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

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At this moment "foreign affairs" meant the Eastern Question, in regard to
which the future of two nations, Russia and Greece, specially interested
him. He was notably a Phil-Hellene, who "dreamed of a new Greece"--a
"force of the future instead of a force of the past; a force of trade
instead of a force of war; European instead of Asiatic; intensely
independent, democratic, maritime." Here, and not in any Slavonic State,
did he see the rightful successors to the Ottoman dominion. Towards Russia
his feelings were complex: admiration for the people accompanied
detestation of the Government, and the unscrupulous power commanding the
services of so vast and virile a people always appeared in his eyes as a
menace to civilization. Yet in the future of Russia he "firmly believed,"
and he repeats in speech after speech this creed: "Behind it are ranged
the forces of the future." "To compare the Russia of to-day to the Russia
that is to come is to compare chaos to the universe." "If by Russia we
mean the leading Slavonic power, whether a Russia one and indivisible, or
a Slavonian confederation, we mean one of the greatest forces of the
future." [Footnote: Speech at Notting Hill, August, 1876.]

Sir Charles's speeches, taken in conjunction with the diary, give the
story of these Eastern troubles from the outside as well as from the
inside. His constituents had little excuse for being carried away by
popular cries. In his speech on the last day of the session he advocated
the sending of a "strong and efficient man to Constantinople in the name
of the Western Powers to carry out that policy of protection of Christian
subjects of Turkey which England had intended after the Crimea,"
[Footnote: _Ibid._] But while condemning with the greatest energy the
Turkish barbarities in Bulgaria, he warned his constituents against
overlooking atrocities committed elsewhere, "for there was not one pin to
choose between Circassian ruffians on the one side and Montenegrin
ruffians on the other." To those who "were carried away by their belief
that the conflict was one between the present and the past, and between
Christianity and Islamism, and declared that the Turks must be driven out
of Europe," he pointed out the larger questions at stake.

Turning to the Balkan States, he did not believe in a continuous united
movement among these "which would suffice to drive the Mohammedan out of
Europe." "To allow the Russians to interfere openly" would rouse Austria,
a Power which, in spite of the difficulties presented by its internal
"differences of creed and hostilities of races," must in the interests of
South-Eastern Europe be "bolstered up." In this instance he urged the need
for joint action, and laid bare some underlying difficulties awaiting
diplomacy. It was a situation complicated by the fact that "this Europe is
probably mined beneath our feet with secret treaties." [Footnote: Sir
Charles notes later: 'Since the accession of George III. the country had
concluded about forty treaties or separate articles of a secret nature
which were not communicated to Parliament at the time of their conclusion,
and in some instances not at all; but these secret engagements were mostly
concluded in anticipation of war, or during war, and ceased to have effect
when war was over.']

In his speech of January 15th, 1878, in Kensington, at one of the critical
moments of the struggle, he told the whole story, which began in August,
1875, when Mr. Disraeli's Government consented "with reluctance" to take
part in sending a European Consular Mission to inquire into disturbances
occasioned by Turkish misrule in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Great Britain's
reluctance weakened, so Sir Charles thought, the European concert, and the
mission resulted only in delusive promises of reform. In the following
winter Turkey was increasingly encouraged to lean upon British support in
withstanding pressure from the other Powers; and in May, 1876, after
disturbances in Bulgaria had been repressed with appalling ferocity, Mr.
Disraeli's Cabinet positively refused to join in a demand for certain
reforms to be carried out by Turkey under European supervision.

'Our Government had refused to sign the Berlin Memorandum on account
of a reference in it to the possible need of taking "efficacious
measures" to secure good government in Turkey.

'But' (commented Sir Charles in 1878, making plain exactly what he
meant by European intervention) 'it was England who, not shrinking
from mere words, but herself proposing deeds, had taken a really
"efficacious" part in the "efficacious measures" of 1860, when, after
the massacres in the Lebanon, Europe sent Lord Dufferin to Syria with
a French armed force--the Powers making that engagement not to accept
territory which could also have been made in 1876. In 1860 Lord
Dufferin, in the name of Europe, hanged a guilty Pasha and pacified
the Lebanon, which to this moment still enjoys, in consequence of
European intervention, a better government than the rest of Turkey,
and this with the result of an increase of strength to the Turkish,
power. Only the obstructiveness of our Government prevented the still
more easy pacification of the European provinces of Turkey in 1876,
and caused the present war with all its harm to British trade and all
its risks to "British interests."' [Footnote: Speech delivered at
Kensington on January 15th, 1878.]

