Knaplund—A Study in British Colonial Policy 
21 
Mr. Lionel Curtis and his friends worked under orders from 
Downing Street, their eiforts must have heen noticed and approved 
by the colonial office. Carnarvon’s policy of dictation, slightly 
modified by crude attempts at persuasion, had failed; it was the 
part of wisdom to abandon the former and evolve more finesse in 
the use of the latter.^^ The presumption appears well-founded that 
the imperial government was at least indirectly an important factor 
in stimulating, during the period 1901-1909, that federation senti¬ 
ment which more direct methods had failed to arouse thirty years 
earlier. But the sentiment itself could not have prevailed if great 
centripetal forces had not existed and the Boer leaders had not 
identified themselves with the cause of union. 
Of considerable interest, in this connection, is the following observation by Sir Wil¬ 
frid Laurier: “At each imperial conference,’’ says Sir Wilfrid, “some colonial leader 
was put forward by the imperialists to champion their cause. In 1897 it was obvious 
that they looked to me to act the bell-wether, but I fear they were disappointed. In 
1902 it was Seddon; in 1907, Deakin; in 1911, Ward.” Oscar Douglas Skelton, Lif* 
and Letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier (2 vols., New York, 1922), II, p. 342, note. 
