35§ Halsbury Dinner a Failure [191 1 



an English county, or give them complete Home Rule; there is no 

 middle course.' This, I know, is George's own view, yet in public 

 he is always saying Home Rule is impossible and so is the other. 



" 2jth July. — George's revolt is not likely to succeed. They held 

 their public dinner to Halsbury last night, and were only able to 

 muster some forty peers at it, while Balfour and Lansdowne have 

 produced a list of 250, and these have threatened to vote for the Bill 

 rather than have peers created to swamp them. The fact is the revolt 

 is all too late. 



" Dillon lunched with me and described the scene in the House of 

 Commons on Monday, and Hugh Cecil's behaviour. The mot d'ordre 

 for the Irish party had been that they were to sit absolutely silent 

 during the row, which they knew was intended, but at the height of 

 it, some of the Irish grew excited and began to shout, while Redmond 

 turned on them and said in the hearing of the Tories, who sit with 

 them on the Opposition benches, ' If these damned Englishmen choose 

 to make bloody fools of themselves, it is no reason for us not to behave.' 

 The sentiment was approved by some of the Tories, and one of them 

 said to Redmond, ' Though you did call us damned Englishmen I agree 

 with every word.' 



" Down to Worth Forest in the afternoon. Quite late a messenger 

 from Glyn's Bank made his appearance, having wandered all over the 

 woods at Newbuildings, and on here, carrying £500 in gold for me, 

 my provision for war. He, poor man, was nearly dead with his 

 exertions in the heat, and I made him stay and dine with me and found 

 him good company, with his reminiscences of the Bank and City af- 

 fairs. He has been twenty years at Glyn's. I gave him a full meal 

 and plenty of wine, and sent him away happy somewhere about mid- 

 night ! " 



[This adventure, unique in the good man's experience, has become 

 a legend now in Lombard Street.] 



" 28th July. — Asquith has given in about Agadir, pretending that 

 he did not mean that the Germans were not to have a naval station 

 on the North Atlantic coast. Rothstein, whom I saw three days ago 

 in London, tells me that before Lloyd George's war speech at the 

 Banker's dinner was made, a Cabinet was held, at which it was decided, 

 with only one dissentient, Loreburn, the Lord Chancellor, that Germany 

 should be defied about Agadir at the risk of war. Loreburn, however, 

 went to the London Editor of the ' Manchester Guardian,' and told him 

 about it, and got him to write in a pacific sense. The ' Daily News ' had 

 been notified by the Government in a contrary sense, and orders had 

 been issued to the Northern Squadron. Their swagger, however, did 

 not frighten the Germans, only made them angry, and as the French 

 have not the least notion of going to war about Agadir to please us, 



