318 The Egyptian Congress Forbidden [1910 



with the Sinn Fein movement, being friends especially with the Healy 

 faction. 



" 24^/1 Aug. — Farid has written inviting me to be Honorary Presi- 

 dent of the Egyptian National Congress to be held at Paris on the 

 22nd of September, and I have written accepting, though I cannot be 

 there, sending an address to be read at the first meeting. 



"30th Aug. — The Kaiser Wilhelm has made a speech at Konigs- 

 berg in which he allowed himself a new outburst about his ' divine 

 right.' I remember just the same thing nearly fifty years ago, when 

 his grandfather came to the throne. His ' Gottes-Gnaden ' was a 

 phrase of comic opera mocking in Germany at that time. 



" 6th Sept. — Chapel Street. A Mr. Atkin came to lunch to con- 

 sult me on Turkish affairs in Arabia. He has been lately at Constan- 

 tinople and tells me there is a pretty complete brouille between the 

 Young Turks and the English Embassy; our ambassador, Lowther, 

 does nothing and knows nothing, and the Germans have it all their own 

 way. There is talk of the Sultan bringing on the Egyptian Question 

 with the support of Germany and Austria. I doubt, however, whether 

 Atkin is a reliable informant. 



" i$th Sept. — Newbuildings. Father John Pollen, S.J., came to 

 lunch from Burton Park and spent the afternoon, he not having been 

 here since 1876, when he went into his Jesuit novitiate. He is a 

 pleasant, good fellow, and we had much talk about old days when 

 the Pollens lived here. Philip Napier and his wife also came, and 

 we had much Egyptian talk. He is living at Sheykh Obeyd now, 

 and has developed good National sympathies, a most unusual thing 

 for an Englishman in Egypt. 



" 16th Sept. — The French Government has forbidden the Congress 

 being held at Paris, and it has had to be transferred to Brussels. 

 According to an account sent me by Goumah, he and Farid had an inter- 

 view yesterday with the Chef de Cabinet du Premier Ministre, in 

 which he excused the French Government by saying that ' France was 

 so surrounded by enemies that she could not afford to quarrel with 

 her one friend, England.' The forbidding of the Congress is in ac- 

 cordance with an agreement come to with England, that if the French 

 Government will forbid the Congress the English Government will 

 consent to liberate Savarkar. I hope it is so, for the first will be a 

 small misfortune compared with France's surrender of a captured 

 fugitive and her violation of the right of asylum. 



" 20th Sept.— There is a quarrel between the French Government 

 and the Turkish Government over a loan of £6,000,000 arranged by 

 the latter with the Credit Mobilier, but which the French Govern- 

 ment refuses permission to be quoted on the Bourse because it is to 

 be applied to the purchase of war ships in Germany. [The ' Goeben ' 



