found one or two
obstacles on which he had not reckoned, and perhaps could not have been
expected to reckon. By that forbearance of which he was a master, they
were in good time surmounted. New men, of a promise soon amply fulfilled,
were taken in, including, to Mr. Gladstone's own particular satisfaction,
the son of the oldest (M177) of all the surviving friends of his youth,
Sir Thomas Acland.(299)

Mr. Gladstone remained as head of the government for a year and a few
months (Aug. 1892 to March 3, 1894). In that time several decisions of
pith and moment were taken, one measure of high importance became law,
operations began against the Welsh establishment, but far the most
conspicuous biographic element of this short period was his own
incomparable display of power of every kind in carrying the new bill for
the better government of Ireland through the House of Commons.

In foreign affairs it was impossible that he should forget the case of
Egypt. Lord Salisbury in 1887 had pressed forward an arrangement by which
the British occupation was under definite conditions and at a definite
date to come to an end. If this convention had been accepted by the
Sultan, the British troops would probably have been home by the time of
the change of government in this country. French diplomacy, however, at
Constantinople, working as it might seem against its own professed aims,
hindered the ratification of the convention, and Lord Salisbury's policy
was frustrated. Negotiations did not entirely drop, and they had not
passed out of existence when Lord Salisbury resigned. In the autumn of
1892 the French ambassador addressed a friendly inquiry to the new
government as to the reception likely to be given to overtures for
re-opening the negotiations. The answer was that if France had suggestions
to offer, they would be received in the same friendly spirit in which they
were tendered. When any communications were received, Mr. Gladstone said
in the House of Commons, there would be no indisposition on our part to
extend to them our friendly consideration. Of all this nothing came. A
rather serious ministerial crisis in Egypt in January 1893, followed by a
ministerial crisis in Paris in April, arrested whatever projects of
negotiation France may have entertained.(300)

IV

In December (1892), at Hawarden, Mr. Gladstone said to me one day after we
had been working for five or six hours at the heads of the new Home Rule
bill, that hi