be found amongst the many highly qualified European
residents in Egypt of divers nationalities to enable this question to be
answered in the affirmative.

It is, of course, impossible within the space allotted to me to deal
fully on the present occasion with all the aspects of this very
difficult and complicated question. I can only attempt to direct
attention to the main issue, and that issue, I repeat, is how to devise
some plan which shall take the place of the present Egyptian system of
legislation by diplomacy. The late Lord Salisbury once epigrammatically
described that system to me by saying that it was like the _liberum
veto_ of the old Polish Diet, "without being able to have recourse to
the alternative of striking off the head of any recalcitrant voter." It
is high time that such a system should be swept away and some other
adopted which will be more in harmony with the actual facts of the
Egyptian situation. If, as I trust may be the case, Lord Kitchener is
able to devise and to carry into execution some plan which will rescue
Egypt from its present legislative Slough of Despond, he will have
deserved well, not only of his country, but also of all those Egyptian
interests, whether native or European, which are committed to his
charge.

[Footnote 68: It is believed that a proposal to reform the constitution
of the Egyptian Legislative Council and to extend somewhat its powers is
now under consideration. Any reasonable proposals of this nature should
be welcomed, but they will do little or nothing towards granting
autonomy to Egypt in the sense in which I understand that word.]

"THE SPECTATOR"

VIII

DISRAELI

_"The Spectator," November 1912_

No one who has lived much in the East can, in reading Mr. Monypenny's
volumes, fail to be struck with the fact that Disraeli was a thorough
Oriental. The taste for tawdry finery, the habit of enveloping in
mystery matters as to which there was nothing to conceal, the love of
intrigue, the tenacity of purpose--though this is perhaps more a Jewish
than an invariably Oriental characteristic--the luxuriance of the
imaginative faculties, the strong addiction to plausible generalities
set forth in florid language, the passionate outbursts of grief
expressed at times in words so artificial as to leave a doubt in the
Anglo-Saxon mind as to whether the sentiments can be genuine, the
spasmodic eruption of real kindness of heart into a character steeped in