The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1

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This picture is made more vivid by the pencillings on Sir Charles's copy
of Daudet's _Numa Roumestan_, where the word "Gambetta" is scribbled again
and again opposite passages which describe Numa's wonderful ringing voice,
his quick supple nature, all things to all men, catching as if by magic
the very tone and gestures of those with whom he spoke, prodigal as the
sun in greetings and in promises, poured out in a torrent of words, which
seemed "not to proceed from ideas, but to waken them in his mind by the
mechanical stimulus of their sound, and by certain intonations even
brought tears into his eyes."

'My friendship with Gambetta perhaps meant to me something more than
the friendship of the man. Round him gathered all that was best and
most hopeful in the state of the young republic. He, more than any
other individual, had both destroyed the Empire and made new France,
and to some extent the measure of my liking for the man was my hatred
of those that he had replaced. Louis Napoleon ... had dynastic ends in
view.... The Napoleonic legend did not survive Sedan, and that it was
unable to be revived in the distress which followed the Commune was
largely owing to the policy and courage of Gambetta.

'There is some permanent importance in the discussions as to the
origin of the war of 1870 which I had with Gambetta at this time; for
it so happens that I have been able at various periods to discuss with
the most absolute freedom the history of this period with the five men
who knew most of it--Bismarck, Emile Ollivier, Gambetta, Nigra, and
Casa Laigleisia (at that time Rancez), the Spanish diplomatist,
afterwards three times Spanish Minister in London.

'The question which I often discussed with Gambetta, with Ollivier,
with Nigra, with Rancez, until, in September, 1889, Bismarck's frank
admissions settled the matter in my mind for good, has been one of the
most disputed points in modern history. My opinion that Bismarck had
prepared the war, and had brought about the Hohenzollern candidature
in order to provoke it, was only strengthened by an article entitled
"Who is responsible for the War?" by "Scrutator"--probably from the
pen of Congreve, the Comtist, who I know was in correspondence with
the Duc de Gramont. At Easter, 1872, I discussed the matter fully with
Gambetta, with Rancez, with Klaszco (author of _The Two Chancellors_,
and secret agent of the Austrian Government), and with Hansen, a Dane,
and spy of the French Government. Rancez long represented Spain at
Berlin, and it was he who, under Prim's orders, prepared the
Hohenzollern candidature. He was then sent to Vienna, as it was wise
for him to be out of the way when war, brought about by his agency,
was impending; but he was fetched suddenly to Berlin from Vienna in
1869, and this was when the thing was settled. The facts are all known
now." [Footnote: Bismarck, _Gedanken und Erinnerungen_, ii., chap,
xxii., p. 90 (German edition); Benedetti, _Ma Mission en Prusse_,
chap, vi., pp. 409, 410.] The King of Prussia, on July 13th (1870),
refused to give assurances for the future, in simple and dignified
language which meant peace. His telegram to Berlin was one of 200
words. Bismarck told me, when I was staying with him in September,
1889, that he was with Moltke and von Roon when it was received by
them at Berlin, and that he deliberately altered the telegram by
cutting it down "from a telegram of 200 words which meant peace into a
telegram of 20 words which meant war;" and in this form it was
placarded throughout North Germany in every village.

'I discussed repeatedly with Gambetta the incidents of the Cabinet at
St. Cloud on the 14th (July, 1870). Gambetta proved to me that on the
14th the mobilization order was given by the Minister of War, and that
on the same day the order was itself ordered by the Cabinet to be
countermanded. The Duc de Gramont has said, with singular confusion,
that it was decided on the 15th that the orders of the Minister of War
should not be countermanded, and that the reserves should be called
out. Ollivier assured me that after a six hours' sitting of the
Cabinet he had finally left St. Cloud long before that hour at which
Delord states in his history that the Cabinet again met in the
presence of the Empress. There was no such sitting of the Cabinet, but
there may have been a meeting of the Empress, the Duc de Gramont, and
the Minister of War, and they may have dared to take it upon
themselves to reverse the decision at which the Cabinet had arrived.

'The Duc de Gramont and the Minister of War had been in the minority
at the Cabinet on the 14th when the Cabinet withdrew the order for the
mobilization of the reserves, and this minority took it upon itself in
the night to maintain the order for the calling out of the reserves.
On the other hand, if there was ground for the impeachment of the Duc
de Gramont, I am afraid that there was also ground for that of
Ollivier in his own admissions. The declaration made to the Chambers
on July 15th states that the reserves were called out on the 14th, and
Ollivier allowed the decision of his Cabinet, which was his own, to be
reversed in his own name, apparently with his approval. [Footnote: See
note on p. 486, and the authorities cited there.]

