Mr. Stead at the American Embassy. 



165 



the excellence of the Boer cartridges, they had secured 

 them all from him. " Oh, no ! " he said. He did not 

 think thai God Almighty took any part in the matter. 

 I said, ■' When you see a small company of men 

 put to fliifht whole armies, and you find that 250.000 

 men cannot cope with fifteen thousand, you htgin 

 to feel that there was some invisible power behind 

 the Boers." 



" No," he said, " God is on the side of the stronger 

 battalions." 



I said, '■ The stronger battalions have made a 

 pretty mess of it for the last two years, anyhow, 

 and they don't seem to be mending matters now. 

 God Almighty never had a belter case to interfere 

 with than on the side of the Boers." 



He said I was quite incorrigible. He said that the 

 attack in the days of the old flint-lock ought to out- 

 number the defence by three to one, but in the case 

 of modern weapons it ought to outnumber the defence 

 by six to one. 



I said that might be, but every Englishman was 

 taught to believe that he could at least lick an equal 

 number of his enemy anyhow, and when it came to 

 350,000 against 15,000 it was simply too humiliating 

 for words. 



He said no ; that the state of the country had to 

 be taken into account, and so forth. 



1 told him that I had seen De Wet's doctor, and 

 he said they were going on. 



SIR GEORGE LEWIS. 



Then I came upon Sir George Lewis, who was looking 

 very white. I .said to him that he and I were both 

 getting respectable at last. He said that I was quite 

 a youngster compared with him. I .said I was fifty-two. 

 lie .said lie was in his sixty-ninth year. 



Sir George Lewis said he thought the war was a 

 irightful disaster for the country, and that the name 

 of ChamlK-rlain wuuld stink in the nostrils of the 

 nation. I >aid 1 thought it already smelt. He asked 

 ne if I did not think his son had done splendidly in 

 ■ ii'fending the Slur. I said yes, but at the moment 

 I really did not know that his son had done il , but 

 they made A very good fight. 



" But," I said, '' why did they give so nmi-h dimatjis 

 to the other fellow ? " 



He said his own idea was to have olltrcd tlic olliir 

 i( How a (|uarter f>f what Chamberlain got, which was 

 rily /50, but he would not take il, anti there wa 



.dly no defence possible, and the £1,500 included 

 lie costs. He said that Chamberlain only got £'200 

 i. images, and they had paid Clarke £1,200 to act as 



their counsel. He said that the case had cost the 

 Star altogether, including everything. £5,000, and it 

 had cost Chamberlain £2,500 over and above what he 

 got from the Star, and if they had known that they 

 knew what was elicited in cross-e.xamination, they 

 never would have taken the case into court. He 

 said that there were a lot of judges there, including 

 the Lord Chief Justice. I said I never saw a Judge 

 excepting from the dock, so they were no good to 

 me. He laughed. He said he was merely hanging 

 on in order to push his son forward as much as possible, 

 for he did not know how much longer he would last. 

 I said, " Will you get to work upon your memories ? " 

 " No." he said, " they will never be written." 

 " Well," I said, " history will lose a great deal." 



SIR HOWARD VINCENT A.ND PRO-BOERS. 



Then I came upon Sir Howard Vincent. He was 

 very cordial, and said I was growing very fat, 

 and that when he last saw me I looked underfed, and 

 now I was looking extremely flourishing. 



Then I said to Sir Howard Vinicnt that I was afraid 

 he would shrink from shaking hands with such a 

 pro-Boer as myself. He said no, he was very glad to 

 see me. 



" Well," I said, " anyhow, things are romping round 

 in your direction." 



He said, " You mean about trade ? " 



" Yes," I said. 



" Did you ever reflect," he said, " upon the frightful 

 irony of this ceremony ? " 



" Yes," I said, " I do." 



He said, " Is it not very humiliating for John Hull ? 

 The conquerors do not insult us ; nevertheless thev are 

 dragging us at their chariot wheels." 



I asked him whether he had read Carnegie's article 

 in the Nineteenth Century for June. He said he had 

 not ; i)ul he would read il, and hu was much interested 

 in it. 1 saui to iiim, '" Look here, sir, I always feel 

 interested in you. because you were with me at the 

 ' .Maiden Tribute ' time, and said that it was the 

 jumping-ofT point of all that I did, and now I give you 

 a word of advice. We arc going to have a very bad 

 time in England. The House of Lords and all the fossi- 

 lised Conservatism in this country is going to be 

 crumpled up. You get out from under while there is 

 lime." 



SMASll-UP OF FOSSILISED CONSERVATISM. 



" 1 agree," he said — " 1 agree with you ; we are 

 going to have a very bad time. You believe that il will 

 be through trade .' " 