Holding these views, Sir Charles encouraged Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice to
place on the notice paper of the House of Commons a formal resolution of
censure on the Government for refusing to join in the Berlin Memorandum
without making a counter-proposal of their own. It was believed that Mr.
Gladstone approved the course indicated, but he was still in retirement,
and not only did Lord Granville and Lord Hartington think that any formal
action in the House would be impolitic, but many of the 'peace-at-any-
price' Radicals, who regarded Lord Derby's extreme policy of non-
intervention with favour, refused to support the proposed censure. The
resolution accordingly had to be withdrawn, amid the general disapproval,
however, of the Liberal Press. Thus the first attempt at action at
once betrayed a profound cleavage of opinion. This was unfortunately
only typical of everything which followed in this chapter of events,
though the debate which took place towards the end of the Session proved
very damaging to the Government. [Footnote: See _Hansard_, cxlii. 22;
_Life of Gladstone_, ii, 549; _Life of Granville, ii. 166 and 264, where
Lord Ampthill, writing in 1882, expresses the opinion that Lord Derby's
policy was most unfortunate.]

It was on May 19th, 1876, that the British Government dated their refusal
to intervene. As early as June, accounts of what had been done in Bulgaria
began to appear in the Press. Mr. Disraeli ridiculed them in the House of
Commons, but testimony soon accumulated, and the most important evidence
was that of Mr. Eugene Schuyler, then attached to the American Legation at
Constantinople. As American Consul at St. Petersburg in 1869-70, he had
become acquainted with Sir Charles, and had seen a good deal of him in
London during the earlier part of 1875. It was, therefore, to Dilke that
Schuyler wrote his account of the massacres at Batak, based upon his visit
to the spot, which he found still horrible with unburied corpses; and in
August, on the last day of the Session, Dilke, addressing his constituents
at Notting Hill, read Schuyler's letter to them.

Early in September, 1876, public indignation was set ablaze by Mr.
Gladstone's famous pamphlet, which demanded that the Turk should clear out
of Bulgaria, "bag and baggage." On the 14th of the same month Mr. Baring's
official report confirmed the Schuyler letter, and on the 21st Lord Derby
sent a despatch, which, says Sir Charles, 'in the sharpest words ever, I
think, used in a despatch, demanded reparation, and the "signal,
conspicuous, and exemplary punishment" of Chefket Pasha, director of the
Bulgarian massacres.'

Meanwhile Servia and Montenegro, feudatory States of the Porte, had gone
to war with their overlord; and in order to induce the Turks to grant an
armistice, Russia and Austria proposed to England a joint naval
demonstration, carried out in the name of Europe, by England and France.
Lord Derby proposed instead a conference of Europe to take place at
Constantinople, and to this the Powers agreed. But Russia, not contented
with this step, presented an ultimatum to Turkey demanding an armistice
for Servia, and obtained it on November 1st. Thus, by Lord Derby's action,
'the armistice was refused to Europe and yielded to a Russian ultimatum.'

The conference met at Constantinople in December, 1876, and on the 14th
Lord Salisbury, who represented England, was advocating the "efficacious
measure" of occupying Bulgaria by English troops, and, when this was
refused, proposed the employment of Belgians. But--

'It was now too late. Turkey had been encouraged by us into
mobilization. Russia had been thwarted by us into mobilization. The
time was past when we might have averted war, might have pacified the
East, protected alike the Eastern Christians and "British interests"
by a signature.'

Replying to a common argument, he said: 'Want of money will not cause
Russia to terminate the war. Machiavelli has truly said that nothing is
more false than the common belief that money is the sinews of war.'

The conference failing, all Ambassadors were withdrawn from the Porte, and
Russia continued to parley with the other Powers. 'Early in March, 1877, a
draft Protocol regarding the expectation of the Powers with regard to
Turkish reforms was handed to Lord Derby, who promised to sign if Russia
would promise to disarm.' Russia specified the conditions on which she
would 'disarm,' and Lord Derby then signed the Protocol, but added a
declaration that his signature should be null unless disarmament followed
both in Russia and Turkey. This, in Sir Charles's judgment, was tantamount
to a refusal to sign, because Lord Derby must have known that Turkey would
never grant, except under coercion, the conditions on which Russia had
consented to disarm. "All Turkish promises are of one material--
paper," he said, and in severely criticizing the action of the Government
added: "The unreformed state of Turkey is, and will continue to be, the
greatest standing menace to the peace of Europe."

