20 Wyndham's Irish Policy [1902 



poorest and weediest of the New Forest ponies, coarse-headed, knock- 

 kneed, cat-hammed and with drooping donkey tails, yet distinctly 

 horses. 



' lyth March {St. Patrick's Day). — To George Wyndham, who 

 explained to me the '{difficult position he was in with tjie Tory 

 Press on account of his Irish policy. ' They are all waiting,' he 

 said, ' to pounce on me because I won't go their way in Ireland.' 

 He promised to tell me some day the whole history of the last 

 fortnight, as to which I gather from him that he was obliged to 

 threaten resignation rather than go in for a policy of extreme coer- 

 cion, which has always failed and will fail again. Then to John 

 Redmond in Wynnstay Gardens. I found him just arrived by the 

 night train from Manchester, where he spoke on Saturday, but alert 

 and smiling. It being St. Patrick's Day, somebody had sent him a 

 little box full of shamrock and he opened it and gave me a bunch 

 which I shall try and grow at Newbuildings as it has a root, but he 

 warned me it would never grow out of Ireland. We talked about 

 George. He was perfectly aware how matters stood with him. ' I 

 am obliged,' he said ' to be fierce with him in public, but I know 

 he is with us in his heart, and we all know it.' I like Redmond, he 

 is a thoroughly straightforward good fellow, strong and practical and 

 self-reliant but not self-assertive, a worthy successor of Parnell. I 

 was surprised to hear him regretting Rhodes' illness and saying that 

 he would be a great loss if he died. I asked him why, and he said 

 that Rhodes has always been a Home Ruler about Ireland as part 

 of his Imperial Federation scheme, and also because he thought the 

 Irish quarrel ought to be settled in the interest of the Empire. Red- 

 mond had seen a great deal of Rhodes when he was in South Africa, 

 and believed he still held to his Home Rule opinions. My own 

 opinion of Rhodes, on this as on other points, is that he is a rogue 

 and a humbug. The King and Queen are sending him their royal 

 condolences about his illness. 



" 21st March. — John Dillon was suspended last night in the House 

 of Commons for calling Chamberlain ' a damned liar.' 



" 22nd March. — Dined in Park Lane and met there Lady Ormond 

 and the Berkeley Pagets. George explained to me his new Irish 

 Land Bill after dinner, which he does not profess to regard as any- 

 thing but a makeshift. As far as I understand it, it is a scheme 

 devised to buy up the quite small holdings in the West and group 

 them into farms of fifteen and twenty acres. He again said that 

 he was very averse from Coercion, but added that the Government 

 might be driven into it, and it would then mean something much more 

 than what had hitherto been done, and would involve the imprison- 

 ment of all the leaders of the League, and government by force in 



