AN ESTIMATE OF SIR ALFRED MILNER
The conditions under which Sir Alfred Milner found himself compelled to
shape his policy of conciliation were beset with obstacles and
difficulties. An understanding of these is indispensable to the one who
would read aright the history of that period of Imperial evolution.
The question of the refugees who overwhelmed Cape Colony with their
lamentations, after they had been obliged to leave the Transvaal at
the beginning of the hostilities--the claims of the Rand
multi-millionaires--the indignation of the Dutch Colonists confined in
concentration camps by order of the military authorities--the Jingoes
who thought it would be only right to shoot down every Dutch
sympathiser in the country: these were among the things agitating the
South African public mind, and setting up conflicting claims
impossible of adjustment without bitter censure on one hand or the
other. The wonder is that, amid all these antagonistic elements, Sir
Alfred Milner contrived to fulfil the larger part of the tasks which
he had sketched out for himself before he left England.
The programme which Sir Alfred planned to carry out proved, in the long
run, to have been thoroughly sound in conception and practice, because it
contained in embryo all the conditions under which South Africa became
united. It is remarkable, indeed, that such a very short time after a war
which seemed altogether to have compromised any hope of coalescing, the
Union of South Africa should have become an accomplished fact.
Yet, strange as it may appear, it is certain that up to his retirement
from office Sir Alfred Milner was very little known in South Africa. He
had been so well compelled by force of circumstances to lead an isolated
life that very few had opportunity to study his character or gain insight
into his personality. In Cape Town he was judged by his policy. People
forgot that all the time he was at Government House, Cape Town, he was a
man as well as a politician: a man whose efforts and work in behalf of his
country deserved some kind of consideration even from his enemies. It is
useless to discuss whether Sir Alfred did or did not make mistakes before
the beginning of the war. Why waste words over events which cannot be
helped, and about which there will always be two opinions? Personally, I
think that his errors were essentially of the kind which could not have
been avoided, and that none of them ever compromised ultimately the great
work which he was to bring to a triumphant close.
What I do think it is of value to point out is the calmness which he
contrived always to preserve under circumstances which must have been
particularly trying for him. Another outstanding characteristic was the
quiet dignity with which he withstood unjustifiable attacks when dealing
with not-to-be-foreseen difficulties which arose while carrying on his
gigantic task. Very few would have had the courage to remain silent and
undaunted whilst condemned or judged for things he had been unable to
alter or to banish. And yet this was precisely the attitude to which Sir
Alfred Milner faithfully adhered. It stands out among the many proofs
which the present Viscount Milner has given of his strong character as one
of its most characteristic features, for it affords a brilliant
illustration of what will, mastered by reason, can do.
Since those perilous days I have heard many differing criticisms of Lord
Milner's administration as High Commissioner in South Africa. What those
who express opinions without understanding that which lies under the
surface of history fail to take into account is the peculiar, almost
invidious position and the loneliness in which Sir Alfred had to stand
from the very first day that he landed in Table Bay. He could not make
friends, dared not ask anyone's advice, was forced always to rely entirely
upon his own judgment. He would not have been human had he not sometimes
felt misgivings as to the wisdom of what he was doing. He never had the
help of a Ministry upon whom he could rely or with whom he could
sympathise. The Cabinet presided over by Sir Gordon Sprigg was composed of
very well-intentioned men. But, with perhaps one single exception, it did
not possess any strongly individualistic personage capable of assisting
Sir Alfred in framing a policy acceptable to all shades of public opinion
in the Colony, or even to discuss with him whether such a policy could
have been invented. As for the administration of which Mr. Schreiner was
the head, it was distinctly hostile to the policy inaugurated by Mr.
Joseph Chamberlain, which Sir Alfred represented. Its members, indeed, put
every obstacle in the Governor's way, and this fact becoming known
encouraged a certain spirit of rebellion among the Dutch section of the
population. Neither one Ministry nor the other was able to be of any
serious use to Milner, who, thus hampered, could neither frame a programme
which accorded with his own judgment nor show himself in his true light.
