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

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Events justified his question, for the promise was never made good, even
when the Liberals themselves came into office, and Sir Charles resented
the iniquity of this dealing.

In February, 1878, he met Froude at dinner, and 'discussed with him the
South African question, on which we took widely different views, and of
which his were to be the source of much unhappiness to the Mother Country
and the Colonies.'

With the difficulty of the Transvaal the Zulu outbreak was indirectly
connected. Great Britain had been drawn into strife with the Zulu power,
which had for more than thirty years lived peaceably beside the Natal
Government, only because the annexation had made England responsible for
the peace of the disputed territories beyond the Vaal. There was also a
strong if indirect connecting-link in the personality of Sir Bartle Frere,
who, as High Commissioner in South Africa, had belittled the Boer claims,
and who now by a violent stretch of authority had precipitated war with
the Zulus.

After his discussion with Chamberlain at Birmingham, Sir Charles had
decided to indict the Government's South African policy on the first
possible occasion, and he communicated this intention to Lord Hartington.
Owing to the prolonged winter Session there was to be no Queen's Speech,
and consequently no Address, at the opening of Parliament, and Sir
Stafford Northcote was to begin the proceedings with a general statement.
Lord Hartington, after some hesitation as to the course to be pursued,
ultimately commissioned Sir Charles to reply at once on behalf of the
Opposition--a task which would naturally fall to the official leader of
the party. The opportunity thus given to him was the more notable because
the Liberal chiefs were divided as to the line which should be taken.
Harcourt, Sir Charles records, 'tried to prevent me from bringing forward
any motion as to the Zulu War,' but Chamberlain was strong in the opposite
sense. "We want to din into the constituencies," he wrote, "that the
Government policy is one of _continual_, petty, fruitless, unnecessary,
and inglorious squabbles--all due to their bullying, nagging ways." This
was consonant with the Birmingham leader's fierce opposition to Jingoism;
and for once he shared the view of his titular leader.

'Hartington fell in with the view taken by Chamberlain, and my notice
to call attention to the South African papers and the causes of the
war was given with his consent. The bad news from the Cape '--news of
Isandhlwana--' which came on February 11th, had changed his former
view. My speech on Northcote's motion was on the 13th February.'

He then brought forward on behalf of the Liberal party a resolution
condemning the Government's policy in South Africa, and more especially
the conduct of Sir Bartle Frere. The date for this main attack was not
fixed till after considerable delay, and before it arrived the words of
the motion which stood in Sir Charles's name were annexed bodily, and put
down in the name of Lord Lansdowne, to be moved in the Lords on an earlier
day. Lord Lansdowne sat on the Liberal Front Bench in the Upper House
(where he took an active part in criticism of Conservative policy), and
Sir Charles called this proceeding "taking the bread out of a private
member's mouth," despite the implied compliment to his tact in drafting
the Resolution. Sunday, the 23rd March, he spent at Mentmore, Lord
Rosebery's house, where Lord and Lady Granville were staying, and he
notes:

'I could not but think (although Lord Granville was very civil and
told me that he had advised the King of the Belgians to go to the
House of Commons on the following Thursday to hear my speech) that if
Lord Granville had thought that my speech was going to be a success,
he would not have stolen my motion for Lord Lansdowne to bring it on
first in the House of Lords. I could not see the wisdom of the
tactics, because it was already certain we should have a better
division in the Commons, proportionately speaking, than in the Lords.
At Devonshire House, on the previous Wednesday, Lord Lansdowne came up
to me in the entrance hall, where it is rather dark, and began talking
to me, and as I did not see who it was, he introduced himself--
"Lansdowne the pirate," of course in allusion to the robbery of my
words.'

The words were--

"That this House, while willing to support Her Majesty's Government in
all necessary measures for defending the possessions of Her Majesty in
South Africa, regrets that the ultimatum which was calculated to
produce immediate war should have been presented to the Zulu king
without authority from the responsible advisers of the Crown, and that
an offensive war should have been commenced without imperative or
pressing necessity or adequate preparation; and this House further
regrets that after the censure passed, upon the High Commissioner by
Her Majesty's Government in the despatch of the 19th day of March,
1879, the conduct of affairs in South Africa should be retained in his
hands."

