Later we worked a good deal together on the Egyptian question, and he proved of considerable assistance when things came, in July, to a crisis. I was at that time urging that a Commission of Inquiry should be sent to Cairo, and it seemed that he, perhaps, might fill the post.
The same afternoon I saw Hamilton in Downing Street. A violent article, headed "Smouldering Fires in Egypt," had just appeared in the "Pall Mall," which was little better from beginning to end than a tissue of the old malicious stories, with some new ones prejudicial to the Nationalists. To these Hamilton pointed as a convincing proof, seeing they were in the "Pall Mall," that I must be wrong, "Or why," he said, "should Morley, who is so good a Liberal, take such a very illiberal line?" I explained to him Colvin's position in regard to Morley, which I had not yet done, and urged him again to let me speak with his chief. Up to this point, from a feeling of loyalty to men who had been my friends, and with whom I had acted during the earlier stages, I had refrained from making complaints against them, though Malet had not scrupled to complain of me. But now I saw that further silence on my part would be only mischievous, and I was resolved to tell Gladstone all the truth about them. Morley had the day before warned me of the impending article as one to which I would not assent, and had invited an answer to it. But I was too angry to reply, except with a short private note, which I followed next day by a visit to Northumberland Street, where I reproached him with printing the malicious nonsense. The evil, however, had been done, for the publication had immediately preceded a motion in the House of Commons brought forward by Sir George Campbell in regard to Egypt where the defamatory tales had been made use of. I was present at the debate on the motion, in which the principal speaker for the Government was Goschen, who adopted a conciliatory attitude, but less than a quite friendly one to Egyptian Nationalism. My conversation with him in the morning may have saved us from a worse pronouncement. Still there was no definite declaration made favourable to liberty.