvenient facts - such as the growing desire of the dominions for
independence - and an inability to assimilate contrary opinions.
Subsequently his later works, in particular the three-volume Project
of the Commonwealth, parts of which were published as The
Commonwealth of Nations (1916) and The Problem of the Commonwealth
(1916), again endorsed the construction of an organic union through
a radical constitutional overhaul in Britain and the dominions and
the establishment of a new supranational level of government.114
In The Problem of the Commonwealth, for example, Curtis argued that
the "problem of government" in the British Empire would "lead to
certain and world-wide disaster unless corrected". Curtis’s solution
was to create a "Commonwealth Cabinet" - ultimately responsible to a
"Commonwealth Parliament" - that would "control defense, foreign
policy and the decision of peace or war, and have the power to raise
revenues for imperial purposes".115 For
Curtis, there was only one
alternative to "organic union": the dismantling of the British
Empire. However, despite Curtis’s intentions, his incendiary
proposals in Commonwealth came close to splitting the Round Table
and eroded support for imperial federation in the dominions.
Within the movement, Leo Amery opposed Curtis’s proposals, arguing
that it would be "constitutional hari-kari" [sic] to sacrifice the
British system of government in order to establish an imperial union
based on the US federal system. He also regarded as an illusion, if
not a delusion, Curtis’s belief that the political federation of the
British Empire would inevitably lead to a "world-state".116
THE MOVEMENT FAILS
The internal bickering over the sensibility or otherwise of Curtis’s
increasingly utopian proposals for imperial federation were to prove
of marginal concern in the long run. The fundamental issue of
whether the dominions would support any proposal for imperial
federation or "organic union" was neglected.
In particular for Curtis, who conducted numerous trips to local
chapters of the Round Table in Australia, New Zealand,
Canada and
South Africa, it was inconceivable that the dominions would reject
imperial federation. Yet for all his journeys, Curtis failed to see
that the Round Table groups were hardly representative of dominion
opinion.
As one New Zealand historian later observed,
"In all the colonies
the Imperial Federation movement seems to have been a stuffed shirt
affair".
Most of the imperial federation supporters in the
dominions, especially the politicians, had their own expedient
interpretations of the concept, which they were quick to modify.
Moreover, they all operated in an environment of growing
nationalism, which caused many of them to dispense with the federal
idea once its popularity declined.117
What was invisible to Curtis had long been obvious to Round Table
editor Kerr, who harboured growing misgivings about the entire
project.
Following his journey to Canada with Curtis in 1909, Kerr wrote to
fellow member Robert Brand expressing his doubts about the whole
enterprise, including his feeling that forcing the federal solution
on the dominions might only hasten their desire for independence:
Lionel [Curtis] believes that the
only hope for the Empire lies in "organic unity"… I think, now,
that organic unity of that kind is impossible at any rate until
science has revolutionised communication and transportation, and
that to try to bring on a movement of that kind would be almost
certain to break up the Empire… If you forced Canada to choose
now between imperial federation and independence, I think she
would take independence.118
Kerr’s analysis of the inherent
reluctance of the dominions to forgo the possibility of independence
would soon prove quite accurate.119
Why he stayed on as Round Table editor, despite harbouring these
doubts, is another matter. One explanation offered is that Kerr’s
"devotion to Curtis and his other friends" caused him to suppress
his doubts.
For Kerr, this was to be an unsuccessful venture and is the most
likely cause of his nervous breakdown in 1912, leading to his
withdrawal as Round Table editor for nearly two years.120
During the First World War, though, it became apparent to other
Round Table members that Kerr had been right. At a conference
sponsored by the Empire Parliamentary Association in 1916, for
example, Milner outlined the Round Table’s project for imperial
federation, making many references to Curtis’s works, "but found
that not one Dominion member present would accept it" (Quigley).
The dominions’ real preference was made clear to all at the Imperial
Defense Conference of 1917, at which South Africa’s minister for
defense, Jan Smuts, drafted a resolution calling for "full
recognition of the Dominions as autonomous nations in the Imperial
Commonwealth".
It was in response to this growing evidence of dominion nationalism,
according to Quigley, that the goal of imperial federation was
"replaced or postponed in favor of the commonwealth project of free
cooperation".121
The collapse of the Round Table’s crusade for imperial federation
became apparent at the imperial conferences of 1921, 1923 and 1926.
The dominions (Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand)
decisively rejected the model of imperial federation, in particular
the calls for a constitutional conference that had arisen at the
1917 conference.
The final blow came with the Balfour Declaration of 1926 (not to be
confused with the first Balfour Declaration of 1917 that paved the
way for the founding of Israel), which finally defined the role of
the dominions including their "equality" of status, "autonomy" in
external and internal affairs, "common allegiance" to the Crown and
"free association" within the Commonwealth.122
If the first Balfour Declaration can be said to have led to the
creation of one state, the second such declaration bearing that name
effectively marked the beginning of the end of the British Empire,
converting it into a Commonwealth based on the free association of
its member states.
On 11 December 1931, the declaration was enforced when the British
Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster, which established the
"legislative independence of the dominions". It also "solemnized the
renunciation by England" of its "imperial mission" (Kelly).123
With that, the cause of imperial federation was dead in the water
and the ineffectiveness of the Round Table’s attempts to decisively
mould elite opinion revealed.