'These words did not please all men. Fawcett wrote me two strong
letters to protest against them. Lord Granville also discussed them at
some length with me in writing. Fawcett was largely moved by
detestation of Sir Bartle Frere, and, while my chief object was to
stop the war, his object was to force Frere to resign. The feeling
against the proconsul was strong among the Liberals.

'On the 25th the debate in the Lords took place. The House was
thronged, the galleries being filled with ladies, and (there being a
Court mourning) all in black--save one, Lady ----. She was in scarlet
from top to toe, or more than toe, for she displayed a pair of long
scarlet stockings to a startled House, and each member as he came in
said, "Good gracious me, who's that?" so that Lansdowne could hardly
begin for the buzz. His speech was dull, and the result was favourable
to the Government. Two days later I brought forward my motion in the
Commons, and had a great personal success, receiving the
congratulations of all the leading men of both parties. I spoke for
two hours and a half, and kept the House full, without ever for an
instant being in doubt as to the complete success of the speech;
greatly cheered by my own side, without being once questioned or
interrupted by the other. But the speech was far from being my best
speech, although it was by far my greatest success. It was an easy
speech to make--a mere Blue-Book speech. The case from the papers was
overwhelming. All that had to be done was to state it in a clear way,
and I should think that more than half the speech consisted of mere
reading of extracts, which, however, I read in such a way as to
incorporate them in the body of the speech. The opening and the
conclusion, both of which were effective, were not my own; for they
were suggested to me, only I think on the same day, by William
Rathbone, who sometimes thought of a good way of putting things. While
I was gratified by the success of the speech, I could not help feeling
how completely these things are a matter of opportunity, inasmuch as I
had made dozens of better speeches in the House, of which some had
been wholly unsuccessful.'

Nothing was wanting to the completeness of the after-effects of his House
of Commons triumph.

'The general feeling seemed to be, as Lord Reay put it in his letter
of congratulation, that my speech on South African affairs was "the
Cape of Good Hope of the Liberal party."' [Footnote: Lord Reay (Baron
Mackay of Ophemert), a Hollander by birth, then recently naturalized,
spoke with special authority when South Africa was in question. The
Barony was originally Scotch, and created in 1628. A peerage of the
United Kingdom was conferred on Lord Reay (the eleventh Baron) in
1881.]

By this speech his contemporaries remember Sir Charles as a speaker. Sir
George Trevelyan writes:

"His great speech on South Africa was a wonderful exposition, lucid,
convincing, detailed, without being heavy. I can well recall how old
members admired the manner in which he ticked off topic after topic,
with its due amount of illustration from the Blue-Books."

A letter to Mrs. Pattison, written, as he says in it, "under the violent
excitement of a splendid personal success," contains his own estimate. The
congratulations of leading men of all parties were couched, he said, "in
such a way as made me realize how badly I had always spoken before." And
in his Memoir he adds the modest comment that 'praise was forthcoming in
abundance. The only praise, however, that I can accept as fairly belonging
to this speech, is praise for a past of work which had led up to it.'

The result, especially with an indolent man like Lord Hartington as
leader, was that the conduct of the Opposition's case was increasingly
left to Sir Charles Dilke. _Truth_ put the popular view amusingly enough
in Hiawathan verse:

"Never absent, always ready
To take up the burning question
Of the hour and make a motion:
Be it Cyprus, be it Zulu,
He can speak for hours about it
From his place below the gangway.
No Blue Book avails to fright him:
He's the stomach of an ostrich
For the hardest facts and figures,
And assimilates despatches
In the most surprising fashion."

A serious tribute to his success follows:

'I was asked by Sir Thomas Bazley, who was eighty-two years of age, to
stand for Manchester in his place, with a promise from Manchester that
my expenses would be paid. But I was under a volunteered pledge not to
leave Chelsea until beaten, which I thought I should be "this time."'

