1910] The King's Speech 291 



quith's declaration that he had very definite guarantees. He thinks if 

 so that Asquith will be out of office by the end of the week. He would 

 come again in the evening, and give me a full account of everything in 

 the House when it was over. This he did, and unfolded all his secrets. 

 He began by giving a dramatic account of the reading of the King's 

 speech and the debate in the Commons which followed it. The speech 

 is certainly one of the most feeble and obscure and ungrammatical ever 

 composed by the Committee of the Cabinet which draws these speeches 

 up, and reads as if it was the House of Commons, not the Lords, which 

 was to be attacked. He described Arthur Balfour's speech which 

 followed as artistically the best he had heard him make, but too subtle 

 to be understood by the dullards of the House, though leading up to an 

 effective climax, ' a series of lancet wounds,'. George said, ' from first 

 to last, ending in a stiletto stab.' Asquith's reply showed courage. He 

 declared he had never intended to imply that he had got any guarantee 

 from the King or even asked for one, only such guarantee as a Bill 

 brought in in Parliament could give. The finance was the first consid- 

 eration, and then the Veto. His speech was well reasoned, but excited 

 no enthusiasm. Then Redmond got up, and also made an excellent 

 speech, less of an oration than is his usual style, but more effective. He 

 declared roundly that Ireland had no interest in helping the Government 

 to pass their Budget ; the Veto was all they cared for, as a preliminary 

 to Home Rule. 



" What was most interesting in George's account was his estimate of 

 what next would happen. He became very confidential, and told me 

 Balfour did not intend to take office if Asquith resigned. Certainly 

 he, George, would refuse office, though he knew a high one would be 

 offered him. He thinks there would then be no way out of the dead- 

 lock except by Rosebery being invited to form an Administration of a 

 stop-gap kind, which he could do with Milner, Cromer, George Curzon, 

 Hugh Cecil, and Lord Durham. It would be supported by the Tories 

 till after another General Election. 



" I asked him about Lord Percy's death, and he told me the story was 

 nonsense of his having died otherwise than of pneumonia. He had 

 known Percy intimately well. He described him as a man who had 

 never had any passionate adventures ; who was deeply religious, of his 

 father's Irvingite creed ; interested in politics, but only in a pessimistic 

 sense, as he believed all was going hopelessly wrong. His vitality was 

 low, and he easily succumbed. There was no real mystery at all about 

 his death, but the Paris newspapers could not understand how an Eng- 

 lish lord should be staying at the Gare du Nord Hotel instead of one 

 more fashionable, and so had invented a fanciful explanation, and thus 

 every kind of absurdity had been put about, but there was not a ghost 

 of foundation for any of them. Every public man who fell ill at 



