iqto] "You Must Not Quarrel If I Annex Egypt" 323 



are three people who have always disapproved of it, you and I and 

 Cassel, each arriving at his view on different grounds.' 



" The only subject we avoided was the conference about the Lords, 

 but I feel sure that they have come to terms with the Irish. Redmond 

 has just made a speech in Canada announcing Home Rule all round. 

 What exactly this may mean is uncertain, but it would hardly have 

 been made unless some agreement had been come to with the Tories 

 that the Irish demand was to be conceded. About the railway strike 

 in France, he expressed much confidence in Briand. Besides all this, 

 a metaphysical argument was started on the old doubt about the exis- 

 tence of matter, and we even got for a moment into theology. With 

 Gordon Blunt he discussed military manoeuvres, declaring our own 

 on Salisbury Plain this year to have been absurd. On every topic he 

 was good, making from time to time most amusing little House of 

 Commons speeches and telling anecdotes in illustration. Nobody could 

 have been livelier or more witty. We all agreed, as we went to bed, 

 that we had had an excellent show. His last word to me was, ' You 

 must not quarrel with me if I annex Egypt.' While at Constantinople 

 he saw the Khedive whom he described as ' between the devil and 

 the deep sea.' England and the National Party. 



" 16th Oct. (Sunday). — Worth Forest. I am over in the Forest 

 for a few days. On our walk up from Cinder Banks we came upon 

 four deer, one a white doe, close to the great beech tree. This was 

 Percy and Madeline's golden wedding day. 



" 19th Oct. — It is announced from Teheran that Grey has threatened 

 to occupy Southern Persia, a last perfidy which has decided me to write 

 to Riza Bey and advise the Turkish Government to join the Triple Alli- 

 ance openly, if they get the offer. It is the only thing left for any 

 Moslem state to do. The Anglo-Franco-Russian Entente intends their 

 destruction. 



" 20th Oct. — Chapel Street. I have despatched my letter to Riza 

 Bey, of which I have kept a copy as it is important. I see there is ex- 

 citement at Constantinople about the British threat to Persia, which will 

 certainly make for the proposed alliance. Riza Bey will show my 

 letter to the Grand Vizier and it ought to settle the matter. Our 

 Foreign Office has been very foolish with its Russian Alliance. Osman 

 Ghaleb writes with a full account of the Egyptian Congress at Brussels 

 and the reception my address to it met with. He describes this as hav- 

 ing been ' profound,' so much so that Baron Max de Wendland, Cham- 

 berlain of the King of Bavaria, who was sitting next him, exclaimed, 

 ' There are still honest politicians left in England.' Copies of my ad- 

 dress were sent by him to the Grand Vizier, Hakki Pasha, and to Saad 

 Zaghoul. It has been reproduced in full at Cairo and Constantinople, 

 and it is evident that it came at a most critical moment and has had its 