Sir Charles records as one feature of the debate the sudden and painful
failure of Mr. Lowe's hitherto great debating powers:

'On the second night of the debate I dined with Sir Charles Forster'
(member for Walsall, and well known as a dinner-giver to the chiefs of
the Liberal party) 'to meet Lord Hartington, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr.
Bright. Almost the sole topic of conversation was the breakdown in the
debate of Lowe, who had apparently been trusting as usual to his
hitherto marvellous memory, when this had failed him, and he stopped
short' (in the middle of a sentence), 'and failed ever, henceforward,
to regain his power.'

The future of Greece engaged Sir Charles's attention far more constantly
than this South African embroilment. Cyprus was a branch of the Greek
question, and (in a speech of March 20th, 1879) he had attacked Wolseley's
administration of the island. The General replied in a Blue Book, which
was debated on June 20th, 1879:

'The Cypriotes were so excited that they were sending me not only
every fact, but every story, and as it was difficult to sift them in
London, I dare say some of the charges were untrue and some were
certainly trivial.'

One telegram had complained bitterly of the injustice done to two priests
whose beards were cut off in a British gaol, although nothing was said as
to the justice of their imprisonment. But "the existence of forced labour
under our rule had certainly been admitted," said Sir Charles in his
speeches on the question, and on this and on the law which the Government
of Cyprus had passed, taking to itself powers of arbitrary exile without
trial, he rested a case in which he persevered throughout the Session,
debating Cyprus 'at such length, I fear, as to bore the House.' He relates
that he once began a speech on Cyprus before a party of members set out
for the Crystal Palace to dine, and was still delivering the same speech
when they came back. Later, when in office, he was able to make the
administrative changes he desired for the benefit of the island.

One result of Sir Charles's interest in the affairs of Cyprus was to bring
down upon him 'an enormous correspondence in modern Greek, to read which I
had to engage the services of a translator.'

'The Cypriote Bishops are the most long-winded people with whom I ever
had to do, and their communications, although flattering, were
somewhat burdensome. I was also receiving many letters in modern Greek
from Athens and various centres of Greek activity with regard to the
proceedings of the Greek Committee, and I received addresses from
Epirus and from the other Turkish provinces and islands inhabited by
Greeks in which there was any thought of cession. I was appointed
Honorary President of the "Zenon," whatever that might be, and
received similar appointments from various Greek societies. I am,
indeed, also a "citizen of Athens."'

He received the freedom of that city on July 12th, 1879; the Grand Cross
of the Saviour was also offered, but declined.

'On Sunday, March 30th, Hartington sent to me to exchange notes upon
the position of the Greek question, and his attitude seemed to me
that, as he did not understand anything about it, he hoped I was being
careful and not doing anything very wrong. At all events, he left me
to myself, and I delivered my soul in the House.'

This he did on April 17th, putting forward a complaint that, although
Greece looked to Great Britain's representatives at the Congress of Berlin
for a traditional championship of the Hellenic claims, Lord Beaconsfield
and Lord Salisbury had allowed the proposal for an extension of Greek
territory to come from French diplomatists; and, further, that the
recommendation to this effect inserted in the Treaty of Berlin had been
evaded by Turkey. He described in his speech the delays and the
unsatisfactory proposals which had been put forward by Turkey in
conference with Greek delegates, and demanded European pressure to carry
out the declared intentions of Europe. A special obligation of honour
rested upon England, so he held, because England had induced Greece to
desist from war when Turkey was at grips with Russia, and when the Greeks,
by attacking, might easily have secured possession of the territory they
desired.

These representations were put forward a month later as the general appeal
of the Greek Committee, which had existed as a secret body for a year, but
was formally and publicly organized on April 25th, 1879. Preparations were
begun for a public meeting, and after several conferences with Lord
Lansdowne

'I invited the speakers and drew up an appeal to the public, and acted
as Chairman of the Executive Committee, with Rosebery for President
and Lefevre for Treasurer. The meeting was held at Willis's Rooms on
May 17th, 1879, and was attended by men of all shades of opinion--the
Duke of Westminster, Sir Robert Peel, an independent Conservative, and
several other Conservatives, as well as the mass of the Liberals. I
presided, and Lansdowne moved the first resolution.'

