Part 2 — CHAPTER II

GEORGE WYNDHAM’S IRISH LAND BILL, 1902

King Edward VII’s reign began with a fair promise for the world, or at least for the British Empire, of peace; and there was good reason to hope that a more reasonable foreign policy would be pursued than that which had so violently disturbed the last years of Queen Victoria’s reign. King Edward was by nature and habit a peacemaker, and one of his chief occupations as Prince of Wales had been to use his social influence in composing his friends’ quarrels. It was disagreeable to him that persons of his Court with whom he came in contact, and in whom he felt an interest, should be on ill terms with each other, and he had long felt a pride in bringing them together. His own life had not been altogether free from domestic storms, but these had not been due to faults of temper on his part, rather of conduct, for he was a lover of pleasure and allowed himself wide latitude in its indulgence. This had involved him in more than one scandal out of which he had always managed to emerge without serious injury to his reputation. These irregularities had indeed rather added to his popularity for they showed him to have a kindly heart and he had always proved faithful to his friends. His experience, too, had made him a good judge of character both with men and women, and gave him a certain facility in his intercourse with both which was not without its diplomatic uses. Thus when for the first time he found himself in a position to influence the conduct of foreign affairs (for Queen Victoria had been always jealous of his being entrusted with state secrets) his natural instinct was to use it in the interests of peace, especially with France, where the chief friction was found, and from the first days of his accession he busied himself in bringing about a settlement of their international differences.

As Prince of Wales he had been in the habit of spending a certain number of weeks every year on the continent, and especially in Paris, where he had become personally popular, through his somewhat Bohemian tastes and love of the French stage. In Germany he was almost equally at home, though not on the best of terms with his nephew the Emperor William, and he was on pleasant terms, too, with the Russian Court, and indeed all the Courts, having a family connection with most of them. I knew much of his private life, more than I can relate here, through certain common friends entirely in his confidence, and my feeling towards him has always been for this reason, that of a well-wisher as well as a loyal subject.

The very first object which he set himself to bring about as King was to put an end to the Boer War, not so much perhaps on any humane principle as ending what he was well aware had become the cause of vast discredit to England throughout Europe, and in this he succeeded notwithstanding the Tory obstinacy of those in power. A second scandal which he would have willingly seen ended was that of Ireland. He was aware, as very few Englishmen had discovered, how grave a scandal the long disloyalty of the Irish race was in the eyes of the outside world, and how seriously it affected the dignity of the British Empire and of himself personally as Ireland’s king. Thus the title bestowed on him, not quite seriously at first, of “Edward the Peacemaker” was in my opinion well deserved, though, through the diplomatic blunders of our Foreign Office and the incurable cupidities of our advanced imperialists, the seeds of peace sown during his reign were so perversely misapplied as to bring about the cataclysm of the general European War which ten years later overwhelmed his successor. Lord Salisbury’s retirement from office immediately after King Edward’s coronation and Mr. Balfour’s succession as Prime Minister marks the true end of the Victorian era, and the beginning of another, better let us admit in its intentions, but disastrous beyond all possible foresight on King Edward’s part, in its results of ruin for the European world.

I spent the first winter of the new reign, 1902-1903, once more in Egypt. On leaving London, I wrote “28th Nov., I had met Frank Lascelles at my Club and had had a long talk with him about old times and new. He had been staying at Sandringham with the King and the Emperor William and told me much about them both. It is pleasant to find him still affectionate as in old days and unspoilt by the dignities of his position. The truth is these diplomatic dignities seen close are small things and do not turn their possessors’ heads unless they come very suddenly and unexpectedly. An ambassador in the regular service blossoms gradually and has plenty of time to remember that he was once an attaché and is still a mortal. On my way through France I had travelled with Sir John Gorst (the elder) on his way to attend the opening of the great Assouan dam and to visit his son Eldon at Cairo. Talking about past events in Egypt he told me that in 1886 it had been intended by Lord Salisbury to supersede Cromer and appoint Drummond Wolff in his place and as he, Gorst, was in Cairo at the time, Stafford Northcote had commissioned him to find out how the change would be regarded in native quarters, and he had gone to Nubar, then in office, and consulted him. Nubar had told him that if Cromer went he and his colleagues in office would go too, and it was in consequence of Gorst’s report in this sense that Cromer was allowed to stay on. It is curious that it should have been Gorst, Wolff’s intimate friend, who did him this ill turn, though doubtless Gorst was only fulfilling the commission given him by his superiors. It was a decision of critical importance, for on it really rested the question of the alternative policies in Egypt, Cromer’s which was a policy of remaining and anglicizing the Nile Valley, Wolff’s of restoring National self government.”

On our voyage from Marseilles to Alexandria “I have been reading the Documents connected with the trial of Joan of Arc which have just been published. Her death is perhaps the most stupendous political crime ever perpetrated in Western Europe, certainly the blackest in English history, and this, remembering Cromwell in Ireland, the suppression of the Indian Mutiny and the desecration of the Mahdi’s tomb, is saying much. At the same time there was undeniably a certain legal case against Jeanne in the Ecclesiastical Court which condemned her. The position she took up and persisted in with regard to her visions and her mission from God, made it impossible for the Inquisition to hold a middle course concerning her. Either she had been inspired by God or she had been inspired by the devil, for in those days the idea of mental hallucination was unknown, and if not by God she was necessarily a sorceress worthy of death. In reality Jeanne was a pious, good girl, persuaded of the truth of her ‘visions’ and acting single-mindedly in obedience to them. A claim is made for her by the editor of the book that her answers to her judges have a character of supernatural wisdom. This seems to me to be exaggerated; she was often at fault, and to some very simple questions gave answers by no means wise, as when she refused to repeat the Pater Noster or to say who counselled her to put on male attire. So much for the ecclesiastics. The conduct of the English commanders Bedford, Warwick, and the rest, was infamous to the last degree and without a shadow of excuse. They burned her and scattered her ashes in the Seine for precisely the same reason that Kitchener and his scoundrel officers blew up the Mahdi’s tomb and threw his body into the Nile. It was the dastard spirit of revenge against one who had beaten English armies in the field, and of whom they had all been afraid.

“4th Dec.—We arrived off Alexandria at daybreak, the city looming out of a bank of smoke and black cloud for all the world like Liverpool. It was only a local effect, however, and we were soon in the sunshine and on our way across the Delta, and are now at Sheykh Obeyd. Between Damanhur and Cairo I counted seven pied kingfishers, three hoopoes, two spur-winged plovers, one snipe, one false snipe, and fifty-two little white herons, a thing to note in view of the rapid extermination of birds in Egypt. We arrived at home a full hour before sunset, having found Hamouda Abdu, now made a Bey, expecting us at the Cairo station. His brother the Mufti had just left for Assouan for the opening of the great Nile dam.

“The building scheme at Kafr el Jamus has been going on apace, the whole area north of the village has been laid out in streets and squares, though these have not yet been built over, indicating the rise of the tide which will one day join us in continuous houses with Cairo. Our neighbour Selim Bey Faraj, the Christian judge of Benha, is dead, a poor unmanly creature who had managed to get on bad terms with all the Moslems round. He had got possession of forty acres of land to which he clung pertinaciously in spite of some persecution by the Arabs provoked by his own covetousness. He had a passion for litigation and was memorable for a record series of actions at law brought against his wife which he carried before every tribunal in Egypt, native and foreign, and then on appeal before the Sultan at Constantinople, and as a last resort before the Pope at Rome, and lost them all.

“19th Dec.—The Grand Mufti (Sheykh Mohammed Abdu) came and sat with me this morning for a couple of hours talking. He had sent me Butler’s ‘Conquest of Egypt by the Arabs’ of which he had received a presentation copy and I explained its contents to him, for he does not read English. He treats Butler’s theory of the Makawkas being identical with Cyrus the Melchite Patriarch of Alexandria as rubbish. He says that it is certain the Makawkas was a Copt, the Governor of Memphis, and that he and the mass of the Copts favoured the Arab invasion which relieved them of the Roman tyranny. If it had not been so, how could the Copts have obtained such very favourable terms from Amru and enjoyed the liberty and self government they did for so many centuries after? It was only the crusades and especially the attack made on Egypt by St. Louis that caused the Copts to begin to be persecuted, they having declared for the invaders. We talked also about contemporary affairs at Constantinople. The Khedive is now on bad terms with the Sultan, having been ill-received by him this summer. Abdul Hamid refused to receive him at all until he had promised not to mention the affair of Thasos. The affair of Thasos is this: the Khedive, who is owner of the island though it forms no part of Egypt, has managed matters there so badly, raising the taxes and imposing import duties that the people of the island complained of it to the Sultan who made it a pretext for sending his own troops there as garrison. The Khedive wanted these removed, but could not get a hearing at the Palace.

