KING EDWARD’S DEATH
“_1st Jan._, 1910.—Colonel Louis Gordon came to luncheon, bringing with
him several interesting papers of his uncle’s. He is the family
depositary of these, and is helping me with my proposed new volume,
‘Gordon at Khartoum.’
“_16th Jan. (Sunday)._—The General Elections began yesterday. George
Wyndham is in by an increased majority at Dover, and Belloc keeps his
seat at Salford; but Eddy Tennant is out at Salisbury, which means that
he will be made a peer. The popular feeling seems not very strong
against the Lords, but democracy is a foolish, fickle thing.
“_23rd Jan._—Newbuildings. Belloc was here yesterday, much pleased with
having retained his seat, and anxious to know my opinion whether he
should accept a place in the Government if they should offer it. I said,
‘Of course.’ Why, indeed, should he refuse? He is a clever fellow, and
wants to get on, and has no particular principle to sacrifice, except
his beer.
“On Wednesday two Indian Mohammedans, Saïd Mahmud and Nasir ed Din
Hassan, spent the afternoon here, and gave me a deal of information
about things in India. They are excellent young men, and are anxious
that I should help them to found a society for the Moslems in London,
especially the Indian Moslems, which should have nothing to do with Amir
Ali and the Government. I agreed to do what I could about it. We might
call it the Moslem Patriotic Club or something of the kind, and co-
operate with the Hindoos.
“I have written a line to George Wyndham, in which I say: ‘I think you
have a great policy now to take up. Cannot you come to terms with
Redmond by which, in return for Home Rule, he should join you in a
Tariff Reform amendment to the Budget? What the elections show more than
anything is that England, apart from Scotland and Wales, is an entirely
Conservative country. . . . If at the same time you would give Home Rule
to Scotland and Wales you would box the compass and remain in office for
the next twenty years.’
“_25th Jan._—I have recorded my vote at the election for Winterton, the
Tory candidate, his opponent being one Owthwaite, an Australian land
nationalizer, a carpet bagger sent down from London.
“_26th Jan._—There is a new assassination in India, this time of a
Mohammedan police officer in the High Court at Calcutta who has been
getting up prosecutions for the Government, and Minto announces new
measures of coercion. It is the Irish history over again, with Morley
playing the part of Buckshot Forster at the Indian Office.
“_1st Feb._—To London and called on Lady C. We talked about the
elections, and she declares that the King will very certainly refuse to
create the 400 peers needed to deal with the House of Lords. ‘You may
take my word for that,’ she said. I told her I thought the King would do
very wisely to refuse, as there was no really strong feeling against the
Lords, and she said: ‘I will let him know what you say; he would pay
attention to your opinion.’ She tells me the King has no ill-will
towards me, but my books give offence with the Court people, who cannot
understand how I, with my position of an English gentleman and
landowner, can go in for revolution in Egypt and India.
“_3rd Feb._—Spent the afternoon with Rivers Wilson, who told me much
that was interesting of his official days in Egypt, and his
recollections of General Gordon. [I have embodied most of what he told
me in my ‘Gordon at Khartoum,’ and need not transcribe it here.]
“_4th Feb._—Called on Clementine Churchill and arranged that I am to
lunch with her and Winston on the 10th, just before he attends the
Cabinet which will decide the momentous question of the procedure
against the House of Lords. So far neither Winston nor any of them knows
what Asquith intends about the changes in the Cabinet. We hope Winston
may get the Home Office.
“_5th Feb._—George Wyndham lunched with me. He assures me the
Conservative peers have not the least idea of throwing up the sponge
about their hereditary right to veto, nor does he at all fear that the
King will swamp their House with new creations. He thinks there will be
a kind of deadlock in politics, which will prevent legislation of any
kind for the next five years. The strength of the Tory position is that
they and the King together command the whole material force of the
country, besides half its voting strength. They have the money, and the
army and the navy and the territorials, all down to the Boy Scouts. Why,
then, should they consent to a change in the constitution without
fighting?
“_6th Feb._—Lady Gregory (who is in London trying to raise funds for her
Dublin theatre), as well as George Wyndham and Hudson, the naturalist,
came to dinner. There is a story about that Lord Percy, who died of
pneumonia in a small hotel at Paris six weeks ago, was really shot in a
duel there, and, what is quite absurd, that it was by Winston Churchill.
“_10th Feb._—Lunched, as arranged, with Winston and Clementine. He had
just been at the Cabinet in Downing Street, and arrived late, looking
rather grave; but he soon cheered up, and began talking about the
situation. Nothing has yet been settled about the policy, which depends
on two unknown factors, Redmond and the King. The Nationalist alliance
with the Liberals is anything but popular in Ireland, and O’Brien’s
success in getting ten of his men returned may force Redmond’s hand. ‘Of
course,’ said Winston, ‘if they (the Nationalists) go, we’re done for’;
but he does not really fear this. The King is the true master of the
situation as far as the quarrel with the Lords goes, and they dare not
try to force his hand. ‘It would never do,’ he said, ‘to bring the King
into the dispute.’ What Winston anticipates is a new dissolution, when
he thinks they would gain thirty more seats. As to his own position in
the Cabinet also nothing is settled. There is to be a ‘general post,’
but nobody knows who is to get what. He would like the Home Office. He
would not take Ireland, unless it were to grant Home Rule. I questioned
him as to his understanding to the Home Rule to be given, and he said it
would be complete Parliamentary Government of all Irish affairs in
Dublin, including finance police, and everything, but not the power of
levying Custom duties against England, or altering the land settlement,
and, of course, none of levying troops or of treating with foreign
Powers. He would have the Irish members still sit at Westminster, but in
diminished numbers. He quite admitted the alliance between the Irish and
the Liberals was unnatural, and that their natural alliance would be
with the Tories. As to Somaliland, he told me that he had managed to get
the policy of returning to the sea coast adopted, but the devil of it
was that the Mullah would not be quiet. As soon as the outposts were
evacuated he came down on the friendly tribes and slaughtered them. The
Government had sent a man to propose a money settlement in favour of the
tribes with the Mullah, but the Mullah had cut off the man’s head. This
made an unpleasant situation. He was pleased when I told him I should
like to see him Prime Minister. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘you may see me yet
carry out your ideas’ (meaning my anti-Imperial ideas). He and
Clementine are to come to Newbuildings to hear the nightingales. They
are on just the same honeymoon terms as ever.
“On my way home I looked in on Frank Lascelles, who gave me a deal of
interesting information about his relations with General Gordon when
they were both in Egypt. [But this, too, has been embodied in my ‘Gordon
at Khartoum.’]
“_11th Feb._—Lunched at the Reform Club with Fisher Unwin, who had
invited Mackarness and Cotton to talk over Egypt and India, both good
men who have worked hard in the unpopular cause of liberty and have
failed at the elections.
