The sharp decline in Hutton's fortunes in Canada and a commensurate increase in interest in military affairs throughout the Empire corresponded with, and was dramatically hastened by, the outbreak of the Second South African War. The causes of the tensions between Britain and Transvaal that eventually led to war were long-running and numerous, including the lingering grievances and consequences of the war of 1881 and the illfated Jameson Raid of 1885–86, global alliance politics, the continuing ‘scramble’ for Africa and the economics of the diamonds and gold of the Witwatersrand. Sir Alfred Milner arrived as High Commissioner for Southern Africa and Governor of Cape Colony in May 1898 determined to further the British agenda of a union of southern African states under its control. He therefore took a hard line, determined to break Afrikaner power and aspirations. The catalyst for war was the issue of ‘uitlander’ rights. President Kruger feared that granting a full franchise to these expatriate immigrant workers, whose numbers were almost double those of Boer burghers in Transvaal, would threaten Boer independence. Chamberlain and Milner knew it, too – and pressed their diplomatic attack.

Throughout 1899, particularly in autumn, press outcries around the Empire concerning Boer ‘injustices’ inflicted upon the uitlanders gathered momentum, as did calls for the British Government to act. Tensions and discontent mounted on the Rand, mines closed and talk of war filled the air. A meeting between Milner and Kruger at Bloemfontein in early June 1899 solved none of the issues at hand. Three days later the decision was made in London to despatch an expeditionary force. Chamberlain admitted to Minto privately that with ‘the influence of Great Britain’ at stake, war was inevitable. Faced with a shifting balance of military power as British troops under Redvers Buller steamed towards Africa, Kruger issued his famous ultimatum to Whitehall demanding a recall of the ships, the removal of British troops already landed and the submission of the dispute to arbitration.

Despite Hutton's successful militia reforms in the first year of his appointment in Canada, or perhaps to some degree because of them, friction between the GOC and the Canadian Government had begun to simmer under the surface. Matters finally came to a dramatic head in the latter part of 1899, in the context of events unfolding in South Africa, and they need to be understood as the logical endpoint to a process that was already in train. There were two layers to the problems that eventually drove Hutton and the Laurier government to loggerheads. The first, as much a catalyst as a cause, was Hutton's predetermined mission to rid the militia of what he and many others considered to be undue political influence. On a second level, as important as this ‘crusade’ was in framing mutual distain, it was in some respects a symptom of a more significant issue – one of power and control. Hutton coveted it, Canadian politicians jealously guarded it.

Before Hutton sailed for Canadian shores he was convinced, as were many of his patrons, superiors and colleagues in Britain, that the root cause of Canadian militia inefficiency was political interference and ‘jobbery’. In 1885, after the North-West Rebellion, the Secretary of State for War, Lord Lansdowne, complained that political intrusion was ‘the secret of the rottenness which one encounters again and again whenever one is tempted to force one's penknife into the political fabric of this country’. Lord Minto, with his experience as Military Secretary to the Governor-General in Canada in the 1880s, agreed, arguing that the ‘whole Militia system is saturated with political influence, which is the ruin of its efficiency’. Indeed, much of the reason why a British GOC to command the militia was originally agreed upon by John A. McDonald in the first Militia Act was so that the incumbent would be placed beyond local political intrigue.

When Edward Hutton returned from New South Wales to London on 16 April 1896 he was riding on the crest of a wave of perceived success in the colony and wasted no time calling on key figures at the War Office and various Colonial Office officials, including Joseph Chamberlain. Hutton was thrilled to be received privately by the Duke of Cambridge a week after his return. ‘Nothing could have exceeded the cordiality and kindness which I everywhere received’, he later reminisced, ‘and the congratulations which were conveyed to me, by all officials concerned with military and imperial interest, were gratifying in the extreme.’ Hutton later claimed that it was suggested to him that he might be promoted major-general for his services, but he declined as it would have passed him over the heads of his seniors and he did not relish the jealousy and ‘professional unpleasantness’ which would result. Be that as it may, such official recognition fired Hutton's imagination, reaffirmed his self-belief and stoked his ambition to greater heights than ever before. With more time on his hands than had been available in New South Wales, Hutton was also free to devote his considerable intellectual energy to his emerging ideas concerning imperial defence.

Hutton spent much of his time immediately after his return to Britain seeking the company and counsel of the members of the CDC. He was aware that the committee was at that point on the cusp of moving beyond its restrictive traditional focus on local colonial defence issues towards the consideration of the wider issue of defending the Empire. How best to do so was a subject that at once held Hutton's attention and one he hoped to influence. He helped Captain Nathan, for example, prepare in May 1896 the first CDC memorandum ever drafted that gave a solid set of principles behind its conception of imperial defence. The memo was itself a consequence of a Colonial Office request to prepare a paper that could be used to ‘educate colonial public opinion in the right principles of defence’.

When Hutton returned to London he was terrified that events in Canada might have sullied his reputation and thereby ruined his future prospects. He need never had worried. Lansdowne and Chamberlain assured him that not only was his work in Canada highly valued but also that they well understood the great ‘difficulties’ under which he had laboured. His spirits buoyed, Hutton chose this moment to address the issue that had been forefront in his mind since leaving Canada, namely, his ideas of a ‘Militia System of Co-operative Defence’. Chamberlain was interested and asked Hutton whether he thought a militia system on the Canadian or New South Wales model might be applied in Britain. Hutton assured him it could. The present ‘fragmented’ auxiliaries in Britain, in that they still consisted of infantry units without field artillery, mounted units or military departments, could and should, Hutton argued, be restructured as a self-contained army. Chamberlain initially doubted the quality of such a militia, but Hutton assured him that ‘with a good system of organisation and a good set of experienced officers it mattered little if the men were at first somewhat ill-trained’. Chamberlain was so impressed that he took Hutton at once to see the First Lord of the Treasury and future Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour, who was deeply alarmed by the British military weaknesses exposed in South Africa. To Hutton's delight, Balfour reiterated the government's satisfaction with his service in Canada. Hutton then once more outlined his idea for a British militia, based on his Canadian and New South Wales model and its potential to fit into his wider ambition of a cooperative imperial defence system. Balfour explained that his senior military advisers had told him militia artillery regiments were impractical, but Hutton countered by arguing that what had been possible in the colonies was possible in Britain. Balfour seemed impressed. It was an important moment, the first time Hutton had openly pitched his grand scheme to those in a position to do something about it.