“Abbas is now much under the influence of a Hungarian lady who has become his mistress. She was with him at the time of his motor car mishap, some weeks ago, when he missed his way coming back at night from Dar el Beyda and stuck fast in the sand. The ghaffirs who refused to help him he put to forced labour for a week, a thing reported to the British agency and made a cause of quarrel there against him. We talked also of Midhat Pasha and the death of the Sultan Abdul Aziz. Abdu confirms the account of this given me by Dr. Dickson in 1884 as one certainly of suicide.[1] He tells me also how Midhat was starved to death at Taif. They gave him bread so hard that the old man broke his teeth over it and they allowed him no convenience of any kind in his cell for his natural wants till he died of ill treatment, and his head was then cut off and sent to Constantinople. Of Abdul Hamid, Abdu spoke as the greatest scoundrel living, a strong word for a Grand Mufti to use of his Caliph.

“22nd Dec.—An Arabic newspaper has published a fantastic account of my life and doings. I am by birth, it says, an Irishman, born with an hereditary hatred of England, originally without fortune of my own, I espoused the daughter of a great English lord under the following condition. The lord, many years before, while travelling in the Ottoman dominions, had been assassinated, and died leaving £4,000,000 sterling to his daughter, with an injunction that she should avenge him. She consequently imposed upon her suitors that they should take oath of vengeance, and as I was the only one with sufficient courage, I had been accepted, and had since devoted my life to an attempt to ruin the Ottoman Empire. This I had sought to accomplish by stirring up the Arabs to proclaim an Arabian Caliphate. It attributes the present coolness between the Khedive and the Sultan to my machinations, as also the war now going on in Arabia between Ibn Rashid and Mubarrak of Koweit, whom I had supplied with arms, and a great deal more nonsense of the same kind. I talked the thing over with Mohammed Abdu, who suggested that I might make use of this as an opportunity for publishing in Arabic a full account of my connection with the affairs in Egypt of 1881-82.” [Out of this grew the work which occupied me all that winter in conjunction with the Mufti, and which was published five years afterwards as my “Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt.”]

[1903]“1st Jan. 1903.—We celebrated the New Year (the second day of Shaban), by dining with the Mufti, and talked over the old political days of 1882.”

5th January to 14th January were occupied in a desert journey by Tel el Kebir, Salahieh, Ismaïlia and back by Kassassin and Om Kamr home. Our party consisted of Anne and me and Miss Lawrence, with eleven camels, four mares, and a donkey, Suliman Howeyti, Mutlak, and servants. I give a few extracts:

“6th Jan.—A short day, but an amusing one. Soon after starting we crossed the track in the sand of two wolves, and followed them to a high tell. There we sat looking out over the desert, and I presently caught sight of the wolves cantering across a piece of open sand about a mile away. Then I sent Mutlak back for Suliman, and we went down with him to the place and after some search hit off the tracks, and he followed them with us for an hour back to the Kittaban, where we had camped last night. As we were going up wind, we got close to them before they saw us. Then they were away both together over the high sand ridge, and we after them full gallop. They were immense big wolves, one darker than the other—it looked quite black against the sand. When we reached the top of the ridge they were already a quarter of a mile away, with Mutlak close behind them, for he was riding Manokta, who has great speed. Anne and I did not follow beyond the ridge, but watched them going as straight as a line for Kafr Abusir, till they disappeared in the great distance. Mutlak, after following a couple of miles, had to give it up. It was a fine sight, and the gentlemen of the 11th Hussars would have had their work cut out for them if they had got upon the line. The track of the larger of the two wolves in the damp sand was as big as the palm of my hand, with immense sharp claws. After this we had a long canter to catch up our camels. We have camped about five miles from Belbeys.

“7th Jan.—We are camped on the field of battle of Tel el Kebir, inside Arabi’s line of earthworks. These are of immense extent, though for the most part a mere ditch and bank, which any cavalry regiment would cross almost without checking speed. As we arrived we sighted a jackal running along the embankment, and in another direction half-a-dozen British soldiers in their red coats out for a day’s holiday to look at the scene of their country’s glory.

“8th Jan.—We rode all along the front line of entrenchments, in the ditch of which are still numerous human bones and a few skulls of the ‘poor patriots, partly purchased, partly pressed,’ who died there twenty years ago. The embrasures of the half dozen forts, where the artillery was posted, are built in part of the rushes of the Wady put in to strengthen the gravel. The lines, though broken through in places by the passage of camels, are still mostly intact, and in this dry climate will last for several thousand years, and I fear outlast the fame of the peasants that built them, in their one assertion of manhood, to defend their country. The outlying fort in front of the lines was visible eastwards. It was there that Ali Rouby was stationed in command of the cavalry, Ali Rouby who betrayed his trust and allowed the English to march past him without giving warning.

“9th Jan.—To-night we are encamped near a high sand dune, from the top of which there is a fine view of the line of the Suez Canal with the low sandhills beyond it, and far away southwards Jebel Attaka and the line of hills to Hamum; close at hand Abu Tufaïleh, where there are some palms, not far from Ismaïlia, which is also distinctly in sight. There are shepherds and camelherds of the Maaze near, some in tents, some squatted under bushes, all very happy. We saw a fox, a hare, an eagle owl and the track of two wolves. An immense spider of a light sand colour, with brown bars, was found in my tent in the morning about three inches across. I never saw the like in any of my journeys.

“13th Jan.—Travelling all day across the great gravel plain south of the Wady in a straight line to Om Kamr. On the way we met Abdallah Ibn Majelli, of the Hannadi Arabs, out on a hawking expedition, with four dependents, two hawks, and five greyhounds. These last, as it turned out, were all descendants of our old English greyhound bitch Fly, a daughter of whose, Jerboa, we gave some fifteen years ago to Prince Ahmed. In spite of many crosses with Arab greyhounds the English type is well preserved, though the dogs are smaller and lighter. Their master told us they were quite acclimatised, and stood the heat and the hard ground as well as their own greyhounds, retaining something of their English speed. We saw them kill a hare after a rather long course among the small bushes with which the plain was sprinkled. The hare must have doubled forty times before the greyhounds got her. One of the hawks waited overhead, but did not pursue the hare after the first minute. The party had got a hubhara also in the morning. They were suspicious of us when we first rode up to them. I fancy that, being away from their own dira, they were afraid.

“14th Jan.—Rode in to Sheykh Obeyd.

“22nd Jan.—Professor Browne from Cambridge came to luncheon, bringing a letter to me from Alfred Lyall. He is most intelligent about Eastern things, not merely as an Orientalist, but also politically. He has lived some time in Persia, and has written a couple of books about it, and knows Persian and Turkish and Arabic, but having little colloquial knowledge of the last, has come here to practise it. With this view he has been attending Mohammed Abdu’s lectures on the Koran at the Azhar, and already understands them fairly well, but his accent in talking is peculiar. We took him to see Mutlak and Suliman in their tents, the first ‘houses of hair’ he has ever sat under. He has been seeing something of our English officials here, and tells amusing stories about them, especially about Dunlop, the Adviser of the Ministry of Instruction, who told him roundly that he would not have any Englishman under him who came to Egypt knowing a word of Arabic. It only gave them romantic ideas about the natives, and they would waste their time explaining what they taught to the natives in Arabic instead of making these learn English. For this reason he would not hear of accepting young men from Cambridge who had passed an examination in Arabic. He prefers to go to England, and pick up young men himself for the places vacant in his department.

“28th Jan.—An interesting man has been here, one of Ibn Rashid’s slaves from Haïl, a half-bred Arab negro born in Nejd, by name Eïd. He is here on a political mission of some kind to find out what is going on in the world, and possibly to seek alliances for the new Emir Abd el Aziz Ibn Rashid. His master is just now in rather bad luck, having lost a considerable battle to Ibn Saoud, and been driven out of Aáred. He gave us a graphic account of the battle, and how Ibn Rashid’s standard had been passed on from hand to hand by his khayal (horsemen) as one after the other was slain, he himself taking it at last, though Mutlak declares it fell into the hands of Ibn Saoud. According to Eïd, Ibn Saoud has now gained possession of Aáred, and is living at Derayyeh, but Kassim is still under Ibn Rashid, who has his Wakil at Bereydah. I asked him what part the Dowlah (the Ottoman Government) had played in the matter, and he protested that it had played none, except that the Sultan had sent a present of Martini rifles and cannons to Abdul Aziz on his accession. Of the English he said that Koweit was full of them. Mohammed Abdu, who came in while we were talking, helped to cross-question him, and there is no doubt the man is what he states he is, for he knows all the politics of Nejd past and present; he is quite new to the outside world, having travelled by way of Jof to Damascus, where he left his delûl and came on by steamer from Beyrout, a strange experience for him. He has stopped the night with us, and this morning he is to go back straight to Haïl. I gave him a piece of parting advice, and a message to his master and to Hamoud and Majid, and the rest of them there. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘to my word, and let these listen. There is danger to the Arabs from the Dowlah, and there is danger also from the English; have nothing to do with either of them. Make peace at once with Ibn Saoud and remain quietly in your own country; leave Mubarrak alone at Koweit and leave Ibn Saoud alone in Aáred, otherwise the Government of the Ibn Rashids at Haïl will perish. You have seen here what comes of English intervention, how the Khedive’s Government has been undermined and destroyed, and so it will be with you in Arabia if you do not mind your own affairs. Have nothing to do with either our Government or the Sultan’s, your own is better than either. You have liberty at Haïl and you are happy under it, and may it last a hundred years.’ I enforced this advice with a present of five pounds as a proof of my sincerity, and he seemed much impressed. I feel sure that he will deliver my message to Abdul Aziz, whether his master follows my advice or not.” [This incident is of interest as fixing the date of the beginning of the rival intrigues on the one hand of the Ottoman Government, and on the other of the Government of India in Peninsula Arabia with large distributions of firearms to the rival tribes, and the stirring up of strife, leading to the larger results we have seen within the last years in the Hedjaz.]

