CHAPTER VII 



ASQUITH AT DOWNING STREET 



" gth April, 1908. 



Anne writes from Egypt telling how the Court hakim, the Khedive's 

 chief physician, stopped her the other day to express his gratitude 

 to me for all I had done for the National cause. This I am glad 

 to get, as I have been much in doubt how my ' Secret History ' had 

 been taken at the Palace. 



" 13^/1 April. — The full composition of the new Ministry is an- 

 nounced. Elgin and Portsmouth retire, having both of them some- 

 what compromised themselves, Elgin by mismanaging South Africa, 

 Portsmouth by a foolish quarrel with one of his country tenants for 

 shooting hares. Winston enters the Cabinet, and Morley becomes 

 Lord Shillyshally. 



" 15th April. — A good letter from Brailsford, just back from Egypt. 

 He is rather disappointed with the political organization of the National- 

 ists and their little hold over the country districts. He calls them 

 terribly urbanized and this is doubtless true, but I believe the same 

 may be said of all movements of the kind, and that to wait till the 

 peasantry of any country is politically educated is to wait till Domes- 

 day. He is not yet converted to the English official view, and wants 

 to talk things over with me. 



" 16th April. — Asquith's new Ministry is fully formed, and one is 

 able to judge more or less what the change means. It is certainly 

 retrograde as far as humanitarian views are concerned, and is now as 

 purely Whig Imperialist as it could well be made. The Colonial Office 

 will be run on lines of pure Imperial Federation. We shall see the 

 colonists in South Africa allowed their way with the native blacks. The 

 Zulus will be harried in Natal, and Dinizulu hanged or deported. I do 

 not trust Crewe, who always had a Colonial twist, and we shall see a 

 hack Under-Secretary answering inconvenient questions in the House 

 of Commons. It will be the same at the India Office with Morley 

 removed to the Lords. The Government was bad before, it will be 

 worse now. The bright spot in the situation is Redmond's declaration 

 against Asquith. It can hardly mean anything else than war with 

 the Whigs, and a strong opposition on imperial questions. Bannerman 

 being a thorough Home Ruler has hitherto been a stumbling block to the 

 Irish, but about Asquith they have no illusions. 



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