Chapter II: George Wyndham’s Irish Land Bill, 1902 (3)

“For the afternoon visit he turned to philosophy, and asked the Mufti whether it was true that thought in the East was developing on the same lines as the thought of Europe. Mohammed Abdu told him that what the East was learning from the West was the evil rather than the good, but that still the best and most enlightened thought of both was the same. ‘To go to the bottom of things,’ said Spencer, ‘I suppose that the conception of the underlying force of the world, what you call Allah and we call God, is not very different?’ In his reply the Mufti made a distinction which struck Spencer as new. ‘We believe,’ said Abdu, ‘that God is a _Being_, not a _Person_.’ Spencer was pleased at this, but said the distinction was rather difficult to grasp. ‘At any rate,’ he said, ‘it is clear that you are Agnostics of the same kind as our agnosticism in Europe.’ We had not time to develop this train of thought, as Spencer is only allowed a few minutes’ talk at a time, but later, on our way back to the station, I questioned the Mufti more closely on the point. _I._ ‘Do you believe that God has consciousness, that he knows that you exist and that I exist, and is not such knowledge personality?’ _The Mufti._ ‘He knows.’ _I._ ‘If he knows, he knows that you are good and I am bad.’ He agreed. _I._ ‘And he is pleased with you and displeased with me?’ _The Mufti._ ‘He approves and disapproves.’ _I._ ‘And he approves to-day because your actions are good, and he disapproves to-morrow because your actions have become bad. Is not this change from approval to disapproval characteristic of personality? How then has God no person?’ _The Mufti._ ‘God knows all things at all times; to him there is no to-day and no to-morrow, and therefore in him is no change; His is an eternal unchanging consciousness of all things. This I call Being, not Personality.’ _I._ ‘And Matter? Is not Matter eternal, too, or did God create it? If he created it he made a change?’ _The Mufti._ ‘Matter, too, is eternal as God is eternal.’ Here evidently is the foundation of Abdu’s thought, and we agreed that our ideas are the same.

“With Spencer, however, we could not argue all this out, and we took leave of him only half satisfied, but glad that we had had the privilege of even this small glimpse of his mind. The young ladies whose acquaintance I had made four years ago are still living with him, and they gave us an interesting account of the old philosopher’s way of life. He takes a certain pleasure in their company, having no relations of his own except one deaf old woman and hardly any friends. He has seen only three or four people since his illness in April. Last year, however, he was in comparatively good health, and spent the summer near Leith Hill, and went out sometimes with them to picnics, which he enjoyed, taking an interest in the flowers and birds, and now he has them to sit with him every evening and makes them play chess or drafts or cribbage in his presence, ‘and he always wishes to know,’ they said, ‘which of us has won.’[3]

“We went on to London, and Professor Browne and Cockerell joined us at dinner in Chapel Street. Abdu is to go to Oxford to-morrow and to Cambridge on Wednesday. It has been lovely weather during all their visit at Newbuildings.

“_22nd Aug._—To Hatfield for Lady Galloway’s funeral. Her death came upon me as a sudden shock, for I had not heard of her illness, a very short one. She was taken with a severe pneumonia on Friday, and only yesterday I had had a letter from Wagram telling me that his son Alexandre was going to stay with her in the New Forest, and I had been looking forward to seeing her there. She died at Cuffnells, which she had rented for the autumn. I remember her first as a girl not yet out in 1866, the year of Sadowa, with her mother, who was then Lady Salisbury, at Homburg, but I did not meet her again till one evening, when I sat next to her at a dinner at the Admiralty, and later when we were both staying at the Paris Embassy the year before Lytton died. Then we finally made friends. She had led a sad life, but her later years were happier. Now all is over suddenly and for ever.