[Illustration: VISCOUNT MILNER]
All these circumstances were never taken into consideration by friends or
foes, and, in consequence, he was made responsible for blunders which he
could not help and for mistakes which he was probably the first to
deplore. The world forgot that Sir Alfred never really had a free hand,
was always thwarted, either openly or in secret, by some kind of
authority, be it civil or military, which was in conflict with his own.
It was next to an impossibility to judge a man fairly under such
conditions. All that one could say was that he deserved a good deal of
praise for having, so successfully as he did, steered through the manifold
difficulties and delicate susceptibilities with which he had to contend in
unravelling a great tangle in the history of the British Empire.
The Afrikander Bond hated him, that was a recognised fact, but this hatred
did Sir Alfred more good than anything else. The attacks directed against
him were so mean that they only won him friends among the very people to
whom his policy had not been acceptable. The abuse showered by certain
newspapers upon the High Commissioner not only strengthened his hands and
his authority, but transformed what ought to have remained a personal
question into one in which the dignity as well as the prestige of the
Empire was involved. To have recalled him after he had been subjected to
such treatment would have been equivalent to a confession that the State
was in the wrong. I have never been able to understand how men of such
undoubted perception as Mr. Sauer or Mr. Merriman, or other leaders of the
Bond, did not grasp this fact. Sir Alfred himself put the aspect very
cleverly before the public in an able and dignified speech which he made
at the lunch offered to Lord Roberts by the Mayor and Corporation of Cape
Town when he said, "To vilify her representative is a strange way to show
one's loyalty to the Queen."
A feature in Sir Alfred Milner's character, which was little known outside
the extremely small circle of his personal friends, was that when he was
in the wrong he never hesitated to acknowledge the fact with
straightforward frankness. His judgments were sometimes hasty, but he was
always willing to amend an opinion on just grounds. There was a good deal
of dogged firmness in his character, but not a shred of stubbornness or
obstinacy. He never yielded one inch of his ground when he believed
himself to be in the right, but he was always amenable to reason, and he
never refused to allow himself to be convinced, even though it may be that
his natural sympathies were not on the side of those with whom he had got
to deal. Very few statesmen could boast of such qualities, and they surely
ought to weigh considerably in the balance of any judgment passed upon
Viscount Milner.
The welfare of South Africa and the reputation of Sir Alfred would have
been substantially enhanced had he been able to assert his own authority
according to his own judgment, without overrulings from Whitehall, and
with absolute freedom as to choice of colleagues. His position was most
difficult, and though he showed no outward sign of this fact, it is
impossible to believe that he did not feel its crushing weight. Between
the Bond, Mr. Hofmeyr, the race hatred which the Dutch accused him of
fomenting, the question of the refugees, the clamours of the Jingo
Colonials, and the extreme seriousness of the military situation at one
time, it was perfectly marvellous that he did not break down. Instead, as
very few men could have done, he kept a clear-headed shrewdness, owing to
which the Empire most certainly contracted an immense debt of gratitude
toward him for not having allowed himself to yield to the temptation of
retaliating upon those who had made his task such a particularly hard one.
His forbearance ought never to be lost sight of in judging the
circumstances which brought about and attended the South African War.
Whilst the war was going on it was not realised that Sir Alfred Milner was
the only man who--when the time arrived--could allay the passions arising
from the conflict. But, without vanity, he knew, and could well afford to
wait for his reward until history rather than men had judged him.
In the meanwhile Sir Alfred had to struggle against a sea of obstacles in
which he was probably the only man clever enough not to drown himself--a
danger which overtook others who had tried to plunge into the complicated
politics of South Africa. A succession of administrators at Government
House in Cape Town ended their political career there, and left, broken in
spirit, damaged in reputation.
As for the local politicians, they were mostly honest mediocrities or
adventurous spirits, who used their influence for their personal
advantage. An exception was Mr. Hofmeyr. But he was far too absorbed in
securing the recognition of Dutch supremacy at the Cape to be able to work
on the milder plane necessary to bring about the one great result. The
popularity of Mr. Hofmeyr was immense and his influence indisputable; but
it was not a broad influence. He shuddered at the mere possibility of the
Transvaal falling into the hands of the British.
