Alfred Milner is appointed British high commissioner…

Alfred Milner is appointed British high commissioner for South Africa in 1897.

Appointed under-secretary of finance in Egypt, in 1887, he had remained in Egypt for four years, his period of office coinciding with the first great reforms, after the danger of bankruptcy had been avoided.

Returning to England in 1892, he published England and Egypt which, at once, became the authoritative account of the work done since the British occupation.

Later that year he received an appointment as chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue.

In 1894 he was made CB and in 1895 KCB.

Milner had remained at the Board of Inland Revenue until 1897. He is regarded as one of the clearest-headed and most judicious officials in the British service, and his position as a man of moderate Liberal views, who had been so closely associated with Grogr Goschen at the Treasury, the Earl of Cromer in Egypt, and Hicks-Beach (Lord St Aldwyn) and Sir William Vernon Harcourt while at the Inland Revenue, has marked him as one in whom all parties might have confidence.

The moment for testing his capacity in the highest degree has now arrived.

In April, Lord Rosmead had resigned his posts of High Commissioner for Southern Africa and Governor of Cape Colony.

The situation resulting from the Jameson raid is one of the greatest delicacy and difficulty, and Joseph Chamberlain, now colonial secretary, had selected Milner as Lord Rosmead's successor.

The choice had been cordially approved by the leaders of the Liberal party and warmly recognized at a farewell dinner on March 28, 1897, presided over by the future prime minister H. H. Asquith.

The appointment had been avowedly made in order that an acceptable British statesman, in whom public confidence was reposed, might go to South Africa to consider all the circumstances and to formulate a policy that should combine the upholding of British interests with the attempt to deal justly with the Transvaal and Orange Free State governments.

Milner reaches the Cape in May 1897 and by August, after the difficulties with President Kruger over the Aliens' Law have been patched up, he is free to make himself personally acquainted with the country and peoples before deciding on the lines of policy to be adopted.