“_13th Feb._—John Redmond called on me, and we had a long hour’s talk
about the situation in England and also in Ireland. I began by giving
him my view of the deadlock; the impossibility Asquith was in of getting
the King to coerce the Lords, and that I did not think Asquith or Grey
or Haldane was really in earnest about Home Rule, though Churchill and
Lloyd George were. He said he quite agreed with this view. He believed
in Asquith to the extent that he would trust him if he made a promise in
so many words, but he had not quite done so about Ireland. What he had
promised was full self-government, subject to the control of the
Imperial Parliament. Churchill, he believed, was quite sincere. He had a
very high opinion of him. Churchill had told him once that it was the
ambition of his life to bring in a Home Rule Bill as Chief Secretary.
How his own Irish party would vote on the Budget would depend upon
whether Asquith kept his pledge of making the House of Lords Veto Bill
the first question for the new Parliament. They had no idea of voting
the Budget first and waiting for the House of Lords Bill. If that was
decided upon in the Cabinet they would move an Amendment and vote
against him. He said he did not see there was any good to be got by
keeping Asquith in office if he could not give them Home Rule, or
anything much to be feared by letting Balfour into office. Unless the
Liberal party could abolish the Lords’ Veto there was as much to be
hoped from the Tories as from them. He told me as a great secret that
when Dudley was Lord Lieutenant he had sent for him, Redmond, one day,
and had proposed that he should join the Tories on Tariff Reform.
Redmond said he was quite willing, but would want Home Rule in exchange.
Whereon Dudley had said it was no good going on with the argument. But
all the same, he believed the Tory rank and file would make no
insuperable difficulty. In Ireland the defeat of the Government would be
hailed with delight. ‘There will be bonfires lit on every hill in
Ireland.’ The alliance with the Liberals was very unpopular, and the
people wanted a fighting policy again for Home Rule. He also explained
to me O’Brien’s attitude as largely a personal one. His hatred for
Dillon was greater now than if they had never been such close friends.
His general attitude was the same as Dunraven’s Devolution and Reform;
but if it came to a question of real Home Rule they could, of course,
count on him. As to the influence of the Clergy it was nothing to what
it had been twenty-five years ago; wherever the Clergy had opposed an
election the election had been won. He promised to send Dillon to see
me. I am sure he has told me the whole of what he thinks.
“_15th Feb._—The changes in the Cabinet are announced. Winston gets the
Home Office, and I have written to congratulate him and remind him of
his promise to reform prison discipline. I shall send him a memorandum
of what I think ought to be done.
“_16th Feb._—Winston has telegraphed thanking me for my letter, and
asking for the memorandum about prison reform.
“Edith Lytton called to-day. Talking of the new Viceroy who is to be
named for India, she declared Kitchener to be quite out of the question.
His appointment would set all India on fire. It had been found out that
he had enrolled spies in Sepoy Regiments to report disaffection, and the
Sepoys had been furious. Kitchener was brutal, and had shown himself to
be so at Omdurman. I was surprised to hear this from her.
“_17th Feb._—Victor Lytton came to lunch to talk over the question of
prison reform with me. He talked intelligently on the subject, in which
he is much interested.
“_18th Feb._—Redmond seems to be following out the policy we agreed on
together, and there is good prospect of the Irish Labour men voting an
amendment to the Address, and Asquith having to resign. If Asquith has
to resign it will be a fine consummation, and put a final end to what
Whig Government we shall see in our time. It has at last been discovered
that Asquith had not the King behind him or any promise except that if
there was a majority of 500 the King would create peers. As there will
be no clear majority at all the King, of course, will do nothing.
“_19th Feb._—Newbuildings. The political crisis has come to a head, and
there is every prospect now of Asquith coming to grief either on the
Address or on the Budget. I called on Belloc to-day at Shipley and found
him in a great state of excitement, claiming to have caused the revolt
of the extreme Radicals by a letter he wrote a week ago to the ‘Times.’
He showed me an amendment to the Address he intended to move. ‘I drafted
it,’ he said with pride, ‘in a pothouse with Maurice Baring, quite in
the traditional manner, and I sent it to the “Times,” threatening if
they did not insert it I would have it in every paper in the North of
England. But for me the party would have let Asquith break all his
pledges.’ Belloc counts now upon breaking up the Whigs and getting
office with Lloyd George, Churchill, Loulou Harcourt, and the extreme
Radicals, but he will have to wait for that. Asquith may remain in
office at present, he thinks, through the support of the Tories.
“_21st Feb._—Back to London, and was lucky enough to find George Wyndham
in Belgrave Square, where we compared notes about the political
situation. Everybody, he tells me, has got hold of the idea that a truce
has been patched up between Asquith and Redmond, and he was anxious to
prove to me that Redmond was a fool to be taken in by Asquith’s soft
sawder. He has seen the King’s speech which is to be read this
afternoon; and though he said he had no right to reveal anything, told
me it was an absurd document, as I would admit when published. It might
mean almost anything. I did not tell him I had seen Redmond, but
consoled him in a general way about the Irish vote, which I was sure
would not be given to the Government without Asquith’s declaration that
he had very definite guarantees. He thinks if so that Asquith will be
out of office by the end of the week. He would come again in the
evening, and give me a full account of everything in the House when it
was over. This he did, and unfolded all his secrets. He began by giving
a dramatic account of the reading of the King’s speech and the debate in
the Commons which followed it. The speech is certainly one of the most
feeble and obscure and ungrammatical ever composed by the Committee of
the Cabinet which draws these speeches up, and reads as if it was the
House of Commons, not the Lords, which was to be attacked. He described
Arthur Balfour’s speech which followed as artistically the best he had
heard him make, but too subtle to be understood by the dullards of the
House, though leading up to an effective climax, ‘a series of lancet
wounds,’ George said, ‘from first to last, ending in a stiletto stab.’
Asquith’s reply showed courage. He declared he had never intended to
imply that he had got any guarantee from the King or even asked for one,
only such guarantee as a Bill brought in in Parliament could give. The
finance was the first consideration, and then the Veto. His speech was
well reasoned, but excited no enthusiasm. Then Redmond got up, and also
made an excellent speech, less of an oration than is his usual style,
but more effective. He declared roundly that Ireland had no interest in
helping the Government to pass their Budget; the Veto was all they cared
for, as a preliminary to Home Rule.
“What was most interesting in George’s account was his estimate of what
next would happen. He became very confidential, and told me Balfour did
not intend to take office if Asquith resigned. Certainly he, George,
would refuse office, though he knew a high one would be offered him. He
thinks there would then be no way out of the deadlock except by Rosebery
being invited to form an Administration of a stop-gap kind, which he
could do with Milner, Cromer, George Curzon, Hugh Cecil, and Lord
Durham. It would be supported by the Tories till after another General
Election.