“To-day was a lovely day after several of heavy rain. At King’s Cross I found Pom McDonnell, and we travelled down to Hatfield together, having also with us Eddy Stanley, whom I had not before seen. At the church there were not a dozen mourners, besides the few house servants and retainers, with Lord Arthur Cecil, her brother, and one of Lord Galloway’s brothers as chief mourners, Arthur Balfour, who though four years older, was her nephew, Lady Hayter, and Miss Mildred Hope, her two chief women friends, George Leveson Gower, and me. Of all her society friends there was not one, and none of Lord Salisbury’s sons, while Lord Salisbury himself, her ‘big brother’ (as she used to call him) lay dying in the great house hard by. It was pitiful, tragic, touching, with the sunlight streaming in through the windows on the Cecil monuments. I took a place away from the official mourners, for it was a very private funeral in the Cecil family burial ground, and I was not one of them, but I went with the rest to the grave which they had made in a sunny corner under the wall. The churchyard is a very pretty one and is the place where she had chosen to be laid. She always had a passionate love for Hatfield, her early home. When all was finished I went on into the park, meaning to spend an hour or two there before going back to London, but as I was passing by the house one of them asked me in and we all sat down in the great hall to a luncheon which stood ready, but the lord of the palace lay dying in a room upstairs, as we all knew, and the funeral baked meats stuck in our throats. I doubt whether any one of us had the courage to eat more than a few mouthfuls. Then I went on for my walk alone and wandered an hour in the park, where children were playing and shouting as if nothing momentous were taking place in the great house. The deer were lying out in a cool place in the open, and rabbits were busy nibbling under the great oaks, and the ownership of it all was passing from one Cecil to another, for Robert Lord Salisbury died at sunset.

“_31st Aug._—At Clouds. Lord Salisbury is being buried, I believe to- day, quietly at Hatfield, the offer of a grave in Westminster Abbey having been rejected. This is in keeping with his life, which has always scorned honours and hated publicity. He has been certainly in his way a great man, and without much pomp or parade, one who has achieved great things. People only half recognized these as yet because he has never talked much about them, but they are very real, and will some day be recognized for what they are; not that I am in sympathy with his doings, only in the manner of their doing. By far the largest of his achievements has been the partition of Africa. This was imagined in secret and developed silently. It may be said to have begun at Berlin in 1878, when the joint financial intervention in Egypt was arranged with France and Tunis was given her in return for Cyprus, a scandalous beginning, followed by the retention of Egypt and the various deals with Italy, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, and France, which have mapped out the whole Continent between the four Powers, England getting the most valuable if not quite the largest share. The reconquest of the Soudan was a policy wholly Lord Salisbury’s, and I believe he had his full share in the intrigues which brought on the reconquest of the Transvaal, though perhaps less directly responsible than Chamberlain. At the Foreign Office he re-established in large measure England’s influence on the Continent. He engineered the Entente Cordiale with America at the time of the Spanish War and got round the Emperor William in anticipation of the Boer War. All these were notable triumphs. Hardly less so at home has been his rehabilitation of the monarchy as an effective force in politics, the resurrection under his guidance of the House of Lords, and the reduction of the House of Commons to impotence except as a machine to support the Government. His anti-Home Rule policy in Ireland alone has been a failure. It seems now to be breaking down at all points, especially his idea that twenty years _resolute_ government would destroy opposition. I think, too, that he has sacrificed the real interests of rural England, with which Conservatism is bound up on not a few vital points. Under his guidance the Jew capitalists have flourished while the agricultural community has decayed. This he certainly did not intend, and here have been his failures. Nevertheless, he was head and shoulders taller as a statesman than the other statesmen of his day, including Gladstone and Disraeli, I mean judged by results, for he was neither an orator like Gladstone, nor a writer like Disraeli. Personally in my few dealings with him I always found him kind and courteous. I met him first, if I remember rightly, in 1880, when I travelled down with him and Lytton by train to Lewes. It was an accidental meeting. Then I had an interview with him about the same time at the Foreign Office to talk over the affairs of Arabia, Syria, and Egypt, but this I think must have been before the other meeting, as he left office in June 1880 and Lytton did not return to England till August. Later, in 1883, I had a curious talk with him at the House of Lords about the Palmer business, and since then have had from time to time bits of correspondence with him about Egyptian matters. In all these he took the trouble of writing to me himself and always with great courtesy. As long as Lady Salisbury lived her influence with him was, I think, favourable to me. I was rather friends with Lady Gwendolen, and Lady Galloway was his half- sister. His retirement from the Foreign Office was a loss to me in every way. Peace be with his ashes.

