for the Harrow division of Middlesex, he had been private secretary to
Lord Goschen, Under-Secretary for Finance in Egypt, and Head of the
Inland Revenue. In this latter office he had given invaluable
assistance to Sir William Harcourt, then Chancellor of the Exchequer,
in respect of what is perhaps the most successful of recent methods
of raising revenue--the death duties. The principle of the graduated
death duties was Harcourt's; but it was Milner who worked out the
elaborate system which rendered his ideas coherent, and enabled them
eventually to be put into effect. Academic distinctions, however
ample, cannot be said to-day to afford a definite assurance of
pre-eminent capacity for the service of the State. Yet it was
certainly no disadvantage to Sir Alfred Milner to have been a scholar
of Balliol, or a President of the Oxford Union.[26] Whatever direct
knowledge the educated public had of him was based probably upon the
impression created by his book _England in Egypt_. This was a work
which indicated that its author had formed high ideals of English
statesmanship, and that his experience of a complex administrative
system, working in a political society full of intrigue and
international jealousy, had developed in him the rare qualities of
insight and humour. Some of his readers might have reflected that an
active association with so accomplished a master of financial and
administrative method as Lord Cromer was in itself a useful equipment
for a colonial administrator.

[Footnote 26: Mr. Bodley, in his _Coronation of King Edward
VII._, remarks that of the seventy Balliol scholars elected
during the mastership of Jowett (1870-1893) only three had at
that time (1902) "attained eminence in any branch of public
life." These three were Mr. H. H. Asquith, Dr. Charles Gore
(then Bishop of Worcester), and Lord Milner.]

[Sidenote: Sir Alfred Milner.]

But the British public, both in England and South Africa, took their
view of the appointment from the opinions expressed by the many
prominent men to whom Sir Alfred Milner was personally known. The
leaders and the Press of both parties were unstinted in approval of
the choice which Mr. Chamberlain had made. The banquet given to Sir
Alfred Milner three weeks before his departure to the Cape (March
28th, 1897) provided an occasion for an expression of unrestrained
admiration and confidence unique in the annals of Engl