Further, at the same moment England again separated herself from the other
Powers by sending an Ambassador--Mr. Layard--to Constantinople, 'to which
the Turks replied: "The Porte is very sensible of this delicate mark of
attention."'

The effect was to encourage Turkey to count on English support, and
Russia, unable to secure concerted action, declared war single-handed.

Thus, not only was the result missed which Sir Charles desired and thought
possible--namely, the restoration of order by joint action of Europe--but
the way was paved for another result which he deplored--the extension of
Russia's influence, and even of her territorial sway.

As his speeches gave the story of the European position, so his diary
provides a commentary on that story from within:

'Things generally were in a disturbed condition at this moment. The
Eastern Question, which was to be so prominent for the next four
years, had grown critical, and Bourke, the Under-Secretary for Foreign
Affairs (afterwards Lord Connemara and Governor of Madras), said to me
at the House of Commons: "The one thing that astonishes me is the
confidence of people in Lord Derby." Now, Lord Derby was his chief.
This proved pretty clearly that Mr. Disraeli was, in fact, his own
Foreign Secretary, and had made up his mind that Lord Derby should
"go." [Footnote: Lord Derby did not "go" till the spring of 1878.]

'June 28th, 1876, is the date of the first of my letters mentioning
the Eastern Question. It is from Auberon Herbert: "We are sure to get
into some frightful trouble if Dizzy is to be allowed uninterruptedly
to offer what sacrifices he will on the altar of his vanity. You all
seem to me to be living in Drowsy Hollow, while Dizzy is consulting
his imagination, and Hartington politely bowing. What can you all be
doing? Is it the hot weather? Or are all of you secretly pleased at
England's 'determined attitude'? Please, dear Neros, cease fiddling
for a short time, and let us poor, harmless, innocent-minded country-
folk have some assurance that you are not going to fight all
Europe.... You sleepy and unfaithful guardians." ...

'Although I was the first politician to make a speech upon the
Bulgarian massacres, [Footnote: See reference to Eugene Schuyler's
letter in speech of August, 1876, p. 207.] I afterwards refused to
follow Mr. Gladstone into what was called the "atrocity agitation,"
because I feared that we should find ourselves plunged into a war with
Turkey in alliance with Russia, of which I should have disapproved.'

He subscribed, however, to the funds of those who took charge of the
fugitives on both sides.

The agitation offended him by its extravagance. "If Gladstone goes on much
longer, I shall turn Turk," he wrote to Sir William Harcourt. There was
general disquiet in the Liberal party. On October 10th, 1876, Sir William
Harcourt wrote:

"Things here are in the most damnable mess that politics have ever
been in in my time. Gladstone and Dizzy seem to cap one another in
folly and in pretence, and I do not know which has made the greatest
ass of himself. Blessed are they that hold their tongue and wait to be
wise after the event. To this sagacious policy you will see we"
(_i.e.,_ the Hartington section) "have adhered, and shall adhere. I
had a long letter from Hartington from Constantinople (whither, as you
will see, he has prudently retired), full of his usual good sense and
caution. I quite concur with him that, though a strong case can be
made against the Government for their deliberate _status quo_ policy
during the months of June, July, and August, there is little fault to
find with what they have been doing since Derby has taken the matter
into his own hands in September. There is a decided reaction against
Gladstone's agitation. The Brooksite Whigs are furious with him, and
so are the commercial gents and the Norwood-Samuda [Footnote: Leading
shipowners and Members of Parliament.] lot, whose pecuniary interests
are seriously compromised. The Bucks election [Footnote: This by-
election, on September 22nd, 1876, was consequent on Mr. Disraeli's
acceptance of a Peerage. The Conservative (Hon. T. F. Fremantle) beat
the Liberal (Mr. R. Carington, brother to Lord Carrington), but only
by 186 votes on a poll of over 5,000.] has a good smell for Dizzy. All
the Rothschild tenants voted Tory, though, to save his own skin, Nat.
went on Carington's committee. The Rothschilds will never forgive
Gladstone and Lowe for the Egyptian business. Chamberlain and Fawcett
... are using the opportunity to demand the demission of Hartington
and the return of Gladstone. But you need not ... prepare for extreme
measures."