“_1st Sept._—To-day George arrived from Ireland. This is George’s holiday time, and he has no red office boxes following him about, but I found him full of talk about his political plans. He considers things will go smoothly now in Ireland, and that the large majority of estates will change hands under the new Act which comes into operation in October. About preferential tariffs (Tariff Reform), he took me into his confidence. He considers that Chamberlain has absurdly exaggerated the importance of the Colonies, especially Australia. ‘For all practical politics,’ he said, ‘they are negligible quantities, that is to say for the next thirty years, though they may become of importance later. We need take no count of them at all now, only Canada needs to be considered, and whatever we do in the way of preference must be for her alone. This is what will be decided at the next Cabinet, and we shall develop in our speeches in October. Canada’s position must be taken in connection with the United States, which again is the only world power likely to rival our own. Germany and France we need not worry about as rivals.’ Of his own position and prospects he talked with his usual naïve self-confidence. ‘I am just forty,’ he said, ‘and find myself with the balance of power in my hands. I mean of power in the Cabinet. We shall go out of office next year, then I shall take a long holiday. I shall go travelling all the world over, and not trouble myself in opposition, at least for a while. In fifteen years’ time I shall leave politics for good, the more one sees of them, the more futile they appear, and I shall have had enough of them by the time I am fifty-five. Of course I must be Prime Minister first, I am sure of that. I am constantly approached already to lead the Party, and I can do so when I please. I don’t see who is to be my rival in it, George Curzon will be in the House of Lords, and I am younger than all the rest. It is surprising how little ability there is, but I don’t mean to go on for ever with it. I have other things to do.’

“_3rd Sept._—I asked George to-day about the King, and what impression he had made on him during the visit to Ireland. He said, ‘The King is intelligent about political matters, and quick to seize ideas, almost too quick. He is really interested in Ireland, and the Irish have found out he is favourable to them. I don’t know how they knew about it, but they know.’

“_7th Sept. to 11th Sept._—I paid a visit with Anne to Ashley Coombe where the Lovelaces are settled for the autumn. He very busy cutting trees and attending to other improvements much needed. I had not been there to stay since my honeymoon. We had a pleasant time now riding every day through the oak woods, which are very beautiful, and extend from the shore of the Bristol Channel to the edge of Exmoor, with its open heaths a thousand feet above us.

“Ralph has given me his ‘Astarte’ revised to read. It is much improved, though it still retains his attack on Murray.

“_30th Sept._—Austin Lee writes from Paris that Berthe Wagram who has long been ill is not expected to live many days. She has received the last sacrament. Poor Wagram, he says, is in a terrible state of despondency and nervous excitement. [Lee telegraphed again two days later to tell me she was dead.]

“Meynell has dedicated his new book on Disraeli, for whom he has a great _culte_, to me. I have written to him as follows:

“‘I have now read the whole of your two volumes, and am only sorry there are not two more. Your Dizzy is indeed a creature of loveable qualities, and the human part of him you have brought admirably out, his affection, his lightness in hand, his wit. This last I place next in the world to Voltaire’s, his intellectual father. Tancred, Coningsby, Ixion, these have more wit in them than anything in literature since Candide. So far I go with you.