“30th Jan.—To-day Mahmud Pasha Sami came to see me with the Mufti. I had not seen him since we were in Ceylon nineteen years ago, a very distinguished gentleman now in his old age, a poet and a man of letters, nearly blind, who has to be led by the hand.

“Also later one Abdul Kerim Murad of Medina, whose brother had given Anne her first Arabic lessons in 1880. He has since been travelling round a large part of the Mohammedan world during the last few years, including Nigeria and Senegal, of which he gave a most interesting account. [Especially of Sokoto in Nigeria, describing the great wealth and industry of that city and its honourable government since overthrown by the English.]

“8th Feb.—Hamouda Bey, the Mufti’s brother, was here to-day. He has been seriously ill of late through overwork at his legal business. He has been recently given the rank of Bey, and in virtue of his new title was invited the other night to the Khedive’s ball, as to which he gave us a naïve and amusing account. ‘I went,’ he said, ‘with two friends, men like myself in the legal profession, and we arrived among the first, none of us having ever been at such an entertainment before. As we were depositing our coats and umbrellas, for it had rained, at the vestiary, suddenly I saw in a mirror a sight reflected such as I had never in my life beheld, two women who were standing behind me, naked nearly to the waist. I thought it must have been some illusion connected with my illness and I was very much frightened. Their faces and arms and everything were displayed without any covering, and I thought I should have fallen to the ground. I asked what it meant and whether perhaps we had not come to the right house, but my friends took me on into the ball-room, where they showed me a number more women in the like condition. “Who are they?” I inquired, and they told me, “These are the wives of some of our English officials.” “And their husbands,” I asked, “do they permit them to go out at night like this?” “Their husbands,” they answered, “are here,” and they pointed out to me Mr. Royle, the Judge of Appeal, before whom I had often pleaded, a serious man and very stern, as the husband of one of them. This judge I saw dancing with one of these naked ladies, gay and smiling and shameless, like a young man. “And he is here,” I said, “to see his wife thus unclothed? and he dances with her publicly.” “That,” they answered, “is not his wife, it is the wife of another.” I was dumbfounded with shame for our profession. Just then I saw Lord Cromer pass by. His coat was unbuttoned and showed his shirt down to here (pointing to his stomach). I did not see Lord Cromer dance, because as I was looking the Khedive entered the room leading another of these ladies, and there was a crush of those near me to look at him. I found myself jammed close to two of the naked ones, their shoulders and bosoms pressed against me. I was terribly ashamed. As soon as I could free myself, I called to my companions, “Come away, my dear friends, this is no proper place for us,” and I took them with me home. We would not stop for the refreshments which were being served and where wine was being poured. The Khedive calls himself a good Moslem. He says he never drinks wine and leads a respectable life, but this entertainment of his was not respectable, and he himself was there, and they tell me that the ladies of his household are allowed by him to look from behind a screen at all these abominations.’ Such was Hamouda’s naïve account of his adventure. ‘My dear fellow,’ I said, ‘you do not understand that this is our work of civilizing the East, wait another twenty years and you will see all the Cadi’s of Egypt with your brother the Mufti among them, dancing with ladies even more naked than these, and who knows, going with their own heads bare.’ ‘I can understand everything,’ he said, ‘except this, that the husbands of these ladies were there, actually there, in the dancing room, and did not send them home.’

“19th Feb.—Mr. Bourke Cockran called, having been introduced to me by John Redmond as the most prominent Irishman in America. I found him an intelligent, old-fashioned Irishman, and altogether worthy. He told me he had been one of the strongest opponents of the Philippine policy of the American Government, and that he hoped yet the Philippines would get their Home Rule. He had seen George Wyndham in Ireland, and had talked to him, and was confident he meant well with his Irish Land Bill.

“25th Feb.—To Cairo for the first time this winter to see the Khedive. I found him grown older and less fat and gay, with a rather harassed look, like a man who had been worried and bullied, but whether by Cromer or by his new Hungarian mistress I do not know, but a new lady he certainly has, for we met him out camel riding last week with her, attended by an eunuch and with a soldier riding behind them. The lady was in European dress, with a gay hat, as if for a garden party, and they were all mounted on handsome white camels. It was in the desert near Kafr el Jamus.

“To-day he began at once to me about the different troubles he had had in the Waïli and other affairs, and he went on to complain of Mohammed Abdu’s ingratitude, in having continued to be friends with a certain Reshid who had sinned against him. I defended the Mufti on this point and exhorted the Khedive to make up the quarrel. I cannot help liking Abbas in spite of his many vacillations and inconstancies. He has this merit, that he always speaks out his mind, and is never offended at one’s speaking one’s own. I fancy Cromer must hold some secret rod over him and make him feel it from time to time.

“There is a scandal at Cairo which is grieving English society, Lady R. having gone to a ball with her legs bare and dressed as a saïs. This is considered a terrible impropriety, not so much for the thing itself as because ‘she had just been dining with Lady Cromer,’ and ‘natives were present.’ There has been a case of assault by two Bedouins on Englishmen at Mariut about which the Khedive also told me, the matter concerning him personally as he has property at Mariut.

“26th Feb.—Lunched at the Mufti’s, Professor Browne being also there. It is surprising with what fluency Browne now speaks Arabic, which he only knew as a scholar without having ever spoken it when he came here two months ago. He has been attending the Mufti’s lectures at the Azhar, and tells me they are admirable and very fearless, and that he has a ready facility in answering objections made to him by the old-fashioned interpreters of the Koran. I talked to the Mufti about the Khedive’s complaint against him and he will write to His Highness and explain the mistake. A reconciliation between them is most necessary in public interests. Acting together they are able to effect much, apart they neutralize each other and are powerless.

“6th March.—Mohammed Abdu brought Sheykh Reshid, the cause of the Khedive’s wrath, to see me, who seems a worthy man, and with him Hafiz Ibrahim, a Fellah poet, with whom we discussed the Moallakat. They all three maintained that the best Arabic poetry was not that of the Ignorance but of the second century of the Hejrah. This is quite contrary to our English ideas, but for Eastern ears the standard of merit is different from ours. What the learned here admire in poetry is the prosody, not the meaning of the verse. They care very little for the naïvetés of the pre-Islamic poets, regarding them only as blemishes, and they cannot understand that there is any merit at all in the Abu Zeyd cycle. I could see that these gentlemen despised me for admiring it.

“14th March.—There has been a very large wolf in the garden for the last week or ten days, which has been hanging about the tents at night, where the sheep are folded just outside our wall. There are several flocks here just now as there is no pasture in the hills, and the wolf has come in with them probably. We have seen him more than once by daylight, and at night he has howled near the house. Two nights ago, however, a dozen new tents were pitched just outside with a quantity more sheep belonging to the Howeytat on their way back from the Riff, where they have been at bersim. The wolf came upon them about midnight. There was a terrible noise of dogs barking and men shouting and shots fired. In the morning I went out to see what had happened, and old Eid came to me from the Assara and told me they had shot the wolf, and a little further off I saw a group of Arabs digging a grave, as I thought for the dead wolf. On coming close, however, I found it was no wolf but a large dog, very old and very lean and covered with blood. They told me that it was a mad dog which had rushed in among the sheep and which they had killed. The singular part of the story, however, is that they have not only buried the dog, but have made up a regular grave for it exactly like a Moslem grave with tall bones set up at either end and neatly trenched. It is a new thing for me that a dog should be thus honoured, one I should have thought impossible in a Mohammedan country. Suliman, whom I set to find out the truth about it, says they buried the dog for fear that their own dogs should eat it and so go mad, but it does not explain the grave.

“15th March.—Our Mowled of Sheykh Obeyd. There were present the four chief Sheykhs of the villages round as well as Yusuf Abu Shenab, Hassan Musa el Akkad, and a number more important neighbours in addition to the Arabs. Professor Browne, who had lunched with us, came on for the festival. The feast was a general one, the poor of all our four parishes being fed. One incident only marred it in the display of horsemanship. Hamdan, an Agheyli from Bereyda, got his arm hurt with a jerid to which a point had been maliciously given with a nail, and he accused Mutlak of the treachery, but though Mutlak had given the blow it had been given with one of a number of jerids got ready for the occasion, and it was probable a trick was played on him through jealousy. The wound, though only a scratch, has produced much ill-feeling.