“I asked him about Lord Percy’s death, and he told me the story was
nonsense of his having died otherwise than of pneumonia. He had known
Percy intimately well. He described him as a man who had never had any
passionate adventures; who was deeply religious, of his father’s
Irvingite creed; interested in politics, but only in a pessimistic
sense, as he believed all was going hopelessly wrong. His vitality was
low, and he easily succumbed. There was no real mystery at all about his
death, but the Paris newspapers could not understand how an English lord
should be staying at the Gare du Nord Hotel instead of one more
fashionable, and so had invented a fanciful explanation, and thus every
kind of absurdity had been put about, but there was not a ghost of
foundation for any of them. Every public man who fell ill at Paris was
liable to stories about him. It was generally attributed either to
delirium tremens or adultery.
“_22nd Feb._—Boutros Pasha (the Coptic Prime Minister) has been
assassinated at Cairo by one Ibrahim Wardani, a young Nationalist,
secretary of the Geneva Congress last year. He says he did it to rid
Egypt of a minister who was betraying her, as he had already betrayed
her on other occasions. It is the first instance of bloodshed by an
Egyptian Nationalist. An Egyptian with a letter of recommendation from
Arabi lately written, called on me, and when I asked him what he thought
of Boutros’ death said very simply, ‘A good thing. I think it will do
good.’ Yet he was certainly no fanatic or anything otherwise than a
quite harmless sort of professor, wanting to give a lecture on law at
the London University. This shows how general anti-English feeling in
Egypt has become, and how violent. Rivers Wilson, who asked me to come
and see him, had much to tell about Boutros, who had been a friend of
his, having helped him on a Commission of Liquidation as long ago as
1879. He had always been an Anglophile, a man of ability but without
independence and ready to do what he was told. He was content to be in
office and draw his salary, £3,000 a year. This is just what the
Nationalists complain of in Boutros. Also they have a special quarrel
with him, first, because, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, he had signed
the treaty with Cromer which ceded half the sovereignty of the Soudan to
England. Secondly, because he connived at the Anglo-French entente about
Egypt in 1903; thirdly, because, acting as Minister of Justice, he had
presided at the Denshawai trial, and lastly, because, as Prime Minister,
he had again played into English hands the other day in the matter of
the Suez Canal. It was this last betrayal probably that caused his
death.
“_25th Feb._—The Government have escaped from the Tory Amendment for
Tariff Reform by the skin of their teeth, a majority of thirty-one only,
the Irish having abstained from voting, as well as Belloc and half-a-
dozen other Radicals.
“I have sent in my Prison Memorandum to Churchill. (See Appendix.)
“_26th Feb._—Mary Wentworth arrived this morning from Teneriffe, very
ill, poor girl, and I have put her up in Chapel Street. George Wyndham
dined with me, and we both chuckled over the wretched plight of the
Whigs. Balfour, he tells me, does not wish them to resign and would be
glad to keep them on for another year, as pensioners upon Tory good
will. I showed him the prison memorandum I have sent to Winston, which
he much approves, also two letters I received this morning, one from
Hyndman, about the Chinese in Tibet, the other from Malony, about
Persia, both most interesting.
“My old friend, Mme. Arcos, on whom I called to-day, tells me the
Empress Eugénie is delighted with my books about Egypt and about Cromer,
whom she greatly dislikes. The Empress, she tells me, is wonderful
considering her age, neither blind nor deaf, still taking an interest in
everything and entirely up-to-date.
“_1st March._—Asquith has accepted the extremists’ lead, it was the only
thing he had to do except resigning, so they are to be helped through
supply by the Irish and the Tories. The Budget is to be put off till
after Easter, and the resolution against the Lords’ veto passed
meanwhile.
“_2nd March._—George Wyndham came to luncheon. There will be dissolution
in May or June. Rosebery is to bring in a scheme of reform for the House
of Lords at once.
“_3rd March._—Called on Hyndman and had a long talk with him, mostly on
Indian affairs. He believes in a very short date for the revolution
there and that it will come about through the Gurkhas and the Maharaja
of Udaipur. He regards the occupation of Lhassa by the Chinese as the
beginning of a great movement. I don’t know how this may be. Hyndman is
a big, burly, bearded fellow, a rough edition of William Morris, with
the same energetic talk on Socialistic topics that I remember in Morris.
He lives in Queen Anne’s Gate, which is used as a Socialist Bureau as
well as his residence, and the whole time we were conversing he was
being rung up constantly by a telephone in his room. ‘Hullo! what is it?
Yes, thank you, good-bye.’ We discussed the prospects of Socialism and
how it would affect Imperial questions, and I told him I believed it
would be just as bad for the subject races in Asia under a Socialistic
régime in England as now. This he would not agree to, but he did not
convince me I was wrong. ‘We are National too,’ he said, ‘as well as
International and have no wish to go on preying on the Asiatics. We hold
that we could get enough employment for all our millions at home without
it, if our energies were turned in the right direction.’ He is a strong
believer in the intention of the German Government to attack us, and is
for compulsory military training in England (not military service) in
defence of the country, also for a close union between the democracies
of England and of the Continent, for a Channel tunnel, and for
garrisoning Antwerp with English troops. He says the Belgians are quite
ready for this in case of war. The war itself cannot be prevented as the
democracy in Germany is powerless against the Government. Bebel and all
the leaders assure him of this. England from its geographical position,
which is unique in the world, ought to be the centre of the world’s
industry and the citadel of democracy. Hyndman, amongst other things,
to-day asked my opinion of Churchill, and I told him there were three
things of value in him, great ability, honesty in politics, and a good
heart. ‘That,’ said he, ‘is the first favourable account I have had
given me about him, especially about his heart. They tell me he is rude
and brutal with servants.’ I assured him it was not so, and he was glad
to hear it. He gave me to read the newly published ‘History of the
Indian Revolution of 1857’ [a highly seditious and interesting volume,
written by Savarkar, whom afterwards they imprisoned for life].
“_4th March._—Two more young Indians called, both from Cambridge,
Mohammedan Nationalists of advanced opinions and ready to join the
Hindoos.
“_7th March._—Dillon writes: ‘I am glad you consider the party has done
well. I am extremely well satisfied. I do not think the party ever
occupied a stronger position. We have undoubtedly saved the Liberal
party from a catastrophe.’
“_8th March._—There seems a good chance now in Egypt, that the General
Assembly will reject the Suez Canal Convention and I see that Prince
Husseyn has resigned his presidency of the Assembly. He was the
Convention’s principal advocate. The new Prime Minister is to be
Mohammed Said, a Nationalist of the Saad Zaghloul school, this is a
gain. [This is the first mention in my diary of Prince Husseyn, who has
since been rewarded for his services to the English party at Cairo by
being made Sultan of Egypt.]