“‘You must not, however, call me a “Dizzy-_worshipper_,” as you do in your dedication. I am a hundred miles away from that. Æsthetically our good Jew was a terrible Philistine; and politically (I say it with some timidity to you his apologist) a very complete _farceur_. I don’t like to call him anything worse than that. “Mountebank” and _charlatan_ are abusive terms which imply deception for an ignoble end, and of this there is no sign, for his ambition was pure of all money calculations. Only you cannot persuade me that he ever for an instant took himself seriously as a _British_ statesman, or expected any but the stolid among his contemporaries to accept him so. His _Semitic_ politics of course were genuine enough. For his fearlessness in avowing these I hold him in esteem—for a Jew ought to be a Jew—and I enjoy as a _tour de force_, his smashing of those solemn rogues the Whigs, and his bamboozling of the Tories. Our dull English nation deserved what it got, and there is nothing funnier in history than the way in which he cajoled our square- toed aristocratic Party to put off its respectable broad-cloth, and robe itself in his suit of Imperial spangles, and our fine ladies after his death to worship their old world-weary Hebrew beguiler under the innocent form of a primrose. All this was excellent fooling, but the joke has been rather a poor one for the world at large, and has saddled us at home with what we see, a bragging pirate democracy.

“‘So don’t call _me_ a worshipper. I will laugh as much as you like, and I will even love the brother of Sara—but I will not take the member for Maidstone seriously, or the Creator of the British Empire, even on his way home to his Queen-Empress from Berlin.

“‘P.S. I am not sure I ought not to ask you to add this letter to the dedication in your next Edition.’

“_5th Oct._—I hear on extremely good authority that an arrangement has been come to between Cromer and Gorst to the effect that Gorst is to have Cromer’s place at Cairo on condition that later he is to give way to Cromer’s son, Cromer having the ambition to found a sort of dynasty in Egypt. This is to take place next year, I mean the first step of it, Cromer’s retirement. His new wife has just presented him with another son.

“_6th Oct._—The great political excitement of the last three weeks, consequent on Chamberlain’s resignation of the Colonial Office ended yesterday, with the resignation of the Duke of Devonshire and the publication of the names of the new ministers. Chamberlain’s resignation was at first taken as indicating a collapse of his plans, but it almost at once transpired that it was only an intrigue between Arthur Balfour and himself for the better execution of their programme, and to rid themselves of certain colleagues who were declared free traders, while keeping the Duke whose influence in the country, as a safe if slow man typical of the old Whigs, is great. In my opinion however, the whole fiscal agitation has been got up by Chamberlain in order to divert public attention from his own blundering in South Africa, which it was almost incredible the British public could condone if it had had time to examine it fairly. Chamberlain is not a man of sufficient intellect to get any real grasp of large questions even of trade. All his career proves this, and the only wonder is to find him in friendly partnership with a man of honour like Arthur Balfour. Arthur, I see, has just put Alfred Lyttelton into the Colonial Office, continuing thus the tradition of what I call the ‘Soul’s Cabinet,’ Milner having refused. The appointment is amusing to those who know the feminine side of things. St. John Brodrick, another of the set, goes to the India Office in spite of his incapacity; the two, with George at the Irish Office and Arthur, make up a Soul quartet at which one smiles. And to think of all these fine gentlemen being hustled and browbeaten by that great . . . Joe of Birmingham. What a comedy!

“_14th Oct._—Shot the Woodgaters beat with Dormer, Robert Gregory, and Caffin, getting seventy-two pheasants. Young Gregory is a distinctly good shot, and an extremely nice fellow.

“_21st Oct._—With Dorothy to Annunzio’s Italian play, Francesca da Rimini, the chief part played by Duse. We found the play intensely interesting, quite admirably acted, especially by the men; the fourth act is I consider the finest dramatic conception, and was the most finely executed of any I have ever seen on any stage. As a rule I hate mediæval plays, but this one has all the reality of a thing of to-day, while it sacrifices nothing of the atrocity inseparable from mediæval Italy. It is the work of a great genius comparable to that of Victor Hugo at his best, Corneille, Racine, and even Shakespeare. We were both deeply moved, and the impression was sustained to the end.