“I have finished my Moallakat translation with Anne, and an introduction to the volume. We hope to get it published during the summer.

“16th March.—Arabi lunched with us and remained talking the whole afternoon. He gave me a full account of the events of 1881-82, more especially of his relations with Khedive Tewfik in 1881, the Circassian conspiracy of the following year, the riot of Alexandria, and the battle of Tel el Kebir, a very plain-spoken narrative as to which I cross-questioned him closely. It impressed both Anne and me, and confirmed our high opinion of him morally and intellectually. His present circumstances, poor man, are to be pitied. He has returned to Egypt after twenty years’ exile and finds a cold shoulder from every one in authority, from the Khedive, who has not forgiven him his rebellion, from Cromer, who considers him a nuisance, and from his fellow countrymen at Cairo, who, misled by the fanciful tales invented by the French Press of his having sold his country to the English, regard him with unmerited suspicion. We are sorry for him, but I fear it is too late to set things right.

“23rd March.—On Saturday John Dillon and his wife, who are in Egypt, came to spend the day. He gave us much Irish news and spoke of the danger George’s land bill is running through the growing weakness of the Government. He fears they will never get it through the House. He expressed a high opinion of Winston Churchill’s ability, but says he is even more unscrupulous than his father was. He thinks also that the abstention of the Irish party this session from its long opposition will have done harm by making people suspect a secret understanding between Wyndham and Redmond. Nevertheless, he says, Irish prospects were never higher than now, and Home Rule in some form must come soon. We talked, too, about Egyptian affairs, which he knows pretty well, having always taken an interest in them, and I have given him letters to Hafiz Effendi Awwad and Carton de Wiart to help him in my absence to a right understanding of the situation, for we leave for England to-day.”

We left Egypt for England on 24th March and arrived there on the 28th.

The next two months, which I spent principally in London, were mainly occupied by me in using what influence I possessed with the Irish Party to carry through George Wyndham’s Land Bill, as to which he had appealed to me for help. The negotiations, of which I have a complete record in my diary, are extremely interesting, and though they have no direct concern with the main subject of this volume, namely, Egypt and our foreign policy, I give them in their entirety here.

“28th March.—Arrived in London and glad to be back. On issuing from the Mont Cenis tunnel yesterday I found an English newspaper with a report of the introduction of George’s Land Bill in Parliament. I had hoped to be in time for it, for it is the biggest piece of legislation that has been attempted for Ireland since Catholic Emancipation. George seems to have presented his case splendidly, and so far has met with no opposition. It is a very daring scheme, and follows closely all he told me about it last autumn. I never thought he would be allowed to have it so much his own way—for it involved a hundred millions sterling—especially after Brodrick’s antics at the War Office and the reaction for economy.

“29th March (Sunday.)—Lunched in Mount Street. Windsor and Lady Windsor—nobody else—our talk mostly about George and the Irish Land Bill, all in high praise. Then to Wentworth House, where Judith is staying, and all there too in high good humour about Ireland. Lastly to Belgrave Square where new raptures about George and his bill—how could it be otherwise? George wants to see me.

“30th March.—Lady Windsor came this morning. She has seen George since yesterday, and brings me a message from him to the effect that I could help him with the Irish members about the bill. Of course I shall be delighted to do this, and it is all the easier because Redmond wrote some weeks ago asking me to let him know as soon as I returned to England. I must see George however first.

“31st March.—Found George at his breakfast in Park Lane at the hour appointed yesterday and he began at once about his Irish Land Bill. He told me what a desperate fight he had had to get it adopted by the Cabinet and how nearly it had more than once been wrecked. Even within forty-eight hours of his bringing it forward in the House all had seemed lost, and it was only the splendid support given him by Arthur Balfour that had carried the day, as I understand him, by a single vote against Chamberlain’s opposition—he did not mention Chamberlain by name. Ritchie too had supported him, and the silent vote of Akers Douglas and the Tory phalanx.

“Then he gave me a brief historical account of how he had engineered the whole affair during the autumn and winter. The first thing had been to secure the ‘Times,’ without which nothing could have been effected. He would not say exactly how this had been done, though he promised to tell me that and every detail some day, but I imagine Arthur Balfour must have promised Walter his long expected peerage. Then George had used his personal influence on the landlords, had gone to stay with Dunraven, had encouraged Mayo, and had expostulated privately with the leaders of the Landlords’ Convention when they proved obdurate. The result had been the agreement come to at the Land Conference. He spoke in high praise of the Nationalist leaders and said O’Brien had behaved splendidly, quite justifying the character of patriotism I had given him when we had last talked about him. It was to help O’Brien to get out of his difficult position towards the evicted tenants that he had inserted the clause in his Bill providing for their reinstatement.

“I told him how at a critical moment I had written to Redmond, and he highly approved. Everything had worked out most fortunately till Parliament met in the Spring. Then the financial difficulties had begun. I asked him who had suggested the finance of his scheme, and he assured me he had done the whole thing entirely himself, which is also what his mother told me on Sunday when she described to me how he had always had a mathematical head at school and how at an examination he had drawn without a mistake the whole of the figures of the second ‘Book of Euclid’ from memory. Since the meeting of Parliament, however, he had been in most tempestuous waters. Brodrick’s Army Bill had frightened everybody by its extravagance, and when the Funds fell to 90 he had thought all was lost. Only Ritchie encouraged him then, and he quoted a word of Ritchie’s that had been repeated to him. Ritchie had said, ‘Brodrick asks for millions, but he can’t explain what he wants them for. But Wyndham explained everything and convinced one—or (correcting himself after a pause) the contrary.’ But for Ritchie, the whole thing would have had to be abandoned as involving the Government in ruin. Then came the loss of the two by-elections, Woolwich and Rye, and the Cabinet meeting on Chamberlain’s return (from South Africa). What I gather from George is that the Liberal Unionists opposed the Bill. The Duke of Devonshire, Lords Lansdowne and Londonderry, and probably also Brodrick and Lord George Hamilton, all these being Irish absentee landlords or representing them.

“I asked him about Chamberlain, but he was reticent. ‘I will tell you now,’ he said, ‘exactly what the present situation is. When I got up in the House of Commons last week, I felt that I had my back against a wall and was fighting for my life; and, as often happens in such circumstances, I was able to do my very best. The question was so complicated a one that I knew I could not hope to make it clear to everybody, but I knew that on each section of it there was a group that would understand on one side or other of the House. So I turned to each in turn and got into a condition of magnetic touch with each, so that they leaned forward towards me and I could see that they understood. So much was this the case that, as I approached the City financial part of my argument, I felt, though I could not see, that there was somebody behind me in close sympathy, and I turned round and asked “Am I right?” “Quite right,” was the answer. It was from Edgar Vincent. Thus I was able to get through the whole speech without wearying my audience, and at the end had succeeded in gaining the sympathy in turn of every section. This for the moment. Since the first reading, however, and the publication of the Bill, one of the most representative members of the old Tory phalanx has been to Arthur Balfour and has represented to him that much of the Bill is hard to swallow, and that the only thing that makes it possible for them is the idea that the settlement is a final one of the whole land quarrel, and that unless the Irish members will declare in this sense there will be a revolt. The situation, therefore, is very critical, and if you can do anything to make the Irish leaders understand how not only I but the whole cause of Irish land legislation may be wrecked by a lack of discretion on this particular head you will be doing a good service, and you may use your discretion about our talk. I have twice thought of my own resignation and political ruin a certainty, and it may be so yet. But if it happens it will equally ruin Irish hopes, for they will never again find an Irish Secretary who, with my example before him, will dare to risk so much or go so far. Of course I quite understand that the present vote may really not be quite final. The millions may not prove quite enough, and perhaps in a few years three or four millions may be necessary. But when the time comes and the thing has proved a success nobody will then grudge a supplement. Only, to declare now that it is only an instalment and not final would ruin everything and we could not pass the Bill.’

“We then went on to talk about possible Home Rule in some form as an ultimate result of the peace to be established in Ireland between landlords and tenants, and he admitted that, if all united in demanding it, it could not be refused. Indeed, George admits himself to be theoretically a Home Ruler, though he does not consider Home Rule as yet within the range of practical politics. The less said about it just now the better.

“Lastly, he told me how he had captured certain Irish millionaires, and induced them to put their capital into Irish concerns. Lord Iveagh had promised to finance a motor company for the sale of agricultural produce, and an Irish American publisher had offered him £100,000 for any enterprise he liked, suggesting a paper mill on the Shannon. This done, I went home and tried to find Redmond, and made an arrangement with his wife to lunch with them to-morrow, and I am to report progress to Sibell and George at breakfast on Friday.

