Lord Milner’s position in regard to the native question in South Africa is necessarily a very weak one. Being regarded after [the Boer War] as an inveterate enemy of the Dutch, as prime author of all their miseries, he had to fall back for his support upon the British section of the population, and upon that particular section of the population which is called the mineowning group. In order to placate the mine-owning group, he had somewhat to ignore the interests of the British population. In order to propitiate the British population he had to sacrifice the interests of the Dutch, and in order to compensate the mine-owners, British and Dutch, for these disadvantages he had to sacrifice the interests of the natives.
1906, 28 February.
Alfred Milner, First Viscount Milner (1854-1925), German-born British colonial administrator, took a hard line towards the Boers before and after the Boer War.
Having been for many years, or at all events for many months, the arbiter of the fortunes of men who are “rich beyond the dreams of avarice,” he is today poor, and, I will add, honourably poor. After twenty years of exhausting service under the Crown he is today a retired Civil servant, without pension or gratuity of any kind whatsoever.
1906, 21 March.
Milner had been censured for refusing to allow light corporal punishment of coolies in South Africa in accord with the Chinese labour ordinance.
World History
