216 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK 



This was at the beginning of the time of 

 England's terrible anxiety about General Gordon's 

 mission in the Soudan. Sir John had an article 

 on the Soudan in the Contemporary for April. 

 The excitement in the House was not diminished 

 by an omission inadvertently made by Mr. 

 Gladstone in reading out of a telegram from 

 Cairo that " the French Consul has left," and 

 there stopping, not observing that it went on 

 " further papers for our consideration." 



Sir John writes in his diary on February 19 : 

 " Parliament met. Gladstone made a very un- 

 satisfactory statement. I am all against going 

 to Khartoum unless we mean to stay there." It 

 is evident that both on the Egyptian question 

 and on Home Rule for Ireland there was not the 

 same harmony of opinion between himself and 

 Mr. Gladstone as had been the case for many 

 previous years. 



There is rather an interesting note, too, in the 

 diary for April 23 : " We had some talk in the 

 House about arbitration, and eventually, at the 

 request of Whitbread, Rathbone, and some 

 others, I wrote to Lowell and asked him to see 

 me on Friday morning, which he did. He said 

 he knew no reason why the United States should 

 not arbitrate, and if I thought there was a 

 sufficiently strong feeling he would telegraph out 

 and ask. In the afternoon Whitbread and I 

 saw Lord R. Grosvenor (the chief Whip), and 

 told him what had been done. Of course he 

 could say nothing definite, but expressed his own 

 impression that it was quite a move in the right 

 direction. On Monday I again saw Lord Richard, 