“1st April.—Oliver Howard called on me this morning to talk over his plan of going to Nigeria. Being tired of London and domestic happiness, and being Chamberlain’s private secretary at the Colonial Office, he has volunteered for service under Lugard. Lugard has just made a raid on Kano and Sokoto, mopping up both kingdoms ‘in Imperial interests.’ Nothing with less excuse has been perpetrated in the history of British aggression. The two States, say with twenty millions of inhabitants, were happy and prosperous, and peaceable, carrying on industries established and flourishing for a thousand years, and now, to gratify Lugard’s ambition, they are to be annexed to the pitiful British Empire, and all the English world is pleased. Oliver tells me Lady Lugard (ex Flora Shaw) has come home very angry with the Nigerian climate, which has laid her on her back. I would have tried to deter Oliver from going, as he is too good for such bad work, but he is already engaged, and all I could do was to advise him to make it a condition he should be employed inland, and not on the river. Still, it is about an even chance that he leaves his bones in the country. [Which he did.]

“Lunched with John Redmond and his wife. I told him in all possible confidence what George’s difficulty was, and the precarious position of the Bill. He said, ‘I quite understand Wyndham’s difficulties, but you must believe me when I say mine are quite as great. There is a party in Ireland headed by Davitt and Archbishop Walsh that is determined to go against the Bill, and there is sure to be wild talk at the Convention. I saw Wyndham yesterday evening, and he told me something about the necessity of accepting the Bill as final, not as an instalment, and I am entirely in accordance with all he said. Of course the Bill will require amending, but I will do my best to get it through, and let the English imagine if they like that they are doing a fine and generous thing. But we can’t stop the talk. I can depend thoroughly on William O’Brien who thinks exactly as I do about it, and all our Parliamentary party, even John Dillon, who I know does not like the Bill. He would be quite loyal to us. The difficulty is outside. Davitt is a land nationaliser, and is altogether opposed, and so is Archbishop Walsh. If it would make matters easier I shall be happy to communicate with Wyndham through you, and arrange what amendments it would be possible for him to accept. It would be easier to do it through you than directly, for it is difficult for him to talk quite frankly to me, and I have to go openly and knock at his door in the House of Commons when I want to speak to him, without knowing who there may be there with him. It would be very dangerous for it to get about that there was an understanding between us. But if he will do it through you it will be safe. So you must let me keep in touch with you. I go to Ireland to-morrow till after the Convention, which will be on the 16th. The critical time lies between this and then, and there may be things to communicate.’

“And so it was arranged between us. I asked him what his view was about a Catholic University. He said, ‘You must not be shocked with me if I say I don’t care twopence about it. Of course it would be a good thing, but it is not essential, and it is no good weighting ourselves with it till we have got the other job through.’ This was almost word for word the answer I gave George yesterday to the same question.

“2nd April.—Breakfast again with George and told him of Redmond’s proposal in regard to the amendments and of communicating through me. To this George readily assented, and it is agreed between us that after the Easter recess he shall meet Redmond at my house and discuss all things amicably there. He had already met Redmond once at Dunraven’s, but it will be much more confidential here in Chapel Street. George has to speak to-morrow at Manchester, and will at my suggestion say something in the direction of still further relieving the evicted tenants. I hope it may all turn out well.

“4th April.—A letter has come from Redmond of so important a kind that I dare not send it on to George, but shall wait till I see him on Monday. In it Redmond gives a list of the amendments which will probably be adopted at the Dublin Convention, and he expresses a special hope in regard to the King’s visit just announced for Ireland, that the King will not receive any addresses while there. Redmond says that, while the Irish are quite prepared to receive the King in a friendly way, they cannot officially show loyalty.

“6th April.—Arriving in London I went to Park Lane, where I found George waiting for me. I showed him Redmond’s letter, and we went through the various points of it together, and he then went into his inner room to write an answer, leaving me to talk to Sibell meanwhile. At the end of about three-quarters of an hour he came back with the paper he had written, which, considering the difficulty and importance of the questions dealt with, I hold to be a considerable feat. In it he treats each of Redmond’s suggested amendments, agreeing to modifications of his bill as to most of them, but putting his foot down on all demand of increasing the bonus of twelve millions. In regard to that he says:

“‘I fear that any attempt, and above all any attempt now, to increase the £12,000,000 would give a dangerous advantage to those in England who are hostile to the whole plan. I think this is a great danger.’

“This memorandum I am to copy out and send in my own handwriting to Redmond, and in such a way as not to compromise George more than is necessary on account of the great risk. ‘Chamberlain,’ he said, ‘is sure to cross-question me as to my having had any direct communications with the Irish Party, or come to terms with them. It must be kept absolutely secret.’ I told him how dangerous a man I knew Chamberlain to be, and how he had ruined all his rivals and opponents at Birmingham in times past. It is certain that the great danger for the bill lies in him. Yet Michael Davitt is publishing in Dublin the tale that Chamberlain is the author of the whole Land policy, and that he means to go on and give some sort of Home Rule in the autumn. This, no doubt, was once Chamberlain’s policy in 1885, and he will find it difficult to oppose it openly now, but his jealousy of George’s success may make him oppose it secretly, and he will be without scruple. The truth of the matter is that the Land Bill is supported now in the Cabinet by Arthur Balfour and the Tories. It is opposed by the Liberal Unionists. Chamberlain has held an ominous silence since his return from South Africa. I should not be surprised if at the last moment he should join Rosebery in betraying the bill. I was congratulating George on his having so far conciliated everybody. ‘Wait a little,’ he said, ‘there will be opposition enough presently.’

“I went home at once and sent off a copy of George’s memorandum to Redmond, changing only George’s ‘I’s’ into ‘We’s,’ as if by any chance it should fall into wrong hands it would be less personally compromising. I could not get any answer from George about the King’s visit.

“7th April.—Lunched with Victor and Pamela Lytton in their new house in Queen Anne’s Gate. They have made it very pretty, and are expecting very shortly a son and heir. Victor goes almost daily to listen to the debates in the House of Commons, feeling cut off from a political career by being in the Lords. He is looking older and his face has grown longer. I see in him a certain likeness now to his grandfather, the novelist.

“9th April.—To ‘Homewood’ to see Edith Lytton in her new cottage. She took me over Knebworth, which is not at all changed since last I was there some fifteen years ago—in the autumn of 1887, when I had been campaigning in Ireland, and went down there to introduce George Wyndham to Lytton. The house is a perplexing combination of good and bad taste—true bric-à-brac and sham—I am afraid mostly sham. What it wants is whitewash and white paint. But Edith was shocked at my saying so. Her own cottage is nice, the work of her son-in-law Lutyens.

“20th April.—I have been in bed with influenza, my fever taking the form of my puzzling myself with the clauses of George’s Bill and the Dublin Convention.

“25th April.—On Thursday, 23rd, John Redmond came to see me and gave me an account of how he had managed the Convention at Dublin. Davitt had given much trouble at first, but had come to terms when he found the Convention so much against him. Sexton was still a considerable danger, as he was clean against the bill, and if he insisted on returning to Parliament might make things very difficult, as he was the only financier they had among them. But when the question of his re-entering Parliament was moved at the Convention there was such strong opposition that it had been with difficulty Redmond had been able to prevent an open quarrel. Sexton was ‘a queer fellow,’ but of immense ability. He and the Archbishop, and Davitt and, if they could get him, John Dillon, when he returned from Egypt, would make a very strong combination. He thought I should do well to see Dillon on his arrival in London, and tell him what the dangers were. ‘Dillon,’ he said, ‘has great confidence in your opinion.’

“About George, Redmond said, the great thing was for him to show a conciliatory attitude at the Second Reading in regard to amendments generally, and not to put his foot down on particular ones, whatever he might do in Committee afterwards. He also urged that Kilbride should be released from prison before the second reading, as his case was one that would be made the ground of a strong attack.

“Yesterday George came to see me. I told him about Kilbride, and he will release him on the plea of ill-health. He will also adopt as conciliatory a tone as he dares about the amendments. But he said the danger from his own friends was by no means over; Chamberlain was cunning and unscrupulous, and would trip him up if he could get an opportunity. If he gave him any opening he would wreck the bill, getting at Arthur Balfour and telling him it was impossible the thing should go on.

“There has been a ‘disaster’ in Somaliland, which I hope may satisfy our people—a dozen of our young blood-letters who made the war for their amusement cut up, with the wretched natives they commanded. There never was less reason for any war than this, not even a reason of possible gold, only the lust of a rampage. If the whole of our military staff could be made to bite the dust, the world would be a happier place. But they won’t be satisfied. War is the new form of sport all are wild to enjoy.

“28th April.—George has sent me a confidential note with a new message for Redmond. He has got a ‘touch of influenza,’ which Sibell tells me is really nothing but a cold, an excuse for his staying indoors and keeping himself quiet for next week, when the second reading of his Bill comes on. Redmond, under the circumstances of his illness, had proposed to call on him in Park Lane, but he can’t see him there, and he wants me to be his medium of communication in discussing the amendments with Redmond. I have sent Redmond word that it is important I should see him at once, but so far have received no answer, and time presses.