“_10th March._—William O’Brien has sent me an article he has written in
the ‘Nineteenth Century’ in a Union of Hearts sense to which I have
answered: ‘The older I get the more revolutionist I become about the
British Empire, and about Ireland the more Fenian. The Union of Hearts
is a long while on its way, and unless it is brought about in some
violent form, I hardly hope to see it. I often think of good old Dr.
Duggan, whom we loved so much, and who used to wish he was not a Bishop
so that he might be in the Portsmouth dockyard blowing up English ships.
Perhaps he was right, we English are a very stubborn people to convert.’
I have also written to Hyndman about the book he gave me. I find it very
interesting but at the same time depressing. One cannot help seeing in
the account it gives of the revolution of 1857, that if with all the
advantages native India then had of taking us unawares and comparatively
defenceless it could not succeed, it has hardly any chance now, nor do I
think a rising will be attempted. The break-up of the British Empire
will come more likely through a financial collapse and troubles nearer
home. India will profit by it but will not initiate it.
“_15th March._—The Debate on the Reform of the House of Lords began to-
day, Rosebery making a great oration. George Wyndham came to tea and
stayed on talking. The Tories are angry because the Government have only
voted supplies for six weeks with the idea of then resigning and leaving
their successors in a financial hole. The only thing then, George
thinks, will be to get the Rothschilds and the City generally to make
another advance of thirty millions to carry on with till the new General
Election is over. He thinks Rosebery could manage this with the Jews. He
had just come from the House of Commons and had heard Churchill announce
his scheme of prison reform, which is based closely on my memorandum.
George entirely approves the scheme as he did what I had written about
it three weeks ago.
“_16th March._—Winston’s pronouncement on prison reform reads better
than even George’s description of it. It is everything I could have
wished, and I went to Eccleston Square to congratulate, and found him
alone. He is quite thorough about the reforms and said he would have
liked to adopt the whole of my programme only public opinion was not
ready for it yet. However, the Home Secretary will now have full power
to mitigate prison treatment, and, except for crimes of violence, to put
all prisoners with a good character (and that will include political
prisoners) in the first class of misdemeanants.
“With regard to the political situation, Winston said: ‘We shall carry
on all right now till the end of April, when the crash will come either
on the Budget or the Lords’ veto. If we are beaten on the Budget we
shall resign; but I can’t think Redmond will be fool enough to turn us
out, though we don’t know what he is going to do. If he votes against
the Budget he will take all the sting out of the attack on the Lords,
and the Irish have no chance of getting Home Rule except by abolishing
the veto.’ He is sore with Redmond for making himself a leader of revolt
with the Radicals against the Government. He thinks his party will win
seats at the General Election. If so, they will remain in office, and
when the Peers reject the veto will dissolve Parliament.
“Dillon writes showing that he is not for upsetting the Government. ‘I
cannot quite agree with you about the Liberals. The leaders have behaved
badly, but the rank and file is sounder than at any time since
Rosebery’s betrayal of 1895. I do not see why we should break with the
Liberals without reasonable proposals from the Tories. At present the
Tories are under the worst possible influences. It is clearly our policy
to support an attack upon the Lords.’
“_17th March._—Goumah writes to say that he means to start a monthly
Nationalist paper in English, and asks me for help. [This was a first
suggestion which led to our issue of the monthly paper ‘Egypt.’]
“_24th March._—They have released eight young men in Egypt whom they had
arrested as Wardani’s accomplices.
“_31st March._—Chapel Street. Dillon spent an hour and a half this
morning with me. He gave me the exact plan he and Redmond have
determined on. The situation is that Grey and Haldane are trying to get
out of a square fight with the Lords, and are manœuvring to persuade the
Irish party to support the Budget and let them stay on in office without
bringing the veto question to a positive issue. This, however, the Irish
are determined not to consent to. Their plan is first to support the
resolutions against the Lords; then when the Government brings in the
Budget to vote for it on the second reading, but not on the third, and
to insist that Asquith shall first get guarantees from the King that he
will create a sufficient number of Peers to pass a Veto Bill. If the
King promises, well and good. They will then vote the third reading of
the Budget, and help to get the Veto Bill through; but if, as is almost
certain, the King refuses, then they will insist on Asquith’s resigning,
or if he will not resign they will vote against the third reading.
Dillon says they are absolutely determined on this, and he authorized me
to give Churchill a message to that effect. He calculates that in this
way they can force Balfour to take office, which will lead to a still
greater deadlock than ever. Balfour, he thinks, dares not pass the
Budget, yet cannot carry on the Government without doing so during the
three months needed for a new General Election.
“He told me a number of interesting things about Ireland. Wyndham’s Land
Bill has had the effect of changing the whole character of the
peasantry. Instead of being careless, idle and improvident, they have
become like the French peasantry, industrious and economical, even
penurious. Marriages are now contracted later, though the limitation of
families had not yet begun owing to Catholic influences, and he repeated
to me what he had said about this influence in Australia, Canada, and
the United States. ‘It is in this way,’ he said, ‘that the non-Catholic
civilization will be beaten by the Catholic. Irish and Italian are
replacing English and Dutch settlers everywhere in America. Boston,
which used to be the home of the Puritans, now always elects a Catholic
mayor.’
“As to the House of Commons, he says: ‘The Labour party has gone
altogether to pieces. They can’t collect money enough to keep themselves
going. The Radicals have no leaders of ability. They have been obliged
to take us’ (Redmond and himself) ‘as their leaders. The Government is
weak and divided; it has lost all prestige.’ Dillon had urged them over
and over again to resign directly they found they could not get the
King’s help against the Lords, but they clung to office, and now they
are discredited.
“_2nd April._—A week-end party at Newbuildings. The Churchills, the
Granville Barkers, and Beauclerk, with great discussions. Winston had
been to Brighton for the day, and had been entertained by the Mayor and
taken a round of reformatory schools, and had been hissed and cheered by
rival factions at the railway station. He means business with his prison
reforms, and is making a distinction between political and common
prisoners; but he is obstinate about forcible feeding in spite of all
Barker and I could say about torture and the Spanish inquisition, which
it closely resembles. Barker has paid much attention to these prison
matters, and is a very good talker and a pleasant fellow.
