3/0 Bonar Lazu Chosen Tory Leader [ l 9 11 



they are going to memorialize the Lord Chancellor with a view to my 

 being deprived of my functions as Justice of the Peace in the County 

 of Sussex. These wise men have not stopped to enquire whether I have 

 any such function to be deprived of, their anger being caused by a 

 passage which they consider vilifies the British Army. I shall let them 

 run on and make fools of themselves for awhile. 



' 12th Nov. (Sunday). — Beauclerk just returned from his gold dig- 

 ging in Alaska. He and Belloc dined with us. The sensation of the 

 moment is that the Tory Party has decided to elect as its leader, in 

 succession to Arthur Balfour, who resigned last week, one Bonar Law. 

 It appears that the old Tories would not stand Austen Chamberlain for 

 the place, and the Tariff Reformers would not stand Walter Long, and 

 this Law is a compromise. 



* 13th Nov. — Worth Forest. The Ottoman Government has remon- 

 strated to the European Powers about the Italian atrocities as a breach 

 of the rules of war, but these have answered that they are ' unable to 

 take action.' It is certain that the Tripoli raid was arranged before- 

 hand with France and England at the time of the Agadir business. I 

 am less sure about Germany. [It is now known that the German Gov- 

 ernment did not approve of the raid. The French had agreed to it with 

 Italy as a ' compensation ' to Italy for their own misdeeds in Morocco. 

 Our Foreign Office approved, seeing in it a means of detaching Italy 

 from the Triple Alliance. A scoundrel affair as ever was perpetrated.] 



" i$th Nov. — Worth Forest. There was a debate yesterday in the 

 House of Commons about my book, ' Gordon at Khartoum,' in which 

 Colonel Seely, representing the War Office, used strong language, and 

 undertook to approach the Lord Chancellor with a view to having me 

 removed from the Commission of the Peace and from my position as 

 Deputy Lieutenant of the County, neither of which dignities has ever 

 been mine. It is all very absurd, and now I shall answer. I had just 

 sat down to write one when a young man named Duckworth arrived, 

 much bedraggled by the rain, after a long wandering to find me in the 

 Forest, and asked for an interview on the subject for the ' Daily News.' 

 I gave him tea, but no information. 



" ijth Nov. — My reply to Seely is printed in the ' Daily News,' 

 ' Daily Mail,' and other morning papers. The gallant Generals are 

 more angry than ever at having made fools of themselves, and there 

 is talk of their getting the law strengthened, so as to prevent criticism 

 of the Army. 



" 18th Nov. — The post has brought me a number of anonymous 

 abusive letters, with others of congratulation on my reply to Seely. 



" I have just finished reading the first volume of Count Paul Hoens- 

 broech's ' Fourteen Years a Jesuit,' which interests me enormously, 



