290 Why I Oppose the British Empire [1898 



" 24th March. — George is taking a less practical part now in poli- 

 tics, being up to his eyes in literature, but he walks home most nights 

 with Arthur Balfour from the House and hears a good deal of what 

 is going on. He tells me Lord Salisbury does not intend resigning, and 

 though he has made over the Foreign Office temporarily to Balfour, he 

 still keeps interfering with affairs there not altogether to Arthur's 

 pleasure. In talking about the scramble for China, I had remarked that 

 I should have thought an alliance with Japan was the obvious English 

 policy. He said, ' Yes, but it looks as if Japan had been squared by 

 Russia.' [This is the first mention I can find in my diary of what 

 was afterwards to develop into the Anglo- Japanese alliance.] 



" George's new edition of Shakespeare's poems is just out, and he 

 is busy editing a new weekly paper, ' The Outlook,' started as a ' raft ' 

 on which to save the fortunes of Henley and the other writers wrecked 

 in the ' New Review.' Gladstone is dying of cancer, poor old soul, 

 and it has been agreed to soothe his last days with morphia as he 

 cannot live long. 



" 2gth March. — Lady Gregory came to see me and talked much 

 about Ireland. She has now become a strong Nationalist, and has been 

 busying herself about the demonstrations for ' '98.' If I were well 

 enough I would go over for them in May. 



" George is much put out at the inaction of our Government in 

 China, where there is a combination of Russia, France, and Germany 

 against us, and at the general failure of Lord Salisbury's policy as a 

 check to the British Empire. He asked me why I wished ill to the 

 British Empire. I said, ' because we had done too much harm in the 

 world, and though the other nations of Europe also do harm, they 

 are not able to do it so effectively as we do through their lack of 

 knowledge, and of those qualities that make of Englishmen an admin- 

 istrating race, also because the Empire is a poor cockney affair invented 

 hardly twenty years ago to the ruin of our position as an honest 

 Kingdom at home.' I remember well the disgust of George's father 

 and of other old-fashioned Tories, when Disraeli first foisted on them 

 the Queen's brummagem Imperial title.' 



" 3 lit March. — ' The Chronicle ' has a sensational but probably true 

 account of an ultimatum sent by the American President to Spain on 

 account of Cuba. It seems likely to lead to war. If so I hope that 

 Spain may be able to hold her own, not that Cuban independence lacks 

 my sympathy, but because between Spain and the United States I am 

 obliged to be on the side of the older and more barbarous country. 

 The Yankees as the coming race of the world would be worse even 

 than ourselves. 



" 1st April. — At five to-day Lady Gregory brought me the poet 

 Yeats, an Irish mystic of an interesting type. He is tall, lean, dark, 