“_3rd April._—A brilliant day of talk. After breakfast I took Winston
into the New Room, and we had the whole question of the Budget out
together and the veto and the Irish vote. I gave him Dillon’s message,
which for a moment rather staggered him, as he was under the impression
the Irish would in the end give way and let the Budget pass, and he said
that if they persisted in wrecking the Government their blood would be
on their own heads. The Liberal party would never support Home Rule
again. The policy of wrecking one party after another would only result
in the two parties combining to crush them. I explained, however, that
they did not want a quarrel, only that they distrusted Asquith, Haldane,
and Grey, and did not intend to be humbugged. This made him reasonable
again, and he told me what the Government plan is. They are to finish
the Veto resolutions by the 13th, and then go straight on to the Budget
and carry it right through to the third reading, the Veto resolutions
being meanwhile sent up to the Lords. If the Lords refuse, Asquith will
at once apply to the King for assurances that a Veto Bill on the same
lines as the resolutions shall be forced on the Lords by the creation of
Peers or otherwise, but it is not at all likely the Lords will do this
at once. They will put it off till after the Budget battle has been
fought, and thus it will be impossible to get the guarantees from the
King in time to satisfy the Irish. All the same he does not despair of
carrying the Budget through its third reading, the Irish vote
notwithstanding, by help of the Tories. They will apply to Balfour for
his assistance to carry on the King’s Government, and if he refuses will
resign and leave him to get out of the mess as he can. They mean to
stand or fall on this issue. It is extraordinarily even betting, he
says, which way it will go.
“We had a great deal of talk about the King, with whom Winston now
corresponds, or rather, to whom he writes a daily account of what goes
on in Parliament, this duty having been transferred from the Prime
Minister to the Home Secretary, and the King now and then writes in
reply. He believes he is personally in good favour with the King, though
his last speech might get him into trouble, in which he had said that
the King and Commons would have to unite against the encroachment of the
Lords. Also he had the advantage that the Liberals, when in office, were
always more polite to the King than the Tories. The Tories were in the
habit of considering they were doing quite enough for the King by being
in office and protecting him from the Radicals and Socialists without
showing special politeness, while Liberal Ministers showed him the
greatest consideration, thus balancing things between the parties. He
thinks the King will promise the guarantees. Churchill is already
drawing up his list of peers to be created, should it be necessary, and
he offered Beauclerk and me to give us each a peerage when the time came
on the sole condition of voting the Veto; after which we might do what
we liked. ‘I can do it for you if you will take it,’ he said, and he
proposed it again at dinner, and I said I would think it over. He also
offered to get Barker a seat at the next General Elections. None of us
took it very seriously, though Barker would, I have no doubt, make an
excellent M.P. He is a Fabian, and a man of much political intelligence,
besides being an excellent fellow and man of the world. At dinner the
conversation was more brilliant than ever. We discussed Morley’s
character, and Kitchener’s _à propos_ of his possible succession to
Minto as Viceroy of India. Churchill hates Kitchener, who, he told us,
once prevented his entering the Egyptian Service, and was always rude to
him, he does not know with what reason; and we also discussed Curzon.
Churchill has a wonderful memory, which extends to scraps of poetry and
fragments of speeches of a hundred years ago. He is also a great and
very rapid reader of books. He told us he wrote his life of his father
mostly in the House of Commons, and while busy with all sorts of other
work.
“_4th April._—Our party broke up this morning, Winston having a Cabinet
to attend, where he doubtless will lay before his fellow conspirators
what he has learned of the Irish plans from me, and persuade Asquith to
make the public declaration of getting guarantees from the King, which
he told me Asquith should give.
“_7th April._—A rumour of our Irish negotiations has got into print
through the London correspondent of the ‘Irish Times.’ It is singularly
exact, and would seem to show that Asquith and Churchill have come to
terms with Redmond on the basis of Asquith’s engaging himself publicly
to resign at once if the King refuses guarantees, and not to stay in
office over a new General Election. This, I feel pretty sure, will meet
the Irish requirements.
“_14th April._—O’Brien has blurted out that Lloyd George, when they had
their Conference, promised to remit all the obnoxious taxes in the
Budget as far as Ireland was concerned, and Lloyd George has given him
the lie; nevertheless, I have no doubt the thing is true, as Churchill
told me almost as much when he was here.
“_15th April._—We have won a complete victory in Egypt, the Suez Canal
Convention having been rejected by the General Assembly, and our
Government having withdrawn from it in consequence. At the same time,
there has been a new affirmation made by our people of ‘England’s right
to the Soudan’ in joint Sovereignty with the Khedive. By the terms of
the Convention of 1899 England’s right to occupy the Soudan is
concurrent with her occupation of Egypt, and lapses when that ends. The
Soudan will probably be retained if we evacuate.
“_25th April._—Asquith has made his declaration in the House of Commons
in accordance with the demands formulated through me by Dillon to
Churchill. If the King fails to give the guarantees Asquith will resign;
if he gives them he will dissolve Parliament. In return for this Redmond
has declared publicly that the Irish party will vote the Budget. I am
not sorry for the delay in Asquith’s resignation, for things are
critical in Egypt; and with Balfour in power here and Curzon and Cromer
advising him, we risk having a bit of King Stork again. There is a
strong demand now at Cairo for a Constitution and with the Radicals and
Irish in power here I don’t see how the Liberal Government can refuse
it, but there is a strong Press agitation beginning here against Gorst.
Belloc, who dined here last night, tells me there is talk at the Foreign
Office of his being recalled. There is no doubt his policy has failed
completely from the Foreign Office point of view. Wardani’s trial has
begun at Cairo. According to Osman Ghaleb the defence was to be that
Boutros was not killed by the bullets fired into him, but by Dr.
Milton’s surgery in extracting them. It is ingenious, but will hardly
save Wardani.
“A young Indian, Savarkar, has been arrested here on a charge of having
written letters inciting to murder in India; this on the demand of the
Indian Government. The plan, Kháparde tells me, is to get him to India
on any plea, true or false, and when once there to deal with him under
the Deportation Law. A queer state of things for us to have come to in
England, and a good example of how Imperial despotism abroad is ruining
National liberty at home. According to Brailsford, young Savarkar is a
most excellent and admirable youth, as all the young political murderers
seem to be, both in India and Egypt.
“The Egyptian papers have been full of Roosevelt’s adventures at Cairo,
and the speech he made to University students in praise of British rule.
He is a buffoon of the lowest American type, and roused the fury of
young Egypt to boiling point, and it is probable that if he had not
cleared straight out of the country there would have been mischief. From
Egypt he went on to Rome and had a quarrel with the Pope, and he is now
at Paris airing his fooleries, and is to go to Berlin, a kind of mad dog
roaming the world.