'Bismarck's action in forcing on a war might be justified by his
probable acquaintance with the engagement of Austria to France that
she would join her in attacking Prussia in the early spring of 1871;
but it is a curious fact that he has never, either to me or to anybody
else, made use of this justification.

'Upon all these subjects the papers found in the palaces and published
by the Government of National Defence had an essential bearing, and
these I discussed, while they were fresh, with Gambetta and Ollivier.
The same matters were again before me in the following year (1873),
when I had the opportunity of attending the Bazaine Court-Martial,
presided over by the Duc d'Aumale, and of again reading the papers
found in the Tuileries (including the volume afterwards suppressed) on
the spot, and while the events related were fresh in men's minds, as
well as of talking over all doubtful points with my two friends.

'Bazaine at the Court-Martial looked only stupid, like a fat old seal,
utterly unmilitary, and, as the French would say, "become cow-like."
It was difficult to see in him the man who, however great his crimes
in Mexico, had at least been a man of the most daring courage and of
the most overweening ambition. In the suppressed volume of the papers
of the Imperial family seized at the Tuileries there is a letter from
General Felix Douay to his brother in which he describes Bazaine's
attempt to become the Bernadotte of Mexico, and shows how, in order to
obtain the Mexican throne, he kept up treasonable relations with the
chiefs of the republican bands which it was his duty to combat. It is
curious to find the French second-in-command writing to his brother,
also a General, a letter which, somehow or other, came into the
possession of the Emperor himself, in which he says: "It is terrible
to see a great dignity prostrated in such fashion.... We have to go
back to Cardinal Dubois to find such an accomplished scoundrel having
made use of a situation of the highest confidence to sell his country
and his master.... He will not long escape the infamy to which he is
consigned by the wishes of all honest men in the army, who are daily
more and more shocked by the scandal of his personal fortune." Colonel
Boyer was chief of the staff to Bazaine in Mexico, and is mentioned in
the correspondence between the two Generals Douay as being mixed up in
these discreditable transactions; and he was afterwards, as General
Boyer, concerned, it may be remembered, in the Regnier affair at Metz,
when General Bourbaki was sent out under a pass from the Prussians on
a fool's errand to the Empress Eugenie, there being some treasonable
plot behind. This is now (1908) confirmed by the letter of the King of
Prussia to the Empress Eugenie in the Bernstorff Memoirs.'

From 1872 onwards Sir Charles, in his many passages through Paris,
invariably met Gambetta, 'and spent as much time with him as possible.' He
was in this way kept fully informed on French politics by the most
powerful politician in France. As Gambetta's power grew, Dilke's influence
grew also, until there came a time when the friendship between the two was
of international interest.

II.

On returning to London after the Easter recess of 1872, Sir Charles
resumed his political duties in and out of Parliament. The Radical Club,
of which he remained Secretary till he took office in 1880, exercised some
little influence in the House of Commons, and was of some value in
bringing men together for the exchange of ideas, but began to present
difficulties in its working, and soon 'dropped very much into the hands of
Fawcett. Fitzmaurice, and myself.'

Apart from weekly attendance at its meetings, Sir Charles did not go out
much. 'We were so wrapped up in ourselves,' he says, 'that I have no doubt
we were spoken of as selfish.' The marriage had resulted in a tie much
closer than the simple union of two people who would "get on very well
together." Lady Dilke was a creature of glowing life. Those who remember
her say that when she entered a room the whole atmosphere seemed to
change: she was so brilliant, so handsome, so charged with vitality, so
eager always in everything.

From this period there were dinners at 76, Sloane Street, twice a week,
and among those who gathered about the Dilkes 'were Harcourt; Kinglake,
the historian; Stopford Brooke (who had not then left the Church of
England), Brookfield, the Queen's chaplain, commonly known as the "naughty
parson," and husband of Thackeray's Amelia, Fitzmaurice; Charles Villiers;
Mrs. Procter (widow of Barry Cornwall); Miss Tizy Smith, daughter of
Horace Smith, of _Rejected Addresses_; James (afterwards Sir Henry
James).' Browning also 'was constantly at the house,' and read there his
"Red Cotton Nightcap Country"--'at his own request.' Lord Houghton began
in these days an intimacy which lasted till his death. Of Americans, there
were Leland ("Hans Breitmann") and Mark Twain, and with these are named a
number of foreign guests: Emile de Laveleye, the economist; Ricciotti
Garibaldi; Moret, the Spanish Minister.