Whilst touching upon the subject of the Transvaal, I may say a word
concerning the strangely mixed population, for the sake of whom,
officially, Britain went to war. The war was entirely the work of the
Uitlanders, as they called themselves with a certain pride, but very few
of whom possessed a drop of English blood. The British public at home was
told that it was necessary to fight President Kruger because Englishmen in
the Transvaal were being ill-treated and denied their legitimate rights.
In reality, this was one of those conventional reasons, lacking common
sense and veracity, upon which nations are so often fed. If we enter
closely into the details of existence in the Transvaal, and examine who
were those who shouted so loudly for the franchise, we find that the
majority were either foreigners or Jews hailing from Frankfurt or Hamburg.
Many of them had, to be sure, become naturalised British subjects, but I
doubt very much whether, among all the magnates of Johannesburg or of
Kimberley, more than one or two pure-blooded Englishmen could be found.
Rhodes, of course, was an exception, but one which confirmed the rule.
Those others whose names can still be conjured with in South Africa were
Jews, mostly of Teutonic descent, who pretended that they were Englishmen
or Colonials; nothing certain was known about their origin beyond the fact
that such or such small shops in Grahamstown, Durban or Cape Town had
witnessed their childish romps. The Beits, the Neumanns and the Wernhers
were German Jews; Barney Barnato was supposed to have been born under the
shade of a Portuguese synagogue, and considered the fact as being just as
glorious a one as would have been that of having in his veins "all the
blood of all the Howards." The Joels were Hebrews; the Rudds supposed to
belong to the same race through some remote ancestor; the Mosenthals,
Abrahams, Phillipps, and other notabilities of the Rand and Kimberley,
were Jews, and one among the so-called Reformers, associated with the
Jameson Raid, was an American engineer, John Hays Hammond.
The war, which was supposed to win the franchise for Englishmen in the
Transvaal, was in reality fought for the advantage of foreigners. Most
people honestly believed that President Kruger was aiming at destroying
English prestige throughout the vast dark continent, and would have been
horrified had they known what was going on in that distant land. Fortunes
were made on the Rand in a few days, but very few Englishmen were among
the number of those who contrived to acquire millions. Englishmen, indeed,
were not congenial to the Transvaal, whilst foreigners, claiming to be
Englishmen because they murdered the English language, abounded and
prospered, and in time came sincerely to believe that they were British
subjects, owing to the fact that they continually kept repeating that
Britain ought to possess the Rand.
When Britain came really to rule the Rand the adventurers found it did not
in the least secure the advantages which they had imagined would derive
from a war they fostered. This question of the Uitlanders was as
embarrassing for the English Government as it had been for that of the
Transvaal. These adventurers, who composed the mass of the motley
population which flourished on the Rand, would prove a source of annoyance
to any State in the world. On the other hand, the importance acquired by
the so-called financial magnates was daily becoming a public danger,
inasmuch as it tended to substitute the reign of a particular class of
individuals for the ruling of those responsible for the welfare of the
country. These persons individually believed that they each understood
better than the Government the conditions prevailing in South Africa, and
perpetually accused Downing Street of not realising and never protecting
British interests there.
Amidst their recriminations and the publicity they could command from the
Press, it is no wonder that Sir Alfred Milner felt bewildered. It is to
his everlasting honour that he did not allow himself to be overpowered. He
was polite to everybody; listened carefully to all the many wonderful
tales that were being related to him, and, without compromising himself,
proceeded to a work of quiet mental elimination that very soon made him
thoroughly grasp the intricacies of any situation. He quickly came to the
conclusion that President Kruger was not the principal obstacle to a
peaceful development of British Imperialism in South Africa. If ever a
conflict was foisted on two countries for mercenary motives it was the
Transvaal War, and a shrewd and impartial mind like Milner's did not take
long to discover that such was the case.