“_27th April._—Dillon lunched with me to-day in Chapel Street. The
Budget of 1909 is at last to have its third reading to-day, and the King
is to arrive in London from Biarritz at six. So far, Dillon tells me,
they have not the least idea what the King will do about the Veto. He
has been written to twice about it, by Winston, I suppose, as he
corresponds with His Majesty, but the King has made no reply. Nobody
expects him to create the peers or to give any assurance. According to
Belloc (and Dillon agrees with him) he will try to have the General
Election put off till January, on the ground that it will be most
unpopular, and an immense expense, which it certainly would be. Dillon
has no great confidence in Asquith’s keeping his promise of resigning at
once when the King refuses to give the assurances, but says it will not
matter, as they will always be able to turn him out over the Budget of
1910, and will do so if he tries to shirk. Nor does he trust much in the
possibility of abolishing the House of Lords, but expects to get Home
Rule from the Tories. He would sooner have these in office with a weak
majority than the Whigs. I asked him his opinion of the relative merits
of Churchill and Lloyd George. He said they were both men of genius and
extraordinary eloquence. Lloyd George was a Celt, entirely in sympathy
with Ireland and all the causes Irishmen care for. He knows him well,
better than Churchill, who as an Englishman is less one of themselves,
but he admires and believes in both. As speakers there are only two in
the House who can compare with them, Balfour and Asquith. Balfour is not
great intellectually, but he is a great Parliamentary speaker, far the
best at present; the Tory party are quite unable to do without him, and
had to take him back as their leader after the elections of 1906,
although he had made every conceivable mistake in office and he did not
agree with them on tariff reform. Asquith, too, was a great speaker,
with a power of stating a case clearly and powerfully in a few words
such as was possessed by nobody else. His influence, however, is gone.
He had been ruined by his second marriage to one who was a Tory at
heart, and was always advising him to stand out against Lloyd George and
Churchill and the mass of the Radical party. Asquith was quite
demoralized. Dillon does not trust him. Before his second marriage
Asquith was quite different. He was so unused to Society that when Lady
Mathew, Dillon’s mother-in-law, asked him to dinner, he did not know how
to behave according to the usages of the world, and used to give his arm
to his first wife to take her in to dinner. He had no pretension then to
being anything but what he was, a Nonconformist of the middle-class; now
he had adopted all the failings of the aristocracy. Dillon is off now to
Ireland for a month, but will be back for the Veto.” [The conversations
recorded in the present chapter with Dillon and Redmond about their
parliamentary affairs have been very much curtailed by me in putting
them in print, though nothing of importance is omitted, but a full
transcript would take up too much space, and the subject has become
unimportant and would weary all but close parliamentary readers.]
“Called on Lady C. Knollys has been lately with her, and she laughed to
scorn the idea of the King creating five hundred peers; he was no such
fool. Of Lloyd George she spoke with contempt, as a wretched little
lawyer, doubtless reflecting the opinion of the Court about him.
Churchill was a gentleman, quite a different sort. Kitchener is to go to
India as Viceroy, the King being strong for him, though ‘of course, the
King can’t do everything.’ Both Kitchener and the King are to arrive
from abroad to-night. Later, in the train, as I was going back to
Newbuildings, two lawyers got into the carriage, who talked of having
just seen the King drive away from the station. He looked very white and
flabby, they said.
“_29th April._—This morning I opened my window at 3.45, and five minutes
later a cuckoo began to sing. I counted the number of notes he repeated,
beginning when he had done half-a-dozen or so. He must have been sitting
in the big oak tree a hundred yards away from the house, and went on and
on for some twenty-five minutes while I counted, watch in hand, having
got back into bed. He began with a series of 208, when another cuckoo
interrupted at a distance, but after some fifteen seconds he went on
again with a series of 368 and another of seventy-one, and another of
354 and then fifty-five. In all 1056 notes without a break of more than
a quarter of a minute, nor did he change the place he sang from. I noted
with the second hand of the watch that he did thirty-eight to forty
notes to the minute, though at the beginning he was quicker and more
regular. This must be a record performance. I put down the numbers on a
card with a pencil while it was going on. It ended at 4.15 a.m.
“_2nd May._—I have written to the ‘Manchester Guardian’ in answer to
Gorst’s Egyptian Report, just published, advocating evacuation as the
sole alternative to a rule of force. The latter is certainly intended.
Dillon writes to say so, and there is a telegram in the ‘Daily
Telegraph’ announcing on the highest authority that ‘the Khedive has
decided on deportations after the Indian fashion.’ This is a return to
the régime of Ismaïl.
“_6th May._—To London, where I found the world in commotion with the
news of the sudden illness of the King, not likely to live through the
day, as his heart was attacked. I went to see Lady C., whom I found at
home. ‘The King,’ she said, ‘is not likely to get over it.’ He is being
treated with oxygen and has five official doctors with him, including
old Douglas Powell, and also a little doctor of her own discovery, I
forget his name. ‘The King has for five years had a swelling in his
throat which has been sprayed twice a day, and Laking always said it
might develop any time into cancer. When the King came home from
Biarritz the other day he insisted upon going the very same night to the
opera, and has since been to two theatres, and to see the Royal Academy
Pictures. He cannot do without excitement. His death,’ she said, ‘will
be a great loss to the world and a great loss to me. He has been a good
friend to me, and everything will be changed now. There will be a
regular sweep of the people that used to be about the Court, the Jews
and the second-rate women that the King preferred to his aristocracy,
because they amused him. The Prince of Wales hates all these, and will
have nothing to do with them. The King is a Radical, though not a
Socialist. He told me once that he had gone to hear Gambetta speak, and
that he spoke so well that he had half converted him to be a republican.
He is a clever man and a great King. His death will be a great loss.’
“Meynell and Kháparde dined with me. We feel sure that if the King dies
the whole question of the Veto will be shelved, at any rate, for a time,
as it will upset every calculation. The bulletins this evening are very
ominous. When I saw Lady C. to-day she repeated to me that Kitchener was
certain to be appointed Governor-General in India, as they were afraid
of having him here. She asked me whether I should like to meet him at
her house, but I said I would rather not, as I had had a public quarrel
with him about the Mahdi’s head, and I related the whole story to her.
Kháparde thinks it would be a good thing for India if Kitchener went
there, as it would bring the revolution to a head.
“Meynell tells me the sale of Thompson’s works during the past twelve
months has gone to 18,000 volumes. Also that Father Angelo de Bary is
engaged to marry Miss Bunston!
“_7th May._—I was writing this of yesterday in bed at seven in the
morning when the milkman brought the news that the King died at
midnight. It is a very serious matter for all the world, for
internationally Edward VII held a high position, and at home was a
guarantee against revolution. Personally, though I had never much to do
with him directly, I have regarded him as a friendly influence. Lady C.
has always assured me of this. We were pretty nearly contemporaries, and
I knew many people he knew. Peace be with him.
“Down to Clouds by the one o’clock train. As I started on my way to
Waterloo Station I saw the Royal standard at half mast high on
Buckingham Palace, and bells were ringing for the new king, George V.
