his policy at the supreme moment of the crisis created by the Raid. Those who had known Sir Hercules Robinson during his first tenure of the High Commissionership were shocked and alarmed by the physical change wrought in the few years which intervened before his return to Government House.

CHAPTER IX

THE ARRIVAL OF LORD MILNER

UPON the choice of a successor to Sir Hercules Robinson, whose health had completely broken down, and who died not long afterwards, depended the future of South Africa. There is a story current which I have purposely refrained from verifying, because, whether true or only well-found, it is illustrative. The appointment of the High Commissioner rests, of course, primarily with the Secretary of State for the Colonies; but in selections to all the most important Imperial offices the Prime Minister necessarily has the last, as he sometimes has the first, word. It is said that when Mr. Chamberlain had made up his mind to the selection of Sir Alfred Milner, as he then was, he went to Lord Salisbury, and said:

'I have found the right man for South Africa.' 'So have I,' replied the Prime Minister.

Mr. Chamberlain, somewhat taken aback, said: 'My man is Sir Alfred Milner.'

'So is mine,' answered Lord Salisbury.

Whether the story as told is literally correct I cannot say, but I happen to know that Lord Salisbury and Mr. Chamberlain did arrive independently at the conclusion that Sir Alfred Milner was the man and the only man peculiarly fitted for the post. In the National Review for April, 1901, there appeared an article of mine, from which I extract the following:

'Sir Alfred Milner had the rare merit of commanding the confidence of public men of very divergent schools of politics to a degree for which it would be difficult to find a parallel. He owed this universal reputation for broad-mindedness,

independence, and impartiality-I am not speaking now of his intellectual endowments-entirely to the records of his own public and private life. He was not, to use a convenient colloquialism, at all "in the swim." He had no conspicuous social standing, nor was he backed by powerful connections or by inherited influence. He came into official life in England with nothing behind him but the records of a very distinguished University career and the unqualified admiration and respect of all his contemporaries. Moreover, in an age of which self-advertisement is not the least striking characteristic, Alfred Milner was singularly lacking in all the varied accomplishments which are necessary for the successful prosecution of that art. It was to these facts that the memorable dinner given to him on March 27, 1897, on the eve of his departure for South Africa, owed its special significance. It is our pleasant English habit to give our friends a send-off banquet whenever they start upon a new departure, whether it be matrimony, business, or politics. It was not, therefore, the compliment itself, but the position and the opinions of the people who paid it, that made this particular banquet so remarkable. Most of us at some period or other of our lives have been constrained to give testimonials about the sincerity of which our consciences would not stand very severe cross-examination. But no one feels it incumbent upon himself to take part in a quite informal celebration, such as this emphatically was, unless he particularly wishes to do honour to the guest of the evening. As a matter of fact, the Milner dinner grew out of the desire of his personal friends and contemporaries at Oxford to entertain him without fuss or ceremony before he left England. So eager, however, were many distinguished persons who had not the requisite qualifications to assist at this function that Mr. St. John Brodrick and Mr. Lyttleton Gell, to whom the arrangements for the dinner as originally designed had been entrusted, found it necessary considerably to enlarge its scope. And so it came to pass that at the dinner at the Café Monico there were gathered together as remarkable a selection of men as it would be possible to find in company to do honour to one who, until his appointment, was virtually a private individual. I will cite just a few

names, taken alphabetically from the list before me: Mr. Asquith was in the chair, and amongst others present were Mr. A. H. Acland, M.P., Sir W. Anson, Mr. Arthur Balfour, M.P., Mr. Leonard Courtney, M.P., Mr. Goschen, M.P., Mr. Haldane, M.P., Mr. H. Hobhouse, M.P., Sir C. Ilbert, Sir Francis Jeune, Lord Monteagle, Mr. John Morley, Mr. H. W. Paul, Mr. G. W. E. Russell, Archdeacon Sinclair, Mr. Spender, Mr. Julian Sturgis, Sir Algernon West, and Mr. George Wyndham. Lord Rosebery and Sir William Harcourt, who had both desired to attend, were absentees. Both, however, wrote letters of regret, which differed as much from the formal type of such productions as the dinner differed from other functions of a similar character. Rosebery wrote from Edinburgh:

Lord

It is impossible for me to be in London to-morrow night, and so I cannot attend the Milner banquet. This is a source of great regret to me, but Milner will know that my absence is not due to any want of appreciation of him or of the occasion. He has a brilliant past, but has a still greater career before him, for he has the union of intellect with fascination, which makes men mount high.

