1910] / Appeal to Asquith about Egypt 325 



shot. It must have been travelling faster than I thought and at a 

 greater height. On arrival at the garage at Aldershot it got torn and 

 exploded, but the passengers, they say, were unhurt. It seems to have 

 been the first regular passenger ship to cross the Channel. 



" 28//i Oct. — I have sent a copy of ' Egypt's Ruin ' to Asquith, with a 

 letter requesting him to read it, and another to Morley. In my letter 

 to Asquith I say, ' Our position in Egypt, taken in conjunction with the 

 general attitude of the Mohammedan world, is a very critical one and 

 may any day need your personal decision in the Cabinet to prevent 

 greater mistakes than those already made at the Foreign Office. It 

 is for this reason that I beg you not to allow things to drift on there as 

 Mr. Gladstone allowed them to drift in 1882, till no issue could be 

 found for them short of a violent one.' In my letter to Morley I have 

 added an allusion to his conscience. I don't suppose either of them 

 will read or answer, but it will at least be on record that I placed the 

 truth before them. 



" 2nd Nov. — Jour des Morts, but whether it will be Persia or Turkey 

 that will die, or the British Empire, depends upon Providence and the 

 Kaiser Wilhelm. I went up to London early, in connection with a 

 Mohammedan meeting to be held about Persia, in the afternoon, and 

 found Syud Mahmud and another young Indian Moslem in Chapel 

 Street, and helped them to draw up a resolution, or rather an amend- 

 ment to the resolution, which will be proposed there. It is to this 

 effect, ' that in view of the actual presence in Northern Persia of Rus- 

 sian troops and of the recent threat to occupy Southern Persia with 

 British troops, and in view, moreover, of aggressions in the past under 

 closely similar circumstances of ill faith by both Russia and England, 

 this meeting of Mohammedans resident in London, is of opinion that 

 no reliance can be placed on Sir Edward Grey's declarations that 

 Persia's ancient independence will be respected by either of the two 

 occupying Powers and it calls upon His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, 

 and the Government of Turkey to concert measures with the Persian 

 Government for the speedy ending of a situation which is a menace to 

 both Persia and Turkey, and an intolerable insult to the whole of 

 Islam.' The young men assure me that such a resolution would obtain 

 a large majority of votes. It has been occasioned by the news that 

 British bluejackets have been landed at Lingah on the Persian Gulf 

 ' to protect life and property.' 



" Called later on Rivers Wilson, who talked about old times, and 

 especially about the year he spent as private secretary to Disraeli, 1867- 

 1868. Dizzy, he says, was in those days still the farceur he had been 

 in his youth, having his tongue in his cheek and not pretending to be 

 serious when behind the scenes. He would sit with him, Rivers, telling 

 stories hour after hour, always amusingly and never pompously. It 