“30th April.—Redmond came to-day. He tells me John Dillon is back from Egypt, very much opposed to the Bill. He does not want a reconciliation with the landlords, or anything less than their being driven out of Ireland. He will not, however, do anything ‘shabby’ in opposing the Bill. But it makes the situation more difficult. Sexton is ‘bitterly opposed,’ and has the ‘Freeman’ to back him and Archbishop Walsh. ‘O’Brien and I,’ he said, laughing, ‘have risked a great deal in taking the attitude we did at the Convention.’ I asked him what view American opinion took. He said ‘They don’t understand the Land Question there nor the Bill, and they will take the view we take.’ Such being the case, there are certain points Redmond must press at the Second Reading, the chief of which is the withdrawal of the 30 and 40 per cent. limit of reductions; but he will not insist upon an augmentation of the bonus, though in reality the twelve millions will not prove enough. He is to send me a memorandum, however, this afternoon from the House of Commons, for he is not himself well enough up in the Land Bill to put it down on paper without consultation. He will also be happy to see George here either to-morrow or Saturday.

“1st May.—Redmond’s memorandum has come. In sending it he says, after asking for Kilbride’s release from gaol:

“‘Yesterday the matter was raised at the meeting of the Irish party, and I feel sure that some very decisive action must be taken if his imprisonment continues much longer, and I cannot conceive why his continued imprisonment should be apparently deliberately placed in our path by the Government. I hope you will be able to send me good news on this point, and should our friend desire to see me I can keep any appointment you may make for to-morrow or Saturday.’”

The memorandum itself is long and technical, and though interesting at the moment, I omit it here. It concludes: “I confine myself to the points I consider vital to the success of the Bill. If there was a certainty of satisfaction on these particulars (even though it should not be considered advisable to make a declaration publicly on the second reading debate), it would make it possible for us to avoid a contentious attitude towards the Bill, and allay a growing apprehension in Ireland (30th April, 1903).”

“To-day I went to see George. Dermot (Lord Mayo) was in the house with him, so I was shown upstairs to the drawing-room, and there we talked. He told me there had been a new Cabinet Council, at which his enemies, Chamberlain and the rest, had raged, and he had been obliged to give a promise that he would give no pledges whatever to the Irish Party before the Second Reading, nor hold any communication with them, so I was to consider what he told me as casual talk, and if I repeated it to Redmond it must be merely my impression of his views—no message.”

“N.B. This is almost identical with old Gladstone’s reservation when I asked him for a message of sympathy with Arabi in 1882. Nevertheless George gave me pencil and paper, and I wrote notes at his dictation, though he made me also many explanations, which I did not write. The long and the short of the thing is that he will concede a number of points in Committee, though he can make no pledge to do so on the second reading. We were more than an hour over this.

“On my return home I sent at once for Redmond, who came to Chapel Street in the course of the afternoon, and I read over my notes to him, and told him all I could remember of George’s talk. On the whole he is satisfied with it, and I am convinced all will go well. It has been a great satisfaction to me to manage this matter.

“2nd May.—Spent the morning writing a letter to the ‘Times’ about Somaliland. This exhausted me, as I am still very weak, so weak that I could not sit out the Irish play, to which I went in the afternoon. The first piece was a terrible infliction, called ‘The Hour Glass,’ by Yeats—a stupid imitation of that dull old morality, ‘Everyman,’ which bored me so much last year. What Yeats can mean by putting such thin stuff on the stage I can’t imagine. It was not even well acted, for Yeats had drilled his actors to imitate Irving and other English mediocrities. They talked pompous stage English, and were not allowed their natural Irish accent. I felt inclined to get up and protest that we had not come to the Irish Literary Society for that. I was indignant, too, but it exhausted my little strength. I was determined, however, to hear Lady Gregory’s piece, ‘Twenty-five,’ and was rewarded, for it is quite the most perfect little work of art and the most touching play I have ever seen acted. Only it made me weep in my weak state. I could not stay on for the final piece, ‘Kathleen na Houlihan.’ So I went home. I expect to see unbounded praise of the ‘Hour Glass’ in the London papers.

“May 3rd (Sunday).—William O’Brien came unexpectedly to see me and I talked the Land Bill over with him. I hope he will be prudent in what he says on the second reading, but he seems determined to press for an all round reduction of 15 per cent., which George told me was one of the most dangerous points, as Chamberlain is lying in wait to demand a withdrawal of the Bill if the twelve million limit is threatened, also, George believes, Hicks-Beach. While we were talking and I was impressing on O’Brien George’s conversion on the Irish question, who should come in but Percy Wyndham. ‘I see the world is very small,’ said O’Brien, ‘and perhaps I had better be off,’ and off he went. He was to have sent Dillon to me, but this morning I have had a note from him saying he thinks it might have an awkward effect if the suggestion of his calling came from him. (They had quarrelled.) Percy had been told that O’Brien was with me and was much intrigué about him. Percy, though immensely interested in George’s success, is too old a Tory to like the Bill, and prophesies all kinds of trouble for Ireland in the future. As to myself I have written as follows to Redmond:

“‘I see you are asking subscriptions for the Irish Parliamentary Fund. I have much pleasure in sending you £50. You have done such admirable service during the past year as Leader of the Opposition, in place of the half-hearted and unintelligent gentlemen who sit on the Liberal Front Bench, that all lovers of Liberty here have come to look upon the Irish Party as its sole reliable support. Also I need not say how warmly I sympathize with your triumph in having brought our Government to the position where it stands to-day, of having abandoned its secular policy of governing Ireland in the interests of the English “garrison.”

“‘I look upon the new Land Bill, if as I hope it passes the second reading, as the first piece of quite honest legislation for Ireland which will have been carried through Parliament in my recollection, and the certain prelude, however little the Government may have it in their minds, some day of Home Rule. In a few years you will have the present Landlords, who will be still considerable Land-owners in their demesnes, all with you as enthusiastic Irishmen; and then, with the country united for Home Rule, Home Rule must come.

“‘Therefore I wish, as always, more power to your elbow.’

“5th May.—John Dillon came to see me early and gave me his views of the situation very frankly. He spoke last night in support of the Bill, but he tells me that but for loyalty to his party he should be inclined to oppose it in Committee and vote against it on the third reading. His view is that it is useless trying to get the landlord class on the side of Nationalism, that they would always betray it when the pinch came, that the land trouble is a weapon in Nationalist hands, and that to settle it finally would be to risk Home Rule, which otherwise must come. For this reason he was opposed to the Conference with the landlords, and was opposed now in principle to the Bill. He should, however, of course, support it, since it had been decided to do so, for the one thing for Ireland was union in the Parliamentary Party. As long as that was maintained they commanded the situation in the House of Commons, and no matter what party was in power it would have to be their servant. We then discussed the prospects of a change of Government. He said that Rosebery would certainly be in the next Cabinet, probably at the head of it; that though he was thoroughly contemptible as a politician, he held them all through social influences. Harcourt was sick, perhaps dying; Campbell-Bannerman was weak; Morley had no power of leadership. Rosebery quite recently had made advances to Lloyd George, the most able of the Radicals, and Lloyd George had responded. To him, Dillon, it was a matter of indifference which of them was leader, or who became Prime Minister. The Liberal Party could not help itself and would be obliged to give Home Rule. All that was wanted in Ireland was patience and to keep the Parliamentary party together. United they had nothing to fear, even from their worst enemy, Chamberlain. I told him I thought there was a chance of Chamberlain heading a new Unionist schism, and that if he came into power on these lines with the popularity he had acquired by his imperialistic antics he would disfranchize Ireland and perhaps govern her as a Crown Colony. He did not think there was any fear of this, but I still think there is a remote danger.

“We also discussed Somaliland, on which Dillon also spoke a day or two ago in the House. Dillon has more statesmanship, I think, than any of them, having a wider experience and a better knowledge of history. His cynical view of the English parliament is fully justified. All the same, I think he is wrong about the Land Bill, as I believe it will prove a great step to Home Rule. But I agree with him that, whether or not it passes, the next Government that comes into power must do the Irish bidding. O’Brien is to speak to-day.

“6th May.—The debate is going capitally. O’Brien spoke with moderation and on the lines I pressed on him, especially as to the finality of the Bill as a land settlement. He was followed by Grey, who to our surprise has supported the Bill warmly. On Monday Arthur Balfour made an admirable speech in support of it, and Grey’s was on the same lines. The Tory opposition has cooled down. I look upon the second reading as assured. George will, I think, be obliged to agree to the Irish demands on most of the amendments in Committee, and barring accidents, the thing is safe. Chamberlain seems to have made up his mind to a glum silence. He had his own Transvaal fish to fry to-day.

“10th May.—George’s Bill has passed the second reading triumphantly by 417 to 26. I believe the biggest vote on record.

“14th May.—Chapel Street. Margaret Sackville came to lunch with me and talk over her plan of an Irish magazine to be called ‘The Celt’ she is trying to start. I have given her some verses for it, and have promised some prose.

“16th May.—To the Academy, where the most remarkable thing is Sargent’s portrait of Cromer. Sargent has a genius for seeing and reproducing the base passions of his sitters; and here is Cromer with bloated cheeks, dull eyes, ruby nose, and gouty hands, half torpid, having lunched heavily. Truly my quarrel with him is avenged. The newspapers complain that, instead of our ‘glorious Pro-Consul,’ Sargent has given them nothing but a full-fed obstinate Indian official.

