LITMIR.BIZ

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I am beginning, most unwillingly, to think that Ireland is not fitted for a Constitutional Government, and that, however much we may try to remove legitimate grievances, she will not be got into hand again without a return to something like a Cromwellian policy. It is heart-breaking work all round, and unless some extraordinary transformation can be effected, we shall probably have to submit in this country to any amount of shipwrecks of governments within the next few years. I feel very gloomy as to the look out. Would that we could apply to Ireland a regeneration such as you have found in Egypt… That wretched Ireland has nearly knocked the Government out of time as regards foreign policy. They will, however, still manage, I hope, to find a corner of room for Greece, and not let that question entirely slide, which would inevitably mean war between Turkey and Greece. Greece could never contend single-handed with Turkey successfully, and Turkey at war would probably be the signal for a general revolt in Eastern Roumelia and Macedonia. I still trust some sort of compromise on the question of adjusting the territory of the kingdom of the Hellenes may be effected by the intervention of the Powers in the direction of a small slice northwards, and perhaps the handing over of Crete. There is no doubt that a means of strengthening and opening out Greece must be found, not only to keep the peace temporarily in the East, but to lay the foundations for some power that may grow into a set-off against the Slavic nationalities…"

"10, Downing Street, Feby. 11, 1881.

      "Your letter has since its receipt made a little ministerial round. I read parts of it to Mr. Gladstone; and Lord Granville and Mr. Goschen have both had the benefit of perusing it themselves, and of perusing it, as I am told, with interest. Lord Granville, moreover, sent a copy of your postscript, which related to Indian matters, to Lord Hartington. I hope in having turned your information to official account I shall not be considered to have abused your confidence. I have shown it also to Harry Brand. His father, the Speaker, has had difficulties to encounter such as no predecessor in the Chair ever had before; and he has come out of the ordeal magnificently. What with unprecedented continuous sitting of the House for days and nights and wholesale suspensions of obstructive Members, we have been having most exciting Parliamentary times. I trust, however, that the neck of obstruction as of the Irish land-agitation has been fairly well broken; and when once the Coercive, or rather Protective, measures have been passed, and a fair, just and strong and comprehensive Land Bill has become law, we shall not be troubled again immediately with the Irish nightmare.

      "Meanwhile of course all public attention has for the last few months been centred on that wretched God-forsaken country, and the public have not troubled their heads much with foreign affairs. However, the Greek question has not been forgotten. Lord Granville has been pulling the strings most diplomatically, and not, I hope, without success. Of course the great stumbling-block of making head with this difficult question has been the very shabby part which France has played, first blowing so hot and then blowing so cold. However, Bismarck has been induced to take the initiative in making a new proposal which may possibly lead to good results. The primary condition of all the Powers is of course to maintain the peace of Europe. If it were not that the outbreak of war between Turkey and Greece would almost inevitably lead to the outbreak of disturbances and fighting in Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia, and if it were not that Greece's chances single-handed in a combat would be very small, the natural preliminary to Greece raising herself in the European scale would be by an appeal to the sword. The modern Romans would not have had a united kingdom but for fighting for it, and the modern Greeks could hardly complain were they obliged to face similar difficulties and dangers. But apart from the dangers of a stand-up fight, Greece, having been made the special protégé of Europe, has a right not to be thrown overboard now. If the Berlin award cannot be enforced peacefully – and owing to France's action this seems to be admitted – I believe the massacre of the award has been termed in diplomatic phraseology, 'Le Barthélemy de St. Hilaire' – the best alternative seems to be to find some equivalent for Greece – I mean by compensating her elsewhere for what she does not obtain, Thessaly and Epirus, which she would accept and which the Powers would in concert help her to obtain. Such a proposal as this may possibly be the new departure. I am afraid your remedies, though far more effective, are too drastic for acceptance by Europe."