He was not, however, a man capable of lending himself meekly to schemes of
greed, however wilily they were cloaked. His was not the kind of nature
that for the sake of peace submits to things of which it does not approve.
This man, who was represented as an oppressor of the Dutch, was in reality
their best friend, and perhaps the one who believed the most in their
eventual loyalty to the English Crown. It is a thousand pities that when
the famous Bloemfontein Conference took place Sir Alfred Milner, as he
still was at that time, had not yet acquired the experience which later
became his concerning the true state of things in the Transvaal. Had he at
that time possessed the knowledge which he was later to gain, when the
beginning of hostilities obliged so many of the ruling spirits of
Johannesburg to migrate to the Cape, it is likely that he would have acted
differently. It was not easy for the High Commissioner to shake off the
influence of all that he heard, whether told with a good or bad intention,
and it was still harder for him in those first days of his office to
discern who was right or who was wrong among those who crowded their
advice upon him--and never forgave him when he did not follow their
ill-balanced counsels.
Concerning the outstanding personality of Cecil Rhodes, the position of
Sir Alfred Milner was even more difficult and entangled than in regard to
anyone else. It is useless to deny that he had arrived at Cape Town with
considerable prejudice against Rhodes. He could not but look
interrogatively upon the political career of a man who at the very time he
occupied the position of Prime Minister had lent himself to a conspiracy
against the independence of another land. Moreover, Rhodes was supposed,
perhaps not without reason, to be continually intriguing to return to
power, and to be chafing in secret at the political inaction which had
been imposed upon him, and for which he was himself responsible more than
anyone else. The fact that after the Raid Rhodes had been abandoned by his
former friends harmed him considerably as a political man by destroying
his renown as a statesman to whom the destinies of an Empire might be
entrusted with safety. One can truly say, when writing the story of those
years, that it resolved _itself_, into the vain struggle of Rhodes to
recover his lost prestige. Sir Alfred was continually being made
responsible for things of which he had not only been innocent, but of
which, also, he had disapproved most emphatically. To mention only
one--the famous concentration camps. A great deal of fuss was made about
them at the time, and it was generally believed that they had been
instituted at the instigation of the High Commissioner. When consulted on
the subject Sir Alfred Milner had, on the contrary, not at all shared the
opinion of those who had believed that they were a necessity, although
ultimately, for lack of earlier steps, they became so.
The Colony at that time found its effective government vested in the hands
of the military authorities, who not infrequently acted upon opinions
which were not based upon experience or upon any local conditions. They
believed, too, implicitly what they were told, and when they heard people
protest, with tears in their eyes, their devotion to the British Crown,
and lament over the leniency with which the Governor of Cape Colony looked
upon rebellion, they could not possibly think that they were listening to
a tissue of lies, told for a purpose, nor guess that they were being made
use of. Under such conditions the only wonder is the few mistakes which
were made. To come back to the Boers' concentration camps, Sir Alfred
Milner was not a sanguinary man by any means, and his character was far
too firm to use violence as a means of government. It is probable that,
left alone, he would have found some other means to secure strict
obedience from the refugees to orders which most never thought of
resisting. Unfortunately for everybody concerned, he could do nothing
beyond expressing his opinion, and the circumstance that, out of a feeling
of duty, he made no protestations against things of which he could not
approve was exploited against him, both by the Jingo English party and by
the Dutch, all over South Africa. At Groote Schuur especially, no secret
was made by the friends of Rhodes of their disgust at the state of things
prevailing in concentration camps, and it was adroitly brought to the
knowledge of all the partisans of the Boers that, had Rhodes been master
of the situation, such an outrage on individual liberty would never have
taken place. Sir Alfred Milner was subjected to unfair, ill-natured
criticisms which were as cunning as they were bitter. The concentration
camps afford only one instance of the secret antagonisms and injustices
which Sir Alfred Milner had to bear and combat. No wonder thoughts of his
days in South Africa are still, to him, a bitter memory!