“Clouds. It is a family party here, and in the middle of dinner George
arrived from London full of the news of King George’s accession. He and
Arthur Balfour had been telegraphed for in the morning to attend a
general meeting of the Privy Council, and he gave us the whole story of
what had taken place at it. It appears that on the demise of the Crown
all authority in the country ceases till the new King is proclaimed,
either by Parliament or the law officers or any other body than the
Privy Council, whose business it becomes to proclaim the dead King’s
successor. In theory the King never dies, but until the proclamation it
is supposed to be in doubt who the King is, and it is the Council that
decides, the Council being the primitive Government of England. At
midnight, immediately after King Edward’s death (for he died at 11.40),
it fell to Winston as Home Secretary to announce the event to the Lord
Mayor of London, and from that moment till 4.30 this afternoon there was
no Government in England. What authority there is vests in the Lord
President of the Council, in this case Crewe, who issues formal notice
to each member of the Privy Council to attend a meeting instantly,
naming the hour. George showed us his black-edged summons, which I
noticed was unsigned by anyone, but sent by hand in an official
envelope. He and Arthur had received their summonses in London, having
had informal notice by telegraph. On arrival Arthur would not go to the
Carlton Club himself, but sent George to find out all about it, and what
clothes they were to wear, and they dressed in uniform, with crape
sashes round their sleeves, and walked to St. James’s Palace, where the
meeting was held. There were 150 members of the Council present, more or
less, out of 250, the total number, and the Lord Mayor and some Aldermen
were there, though these last, not being members, were turned out before
the proceedings began. No one sat down except old Lord Cross, who was
infirm, and no one shook hands or talked except to exchange a word or
two silently. Crewe opened the proceedings, George said, with great
dignity. He announced the King’s death and the duty of the Council to
proclaim his successor briefly and clearly. No one else spoke. Then
Prince Christian, as representing the Royal family, went out with the
Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chancellor, and presently came
back with the Prince of Wales, whom they presented to the Council as
King, and the King made a short speech, extremely well expressed and
with much feeling, and took his seat, and all those present knelt with
the right knee upon a cushion placed upon a stool and kissed his hand
and swore allegiance on the Book. Thus was King George V proclaimed. ‘A
mediæval ceremony,’ George said, ‘of a most impressive kind, and quite
apart from the vulgarities of modern life, there being no reporters or
outsiders of any sort, a return to the reality of ancient days, when the
King and his Council were the sole legal Government of England, all the
rest, the government by Lords and Commons and votes in Parliament and
Prime Ministers, being only a modern delegation of authority tolerated,
but not strictly legal.’ At this point old Percy, George’s father, woke
up from his half sleep into which he had sunk and said he hoped there
would be a return to this primitive form of rule in England before long.
It was all he said. ‘The Jews of the Privy Council,’ George went on,
‘took their oaths on the Old Testament and the Catholics separately.
Amongst these last, to the general surprise, Cassel.’
“George told us next how, on the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, he, as
Chief Secretary, had proclaimed the late King Edward at Dublin, and how
he had been much impressed by King Edward’s good sense when he visited
Ireland later, especially in connection with words he had used on
landing about the Pope, whose death had been announced the day before.
George had gone over from Dublin to meet His Majesty at Holyhead, and
all the Dublin officials had been alarmed about what the King might say;
but as soon as the King came on board his yacht he sent for the captain
and said to him: ‘Take Mr. Wyndham to a cabin where he can be alone, and
give him a pencil and paper,’ and he asked George to draw up a speech
for him. This George did. But the King vastly improved the draft, and on
landing said exactly the right thing, so that Protestants and Catholics
alike were pleased. We all agreed that the late King was a great loss in
foreign politics, though George thinks that perhaps his death may bring
the Emperor William to the funeral, and so lay the foundation of a peace
with Germany. I doubt it. ‘The Emperor,’ he said, ‘is fifty, and has
found out that, though he has an immense army, not a single soldier in
it has been under fire, and he has no assurance that he would be able to
command it in war. For forty years the German army has not fired a
shot.’ All the same I can see that the prospect of a new and more
Conservative King is welcome in this house.
“_11th May._—George went away to-day to take the Parliamentary oath to
the new king. We have had much talk, both about affairs here in England
and also about Egypt. I showed him the proof sheets of my article on
Gorst’s report, and he remarked that Egypt would certainly not be
evacuated, which, of course, is true. He made me alter a word or two, so
as to make it less hostile to Gorst, in whose favour he is interested
through his former private secretary, Mark Sykes, who married Gorst’s
sister. On the main point, however, we are agreed, namely, that the
future of Egypt is bound up in the general future of Asia, and
especially of the Ottoman Empire. George is inclined to minimize the
chances of Asia being able to regenerate herself and hold her own
against Europe; while I am strong in my belief in this. He says the
Russians are far more bent on recovering their position in Asia than in
making any advance westwards. He hears this doubtless from his brother
Guy, who is military attaché at Petersburg, but the signs of the times
are distinctly of an awakening everywhere of the Asiatic races to a
sense of the necessity of self-preservation. Even in China the Emperor
has been obliged to summon a kind of Parliament, and the Turks have
pretty well tided over their danger of absorption. The real hope for
Asia as against Europe lies, in my opinion, in the seeds of social decay
so very visible among the Teutonic races and the higher European
civilization generally, where these are beginning to commit suicide. My
last word to George was in this sense: ‘The men will refuse to work and
the women will refuse to breed.’
“About the prospects in England, all here seem to think the political
crisis indefinitely postponed by the King’s death, and that Asquith will
be able to potter on now till the end of the year. They tell me the new
Court is going to be a very moral one, but they hope it will be saved
from dullness by becoming intellectual, but we fear it is not likely to
attract many geniuses.
“_13th May._—Everybody has gone into black for the King’s death, and
some enthusiasts talk of going on mourning for a year. It is all very
absurd, considering what the poor King was, but the papers are crammed
with his praises as if he had been a saint of God. All the week since
his death has been one of storms and tempests attributed to a comet so
diminutive that nobody has seen it yet, and last night one of the great
beech trees was thrown down in the park. I saw it lying uprooted on my
way to the station this morning, symbol of the dead King, quite rotten
at the root, but one half of it clothed with its spring green.
“Arrived in Chapel Street, I went at once to see Lady C., who had
written me asking me to come, as she had things to tell me she could not
put on paper. She gave me a graphic account of the King’s death as she
had heard it from the King’s doctors, Laking, Reid, and Dawson. ‘The
King,’ she said, ‘has had a swelling in the throat for three or four
years past, with latterly a chronic catarrh, but it was not cancer. He
had a very bad attack at Paris on his way to Biarritz in the winter,
where Reid was with him, treating it with injections recommended by
Laking. It was a more or less experimental treatment, and, she says, did
him more harm than good. Nevertheless he was very well in his general
health when he arrived in London, but the doctors could not keep him
quiet. He would not stay at home at night or go to bed early; he must
have people with him and go about to theatres and sit up playing cards
till two or three in the morning.