“Found Lady Z. at home. She has enjoyed her German visits and a lunch with the Emperor William. She found him an enormous talker without being exactly a good talker. He talks about everything, sometimes well, sometimes stupidly in a random, ill-balanced way. She says the Germans—I suppose she means the German officials and aristocracy—laugh at him for his wild utterances and constant mistakes; but he gives them no time to complain, passing with extraordinary energy from one thing to another, so that his blunders are forgotten; and they like him, and are in a sort of way proud of him, as a remarkable personality who fixes the attention of the world.

“17th May.—A letter from Redmond about the maximum reductions, asking that the Government should declare its intention about it. He writes:

“15 May 1903.

“‘My dear Blunt.—I duly received your letter. I am handing it and the proposed question to my brother, and asking him to look after the matter. I cannot do so myself as I am going to Ireland on Sunday for a few days.

“‘About the Land Bill. The crux still is the question of the maximum reduction, and I have very great misapprehensions on this matter. If the Government persists in keeping in the maximum reductions there will undoubtedly be a very bitter conflict on the very first clause of the Bill in Committee with possible recriminations between the representatives of the landlords and the tenants.

“‘This would undoubtedly spread to Ireland, and the present unanimity of opinion, which in my view alone makes it possible to carry the Bill, may entirely disappear. The retention of this maximum reduction is really a small matter, and the Government ought in my opinion seriously to consider the responsibility of again raising a conflict between classes in Ireland threatening the whole future as well as the passage of this Bill. The Ulster members are all of our way of thinking, and I cannot conceive any valid reason why the Government should stand by this maximum. I take the very gravest possible view of the situation, and I do hope that before it is too late the Government will make a concession on this matter which will enable the Bill to be passed without conflict, and which will preserve the good feeling which at present exists in Ireland.

“‘I hope you will be able to press these views with vigour.

“‘Very truly yours,

“‘J. Redmond.’

“20th May.—I have been at Newbuildings since Saturday enjoying the new oak leaves, and the bluebells. This morning I came up to London and went at once to see George, to whom I showed Redmond’s letter. In return he read me one he had received from Dunraven in precisely the opposite sense, declaring the resolve of the Conference of Landlords to fight any attempt to withdraw the maximum clause, and to get it reinserted by the Lords if the Commons amended it. He told me the situation. On Saturday Chamberlain went to Birmingham, and made a speech about the corn duty, contradicting all that Arthur Balfour had just said. I feared that this meant a revolt on Chamberlain’s part, and a bid for leadership. But George assured me it was not so. ‘Chamberlain,’ he said, ‘is an impulsive fellow, and, now he has blown his steam off, he has come back pleased with himself and in a better temper. I am not afraid any longer of his wrecking my bill. He will leave it alone. It is quite impossible, however, that we should give up the maximum limit. The landlords won’t stand it, and the Lords would put it back if we did.’ He then wrote me a memorandum to show Redmond as an answer to his letter. ‘He is getting fussy,’ he said. Armed with this I went on at once to Redmond, and caught him at home before he went out to the House. The result is shown in the following letter:

“37, Chapel Street, May 20, 1903.

“‘Dear George.—I saw Redmond at twelve, and explained to him the situation, with the help of the notes you gave me. Also I expressed my personal view that the maximum was not worth fighting about. He said that he also personally thought its importance had been exaggerated. But such was not the view taken in Ireland, where it had been much worked up in the press, or by most of his colleagues; public opinion had gone too far for him to be able to control it. It was largely the fault of the Conference landlords, Dunraven and Mayo, who till the other day had agreed with him to a withdrawal of the limit, and then for some unexplained reason had suddenly turned round. The difference between them would now have to be fought out on the floor of the House. It would be so, as far as he personally was concerned, without acrimony, but by others, he feared, with bitterness. He did not seem to think much of the reference to the House of Lords. Within the last fortnight I have talked with others of the Irish members, and I fear there is no doubt of there being a growing section among them indifferent, if not hostile to the Bill. It seems to be the general opinion that unless the tenants specially affected are given easier terms than the Bill provides there will be new combinations against purchase.

“‘Such is my impression of the situation. It will be a pity, having got so far, if the concordat ends in a new quarrel, but, if what Redmond tells me of Dunraven’s sudden change from agreement to disagreement is accurate, it is hardly Redmond’s fault.

“‘W. S. B.’

“To this I got a brief note from George. ‘I am not pessimistic.’ Neither for that matter am I. I don’t believe the maximum point is a very serious one, and, even if there should be a new quarrel between the Nationalists and the Dunraven Landlords, it won’t stop the bill, which has gone too far now to be upset. Chamberlain was the only real danger.

“3rd June.—Newbuildings. Prince Scherbátoff came down to see the horses, and I went over with him to Crabbet. He is an extremely well informed man, and gave me an excellent account of the way the emancipation of the Russian peasantry is working out. He is himself a very large landowner, and cultivates 30,000 acres of land with 4,000 yoke of oxen. The peasants work their own land mostly on the communal system, preferring it. This the officials have been trying to alter, but the Emperor has just issued a decree confirming the peasants in their rights. There is a rule that they are unable to sell, or mortgage their land, which protects them against the usurers. All this is very analogous to what is proposed for Ireland, and I have promised to take him to see George who will be pleased to hear his account.

“5th June.—Margaret Sackville came to Chapel Street with her friend Katharine Horner to talk about ‘The Celt.’ I urged her to put her own name to the little venture as its only possible chance of success.

“11th June.—The great Ministerial crisis is over for the moment, and Chamberlain has been reduced to silence. The Government got a vote last night of 425 against 28, the whole Opposition and the Irish Party voting with them, against Chaplin and the Protectionists.

“13th to 15th June.—At Newbuildings—a very delightful party. Margaret Sackville, Katharine Horner,[2] who is a very pretty and clever girl of sixteen, and a writer of poetry, and is quite charming, the Poet Laureate and Meynell. The P. L. was in his best form, and Meynell amused us all with his anecdotes of Dizzy and other heroes.

“17th June.—Looked in at Belgrave Square where I found Madeline just back from the House of Commons, much excited about the Irish debate in Committee. This was stormy, and things are ticklish for the Bill. She was enthusiastic about the speaking of the Irish members, especially Redmond’s. George had looked up twice to the Ladies’ Gallery when it was over. She takes it as a sign he is satisfied.

“18th June.—To George in Belgrave Square where he is staying, and we walked together to the Irish Office. He told me the situation, and the danger there was from Chamberlain and from the landlords—and complained that the Nationalists had not kept to their agreement at the Landlords’ Conference. However, he considers the worst risks over now. ‘My position,’ he said, ‘is that of peace-maker in the Cabinet, of trying to persuade everybody that they all have really the same opinion—at any rate until my Bill is through. I take no side on the Preferential Tariff question till this is safe, being a practical politician.’ All the same, he says, it will be very necessary for him to have a talk soon with Redmond, and he says it had better be at my house. He will let me know more in a day or two.

“19th June.—A letter from Redmond saying that affairs are very critical for the Bill, and that, unless George Wyndham adopts a more conciliatory attitude, the Bill will be wrecked. I went at once to Belgrave Square and found George preparing a speech he had to make in the evening. I explained to him the danger, especially of Dillon’s attitude towards the Bill, and he agreed to meet Redmond at my house on Tuesday morning at 11.15. I hope they may patch up their difference, as it would be ruinous now for all concerned if the Bill falls through.

“21st June (Sunday).—Mesaoud is sold to the Kleniewsky Stud in Poland for £240, a small price. But his going there will be an advantage to him and an advertisement to us. I have been calculating the price at which we have sold his stock, sons and daughters, and it amounts to over 5,000 guineas for 40 animals. We purchased him as a yearling colt for £50.

“22nd June.—Messrs. Boyes and Collier, English farmers from Basutoland, came to see the Stud. They are much impressed with our mares, and in raptures over the four stallions, especially Seyal and Nejran. Boyes has a commission to buy two for the Basutoland Government. They are violent anti-Boers, and spoke with contempt of the natives. They complained that the English colonists everywhere were being starved out, while the Boers lived on, on rubbish, and prospered.

“23rd June.—On coming up to London this morning I found George already established in Chapel Street with his red official despatch box arranging his papers. He told me he had had a regular Irish Parliament, consisting of Lords and Commons, debating Clause I of his Land Bill for the last day or two, which was a beginning of Home Rule. Redmond joined us in five minutes, and they set to work at once on Clause I, George expounding his views of a possible compromise. He had drafted an amendment which he thought would obviate delay in the sales, but Redmond preferred Duke’s amendment, and to something of this George in the end agreed. I was much struck with the lawyer-like ability both showed in seizing points as they rose, and developing them. The discussion was carried on in all possible good humour, and much personal sympathy. The contrast between the men was striking, though both were in their way good Irish types—for George is far more Irish than English—George gesticulating a good deal with his hands, and very eager, Redmond sitting with his hand nursing his great double chin seriously, but expanding from time to time in genial smiles when the points of agreement were reached. Both were intensely anxious to come to an understanding and carry the Bill, the real difficulty lying in the vacillation of the landlords, who are most of them too stupid to understand the Bill, and whose only firmness is obstinacy.

