November. The provisions relating to the "French shore" and the Newfoundland fisheries had been more or less severely criticised by different politicians on the publication of the conventions, and the same criticism was repeated by those who attacked M. Delcassé in Parliament. However, on November 3, after a three days' debate, the ensemble of the agreements was carried by 443 votes to 105!

Among the provisions of the convention relating to Egypt and Morocco was an article in which the two Governments stated that " being equally attached to the principle of commercial liberty, both in Egypt and Morocco," they undertook " not in those countries to countenance any inequality either in the imposition of customs duties or other taxes, or of railway transport charges," and stipulated that this "mutual agreement was to "be binding for a period of thirty years," and thereafter to be extended, if not denounced at least one year in advance, for further periods of "five years at a time."

The full importance of this provision did not at once strike the critics of the Egypt-Morocco convention. That its effect was reciprocal for Egypt and Morocco seems to have been thought satisfactory by Governments and their critics on both sides. It gave both the Egypto-British and the French Governments power on the expiry of thirty years to impose duties so far as they were respectively concerned. It was obvious that, if France retained her protective policy and her existing practice of regarding her colonies as more or less exclusively reserved for the importation of French manufactures, French imports into Morocco after thirty years would probably be given the benefit

of preferential treatment as against British goods, unless by raising a similar barrier in Egypt against French goods (provided we were still entitled to do so) we could force France to renew the equality-oftreatment clause. At a time when "retaliation " was regarded as an " " for British manuopen sesame factures into all protected markets, this consideration possibly seemed a sufficient guarantee against the closing of the Morocco market!

The limitation of the duration of the clause in question, however, was obviously not without danger for our Morocco trade. As regards other countries, though they were not bound by the agreements between the two contracting parties, they might nevertheless find themselves faced by a fait accompli thirty years hence, closing both the Egyptian and the Morocco markets to their trade. This was the one truly weak truly weak spot in the conventions, as will be seen in the next chapter.

Immediately after the signature of the conventions of April 8, I had intimations from friends, Lord Brassey, Lord Alverstone, and M. d'Estournelles de Constant, that my services in connection with the entente were to be simultaneously acknowledged by the two Governments. In June the King conferred a knighthood on me and the Republic the officership of the Legion of Honour. But higher still than these outward appreciations I value the private letters received from the friends who had worked with me in a campaign which it almost makes me giddy to think of, now that its object has been attained. But for the unfailing faith in the cause of my many powerful collaborators and a Press on both sides which never flinched in its support, public opinion could not have

been moved as it was. In this connection I may recall the names already mentioned of Lord Alverstone,1 Lord Brassey, Sir William Holland (now Lord Rotherham), Mr. Ernest Beckett (now Lord Grimthorpe), Sir John Brunner, Mr. C. P. Scott (editor of the Manchester Guardian), Lord Avebury, Mr. Hodgson Pratt, and Mr. W. L. Courtney (editor of the Fortnightly Review), whose active participation in the work has already been mentioned. On the French side, the late M. Frédéric Passy, Professor Charles Richet (to whom the Nobel Prize for Medicine has just been awarded), M. d'Estournelles de Constant, M. Mascuraud (president of the Comité Republicain du Commerce et de l'Industrie), and M. Décugis have all attached their names to the general work of drawing the two nations into bonds of union and peace.

From several hundreds of friends and fellowworkers I received letters of congratulation. If I select only one, it is not because I value the others less, but because it marks more particularly the feeling at the time towards a cause the character of which has since been most mischievously misrepresented.

Mr. Ernest Beckett, who, as one of the leading spirits of the movement, could speak with authority,

wrote me :

"I must send you a word of very hearty congratulation upon the more than well-deserved honour that has at last been bestowed upon you.

"I am delighted that your most brilliant and useful services to humanity at large and your own country in particular have met with recognition, and I can honestly say that, in

1 See his letter, p. 236.

my opinion, for whatever it may be worth, no honour that has been conferred upon any individual for many years has been so entirely merited by work of such value as yours. The Government in honouring your successful efforts on behalf of peace and good-will between nations that should always be friends, in the teeth of difficulties and discouragements that would have long ago daunted and deterred most men, have honoured themselves more than you, and I am very glad that you have been distinguished in the eyes of all men."

CHAPTER XXIII

A NEW ERA-GERMANY

THAT a new era had dawned on Europe was not at once realised by even the leaders of British public opinion. It was vaguely felt, however, by some that an entente with a foreign State, though entailing no precise or binding engagement, might, nevertheless, for its own preservation involve us in matters where our interest was not obvious. What had not occurred apparently to anybody was the possible lateral effects, those unforeseen consequences of which Disraeli subtly bid statesmen never to lose sight. The most unforeseen of incidents, in fact, soon occurred, and then we saw that our relation to our new friend's ally had undergone a change, which has since developed into a complete redistribution of the political forces of Europe.

The Fashoda affair was essentially a diplomatic incident. Lord Salisbury had to excite public opinion on the subject artificially by the urgent publication of a White Paper to get the nation to appreciate its importance. The Dogger Bank incident at once excited public opinion to such an extent that the Government very nearly lost control. If war had been declared or the Russian fleet had been annihilated in the Channel without declaration of war, I firmly