By the same post came a letter from Mr. Chamberlain, who declared that he
was "not Gladstonian," but considered that--

"After all, he is our best card. You see Forster's speech--trimming as
usual, and trying to dish the Radicals by bidding for the Whigs and
Moderates. Gladstone is the best answer to this sort of thing, and if
he were to come back for a few years he would probably do much for us,
and pave the way for more. Lord Hartington ... is away and silent,
besides which he is pro-Turk. If Gladstone could be induced formally
to resume the reins, it would be almost equivalent to a victory, and
would stir what Bright calls 'the masses of my countrymen' to the
depths."

Sir Charles's own considered opinion was written to Sir William Harcourt
on October 16th:

"I, as you know, think Hartington the best man for us--the Radicals--
because he is quite fearless, always goes with us when he thinks it
safe for the party, and generally judges rightly--or takes the
soundest advice on this point. In fact, I don't think he's ever made a
mistake at all--as yet; but Chamberlain seems, by a sort of quasi-
hereditary Birmingham position, to look at him as Bright used to look
at Palmerston. This is serious, because Chamberlain is a strong man
and does not easily change, unlike the other member of our
triumvirate, Cowen, who is as fickle as the wind, one day Hartington,
one day you, one day Gladstone, and never seeming to know even his own
mind."

Mr. Gladstone's return to leadership was more and more assured, but he
would not find his old antagonist face to face with him in the House of
Commons. At the close of the Session of 1876 Sir Charles had unknowingly
witnessed a great withdrawal.

'On the night of August 11th I had listened to Mr. Disraeli's last
speech as a Commoner, and had noticed that on leaving the House in a
long white overcoat and dandified lavender kid gloves, leaning on his
secretary's arm, he had shaken hands with a good many people, none of
whom knew that he was bidding farewell to the House of Commons.'

This withdrawal marked no lessening of power. As Sir Charles had
perceived, Disraeli was his own Foreign Secretary, and a Foreign
Minister's influence gained by being exercised in the House of Lords.
Meanwhile, in Gladstone's absence the Liberal party seemed broken and
divided beyond hope of recovery. In the country, though the campaign
launched by the Bulgarian pamphlet had seemed so immediately effective
that a Tory county member said to Mr. Gladstone, "If there were a
dissolution now, I should not get a vote," yet the reaction, spoken of in
Harcourt's letter to Dilke on October 10th, very quickly developed. Those
who supported Mr. Gladstone identified themselves unreservedly with the
Slav as against the Turk. But by others the demand for ejection of the
Turk, "bag and baggage," from Bulgaria was construed as an invitation for
Russia to seize Constantinople, and thus as a direct infringement of
British interests in Egypt and the Mediterranean. Lord Beaconsfield
skilfully played upon this feeling, and there ensued a condition of
affairs in which Mr. Gladstone made triumphal progresses through the north
of England, and was hooted weekly in the streets of London.

Sir Charles himself was in a great difficulty, being as he says, 'anti-
Russian without being for that pro-Turk.' Sharing to the full the general
detestation of these massacres, of which the earliest complete exposure
had been made public [Footnote: See p. 207, Schuyler's letter.] by him, he
held that there ought to be armed intervention. But he knew too much of
Russia's action in conquered provinces to feel that the matter could be
settled satisfactorily by allowing Russian influence to replace Turkish
control.

What was more, he knew that in 1870, when Russia repudiated the Black Sea
article in the Treaty of Paris, March 30th, 1856, Mr. Gladstone's
Government had pressed the Powers of Europe to make general the Tripartite
Treaty, April 27th, 1856, 'Our Government (Gladstone-Granville) proposed
to answer the Russian Circular by extending the Tripartite Treaty to all
the Powers, and it was only Germany's refusal that stopped it.' By this
treaty, 'France, Austria, and the United Kingdom bound themselves to
consider any breach of the Treaty of Paris, 1856, or any invasion of the
integrity of the Ottoman Empire, as a _casus belli_.' In other words, the
Liberal Government had been anxious in 1870 that all the Powers should
guarantee for all time the power of the Turk in its full extension, though
Turkish methods were in 1870 and before it no other than they revealed
themselves at Batak in 1876. Sir Charles thought that, as Liberals had
been precipitate in their desire to guarantee Ottoman integrity in 1870,
so now they were precipitate in their Pan-Slavism. Moreover, the
vacillation of the Liberal leaders had put a weapon into the hands of the
Government. 'Fancy what a temptation to the present Government to publish
the despatches,' notes Sir Charles, in comment on Sir William Harcourt's
remark 'that the Tripartite Treaty discussion would be a mine of gunpowder
to the Liberal Front Bench.'

