1907] Sir William Wedderburn 165 



fool, quite unfit for his position. Cromer, he says, is in perfect 

 ignorance of native opinion, and imagines he still has adherents, 

 whereas the very people he most confides in talk most strongly against 

 his regime in private. Of Mustapha Kamel he had heard none but 

 good reports from native sources, though the English officials talk 

 •against him. Robertson will bring forward the Denshawai and other 

 questions whenever possible in Parliament. He has come back a 

 thorough Nationalist." 



Notwithstanding all this fine talk, on his return from Egypt Robert- 

 son did next to nothing when Parliament met, and soon allowed 

 himself to be secured by Grey. He took the official shilling, a sub- 

 ordinate post in the Government. 



" Sir William Wedderburn came to luncheon. He is an excellent 

 man, and if he were only ten years younger would make a good suc- 

 cessor to Cromer; as it is he thinks Lord Reay would do for it. He 

 talked a good deal about India, and gave a history of the partition of 

 Bengal, which he describes as a very serious matter. It was all Cur- 

 zon's doings, devised with a special purpose of weakening the power 

 of the High Court at Calcutta. He would not hear of the Bengal 

 Mohammedans as being otherwise than at one with the Hindoos in 

 the affair. He spoke highly of the Amir of Afghanistan in spite of his 

 Europeanized dress and ways, a hardworking, honest ruler, he said, in 

 every way estimable. 



" 20th Feb. — George Wyndham and his brother Guy dined with me. 

 Guy is appointed military attache at St. Petersburg. George, when 

 his brother was gone home, told me of his disgust with politics, and 

 how he considered the Tory Party had ruined its prospects by forcing 

 on the General Election after the Boer War, the Khaki election. It 

 had been all Chamberlain's doing, he, George, having strongly opposed 

 it in the Cabinet. It was unfair according to the rules of Party 

 politics, and they were suffering from it now. 



" 2nd March. — To London to vote against the Progressives at the 

 London County Council elections. I do this as a protest against the 

 running into debt by public bodies, especially for municipal trading ; 

 the Moderates very likely are as bad, but they are not in office and 

 these are. 



" $th March. — Sheykh AH Yusuf has demanded a Parliament in 

 the general assembly at Cairo. There is an article about it in the 

 ' Times,' but the Radical press says nothing. What reptiles these party 

 journalists are. They have been preaching the virtues of popular 

 Government for months past in Russia, in Persia, in the Transvaal, 

 and God knows where not else, but the moment it comes to our duty 

 in Egypt they have not a word to say, all dumb dogs. 



" 6th March. — Sir Henry Cotton lunched with me. I had been 



