OBITUARY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 14 May 1925, Page 11

OBITUARY.

LORD MILNER

A DISTINGUISHED STATESMAN

Received Alnv 14, 10.10 a.m LONDON, May 13 Obituarv: Lord Milner.

BY CABLE-PIIUSS A3SOCI A.TION—COPYRIGHT. Born of English parents at Bonn, March 23, 1854, he was educated in Germany, at King’s College, London, and Bailiol College, Oxford, where lie had an exceptionally brilliant career with a fellowship at New College. He became a barrister, but tar a time was on the staff of the Pall Mall Gazette. Milner contested the Harrow division of Middlesex in the Liberal interest at the general election of 1885, blit without, success, and his public career really began with the post of private secretary to G. J. Goschen. This Jed to his appointment as Cnder-Secretary for Finance in Egypt, 1889-92, and chairman of the board of inland, revenue, 1592-97. He was created K.C.B. in 1895, and in 1897 was sent to South Africa as Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, and he conducted the negotiations with Kruger before the South African war. He remained at his post during the struggle, took part in the peace negotiations, and afterwards was Governor of the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies until 1905. Conscious, possibly, of the hostility ho had aroused in Great Britain, Milner, who had been made a baron in 1901 and a viscount in 1902, remained in retirement fo r some years, although he emerged to denounce the budget of .1909. However, in 1916, his former opponent Lloyrl George chose him as one of the members oi' the small War Cabinet, and for two years the two worked together closely in planning the final victory of the Allies. After the armistice Milner was appointed Secretary for War. He wa.s Colonial Secretary 1919-21, during which period he headed a special mission to Egypt. Although possessed of high administrative gifts, a certain reserve, sometimes called hardness, prevented Milner from ever becoming a popular figure. He was accused of being a bureaucrat of the Prussian type, while with equal unreason he was regarded as opposed to progress of all kinds.