1901] Hicks Beach's Budget J 



with Lord and Lady Chelsea, Hedworth Lambton, Lady Wolverton, 

 and Lady St. Oswald. With Lambton, who was then in command 

 of the Royal yacht, I had much conversation about Arabi, whom 

 he had been to see three years before in Ceylon, a conversation which I 

 think had much to do, seeing his position with the new King, with 

 Arabi's release later. He is a good fellow and a gallant officer, and 

 we made friends. 



After spending a week at Hyeres on our way homewards with the 

 Wyndhams, who were established there for the winter, and where I 

 found George with his son Percy, I went on to England, arriving at 

 Newbuildings on the 10th of April, where I take up my diary. 



" igth April. — Parliament met yesterday and Hicks-Beach's budget 

 has produced a sensation. He avows a deficit of 55 millions, and 

 that the South African War has already cost 152 millions, which means 

 that it will cost fully the 200 millions I predicted when the war 

 began. He also had the courage to say that the working class which 

 made the war ought to be taxed for it, and has clapped a duty on 

 sugar and coals as well as an extra twopence on the income tax. This 

 is better than I had dared hope from the Tories, though by rights 

 the whole deficit should have been raised at once by a 20/- in the £ 

 income tax if necessary. 



" I went to Park Lane and found George Wyndham rather crest- 

 fallen over the narrow majorities the Government got last night and 

 the show up of his preposterous war ' amusement.' He said he was 

 all against the sugar and coal taxes as they would make the voters 

 ' tired of the Empire.' Doubtless, too, he is angry with Hicks-Beach 

 for his plain speaking, for George has always been a member of the 

 intrigue which, as he told me two years ago, had for its object to get 

 rid of the old Conservative leaders, especially of Hicks-Beach, who 

 stood in the way of their little war amusements. George, however, 

 will not take it too much to heart. His theory of politics is that a 

 politician should ' play the game,' and that he owes no duty except 

 to his party. All the same he is more responsible for the war than 

 anybody else not actually in the Cabinet, for he was one of those 

 who under Rhodes' inspiration worked to bring it about. It is amus- 

 ing to see that Rhodes, whose prime object in making the war was to 

 slip out of his personal responsibility for the raid indemnity, a matter 

 of a million sterling, has succeeded in getting the Government to wipe 

 that matter publicly off the financial slate. 



" After my talk with George, Sibell took me with her to Grosvenor 

 House where we found the young Duke, her son, resplendent in 

 uniform, having just come back from seeing Roberts of whom he has 

 been begging a transference from the army to the Yeomanry. The 