Endnotes
86. Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and
Hope: A History of the World in Our Time, Angriff Press, 1974,
pp. 950, 954.
87. David Icke, The Robots’ Rebellion: The Story of the
Spiritual Renaissance, Gateway Books, 1994, p. 154.
88. Quoted in Walter Nimocks, Milner’s Young Men: the
"Kindergarten" in Edwardian Imperial Affairs, Duke University
Press, 1968, p. 130 (emphasis in original).
89. Quoted in George Louis Beer, "Lord Milner and British
Imperialism", Political Science Quarterly, June 1915, p. 306
(emphasis added).
90. See Frederick Scott Oliver, Alexander Hamilton: An Essay on
American Union, MacMillan & Co, 1906.
91. Nimocks, Milner’s Young Men, pp. 127, 129 (Amery and Curtis
quotes).
92. Quoted in A.M. Gollin, Proconsul in Politics: A Study of
Lord Milner in Opposition and in Power, Anthony Blond, 1964, p.
314.
93. Quoted in Wm Roger Louis, In The Name Of God, Go! Leo Amery
and the British Empire in the Age of Churchill, W.W. Norton &
Co., 1992, p. 42.
94. John E. Kendle, The Round Table Movement and Imperial Union,
University of Toronto Press, 1975, pp. 16, 20, 57; Deborah Lavin,
From Empire to International Commonwealth: A Biography of Lionel
Curtis, Clarendon Press, 1995, p. 36; and Norman Rose, The
Cliveden Set: Portrait of an Exclusive Fraternity, Pimlico,
2000, pp. 59-63.
95. Quoted in John Marlowe, Milner: Apostle of Empire, Hamish
Hamilton, 1976, pp. 176-179.
96. Carroll Quigley, "The Round Table Groups in Canada",
Canadian Historical Review, September 1962, p. 204.
97. Nimocks, Milner’s Young Men, pp. 145-146; Marlowe, Milner:
Apostle of Empire, pp. 176, 179.
98. Nimocks, ibid., pp. 133, 146; Milner quoted in Gollin,
Proconsul in Politics, p. 163.
99. Nimocks, ibid., pp. 134-136, 147-148; Lavin, From Empire to
International Commonwealth, p. 108.
100. Nimocks, ibid., pp. 148-151 (including Kerr quote); Kendle,
The Round Table Movement, pp. 63-64; Lavin, ibid., pp. 108-109;
Quigley, "The Round Table", pp. 210-211.
101. Kendle, ibid., pp. 70-71; David Watt, "The Foundation of
the Round Table", The Round Table, November 1970, p. 425
(including quote from memorandum); and Rose, The Cliveden Set,
p. 88.
102. Quoted in Marlowe, Milner: Apostle of Empire, p. 201.
103. Quigley, "The Round Table", p. 219.
104. Quoted in Louis, In The Name Of God, Go!, pp. 53-54
(emphasis added).
105. Nimocks, Milner’s Young Men, p. 190.
106. Quoted in ibid., pp. 188-189.
107. Kerr quoted in Kendle, The Round Table Movement, pp.
108-110; and Rose, The Cliveden Set, p. 56.
108. Quoted in Kendle, ibid., p. 111.
109. Milner quoted in ibid., p. 114; Botha quoted in Rose, The
Cliveden Set, p. 67.
110. Anonymous quote in Marlowe, Milner: Apostle of Empire, p.
212.
111. Kendle, The Round Table Movement, pp. 74-80; Rose, The
Cliveden Set, p. 66.
112. Quigley, "The Round Table", p. 218.
113. Marlowe, Milner: Apostle of Empire, pp. 183, 214; Louis, In
The Name Of God, Go!, pp. 37, 42-43.
114. See Lionel Curtis, The Commonwealth of Nations, MacMillan &
Co., 1916; and Curtis, The Problem of the Commonwealth,
MacMillan & Co., 1916.
115. Curtis quoted in Kendle, The Round Table Movement, pp.
179-180, 185-186; and Lavin, From Empire to International
Commonwealth, pp. 111-112, 128-129.
116. Amery quoted in Louis, In The Name Of God, Go!, pp. 42, 37.
117. J.D.B. Miller, "The Utopia of Imperial Federation",
Political Studies, vol. IV (1956), p. 196, quoting Keith
Sinclair’s monograph, Imperial Federation: A Study of New
Zealand Policy and Opinion, Athlone Press, 1955.
118. Quoted in Watt, "The Foundation of the Round Table", p.
431.
119. One might also note Philip Kerr’s quite prophetic words on
the importance of technological change to making the dream of a
truly unified global political entity possible. As related with
some enthusiasm in books such as Thomas Friedman’s The Lexus and
the Olive Tree (HarperCollins, 2000), recent rapid technological
advances in communications and transportation have been the main
physical drivers in the current era of globalisation. The main
political drivers have been the globalist elites.
120. Watt, "The Foundation of the Round Table", p. 432.
121. Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, p. 147; Smuts quoted in Rose,
The Cliveden Set, p. 99.
122. Lavin, From Empire to International Commonwealth, p. 131;
W.D. McIntyre, Colonies into Commonwealth, Blandford Press,
1968, 2nd ed., pp. 139-141; Kendle, The Round Table Movement, p.
272.
123. Paul Kelly, "Child of Empire", The Weekend Australian,
10–11 March 2001, p. 23.
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