Dilke said afterwards that this meeting had been 'sufficiently interesting
to keep Harcourt and a Duke standing for three hours--putting Harcourt
first because he was the more august.'

Immediately afterwards he went to Liverpool, as the guest of the Liverpool
Reform Club, to speak specially upon the Greek question.

'My speech was dull; the best thing said in the course of the evening
was said by a man who had been _Daily News_ correspondent in Crete--
"They talk of Europe! What is Europe? Europe is a number of wicked old
gentlemen with decorations, assembled in a room."

'During my stay in the neighbourhood of Liverpool I was the guest at
Knowsley of Lord and Lady Derby, who were trying by all means in their
power to emphasize the fact that they were quite ready to go over to
the Liberal side' (as they did within the year). 'I tried hard to get
Rosebery to make some speeches in the country upon the Greek question,
but this attempt was a failure. He was greatly pressed to go to
Manchester in the same way in which I had gone to Liverpool, but after
taking a long time to think of the thing, he distinctly refused. I
never quite knew why; but caution was always the predominant element
in his nature, though he was occasionally rash just when he should
have been cautious.'

In June Sir Charles became possessed of 'a curious document which he
translated and made public.' According to the story told him, the letter
had been in the mailbags aboard a steamer which was wrecked, and it had
been retrieved along with the rest from the bottom of the sea. But

'it was probably bought for the Greeks by their spy Fitzgerald, the
"journalist" who afterwards disappeared--finally--about 1894. He had,
however, often disappeared for some years. The letter was stamped with
an Italian stamp for foreign post, addressed to Mouktar Pasha,
commanding in chief the Turkish army in Epirus; and, although the
envelope was plain and not calculated to attract attention, the letter
was on Italian Foreign Office paper, and dated from the Foreign Office
at Rome on April 6th. It was from Corte, an Italian Consul-General who
had been employed in Albania and afterwards in the Italian Foreign
Office, and pointed to Italian intrigue in Albania to make the
Italians rather than the Greeks the successors of the Turks in Albania
and Epirus. Seven years later I saw a good deal of Mouktar Pasha at
Constantinople, but I did not mention this letter either to him or to
the Sultan. It referred to Mouktar's idea of "colonization in Epirus,"
and, from the context, and from what we know of previous proceedings,
it would seem that this colonization of Epirus was to have been a
colonization by Italian peasants.'

This letter came to Sir Charles as President of the Greek Committee, and
here may be added notice of the birth of an enterprise kindred in spirit
to the political association of those who loved Greece:

'On Monday, June 16th, I took part in the meeting at which the
Hellenic Society was founded, it having grown out of a conference held
at Cambridge between Mr. Newton of the British Museum (afterwards Sir
Charles Newton), Professor Colvin, and me. The first resolution was
moved by Lord Morley (Earl Morley, afterwards Chairman of Committees
of the House of Lords), and seconded by Professor Sayce; the second by
me, and seconded by the Dean of St. Paul's; the third by Sir John
Lubbock, and seconded by Professor Jebb; and the fourth by Professor
Colvin, and seconded by Gennadius.'

Two other questions of abiding interest were touched on by Sir Charles
this year. That of Upper Houses is mentioned in connection with interviews
with Sir Graham Berry, one of his Colonial acquaintances.

'Mr. (afterwards Sir) Graham Berry, Prime Minister, or, as they call
it in the Colonies, "Premier" of Victoria; a rough, able man, son of a
Chelsea tradesman.... We arranged a reception, which was given to
Berry by the parish of Chelsea at the Chelsea Vestry Hall, myself in
the chair, when we presented him with an address expressing the hope
that the Victoria Lower House might prevail in its struggle against
the Upper. Professor Pearson, formerly of Oxford--a Free Trader,
though Mr. Berry was a Protectionist--was with him, and they were over
to try to persuade the Colonial Office to support them against the
Upper House.'

'Sir Graham Berry was afterwards the Agent-General of his Colony, but
still possessed the confidence of the Liberal party in Victoria in a
higher degree than any other man, and he afterwards returned to local
politics and became Speaker. Pearson wrote a great book before he
died.'

