34 2 The Bagdad Railway [ l 9 l ' i 



service of France in the case of a war with Germany. Also that it 

 is impossible we should raise such an army. The Entente is pretty 

 nearly dead. 



" yrd March. — The first number of ' Egypt ' was distributed this 

 morning, sixteen hundred copies. It happened to be the bicentenary 

 to a day of the first issue of Addison's ' Spectator.' 



" $th March (Sunday). — Newbuildings. Belloc to dinner. He as- 

 sures me Haldane has not got 50,000 men to send to Egypt if they want 

 to do so. He thinks it more likely that the condominium will be re- 

 established there, with a joint French and English garrison. 



" Eddy Tennant has been made a peer (yet another member of the 

 Crabbet Club arrived at high honours). He is also made Lord Com- 

 missioner of the Church of Scotland. 



" yth March. — There was a pronouncement yesterday in all the 

 papers from Berlin and from Constantinople, in which it was clearly 

 declared that England will not be allowed to meddle with the Bagdad 

 railway, a final blow to Grey and the Foreign Office in exact confirma- 

 tion of what I had just written about Grey's blundering. Happening 

 to meet Belloc, I asked if he had noticed it, and what would be the 

 result. He said : ' The danger is that Grey may make a coup de tete 

 and rush into a war with Germany.' 



" gth March. — There has been a debate on the Bagdad Railway. 

 Dillon writes excusing himself for not having taken part in it, but 

 he has arranged with Ramsay MacDonald that they are to act together. 



" 10th March. — With Beauclerk to the National Gallery, where we 

 looked at the Lansdowne Rembrandt. This, though a good landscape, 

 is not at all worth the £100,000 Lansdowne has been offered for it, nor, 

 I think, 100,000 pence. It is ridiculous giving long prices of this kind 

 for small unimportant pictures, however good, and here we have noth- 

 ing very wonderful. The new rooms at the Gallery do not display the 

 pictures to such advantage as the old ones, and the walls are decorated 

 too much like a railway restaurant. 



" 12th March (Sunday). — Chapel Street. Dillon came to lunch, 

 and we had another long talk about the Bagdad Railway, Persia, and 

 Egypt. As to Ireland, he thinks Home Rule will be come to by agree- 

 ment, the younger Tories seeing now that their party has been ruined 

 by its obstinacy in opposing it. He gave an interesting account of the 

 Irish debate on Thursday, an all night sitting, where, Asquith having 

 been called away, Churchill was for the first time left Leader of the 

 House. A band of young Tories, Hugh Cecil, Winterton, Castlereagh, 

 and one or two others, took the occasion to rag Winston, and succeeded 

 in making him lose his temper by continual noise and calling out ' Rats ! ' 

 so that he was driven to a standstill. It is strange to see him thus hoist 

 with his father's petard. 



