Many of Lord Cromer's oldest and most intimate friends may perhaps be surprised to hear that Lord Cromer consulted me so often and on so many points. If so, I shall not be astonished at their astonishment. It would be most natural in the case of a man so self-reliant, so able to judge and balance things for himself—so little liable to be carried away by personal feelings, as Lord Cromer. Yet, it is true The reason was, I think, that Lord Cromer found with me, as I found with him, that in response to, or in reaction from any particular series of events we almost always found ourselves ad idem. We wanted the same good causes to win, and we wanted to frustrate the same evil projects. In public affairs, we agreed not only as to what was injurious and as to what was sound, but, which is far more important, we agreed as to what was possible.
In economic matters, both in theory and practice, we moved on exactly the same lines. Once or twice, when I most sincerely thought that I was differing from Lord Cromer and told him so, because I felt I might seem to be shifting my ground,—or rather, looking at things from a different angle,—I found that an exactly similar process had gone on in his mind.
As so often happens with a friendship of this kind, I foretold in my own mind almost from the first moment I saw him, the kind of tie that was going to unite us. I had not spent half an hour in his company before I realized that I had at last found a man dealing with great affairs in a great way,—not only a man who satisfied me absolutely in theory, but a man with whom I could act unreservedly because his mind was tuned to the same pitch as mine.
I well remember the day and the hour of our meeting. Always deeply interested in Imperial questions, and especially in the Egyptian problem, I determined, in the year 1896, to pay a visit to Egypt. Like most young men of my day, I admired Lord Cromer and his work, but I had no special cult for him. Naturally, however, I took out letters of introduction, for until the end of his occupation of the post of Consul General, he was "Egypt." One of these was from my chief, Mr. Hutton, one from my uncle, Sir Richard Strachey, and another, if I remember rightly, from another uncle, Sir John Strachey; the two uncles had been colleagues of Lord Cromer's on the Indian Council. Directly I arrived in Cairo, I left my card and my letters of introduction in the usual way, and expected, after a decent delay, to be asked to pay a semiofficial visit at the Agency. Instead, Lord Cromer acted with his characteristic promptitude. Early on the morning of the day after I had left my letters of introduction and my own and my wife's cards, there came one of the beautifully dressed Syces from the Agency with an invitation to lunch with the Cromers that day. We went and to our great delight found them alone. Therefore, I was able at once to get en rapport with my friend that was to be. I had not finished luncheon before we had plunged into the whole Egyptian question and had got to my own cherished point, one connected with the French occupation of Tunis, their promises of evacuation, and so forth. This, my first experience of I do not know how many hundred talks with Lord Cromer, was exactly like the last. In the art of unfolding his mind and his subject he was a master. I questioned and he answered, and I remember distinctly feeling that I had never before put myself so easily en rapport with any man. I had been told that he was gruff, nay, grumpy, and quite without any of the arts of the diplomatist, and that I should find him very different from the statesmen and politicians to whom I was accustomed. Instead, I found him plain and straightforward, but as kind as he was quick.
After luncheon, we had a very long talk which was at last interrupted by Lord Cromer having to go out to open something or to see somebody. As I was saying good-bye he suddenly said: "I suppose you can keep a secret?" I made a suitable reply, and added I had a lock to my portmanteau. With his quick step he was at the side of his bureau in a moment. Unlocking a drawer, he thrust into my hand a white paper. "That," he said, "is a memorandum which I wrote the other day for Lord Salisbury, giving a character of the Khedive and of all the chief Egyptian statesmen. It wouldn't do to lose it, and there are, I suppose, agents of the Khedive who might possibly look out for papers in your rooms if they heard you had been seeing me." He said this rather apologetically, for he hated anything sensational or melodramatic like the true Whig he was. He added however: "I think it would be better when you are not reading it if you kept it in your portmanteau. Don't trouble to return it till you have read it thoroughly. I think it will amuse you."
I was touched at the moment, but when I got back to my hotel and saw the nature of the document I felt pleased beyond words. I did not, of course, imagine that Lord Cromer would suspect me of wanting to betray his secrets, but considering the place, the Agent General's position, and the fact that he was then at the height of his quarrel with the Khedive and on the most delicate terms with half the men mentioned in the document, I felt that he had reposed a confidence in me which most people would have thought only justified in the case of a man they had known for years, a man who, they were sure, would not cackle about a subject of which he was naturally, as I was, quite ignorant. No doubt he knew there was no peril of my publishing anything, but if I had left these perfectly plain-spoken dossiers of all the big men in Cairo about in the hotel, the result might have been catastrophic. This exhibition of confidence was characteristic of Cromer. If he trusted you, he trusted you altogether. Though he indulged in no nonsense about being able to tell in a moment whether a man was trustworthy or not, and did not often act upon impulse, he was quite capable of doing so on occasion.
In itself the document was exceedingly brilliant and just the piece of work which a busy Prime Minister like Lord Salisbury would greatly value. It put him au fait with the exact position of the various players in the great game of intrigue which was always going on, and with the plots and counter plots made in the Khedive's Palace or in the houses of the various Pashas. They spent most of their time in those days in trying to trip up the Agency.
Lord Cromer not only exposed the motives of the men with whom he was dealing; he often gave the just apologies for these motives. But he did more than this. Without being unduly literary or rhetorical he gave lively characters of the men described. What fascinated me about these analyses of character, however, was that though they were like the best literature, you felt that Cromer had never let himself be betrayed into an epigram, a telling stroke, or a melodramatic shadow in order to heighten the literary effect. The document was a real State Paper, and not a piece of imitation Tacitus or Saint Simon.
I found myself greatly admiring and even touched with envy. I wondered whether, in similar circumstances, I should have been able to resist the temptation to be Tacitean. One felt instinctively that Lord Salisbury must have been grateful to have such an instrument for dealing with a situation so delicate and so intricate and placing so great a responsibility on the man in charge.
During my stay in Cairo, my intimacy with Lord Cromer deepened from day to day. We talked and talked, and from every talk I gained not only knowledge of the East, but knowledge on a thousand points of practical and also theoretical politics. Cromer, like so many Imperial administrators before him, was an exceedingly well-read man, in modern and ancient history, in Economics, and in political theory. Above all, he was a devotee of Memoirs and he was always able to reinforce an argument with "Don't you remember what … said about that." I may say frankly that the great delight to me was the delight of confirmation. Inexperienced as I then was in public affairs, it was a matter of no small pleasure and of no small amount of pride to find my own special opinions, views, and theories as to political action plainly endorsed.