'We used to judge the position of affairs in Spain by whether Moret
wore or did not wear the Golden Fleece when he came to dinner. When
Castelar was dictator and the Republic proceeding upon conservative
lines, the sheep hung prominently at his side. When the Republic was
federalist and democratic, as was the case from time to time, the
sheep was left at home in a box.'

Others in the list of guests were Taglioni, 'in her youth the famous
dancer, and in her old age Comtesse Gilbert de Voisins, the stupidest and
most respectable of old dames,' and Ristori, the tragedian, who stayed at
Sloane Street 'with her husband, the Marquis Capranica del Grillo, and
their lovely daughter Bianca.'

A novel feature at some of Lady Dilke's evenings was the production of
French comedies by M. Brasseur, the celebrated comedian, and father of the
well-known actor of the present day. At all times in Sir Charles Dilke's
life his house was a great meeting-place for those who loved and knew
France and the French tongue.

Many painters were among the Chelsea constituents, and in 1868 Rossetti,
having been pressed to vote, replied:

"I think if Shakespeare and Michael Angelo were going to the poll, and
if the one were not opposing the other, and if there were no danger of
being expected to take an active part in the chairing of either, I
might prove for once to have enough political electricity to brush a
vote out of me, like a spark out of a cat's back. But I fear no other
kind of earthly hero could do it."

Another constituent was Carlyle, who in 1871 came to Dilke with a memorial
in favour of a Civil List pension for Miss Geraldine Jewsbury. Out of him
also no vote had been "brushed": he had exercised the franchise only once
in his life. Passing through his native village, he had seen a notice that
persons who would pay half a crown could be registered, and he had paid
his fee and had been registered. He had thought at the time, so he told
Sir Charles, that "heaven and hell hung on that vote," but he "had found
out afterwards that they did not."

It was in the course of 1872 that Sir Charles carried out one of his
grandfather's instructions by distributing old Mr. Dilke's books--

'in those quarters where I thought they would be useful in the cause
of historic research, or where they would be best preserved. The
British Museum had the first choice, and took those of the books
relating to the Commonwealth, to the Stuarts, to Pope, and to Junius,
which they had not already on their shelves. [Footnote: 'The Stuart
papers consisted of the Caryll papers and the Seaforth Mackenzie
papers, which last were first used by the Marchesa Campana da Cavelli
in the preparation of a great work on the Stuart documents, in which
they were fully quoted.'] I then offered the remainder of the Junius
collection to Chichester Fortescue, at that time President of the
Board of Trade (afterwards Lord Carlingford), husband of the famous
Lady Waldegrave, and tenant in consequence of Strawberry Hill, where
he was reforming Horace Walpole's library.'

It was a house at which Sir Charles became very intimate but not till some
years later. About this time Lady Strachie remembers the interest with
which, as a young girl at her aunt's table, she glanced down the row of
guests to catch the profile of 'Citizen Dilke,' who, with his wife, was
dining there for the first time.

Lord Carlingford believed that Francis wrote Junius, a view which old Mr.
Dilke opposed.

'But Abraham Hayward, who was constantly with him, held anti-
Franciscan opinions, and he would, I knew, have the full run of the
books, which I was certain in Fortescue's hands would be carefully
preserved. My arrangements were not concluded until the end of the
following year, 1873, when I presented the last of the Pope books and
all my grandfather's Pope manuscripts to John Murray, the publisher,
in consequence of his great interest in the new edition.' [Footnote:
Elwin and Courthope's edition of Pope's works.]

In the same year Sir Charles Dilke made another arrangement which
testified to the strength of his brotherly affection. Wentworth Dilke had
left his personal property in the proportion of two-thirds to the elder
son and one-third to the younger; and had also exercised a power of
appointment which he held by dividing his wife's property in the same way.
Charles Dilke now decided that the shares should be equalized, and secured
this by handing over one-sixth of his property to Ashton, who was at this
time in Russia, on a journey of exploration extending over the greater
part of that Empire.

About this time also Sir Charles purchased _Notes and Queries_ for L2,500
from its founder, Mr. Thoms, the Librarian of the House of Lords, 'one of
the dearest old men that ever was worshipped by his friends,' and a
devoted admirer of old Mr. Dilke. He appointed Dr. Doran to be editor,
"partly as consolation for having refused him the editorship of the
_Athenaeum_, for which he had asked as an old contributor and as the
yearly acting editor in the 'editor's holiday.'" But Sir Charles's choice
had fallen on Mr. Norman MacColl, 'that Scotch Solomon,' as he sometimes
called this admirable critic, who conducted the paper for thirty years.

