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In May 1919 Curtis returned to Paris where he called a meeting "standing council in Washington representing all the states of pan- at the Majestic Hotel. Thirty members of the British and US dele- America and the British Commonwealth" and a "Pan-American gations participated. Curtis had proposed that a committee be British Empire Conference".'* Kerr would never see his vision formed to "prepare a scheme for the creation of an institute of inter- _ realised, however, dying unexpectedly on 12 December 1940 while national affairs". He justified this proposal with the argument that visiting Britain. as the Peace Conference had revealed: "Right public opinion was As an organisation, however, the period from the 1920s onward mainly produced by a small number of people in real contact with was marked by the decline of the Round Table. Dawson resigned the facts who had thought out the issues involved". as editor of the Times in October 1941 and died in November 1944. Curtis had then suggested creation of an "institute of international | Amery, increasingly impatient with Curtis's wild schemes, had affairs" with "one branch in England and the other America" to drifted away to become a member of parliament. ensure that expert opinion could be cultivated.” Sure enough at Curtis, though, had become embroiled in a number of clashes subsequent meetings of this Majestic-thirty group in June 1919 the with the new younger members of the movement who disagreed committee recommended formation of an "Institute of International — with his views. Nevertheless Curtis stuck doggedly to his faith in Affairs" with two branches, one in Britain and the other the US."' world government through some form of imperial federation as the Out of the deliberations of this Majestic-thirty, the RIA and CFR _ path to world peace; a view he maintained until his death in 1955. emerged to take their respective places in the British and US for- As for the other Round Table members, Brand and Zimmern, the eign policy establishments. They were not only were led and domi- shift in world power following World War II seemed to hasten their nated by Round Table members in their early years—Cuttis, own shifts into obscurity. The Round Table journal also changed, Zimmern and Kerr at Chatham House, and Whitney Shepardson at _losing its anonymity by the 1960s and becoming more a venue for the CFR—but subscribed to many of the Round Table's goals. ideas on the Commonwealth than a platform for a secretive elite "The foundation of Chatham House", clique. Curtis acknowledged in 1938, "was a necessary tactical change to effect A LEGACY OF DECLINE? the same strategic object" as the The Round Table's main legacy Round Table. has been its unintentional role in has- The "time is gone", Curtis wrote to As an organisation, however, the tening the replacement of the Empire Kerr in 1936, "...to be afraid of . with the Commonwealth of Nations. admitting...that Chatham House was period from the 1920s onward was § This is clearly ironic, given that the nse marked by the decline of the aim of its members was the exact the outcome of Round Table work". Both organisations also retained the opposite, and reveals that their cher- Round Table's divisions; advocates of Round Table. ished propaganda methods were also world government co-existed with somewhat less effective than they proponents of a world order built on realised. an Anglo-American alliance. Moreover, the Commonwealth— Despite their differences, the ties being little more than a portentous between the core Round Table group name attached to those dominions members endured in other forms, and colonies that once formed the most notably the so-called "Cliveden Set". During the inter-war British Empire—has struggled to establish itself as an effective years Milner (before his death in 1925), Kerr, Brand, Dawson, and international organisation. Curtis were regular visitors at the palatial residence of Waldorf Commonwealth leaders have made many optimistic declarations Astor at Cliveden. about the Commonwealth's pivotal global role. In 1966, Due to the higher political circles the Astors mixed with, the sus- Commonwealth Secretary-General Arnold Smith claimed an essen- picion that greater intrigues were underway at Cliveden soon tial global role for the Commonwealth in promoting more "under- gripped the public imagination. The dominant theory, advocated by _ standing and tolerance". Smith argued, "We have to develop quick- Claude Cockburn, editor of the political newsletter The Week in the _ly the habits and insights of co-operation on a global basis. The 1930s, claimed there was in fact a "Cliveden Set" intent on appeas- Commonwealth gives us one of the promising instruments for this ing Nazi Germany. purpose". While one of his later successors, Chief Emeka This was not without foundation—Philip Kerr had endorsed Anyaoku, at the 1999 Commonwealth Heads of Government accommodating Nazi objectives in Eastern Europe, and had most of | Meeting (CHOGM) in Durban, suggested a world leadership role the "Set" agreeing with him until Nazi aggression became too seri- —_ for the Commonwealth with his claim that, "In a very real sense the ous a challenge to appease.'* Commonwealth is now a club of democracies".'** There were other ventures involving the Round Table remnants. Yet, as a successor to the British Empire, the Commonwealth, as In the late 1930s Kerr and Curtis were both heavily influenced by a number of commentators have ruefully observed of late, is a very Clarence Streit's book Union Now (1939). Streit, an American poor substitute. "[I]t lacks much relevance in today's world...", Rhodes Scholar and New York Times journalist, had recommended __ claimed a scathing editorial in the Brisbane Courier-Mail after the "the union now of the United States with other Democracies, under annual CHOGM meeting—then scheduled to be held in Brisbane, one Federal Union Government, as a practical first step toward Australia, in September 2001—was cancelled in the wake of the World Federal Union..." Kerr had made many similar proposals _ terrorist attacks on America. The Courier-Mail continued, "It during the 1930s and in July 1939 he and Curtis had supported the cannot enforce discipline among its own members when they abuse establishment of the Federal Union movement. human and property rights (as in Zimbabwe) or devalue their As Britain's Ambassador to the US from 1939 to 1940, Kerr had democratic institutions (as in Fiji). And now it has, in effect, continued to support closer Anglo-American co-operation. In 1940 —_ acknowledged that it would contribute little to the struggle against he seemed to resurrect Cecil Rhodes's ideas with his advocacy of a _terrorism".'*” marked by the decline of the Round Table. 36 = NEXUS JUNE — JULY 2005 www.nexusmagazine.com