      I do not remember what in my letters can have suggested this long digression about Greece, which did not particularly interest me at the time. The phraseology of the letter is so like Mr. Gladstone's own that I half think this and the previous letter must have been more or less dictated by him. For this reason I quote them almost in extenso, and because the long account of the difficulties of his Greek policy suggested to me the idea that perhaps he might, if there was a rising on the Greek frontier, also encourage one concurrently with it of the Arabs in Syria.

      Our journey from Ismaïlia was an interesting one. Once across the Suez Canal we struck due eastwards, over a long track of sand dunes, to a very little known hill region called the Jebel Hellal. This, on a small scale, has some of the characteristics of Nejd, in vegetation and in the arrangement of its sand drifts, and we made friendly acquaintance there with the Aiaideh, the Teyyaha, and, further north, with the Terrabin tribes, as well as with those very Azazimeh with whom we had been so nearly having an encounter five years before. All these tribes were at that time independent of the Ottoman Government, living as they did in the no man's land which forms the frontier between Syria and Egypt. They had, however, as is always the case in independent Arabia, been at feud with each other and, with debts of blood on either side, the war had gone on and on, causing much disturbance even to the confines of Gaza. The Ottoman Government, to put an end to the trouble, had resorted to one of their common devices. They had invited the chiefs of the two principal tribes to a friendly conference with the Muteserif of Gaza, and had had them treacherously surrounded and captured, and were now holding them as hostages for the peace of the frontier in prison at Jerusalem. At that time the long tradition of English influence in Turkey was still alive among the Arabs, and as we passed through the tribes the relations of the imprisoned sheykhs besought my intervention with the Government to obtain their release. In pity for them I consented to do what I could, and I took with me the acting Sheykh of the Teyyaha, Ali Ibn Atiyeh, and the little son of the Sheykh of the Terrabin, who rode on with us to Jerusalem, making our way over the hills by no road so that we arrived at El Kuds, or rather at Bethlehem, without having entered a single town or village on all our journey. At Jerusalem I called at once upon our Consul, Moore, and obtained through him from the Pasha an order to visit the prisons, and found there the sheykhs I was in search of in an underground dungeon near the Mosque of Omar. They were in a pitiable condition, suffering from disease and long confinement, and I made an application to the governor on their behalf for an amnesty for them on condition that a general peace should be agreed to between the tribes, an agreement which I had got them to sign and seal. The Muteserif, however, declared himself incompetent to order their release, and referred me to his superior, the Valy of Damascus, as being in a position to do so; and to Damascus we therefore went, still accompanied by Ali Ibn Atiyeh and with our camel caravan, by way of the Jordan valley and the Hauran plain, a beautiful and interesting journey, for the whole country, there having been heavy rain, was a garden of Eden with flowers. In the Hauran we found war going on between the Ottoman troops and the Druses, but managed to slip by between the two armies without molestation and so arrived at Damascus, where we alighted at a little house in the Bab Touma quarter which I had purchased, with an acre of garden behind it, on our visit of three years before when we were starting for Nejd.

      Our house at Damascus was next door to that of the well-known Englishwoman Lady Ellenborough, or, as she was now called, Mrs. Digby, who, after many curious adventures in the East and West, had married in her old age a Bedouin sheykh of one of the Anazeh tribe, and was living with her husband, Mijwel, at Damascus, being no longer able to bear the hardships of her former desert life. From her and from her excellent husband, whom we knew well, we received the advice that we should put our case for the release of the prisoners neither before the Consul nor directly before the Valy, but indirectly through the intermediary of their distinguished friend and our acquaintance of 1878, Seyyid Abd-el-Kader, whose influence at Damascus was more powerful on all things relating to the Arabs than any other with the Government. Abd-el-Kader was then a very old man, and was leading a life of religious retirement and held in great reverence by all in the city, and amongst the Arabs in Syria especially, he had a large following, for he had often proved their protector. Mijwel assured me that it would be merely

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