'In the autumn we went abroad again, and took a letter of introduction
to George Sand, for whose talent Katie had a great admiration. We
missed her at Trouville, but found her afterwards in Paris--an
interesting person, hideously ugly, but more pleasant than her English
rival novelist, the other pseudonymous George. They had few points in
common except that both wrote well and were full of talent of a
different kind and were equally monstrous, looking like two old
horses.'

Of George Eliot's "talent" he wrote to Hepworth Dixon in 1866:

"The only fact of which I am at this present very certain ... is that
Miss Evans is not far from being the best _indirect describer_ of
character and the wittiest observer of human nature that has lived in
England since Shakespeare, and I think that there are touches in _Amos
Barton, Scenes from Clerical Life_, and in the first few chapters of
_The Mill on the Floss_ quite worthy of Shakespeare himself."

Also there is reference to a letter quoted in George Eliot's Life which
tells that the year 1873 "began sweetly" for her, because "a beautiful
bouquet with a pretty legend was left at my door by a person who went away
after ringing." 'It was I,' says Sir Charles, 'who left that bouquet and I
who wrote that legend. It was Katie who prepared the bouquet and asked me
to take it.'

III.

After the tempestuous scene of March 19th, Sir Charles had remained on the
whole a silent member of Parliament.

'I am going to keep quiet till the general election' (he says in a
letter of May 1st, 1873) 'as the best means of retaining my present
seat. If I should be turned out, look out for squalls, as I should
then stand on an extreme platform for every vacancy in the North.'

The main objects of the Radical group were, first, extension and
redistribution of the voting power, and, secondly, a universal system of
compulsory education, controlled by elective school boards. In October of
this year (1872) Sir Charles and Lady Dilke went down as Mr. Chamberlain's
guests to Birmingham, where Sir Charles spoke on free schools (basing
himself, as usual, on his observation of other countries) with Mr.
Chamberlain in the chair. In November there was a return visit, and Mr.
Chamberlain spoke under Dilke's chairmanship at St. James's Hall on
electoral reform. 'Chamberlain's was the first important speech that he
had delivered to a London public meeting,' and probably these reciprocal
visits and chairmanships gave the first general intimation of an alliance
which for a dozen years was destined to influence Liberal policy.

In the autumn of 1872, Sir Charles 'started a small Electoral Reform
Committee.' Its purpose was to assist, first, the Bill of Mr. Trevelyan
making the qualification for a vote in counties the same as in boroughs,
and, secondly, his own resolution which demanded that seats should be
redistributed in proportion to the number of electors. The outcome was an
arrangement under which Mr. Trevelyan substituted for his Bill a
resolution dealing with both matters; and this resolution, moved by him
and seconded by Sir Charles, afforded annually a gauge of the progress
made, as indicated by the division list.

'Chamberlain co-operated with me, but was more keen about his own
education subjects.'

At this time the attitude of Sir Charles and his associates towards the
Liberal party was one of detachment bordering on hostility. Chamberlain,
writing from Birmingham on March 2nd, 1873, noted that the Irish
University Bill was "going badly in the country, and the Noncons. and
Leaguers in the House ought to have the game in their hands." He wished
"they would have the pluck to tell Mr. Gladstone that they will do nothing
to bolster up a Ministry which will not give satisfactory assurances upon
English education;" and he wanted Mr. George Dixon to go on with his
resolution in favour of universal free schools and carry it to a division.

"If members do not vote with him, and there is a general election
soon, they will have a nice little crow to pick with their
constituents; whereas if there is no division on this issue, all our
labour during the recess is lost, and our friends are disheartened....
Viewed _ab extra_, there is no doubt the boldest policy is the best.
It is probable from what I have seen that the weakest course is best
suited to the atmosphere of what some people are pleased to call a
'_reformed_ House of Commons.'"

In the following week the Irish University Bill which was "going badly in
the country" received a new and unexpected stab: Cardinal Cullen denounced
it in a pastoral on March 9th. The debate on the second reading terminated
during the small hours of March 12th. Government was defeated by three on
a division of 284-287. On the 13th Mr. Gladstone's Ministry tendered their
resignations, and the Queen sent for Mr. Disraeli, who declined either to
accept office or to recommend a dissolution. By March 20th it was formally
announced that the Government would go on, but it went on with power and
prestige greatly diminished.