Sir Graham Berry wrote later in this year 'for opinions upon a Bill of
reform of the Upper House in his Parliament,' to which Sir Charles replied
'that I disliked Upper Houses so much as not to be in favour of reforming
them.'

This attitude he always maintained. His views upon the whole question of
representation were this year put into a pamphlet which

'advocated, in addition to the reforms upon which Liberals were
agreed, the system of double elections, as on the Continent--that is
to say, a second poll to be held when at the first the person at the
head of the poll did not obtain a clear majority of votes.'

The other question takes the first place in Sir Charles's note of his
conversations with Chamberlain at the beginning of the Session. This
touched on economic difficulties, and runs thus:

"That it would be wise to have a motion on the condition of the realm:
probably by moving for a Committee to inquire into the cause of the
present distress, and that Mundella would be the best person to move,
especially if the Front Bench would support him, as the distress is
most severe in Sheffield."

Some years, however, elapsed before Sir Charles was able to deal with such
questions authoritatively as President of the Local Government Board.

We can trace at this time the beginning of those close relations which
Dilke and Chamberlain cultivated (even after they had joined Mr.
Gladstone's Government) with the new power that was growing up in
Parliament. On February 15th, 'we were anxious that the Irish should vote
with us about the Zulu War, the more so because her leaders were
hesitating upon the subject,' and Sir Charles invited Mr. Parnell to meet
Mr. Chamberlain at dinner; but they 'were able to make but little of him.'
Further meetings took place, from which the only practical result was a
promise of Parnell's support in their opposition to the County Boards
Bill, which the Conservative Government were putting forward as their main
measure. The ground of opposition was that 'it was better to leave the
present system alone than to create new Boards only half elective.'

The Memoir has a note respecting one of these meetings with the Irish
leader at which Parnell was accompanied by Major Nolan, then member for
County Galway:

'Nolan showed opportunist Nationalism; Parnell irreconcilable
Nationalism. The latter let out, in spite of his great caution, that
if we chose to go to Ireland on Mill's land programme, we could
destroy his position and the Home Rule movement. Nolan said that a
party which would give security of tenure to the small tenants could
afford to leave the large ones out. (To touch the large tenancies in
that sense would be virtually to charge the possession of property in
Ireland with partial compensation.)'

At this moment, the beginning of 1879, the purely Nationalist agitation
for self-government had not yet been joined to the demand for an improved
and freer status for the Irish tenant. This was mainly the work of Davitt,
and Davitt had scarcely yet been heard of by the wider public.

CHAPTER XIX

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL INTERESTS

Hospitable and popular, Sir Charles had the best of what those days could
offer in talk and talkers. He compared his own country very unfavourably
with the possible standard of social intercourse:

'In England and in France people seem wholly unaware that they cannot
either in politics or in literature deal with or even understand
questions involving philosophical and historical considerations
without any training in either philosophy or history, and one sees
writings and speeches by persons who think themselves members of an
educated class which are unintelligible to any who have the slightest
discipline of either habit of thought or form of expression.'

'In the best English political and literary society there is no
conversation. Mr. Gladstone will talk with much charm about matters
that he does not understand, or books that he is not really competent
to criticize; but his conversation has no merit to those who are
acquainted with the subjects on which he speaks. Men like Lord
Rosslyn, [Footnote: Lord Rosslyn died in 1890.] Lord Houghton, Lord
Granville (before his deafness), had a pleasant wit and some
cultivation, as had Bromley Davenport, Beresford Hope, and others, as
well as Arthur Balfour, but none of these men were or are at a high
level; and where you get the high level in England, you fall into
priggism. On the whole, Hastings, Duke of Bedford, was the best
specimen that I ever knew of an English gentleman as regards learning
and conversation; but then he was horrible as a man, in spite of his
pretty manners, because ferocious in his ideas upon property. Now, at
Rome is to be found that which is unknown in London, in Paris, in St.
Petersburg, and unknown, I fancy, at Vienna and Berlin, although of
these I know far less--namely, conversation not priggish or academic,
and yet consistently maintained at a high level.