My diary for 14th March notes a talk with Sir Henry Rawlinson, the former Minister to Persia, a distinguished Oriental historian, his views being of the strongest Anglo-Indian official type.
The Egyptians had always, he said, been slaves, and slaves they would remain. Their country would be absorbed with the rest of Asia by England or Russia. He knew Asiatics too well to believe they had any taste for self-government.
Also another talk with Walter, the proprietor of the "Times," whom Button had suggested I should see. He conversed in platitudes for half an hour, and in the end, promised he would send a special correspondent to Cairo for independent news.
(This, however, was not done, Macdonald, the manager, objecting on the score of needless expense.)