“The King had been much worried about the Veto by Asquith and his
Ministers. He was written to about it three times while he was at
Biarritz, but had evaded it, saying each time that he would attend to it
when he returned to England; but on his return they worried him, and he
had lost his temper with Asquith, when Asquith pressed him, saying he
should resign. Asquith had told him the King ought to send for Lloyd
George in his place. This roused the King, who, as a rule, had good
command over himself, for they all hate Lloyd George, and the King was
quite upset by it. The King rather liked Churchill because he is a
gentleman, but Lloyd George he could not stand. Queen Alexandra is
furious with Asquith, and said he killed the King. She is going to have
Marlborough House probably for her life, but she will not live there, as
she is going back to Denmark, where she will keep house with her sister,
the Russian Empress. The morning of Thursday, the day before he was
taken ill, he had seen some of the Ministers who were worrying him about
the political crisis, and he had a bad fit of coughing. Mrs. Keppel came
to tea with him in the evening with the two Keyser girls. He had no idea
that he was in danger, and even the day before he died they told him
nothing. He had people to see him on business in the morning, and again
he had a fit of coughing and choking, which got worse and worse. They
sent for the Archbishop of Canterbury, but he did not see him, and he
smoked a cigar. Only once he said: ‘If this goes on much longer I shall
be done for,’ and soon after became unconscious and never said another
word. . . . He liked the society of women who could talk, and Jews and
people who could amuse him. He liked also every sort of public function,
and entertainment and theatres and card playing. All the same he was a
clever man, and knew all about foreign politics better than any of them,
and was a bit of a Radical. Things would be very different now.
“Lady C. went on talking about other personages she had known, the King
of Greece, the Emperor William, King Leopold of Belgium, and the Crown
Prince Rudolph, as to whose death she gave me almost the same account as
that I had from Countess Hoyos at Fiume. She knew the story from King
Edward, and I do not doubt that hers is the correct one.
“_14th May._—To Newbuildings, where I am entertaining the Rhuvon Guests,
Mark Napier and Shane Leslie. Leslie, who has recently become a Catholic
and a Nationalist, after being by birth an Ulster Protestant, was run by
Redmond at the last elections for a Nationalist constituency. His
mother, Mrs. Jack Leslie, Lady Randolph Churchill’s sister, was a
favourite of the late King and a friend of Mrs. Keppel, and he has heard
the story of the King’s last days both from his mother and from Winston.
The first alarm about the King, he says, was on Monday, the 2nd, when he
went to play bridge with Mrs. Keppel and spend the evening, the same
evening, no doubt, that Lady C. had talked of when the Miss Keysers were
there. But Mrs. Keppel had got him to go home and to bed early at half-
past ten. The next day, however, he could not be prevailed upon to stay
in bed, and got up to do business in the morning, and the same on
Wednesday and Thursday, when he had to receive some Colonial people. He
lost his temper because he misunderstood exactly who they were, and said
something _mal à propos_, and this caused a violent attack of coughing,
and the Prince of Wales was telegraphed for and the Queen.
“_15th May (Whit Sunday)._—I have had a long talk with Leslie about
Irish affairs and think he may eventually take a lead in them, as he has
had the wit to join the National party. Young and being of the landlord
class, a tall, good-looking fellow, with much intelligence, heir to a
baronetcy, and, Meynell tells me, an excellent speaker, he may even have
Redmond’s succession some day. It has always astonished me that no great
landlord of them all should have come forward long ago in this way even
out of mere ambition. Leslie has been at Eton and Oxford, but is
nevertheless, as far as I can judge, a quite sound Nationalist. He went
away in the evening.
“The Bellocs and Maurice Baring came to dinner.
“_20th May._—To-day the King was buried, and I hope the country will
return to comparative sanity, for at present it is in delirium. The
absurdities written in every newspaper about him pass belief. He might
have been a Solon and a Francis of Assisi combined if the characters
drawn of him were true. In no print has there been the smallest allusion
to any of his pleasant little wickednesses, though his was not even in
make-believe the life of a saint or in any strict sense a theologically
virtuous man. Yet all the bishops and priests, Catholic, Protestant, and
Nonconformist, join in giving him a glorious place in heaven, and there
were eight miles of his loyal and adoring subjects marching on foot to
see him lying in state at Westminster Hall. For myself I think he
performed his public duties well. He had a passion for pageantry and
ceremonial and dressing up, and he was never tired of putting on
uniforms and taking them off, and receiving princes and ambassadors and
opening museums and hospitals, and attending cattle shows and military
shows and shows of every kind, while every night of his life he was to
be seen at theatres and operas and music-halls. Thus he was always
before the public and had come to have the popularity of an actor who
plays his part in a variety of costumes, and always well. Abroad, too,
there is no doubt he had a very great reputation. His little Bohemian
tastes made him beloved at Paris, and he had enough of the _grand
seigneur_ to carry it off. He did not affect to be virtuous, and all
sorts of publicans and sinners found their places at his table. The
journalists loved him; he did not mind being snap-shotted, and was stand
off to nobody. If not witty, he could understand a joke, and if not wise
he was sensible. He quarrelled with nobody, and always forgave. He
disliked family scandals, and spent much of his time patching up those
of the Court and whitening its sepulchres. In this respect he has every
right to the title of ‘Peace-maker’ given to him.
“It was the same with his peace-making diplomacy. He liked to be well
received wherever he went, and to be on good terms with all the world.
He was essentially a cosmopolitan, and without racial prejudice, and he
cared as much for popularity abroad as at home. This made him anxious to
compose international quarrels. He wanted an easy life, and that
everybody should be friends with everybody. He sank his English
nationality on the Continent, talked French and German in preference to
English, and English with a foreign accent. He knew Europe well, and
exactly what foreigners thought of England. The knowledge was of use to
him and to our Foreign office, especially under such insular Secretaries
of State as Arthur Balfour and Edward Grey. He tried hard to win the
Irish over to him because he was well aware that the long quarrel with
Ireland was a blot on the English name abroad. He had no sympathy with
violent measures of coercion. He stopped the Boer War, knowing how
unpopular it was making England on the Continent and everywhere, and how
much we were becoming despised for our childish attempts at subduing
this sturdy little people. In Egypt he was shocked at Cromer’s
brutalities and his unnecessary quarrel with the Khedive and the Sultan.
It was entirely due to him that Cromer was recalled. The Anglo-Russian
treaty he did off his own bat with Hardinge, Sir Edward Grey looking on.
His only notable failure was in the affair of Bosnia, and people in
England knew too little of the conditions to understand how great a
failure it was. Also, he never succeeded in making friends with his
nephew Wilhelm, and I fancy they hated each other to the end. All this
doubtless made Edward VII a wiser and a better king than most of ours
have been, and he may even rightly share with Solomon the title of ‘The
Wise.’ They each had that knowledge of women which, as we know, is the
beginning of wisdom, or at least which teaches tolerance for the
unwisdom of others. Of all this the newspaper writers say no word, being
professionally what is required of them, virtuous men and fools.”