1910] Farid Bey at a Meeting 313 



" 20th June. — I have written, at Dillon's suggestion, to Redmond 

 about Grey's speech on Egypt, urging him to take the matter up 

 strongly on the first occasion. Asquith has fooled them after all about 

 the House of Lords, and has gone into conference with Arthur Bal- 

 four about the compromise of the quarrel. Unless the Irish get rid 

 of Asquith, Grey and Haldane, they will never gain what they want. 

 They have certainly had bad luck with the King's death, but it was 

 a mistake their allowing the Budget to pass. 



"26th June. — Newbuildings. D G was here to-day, 



just back from the Congo with some friends interested in the rubber 



trade. It is a sordid and abominable occupation, and D has made 



a fortune out of it, as there has been what is called a rubber boom. 

 He has for some time past had a rubber speculation in the Malay 

 Peninsula and took service under that scoundrel King Leopold to 

 learn the art of the thing, and now, old Leopold being dead, he has 

 returned to Europe. I asked him whether the tales of the atrocities 

 on the Congo were true, and he admitted that they had been so, but 

 said it was all changed now. All the same it is a sorry business for 

 one like D . 



"28th June.— -Chapel Street. With Beauclerk to the White City 

 to see the Japanese pictures, which are worth looking at, and in the 

 evening with Farid Bey to a Conference at Caxton Hall, where he 

 made a speech about Egypt in French which nobody understood. These 

 meetings are entirely useless, the audience made up mostly of young 

 Indians and enthusiastic middle-aged ladies. 



" 29th June — Dillon and Farid to lunch. We decided that Dillon 

 is to bring on the Egyptian question, if possible, as an Irish party 

 question in connection with the Foreign Office Estimates; otherwise 

 no real debate is possible. The points he is to attack are ( 1) The 

 financial mismanagement with the spending of twenty-six millions of 

 the Reserve Fund, (2) The new Press and Deportation Laws; (3) 

 The Suez Canal Convention. Dillon recommends that the Legislative 

 Council should sign a public protest against the new coercion laws 

 passed over their heads. I am to write a pamphlet. Farid has his 

 facts well in hand, but, as usual, his inability to speak English stood 

 in his way with Dillon, who speaks no French. 



" 10th July (Sunday). — Newbuildings. Dillon and Khaparde are 

 here for the week-end. Dillon is hopeful about Irish prospects. He 

 says the Sinn Fein movement as far as it was hostile to the Parlia- 

 mentary party has all but died down. He expects a General Election 

 in January, with a result of even forces between Tories and Radicals ; 

 and so the possibility of an arrangement between the two parties 

 favourable to Home Rule. He has seen much of Churchill lately, who 

 is much depressed at the failure of their plans. Dillon will do what 



