218 Henry Nevinson [1908 



is some prospect of the Bulgarians and Turks settling their differences 

 between themselves without waiting for the European conference. 



" Meynell, who dined with me, is anxious to get a monument put 

 up to Francis Thompson in St. Paul's, if not in Westminster Abbey. 



" 20th Oct. — Nevinson came to see me just back from India, where 

 he has been in the thick of the revolutionary movement. His book had 

 given me the idea that he was rather hopeless of its continuance, but 

 he assured me that it was not so; the danger was that it would go too 

 fast, there would be riots which would be suppressed with great bar- 

 barity, and that would make reform impossible, the hatred of England 

 has become so great. Only if we left India what profit would it be 

 to the Indians, they would fall a prey to some other Empire, German, 

 Russian, who knows what? Nevinson is a remarkable man in appear- 

 ance, tall, and with a severe manner. He did not smile on entering, 

 and from his expression one might have thought him come with hostile 

 intent, but he warmed to our conversation, and talked pleasantly and 

 freely, and has offered to send some of the Indian Mission which has 

 just arrived in London, Gokhale and Lajpat Rai, to see me. Gokhale 

 he says is now the real leader of the revolutionary movement. We 

 talked about Morley and his projected reforms. He thinks he means 

 to do something of value in the direction of increasing the number and 

 power of the native members of council, even perhaps that he will 

 reverse the partition of Bengal. He agreed with me all the same in 

 my estimate of Morley as a weak-backed politician, quite ignorant of 

 India and the East, swayed by the permanent officials, and principally 

 anxious for general praise and his social position. We were wrong 

 he said in expecting so much of him. On the whole Nevinson pleases 

 me greatly. He has strength, and is as regardless of the conventional 

 attitude as a journalist can well afford to me. 



" Next Rothstein came in a pessimistic mood about Egyptian and 

 Turkish things. He wants some action taken at Cairo, but I don't see 

 what can be done there till the Legislative Council meets in December, 

 when a demand for a constitution might be made to the Khedive 

 backed up by popular demonstrations. This seems to me the best pro- 

 gramme, with a repetition of it by the General Assembly which is to 

 be convoked in February or March. 



"21st Oct. — George Wyndham came to lunch, and we discussed the 

 whole Eastern situation. He agrees with me that the trouble in Bul- 

 garia and Bosnia was originally of German-Austrian raising. He also 

 considers Grey to have made a mess of things. His support of the 

 new regime in Turkey was quite right, but he ought to have gone fur- 

 ther, and when. Austria announced the annexation of Bosnia he ought 

 with France to have declared that England would allow no infringe- 

 ment of the Treaty of Berlin, and stuck to it. He, George, had al- 



