Mr. Labouchere's attitude in the matter was simple and consistent. On February 14, four days before Gordon started, the Opposition moved a vote of censure on the Government in consequence of the Hicks disaster, and were supported by several Radical members. Sir Wilfrid Lawson was supported by Mr. Labouchere in an amendment to Sir Stafford Northcote's motion: "That this House, whilst declining at present to express an opinion on the Egyptian policy which Her Majesty's Government have pursued during the last two years with the support of the House, trusts that in future British forces may not be employed for the purpose of interfering with the Egyptian people in their selection of their own Government."[16] On February 25, by which time news of the conquest of Tokar by Osman Digna, the ablest of the Mahdi's lieutenants, had reached England, Mr. Labouchere asked the Secretary for War whether it was within the discretion of General Graham to advance beyond Suakim against Osman Digna. Hartington replied oracularly that that appeared to him a question highly undesirable to answer and that the general object of Graham's instructions had been already stated to the House. {214} Mr. Wilfrid Blunt's Diary for April 4, 1884, records the following conversation with Mr. Labouchere: "Lunched with Labouchere. He is more practical, and we have discussed every detail of the policy to be suggested to Gladstone. He will feel the ground through Herbert Gladstone, which is his way of consulting the oracle. He told me the history of Gordon's mission. Gordon's idea had been to go out and make friends with the Mahdi, and to have absolutely nothing to do with Baring or the Khedive, or with anybody in Egypt. He was going to Suakim straight, where he counted upon one of the neighbouring Sheiks, whose sons' lives he had saved or spared, and his mission was to be one entirely of peace. But the Foreign Office and Baring caught hold of him as he passed through Egypt, and made him stop to see the Khedive, and so he was befooled into going to Khartoum as the Khedive's lieutenant. Now he had failed altogether in his mission of peace, and the Government had recalled him more than once in the last few days, but he had refused to come back. Gladstone had decided absolutely to recall all the troops in Egypt when Hicks' defeat was heard of, and was in a great rage. The expedition to Suakim had been forced upon him by the Cabinet, and Hartington had taken care to give Graham no special instructions, so that he might fight without orders. This Graham, of course, had done, and Gladstone, more angry still, had gone down to sulk at Coombe. Now he would stand it no longer, and he had let Hartington in by the speech he had made last night. Nobody expected it. Labouchere thought the moment most favourable for a new move."[17] And on May 19 Mr. Labouchere asked in the House: "Whether, for the satisfaction of those who believe