“_22nd Oct._—George tells me he had great difficulty in evading the War Office, which was thrust upon him in the recent Ministerial changes. ‘But,’ he said, ‘I go on the Cromer principle of sticking to one thing until it is done thoroughly, and I mean to stick to Ireland. I could have had any place I liked, but I would not move.’ He is now going to take up the Catholic University, not that it is urgent, but as part of the programme, and because the present will be a capital moment to start it when everyone is busy with the preferential tariffs. ‘I like,’ he said, ‘fishing in troubled waters, but I shall not force the thing on. I must get my colleagues to go with me.’ I asked him how he was going to endow it, whether he was going to take funds from Trinity College or how? He said, ‘No, I never take anything from anybody, my plan is always to give. I shall endow a Catholic University and a Presbyterian University out of the public Funds, the money admittedly due to Ireland. It will be a great thing to do both at once, because then I shall split the religious interests into three, instead of as now into only two, and shall always be able to get two with me against the third. I asked him whether he is going to announce his scheme at Dover where he is to speak to-morrow, and showed him the article in the ‘Times’ of this morning, which he had not read. He read it, and was rather put out by it. ‘It is too stupid of Buckle,’ he said. ‘I must write him a strong letter at once, and put a stop to this.’

‘_31st Oct._—Here I close this year’s journal as far as my life in England is concerned. The part I was able to play in Irish affairs this summer has given me confidence my life has been not quite wasted. I await the future calmly, feeling that I have almost completed my life’s work.

“Victor Lytton, who has been staying at Whittinghame and other headquarters of information, has given me a true and particular account of the recent Ministerial crisis. Chamberlain’s first shot, fired in the Spring at Birmingham, was in consequence of the refusal of the Exchequer to grant a preference in favour of the Colonies on the Corn Tax or to continue the duty. The refusal was quite unexpected by the rest of the Cabinet and was not taken seriously by them at first; later Arthur Balfour’s whole effort has been to keep the Cabinet together, but as he has been gradually converted by Chamberlain to retaliation, and as Ritchie is an out and out free-trader it became impossible to do so, and the free-traders in the Cabinet had to go. Ritchie and Hamilton and the Duke of Devonshire resolved together on this course the day before the Cabinet meeting, and the two first sent in their written resignations, but the Duke, who was always behind-hand through slowness of thought, delayed writing his. So Arthur was able to persuade him to stay on. Arthur is furious now with the Duke, because in his own slow time he has got to understand the drift of what was going on, and has now resigned and left them in the lurch. It is like keeping on a cook after she has given warning. She gives you nothing but cold mutton, and chucks up altogether the day of your dinner party. Victor gave some amusing stories of the Duke’s slowness and forgetfulness. Lord Dudley had been invited to dinner one day at Devonshire House, and as he was driving up to the door saw a royal carriage entering the courtyard in front of them, and began to trouble himself because he had not put on his orders. When the carriage stopped at the front door the King stepped out, but nobody seemed prepared for their coming, and it transpired that the Duke had told no one of having invited the King, and had forgotten about it himself. He was found playing bridge at the Turf Club.

“I stopped to luncheon with Victor and Pamela and met there for the first time young Winston Churchill. He is a little, square-headed fellow of no very striking appearance, but of wit, intelligence, and originality. In mind and manner he is a strange replica of his father, with all his father’s suddenness and assurance, and I should say more than his father’s ability. There is just the same _gaminerie_ and contempt of the conventional and the same engaging plain spokenness and readiness to understand. As I listened to him recounting conversations he had had with Chamberlain I seemed once more to be listening to Randolph on the subject of Northcote and Salisbury. About Chamberlain he was especially amusing, his attitude being one of mingled contempt and admiration, contempt for the man and admiration for his astuteness and audacity. In opposition Winston I expect to see playing precisely his father’s game, and I should not be surprised if he had his father’s success. He has a power of writing Randolph never had, who was a schoolboy with his pen, and he has education and a political tradition. He interested me immensely. He is writing his father’s life and told me he had found a number of my letters and asked me for any I might have of his father’s, which I was glad to promise him for his book. There was also there a young man Murray of the same political set.

“Now I must stop, being overwhelmed with work before starting for Egypt.”