And Sir William Harcourt, who is not one to indulge in effusiveness, wrote:

I deeply regret that my present flabby condition disables me from private pleasures as well as public duties, and, if permitted, I must go out of town to-morrow afternoon for a few days' change of air. It is with very deep regret and sincere disappointment that I am compelled to be absent from that interesting gathering of the friends and admirers of Alfred Milner, amongst whom I reckon myself to rank with the first, and am certainly the most grateful and obliged. I feel sure that he and his friends will be aware that, though the flesh is weak, my spirit will be with you in the notable recognition to be given to a man deserving of all praise and all affection.

This notable recognition, as Sir William Harcourt in anticipation described it, was destined to be as distinguished by the speeches which marked it as by the company which made it. Mr. Asquith's speech might well serve as a model on such occasions, if such occasions were sufficiently frequent to demand a stereotyped form of after-dinner speaking. I will quote one passage:

It was the hand of Mr. Goschen which first unlocked for Sir Alfred Milner the doors of the permanent Civil Service, and I venture to say that within our recollection there has been no case of the selection of a

young and comparatively untried man for high and responsible work which has reflected more honour upon the insight and foresight of a Minister, and been more fruitful of advantage to a public service itself. The rest of Sir Alfred Milner's career has become a matter of history. His financial and administrative genius has found itself equally at home in wrestling with the inextricable complexities of an Egyptian Budget and in exploring new sources of revenue for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This is a remarkable retrospect for a man who can hardly claim to enjoy the somewhat qualified privileges of middle age. To have studied scholarship and metaphysics under Jowett and Green, the art of writing under Mr. John Morley, to have been introduced to official life by Mr. Goschen, to have learned the practice of administration under Lord Cromer, and the discharge of the delicate and responsible duties which fall to the permanent head of a great department of the State under Mr. Balfour and Sir William Harcourt, is as unique as it is a fortunate experience. It is, indeed, an experience calculated to equip a man for the discharge of the most arduous task which the State can call upon any of its citizens to perform. To such a task he has been summoned by what I will venture to describe as the wise and happy discrimination of Mr. Chamberlain. Those of us who are his old friends have seen with pleasure, but without surprise, that no appointment of our time has been received with a larger measure both of the approbation of experienced men and of the applause of the public. . . . Under a strong sense of public duty he is quitting a post of which the work is congenial and familiar, and which presents to a man of his faculties and training no insoluble difficulties, for one of which it is no exaggeration to say that at the present moment it is the most arduous and responsible in the administrative service of the country, a post in which he will find himself beset in every direction with embarrassing problems, and, may I be bold enough to add, with formidable personalities. We not only wish him success, but we believe he will succeed. We know that he takes with him as clear an intellect and as sympathetic an imagination, and, if need should arise, a power of resolution as tenacious and as inflexible, as belong to any man of our acquaintance. We are met here to-night to assure him that he carries with him also, and will keep, the affectionate interest of a body of friends who, amid the tests and trials of many and varied conjunctions, have learned to rely with very great confidence upon the soundness of his judgment and the warmth of his heart.

It would be an insult to Mr. Asquith to suggest, even if his words did not give the lie to such a suggestion, that he spoke in strains of insincere formality. No one is better qualified on such occasions as these to mete out measured approbation than a distinguished lawyer, trained to weigh his words. Merely for the sake of contrast, I will set beside this tribute the criticism at a later date of the South African News, inspired, if not written, by Mr. Merriman The blind, narrow-minded, conceited and infatuated mediocrity that sits at Government House'; or the singularly infelicitous phrase of the Speaker, which describes Sir Alfred Milner as 'a garden-party satrap.' I must quote also a few words of