He set forth his position in a speech to his constituents at Kensington on
January 9th, 1877. He condemned Lord Derby, who had neither "the energy
nor the force of character to fit him for the post of Foreign Secretary,"
and whose policy had left them at the close of 1876 in "absolute
isolation." Yet, "on the other hand, he marvelled to see Radicals, for
years the enemies of Russian autocracy, propose the immediate adoption of
the policy of Canon Liddon and of the Emperor Alexander." [Footnote: Dr.
H. P. Liddon and Dr. Malcolm MacColl were conspicuous as enthusiastic
supporters of Mr. Gladstone's campaign.] And he went on to depict what
that policy might mean:

"The world could not afford to see 120,000,000 of Slavs united under the
sceptre of an absolute despot, holding at Constantinople the strongest
position in all Europe, stretching from the Adriatic to Kamskatka and the
Behring Straits, and holding in Corea the strongest position in the
Pacific." Then he recalled the record of "that Power with which the
Liberals of England were to strike alliance--an absolute autocracy of the
purest type, the Power which crushed Poland, the Power which crushed
Hungary for Austria." And by what methods! The long story of violation
"both of the public and the moral law" was repeated, with citation of
British Ministers who had spoken in fierce condemnation of, Russian
methods; the decoration of Mouravief, the "woman-flogging General," was
set off against the promotion of Chefket Pasha. He himself had seen in
1869 "long processions of Polish exiles, who were still being sent by
hundreds into the solitudes of Siberia." In Turkestan General Kaufmann had
ordered a massacre of women and children, and Kaufmann, "loaded with
favours by the Emperor Alexander, still ruled in Turkestan." It was a
vehement denunciation of the autocracy of Russia, and he notes that he had
never before so moved his hearers. To his attack on the Russian Government
were added some severe strictures on the barbarities perpetrated by
Servians, and by Mr. Gladstone's special favourites, the Montenegrins,
inhabitants of "countries whose civilization had not sufficiently
progressed to allow of the belief that they were the unselfish champions
of an outraged Christianity."

Holding these views, and holding them the more strongly because they were
the outcome of personal experience and knowledge laboriously acquired, he
was in a considerable degree isolated, not only from the Liberal party as
a whole, but even from that more intimate organization whose existence was
already recognized in the autumn of 1876, when Mr. Knowles asked him to
write in the _Nineteenth Century_ on the "New Party."

His closest associate, now and henceforward, was Mr. Chamberlain, who in
1877 stayed a great deal in Sloane Street, and Dilke notes that in
February of that year he was giving dinners almost every night to
introduce the member for Birmingham to London. But the "New Party," when
Mr. Knowles made his unsuccessful request, consisted

'of Chamberlain and myself and Cowen in the House of Commons, and
Morley outside of it.... As Chamberlain and Cowen failed to agree upon
any subject whatever, the House of Commons portion of the party soon
dwindled to two leaders, in the persons of Chamberlain and myself,
who, however, picked up one faithful follower in Dillwyn. From
September, 1876, to April, 1880, there did exist a very real and very
influential, but little numerous, party, consisting of Chamberlain and
myself, followed blindly by dear old Dillwyn, and supported in the
Press by Morley. As Randolph Churchill afterwards said to me, shaking
his head over Balfour's desertion: "When you and Chamberlain were
together, your party was not too large." He had begun with four (three
regular and one half-attached), and found it certainly one, perhaps
two, and I sometimes think three, too many, though Wolff indeed
followed him almost as steadily as Dillwyn followed us.'

For a time the "New Party" consisted of six. Mr. Edmund Dwyer Gray, an
Irish Nationalist, owner of the _Freeman's Journal_, was of it, but soon
dropped out, and for a time Mr. Burt--Father of the House in 1910--was
also included.

At the beginning of 1877 summons was sent to a meeting before the opening
of Parliament, to which Mr. Chamberlain replied solemnly: "The party will
be complete." Further solemnity was added by the holding, at 76, Sloane
Street, of a Queen's Speech dinner in due form on the eve of the Session,
but--