I9 10 ] Churchill's Prison Reform 295 



City generally to make another advance of thirty millions to carry on 

 with till the new General Election is over. He thinks Rosebery could 

 manage this with the Jews. He had just come from the House of 

 Commons and had heard Churchill announce his scheme of prison re- 

 form, which is based closely on my memorandum. George entirely ap- 

 proves the scheme as he did what I had written about it three weeks 

 ago. 



" 16th March. — Winston's pronouncement on prison reform reads 

 better than even George's description of it. It is everything I could 

 have wished, and I went to Eccleston Square to congratulate, and found 

 him alone. He is quite thorough about the reforms and said he would 

 have liked to adopt the whole of my programme only public opinion was 

 not ready for it yet. However, the Home Secretary will now have full 

 power to mitigate prison treatment, and, except for crimes of violence, 

 to put all prisoners with a good character (and that will include political 

 prisoners) in the first class of misdemeanants. 



" With regard to the political situation, Winston said : ' We shall 

 carry on all right now till the end of April, when the crash will come 

 either on the Budget or the Lords' veto. If we are beaten on the Budget 

 we shall resign ; but I can't think Redmond will be fool enough to turn 

 us out, though we don't know what he is going to do. If he votes 

 against the Budget he will take all the sting out of the attack on the 

 Lords, and the Irish have no chance of getting Home Rule except by 

 abolishing the veto.' He is sore with Redmond for making himself a 

 leader of revolt with the Radicals against the Government. He thinks 

 his party will win seats at the General Election. If so, they will re- 

 main in office, and when the Peers reject the veto will dissolve Parlia- 

 ment. 



" Dillon writes showing that he is not for upsetting the Government. 

 ' I cannot quite agree with you about the Liberals. The leaders have 

 behaved badly, but the rank and file is sounder than at any time since 

 Rosebery's betrayal of 1895. I do not see why we should break with 

 the Liberals without reasonable proposals from the Tories. At pres- 

 ent the Tories are under the worst possible influences. It is clearly 

 our policy to support an attack upon the Lords.' 



" iyth March. — Goumah writes to say that he means to start a 

 monthly Nationalist paper in England, and asks me for help. [This 

 was a first suggestion which led to our issue of the monthly paper 



' Egypt.'] 



" 24th March. — They have released eight young men in Egypt whom 

 they had arrested as Wardani's accomplices. 



" 31st March. — Chapel Street. Dillon spent an hour and a half this 

 morning with me. He gave me the exact plan he and Redmond have 

 determined on. The situation is that Grey and Haldane are trying to 