“The final agreement was that George should adopt the Duke amendment, or something like it, as his own; that Redmond should express his satisfaction with it, and his belief that it would be accepted as satisfactory in Ireland; and that no other amendment should be pressed to a division. Redmond next brought up the evicted tenants question, and here, too, they came, after some fencing, to an amicable agreement. Both talked of the political situation with the greatest frankness. George announced the release of McHugh, which Redmond already knew of, and he complimented George on having saved Kilbride’s life by arresting him, inasmuch as Kilbride was drinking himself to death, and had now come out of gaol a sober and serious character. And so, at the end of about three quarters of an hour, they shook hands, and Redmond departed. George stopped a few minutes to talk it over with me in great delight, and then was off to his Cabinet Council at twelve. This I felt was an historic event, as I saw George into his hansom at the door with his red box—a great day for Chapel Street! We consider the Bill safe.

“Later I went to Belgrave Square, where Madeline made me stop and dine alone with her and George. It was one of the most amusing dinners I ever remember, just us three, George in tearing spirits, having spent the day in a series of encounters of a hair’s-breadth kind. He described the Cabinet Council as très accidenté, and then he had had a tussle with the Duke of Abercorn and a number of the most violent landlord extremists, and then one with Dunraven, Mayo, and the rest,—and had succeeded in persuading them all round. As the dinner proceeded he became more and more eloquent, romancing almost like a schoolboy about his political career, describing the dexterities with which he had piloted his ship in the past, and what was to be his future. To us it was all delightful, and we hope it may all turn out true. George has in him the fire of genius, and whether as leader of the Conservative party, or of Irish Home Rule he will be equally conspicuous, and as superior to any English party leader as Disraeli was in his day. Then he rushed off back to the House to finish drafting his plans for to-morrow.

“24th June.—I lunched in Mount Street, and having met there the Poet Laureate went later to his box at His Majesty’s Theatre to see his play, ‘Flodden Field’—a piece of melodrama absurdly acted, which was followed by an adaptation of Kipling’s story, ‘The man who was.’ This last was painful, too painful, in my view, for the stage, though the acting was good. Margaret Sackville was with us.

“25th June.—The papers announced George’s safe passage of the Irish Land Bill Clause I through the House; and there are amusing comments about ‘secret arrangements’ of the quarrel. Anyhow it seems to have been a great Irish triumph, and all Irish parties have been embracing each other.

“Frank Lascelles came to lunch with me in order to meet George, and we had a pleasant talk with Lady Windsor as fourth.

“Gorst is being married this afternoon to an heiress named Rudd. I did not go to it, though I sent a wedding gift. The Khedive arrived in London yesterday, and is staying with the King’s millionaire, Cassel, in Grosvenor Square.

“27th June.—A letter has come from Brewster Bey, saying that the Khedive would like to visit the stud at Crabbet to-morrow. Sunday is an inconvenient day to have chosen, as there are next to no trains. So I have had to order a special one, and telegraph all over the place in preparation. Caffin fortunately was here to-day, and I was able to arrange a programme with him.

“28th June (Sunday).—A piping hot day, so we drove over to Crabbet early to make the necessary arrangements. We had all the horses dressed and got ready. The house was looking lovely, and, the tenants being away, we had it all to ourselves. Then Judith and Neville arrived from Rake, and with them Marsh, and we lunched at Caxtons, and were lying out to cool in the little lane behind when a telegram arrived. Before I read it I guessed what it must be about. The Khedive in consequence of ‘unforeseen circumstances’ could not come, professes his ‘profound regret,’ etc. It is quite clear that the King has prevented him. My only wonder is that he was allowed to propose it. So we have had our trouble for nothing.

“29th June.—A letter has come from Brewster confirming his yesterday’s telegram. The Khedive wishes to impress on me the fact that ‘the circumstances which prevent his coming are altogether beyond his control,’ and reiterates his ‘profound regret,’ and assures me that if it had been possible to come His Highness would surely have come. The absence of all definite reason given, either of indisposition or other engagement, together with the use of the present tense, ‘prevent his coming,’ quite clearly indicates a permanent prohibition, and my only doubt is whether it is the Foreign Office or the King that has interfered. I feel pretty certain, however, that it cannot have been a lesser personage than the King himself, acting through Cassel—for the Khedive would hardly be such a goose as to be frightened by Lord Lansdowne, and he is under Cassel’s charge, and Cassel is the King’s man. However, I am determined to get at the truth of it, and am writing to Brewster to say that ‘knowing as I do the kindly feeling His Highness has for so many years entertained towards me, and remembering the distressing circumstances of his political position, I hold him in no way responsible for the slight offered me, that I thank him for the honour intended, and cordially accept the expression of his regret for an act of discourtesy foreign to his nature, and which only pressure from the very highest quarter could have forced upon him, a quarter to which I, too, owe obedience.”

“This will, I think, draw the whole truth from him, for he cannot leave my letter unanswered without admitting that it is in reality the King who forbade him. If it is not the King, he will make haste to explain what other personage it was. In either case I shall arrive at the facts.

“30th June.—There is an account in to-day’s papers of a banquet given last night by the King to the Khedive, with a long list of the guests. Here are all the officials who for the last ten years have been worrying the Khedive’s life out of him at Cairo, thirty or forty of them, Rodd, Lane, Talbot, and the rest. Also an uncle of Lord Lansdowne’s with Rodd again. This is intended to impose upon the world, and persuade the British public that the Khedive is England’s devoted servant.

“1st July.—That other high and mighty prince, Athrobold Charles Stuart de Modena, alias William Brown, the coachman’s son at Frimley and ex-footman, has been brought before the Winchester Assizes. The charges of felony, which would have necessitated a public inquiry into his past life, were at the last moment withdrawn by the Crown, and he was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanour only, that of marrying Lady Russell under a feigned name. This looks as if there had been a desire to screen the other noble ladies he befooled.

“4th July.—Our annual Crabbet Sale, but most of the fine ladies from London failed to come, only 300 persons sitting down to luncheon in the tent. The speeches were good, Cunninghame Graham proposing my health. Redmond and Dillon were both there, and I sat between Mrs. Redmond and Caroline Grosvenor.”

[N.B. This was our last public sale at Crabbet.]

“8th July.—To London and lunched with Ameer Ali, who talked to me about a scheme of a Mohammedan University for India as an original idea of his own. We also discussed George Curzon. George Wyndham told me the other day that it is settled that Curzon comes back to England at the end of the year. He will cease to be Viceroy, for a Viceroy may not leave India. But if the Tories are still in office six months later, he will be reappointed for a new term.

“9th July.—Saw George this morning in Belgrave Square, where he was still in bed, having been up late getting the last clauses of his Land Bill through Committee. He was very triumphant.

“11th July.—George writes me confidentially (9th July, 1903):

‘The sections interested in the Sugar Convention, Education, and the Tariff proposals seek to “blackmail” the Government over the Land Bill by delaying it to extract time for their favourite questions. Unfortunately, some whose advice may be taken, want Education to go to the Lords before the Land Bill. The only way to defeat this accidental chance combination of opposite interests is to press on not only Report, but also the Third Reading of the Land Bill. . . . The question resolves itself into this—can Report be finished on Friday, 17th, to Monday, 20th? If so, by a coup de main we might get Tuesday, 21st, afternoon sitting, for the Third Reading. . . . If this plan succeeds I know that the Land Bill will be driven over at least to the 27th-31st, with the result that it will not reach the Lords before Monday, 3rd August.

‘All the above is no doubt gibberish to you. But as you have taken so deep an interest in the fortunes of the Land Bill, I wish you to know exactly how the matter stands. You might like to see me on Tuesday morning with anyone else who takes a deep interest in the fortunes of the Bill. At any rate I felt impelled to acquaint you with the situation, etc.’

“13th July.—Henley is dead. I got a note from George on Saturday telling me he was very ill, but the end has been sudden. About Henley’s relations with Stevenson, Meynell, who was with me to-day, was again eloquent. He knew the Henleys well, having been godfather to the daughter that died, and he says that Henley’s anger against Stevenson was of old date, from at least the time of Stevenson’s marriage. He could not forgive him for having forsaken the Bohemian convivial ways Henley delighted in, and, though he constantly received money help from Stevenson afterwards, always resented his conversion to respectability. He considers Henley’s attack upon his friend an unpardonable offence. I confess I do not like Henley, though I have tried to like him for George’s sake. But he is both physically and intellectually repugnant to me. He has the bodily horror of the dwarf, with the dwarf’s huge bust and head and shrunken nether limbs, and he has also the dwarf malignity of tongue and defiant attitude towards the world at large. Moreover, I am quite out of sympathy with Henley’s deification of brute strength and courage, things I wholly despise. Thus I could never feel at my ease with him, and George’s affection for him has always seemed to me a puzzle.