CHAPTER VI 



cromer's heavy hand 



On my return to England after this eventful winter I found myself, 

 a rare thing in my public life, almost popular. I was considered to 

 have got the better of Cromer in our Egyptian battle, and that Cromer 

 had blundered badly in his diplomacy. Labouchere, whom I called on 

 first, promised help about getting up an Egyptian Committee, and that 

 he would consult Dilke about it. " As to Gladstone," he told me, " the 

 question of evacuating Egypt is one merely of his parliamentary 

 majority. 'Can you show me a majority?' the old man says, when 

 questioned about it ; he cares nothing any longer for any political ques- 

 tion, even Ireland, only to stay in power. His answer to Dilke about 

 Egypt was a mere juggling with words and meant nothing." 



I write the same day, May 9, " I found George Wyndham, with 

 Henley, the hospital poet ( a bitter talker, but a sayer of good things), 

 much pleased with his own parliamentary success, now he is in opposi- 

 tion and free to talk as he pleases. He expressed only a modified dis- 

 approval of my doings in Egypt. I gather from him that even the 

 Conservatives think Baring has made a mess of things." 



" nth May. — To Downing Street, where Harcourt received me with 

 a slight show of severity at first. ' I hear,' he said, ' you have been 

 raising up no end of trouble in Egypt. Cromer says you have been 

 combining against him with Mukhtar Pasha and the Sultan, and the 

 Khedive, to bring back Arabi, and that you are the instigator of all that 

 happened four months ago.' I said, ' I was an accomplice after the 

 fact, not its instigator,' and gave him in brief what had happened. 

 ' Well,' he said, laughing, ' I suppose we shall have to put in force the 

 old statute, Nc exeat regno, to keep you from mischief.' While we 

 were talking, Eddy Hamilton came in, but this did not interrupt the 

 conversation. ' The worst of it is,' said Sir William, ' that it puts 

 your friends into a difficult position. Mr. Gladstone, Morley, and I, 

 are strongly for evacuation, but while there is trouble in Egypt this is 

 impossible.' I asked him, ' Can you really tell me that you would have 

 negotiated for an exacuation if nothing of this had happened? Would 

 you not have argued that while things are going on so well, and we 

 were doing so much good in Egypt, it would be better to let well alone ? ' 

 ' We should certainly have begun negotiations,' he said. He then asked 



108 



