191 1 ] Will the Entente with France Last 341 



book by Sir Henry Cotton. Miss Howsin, though enthusiastic and 

 painstaking, is, I fear, useless as editor, as she has had no literary ex- 

 perience. 



" Savarkar's case has given in favour of the English demand, which 

 refuses to send him back to France. I am sorry for the poor young 

 man, whose real crime in Anglo-Indian official eyes has been his author- 

 ship of the ' History of the Indian Revolution.' 



" 26th Feb. (Sunday). — Newbuildings. Belloc to dine. Very cock- 

 a-hoop about the success of his ' Party System,' which has come very 

 opportunely. It is most amusing, though, unlike his books, is written 

 seriously. He tells me he gets constant letters about it and invitations 

 to lecture at £20 a night. We discussed, among other things, the 

 fortification of Flushing, which he declares the French Government 

 would make a casus belli, but I doubt the French fighting for it. 



" 2SU1 Feb. — Chapel Street. Beauclerk brought Lord Ronaldshay 

 to luncheon, a pleasant young man of thirty-five, who has travelled 

 much in Asia, and is now in Parliament, with aspirations of being 

 some day Viceroy of India. He was A.D.C. to Curzon for a year, 

 and regards him with much admiration, though understanding the 

 weak points of his character. My view of Imperial matters was en- 

 tirely new to him, as it is to most people, though it is really forty 

 years old. He, like everybody else, confuses the meaning of the 

 word Empire, which has only quite recently been applied to our white 

 colonial system, which is no more imperial than was the Greek colonial 

 system in the days of Pericles. Empire properly means what the 

 Roman Empire was, the subjugation of a number of races by a single 

 race or a single man. This is the Imperialism I repudiate, not the 

 other. 



" 1st March. — Called in Park Lane and found George Wyndham 

 working up a speech on the Veto Bill. He told me the party had made 

 up its mind to fight. The Lords would not pass the Bill, whatever 

 threat of creating peers might be used. 



" 2nd March. — There is a new Ministry at Paris, Monis, Prime Min- 

 ister; Delcasse, Marine; and Cruppi, Foreign Affairs. 



" Mrs. Harrison told me of a luncheon at which her husband had 

 been present at Morley's, there being Alfred Lyall also there and 

 Chirol. Morley had put to them three questions. (1) Was the en- 

 tente with France less cordial than when it was made? (2) Was it 

 possible to improve it? (3) How could it be improved? All but 

 Morley agreed that it had ceased to be effective; that the French 

 were disappointed at the results, and that the only thing that could 

 make it effective would be the introduction of some form of con- 

 scription in England which would enable us to place an army at the 