On July 6th Chamberlain wrote to Dilke advocating an "irreconcilable
policy," and asking for news of any "fanatics willing to join the Forlorn
Hope and help in smashing up that whited sepulchre called the Liberal
party." This letter concluded with an attack on Mr. Bright, who had just
joined the reconstructed Ministry, but whose influence Mr. Chamberlain
thought was "quite too small to save the Government." [Footnote: One cause
of the Government's unpopularity was the attempt of Mr. Ayrton (First
Commissioner of Public Works) to limit the right of public meeting in Hyde
Park, to which there is this allusion: 'In July I was greatly occupied in
the House of Commons in fighting against Ayrton's Parks Bill. It was at
dinner at my house one night that, in his dry, quiet way, old Kinglake
chirped out, "For so insignificant a personage Mr. Ayrton is quite the
most pompous individual that I know." Mr. Ayrton's unpopularity was a
powerful cause of Mr. Gladstone's downfall in 1874.'] Sir William
Harcourt, though hardly less discontented, was openly more conformable,
and towards the close of 1873 took office as Solicitor-
General. He wrote:

"I do not know if I have done a very wise or a very foolish thing.
Probably the latter. But it is done, and my friends must help me to
make the best of it. It was a great inducement to me the having Henry
James [Footnote: Sir Henry James became Attorney-General in September,
1873.] as a colleague.... I feel like an old bachelor going to leave
his lodgings and marry a woman he is not in love with, in grave doubt
whether he and she will suit. However, fortunately, _she_ is going to
die soon, and we shall soon again be in opposition below the gangway.
The Duke of Argyll says that now I am in harness I must be driven in
blinkers; but, then, dukes are insolent by nature. Whatever comes, I
shall never leave the House of Commons. I do not see why I am not to
be a politician because I am a law officer. Law officers used to be
politicians some years ago."

The Civil List question was raised again in Parliament in this year, when
the Crown Private Estates Bill was introduced; and an amendment moved by
Mr. George Anderson, member for Glasgow, complaining of the secrecy which
attached to Royal wills, was supported, not only by Sir Charles, but by
"the leader of the old Whigs in the House of Commons," Mr. E. P. Bouverie,
a Privy Councillor, who to his horror found himself named to tell against
the Bill, and thus identified with the "republican" opposition. 'Speaker
Brand no doubt owed him some grudge.' [Footnote: The Right Hon. E. P.
Bouverie had been a very successful Chairman of Committees of the whole
House, and was indicated by public option as a probable Speaker. He was
recognized as a leading authority on the Law of Parliament.] Dilke's own
speech had demanded the annual publication of the receipts and
disbursements of the Crown Private Estates, and though he waited long to
carry his point, he saw this amongst other proposals adopted on the
recommendation of the Civil List Committee of 1910, on which he served.

Proof was not wanting that his determined attitude on these matters had
won him the support of great masses of the democracy. Miners' Unions and
Labourers' Unions wrote, begging, some for his portrait, others for an
address; also, in places where opposition had been offered to his
speaking, reprisals were exacted.

'Early in January, 1873, we went to Derby, at the request of the
chairman of my meeting at Derby which had failed in the winter of
'71-72, when, though a majority were upon our side, a gang of hired
poachers had entrenched themselves in a corner of the room, had burned
cayenne pepper, and defied all attempts to drive them out. The
chairman was a man of determination who did not mean to be beaten. He
organized his meeting on this occasion with almost too much care, for
I fancy he brought fighting friends from Nottingham and other bruising
places to it. The Tory roughs appeared, as on the former occasion.
Before we were allowed to enter the room they were charged by means of
battering rams with such effect that their entrenchments were
destroyed, and they themselves were mostly stunned and carried out one
by one. No one was dangerously hurt, but there were many broken heads.
Lady Dilke was present in the thick of it, and, according to the
newspaper reports, anxiously begged the stewards to deal gently with
those whom they threw out. After this the meeting was held in peace.
But the result was a formal Government inquiry, and the removal of the
chairman of the meeting from the County Bench by the Lord Chancellor.
He turned clergyman, to the benefit of _Notes and Queries_ and of the
societies for antiquarian research, for, being a man of active mind,
and finding the care of small parishes of ritualistic tendencies
insufficient to occupy his whole time, he became the author of the
famous book, _Churches of Derbyshire_, and of much other antiquarian
work.'