To support his intended policy in South Africa, Milner counted on a network of press, political and social connections without which he could never have succeeded. Among these social links was the supremely well-connected Reginald Brett who returned with him to London from Windsor on 18 February 1897, the day Milner kissed hands with Victoria to mark his appointment as High Commissioner. The future Lord Esher commented to W. T. Stead that Milner had ‘a heavy job; and has to start de novo’. In his opinion the South African Committee investigating the Jameson Raid would ‘leave few of the old gang on their legs’. In his new journal, the Review of Reviews, Stead lauded Milner as an ‘Imperialist of the purest water’ who could be relied upon to do ‘all that can be done to make South Africa, from Table Mountain to Tanganyika, as loyally British as Kent or Middlesex’. But, Stead went on, Milner knew ‘far too well the hollowness of an Imperial unity compulsorily thrust upon an unwilling population. He goes to South Africa to supply patience, prudence, and conciliation; to restore confidence, and to prevent war.’

Milner was careful to curry the favour of his many friends in Fleet Street for the new endeavour. For example, he wrote to Sidney Low at the St James's Gazette that