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

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[Illustration: THE RT. HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN, M.P.
From the painting by F. Holl, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery.]

"You see that my proposed condition is--both of us to be satisfied.

"As to what ought to satisfy us, if you agree to the principle, we
will consult when the time comes, but my present impression is all or
nothing."

'In other words, Chamberlain's view was that we should insist on both
being in the Cabinet. My own view was that we should insist on one
being in the Cabinet, and the other having a place of influence,
giving him the opportunity of frequent speech in the House of Commons,
pleasant to himself; and my view prevailed.

'On April 19th, Chamberlain wrote again that he had heard from Mr.
Bright that "Mr. Gladstone will take the Premiership if pressed."'

'"I am glad to see that all the papers speak of you as a certainty for
the Cabinet. For myself, I am absolutely indifferent to office, and
the only thing on which I am clear is that I will take no
responsibility which does not carry with it some real power. Another
point on which I have made up my mind is that I will not play second
to Fawcett, or to anyone of the same standing, except yourself."'

On April 22nd, Sir Charles received at Toulon a telegram from Sir William
Harcourt insisting on his immediate return, and he started at once for
London, missing a second urgent telegram from Harcourt on his way. From
Mr. Frederic Harrison he received a letter strongly urging him to claim at
once a place in the Cabinet and 'to lead the new men.' He meant 'the
cultured Radicals; Mr. Bryce and the like.' He urged that the new Left
must have a full place in the Ministry, and that any Liberal Minister must
be pledged to deal with redistribution in the House.

'Hill of the _Daily News_ had written to me that with the exception of
Harcourt everybody thought that Gladstone must be Prime Minister.' Sir
Charles goes on to note a breakfast with Lord Houghton, Renan, Professor
Henry Smith of Oxford, Henry Reeve of the _Edinburgh Review,_ Lord Arthur
Russell, and Lord Reay, at which they

'agreed that Gladstone must be Prime Minister, or would upset the
Government within a year. ... Hill advised that I should take the
Cabinet without Chamberlain if Gladstone was Prime Minister, but
refuse the Cabinet without Chamberlain--_i.e.,_ insist on both being
in the Cabinet--if Hartington was Prime Minister.'

By the night of April 23rd, when Sir Charles reached London, the question
of Mr. Gladstone's primacy was settled, and Ministry-making had begun,
with the decision of Lord Granville to return to the Foreign Office, and
Lord Hartington's consent to act as Secretary of State for India. Mr.
Childers went to the War Office, Lord Northbrook to the Admiralty; Lord
Selborne, most conservative of Whigs, became Lord Chancellor; Lord Spencer
was President of the Council, Lord Kimberley took the Colonies, the Duke
of Argyll the Privy Seal. Sir William Harcourt, who had been called "a
Whig who talked Radicalism," was Home Secretary. Mr. Forster at the Irish
Office, with Lord Cowper as Lord-Lieutenant, did not commend himself
greatly to the advanced party, and Mr. Bright, in returning to the
Chancellorship of the Duchy, brought with him only a tradition of
Radicalism. When it is added that Mr. Dodson was President of the Local
Government Board, ground will be seen for a warning which Sir Charles
received that, although the victory had been forced upon them by the
Radicals almost against their will, the "incorrigible old place-hunters
would, if left to have their own way, appropriate the victory and the
prizes calmly enough to themselves."

On Saturday, April 24th, Sir Charles had two interviews with Sir William
Harcourt, and communicated the result to Chamberlain:

'The position is that Gladstone is in the hands of Lord Wolverton,
[Footnote: As Mr. Glyn he had been Chief Whip.] the evil counsellor of
1874, and that, while a Whig Premier must have had a Radical Cabinet,
Gladstone will say, "You have got me; that is what you asked for," and
will give us a Whig Cabinet. Stansfeld is likely to be in the Cabinet
owing to W. E. Forster's influence, of which I personally shall be
glad. Rosebery is likely to be put in, at which I shall not be
sorry.... Gladstone disapproves strongly of people being put straight
into the Cabinet who have not held office before. This is for
Chamberlain and for me. They are likely to offer me the Under-
Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs, which I suppose I shall be unable
to accept. Later in the evening I was informally offered the
Secretaryship of the Treasury, with management of the Government
business in the House. Harcourt at a second interview said that
Gladstone intended pedantically to follow Peel's rule that men should
not be put straight into the Cabinet without going through non-Cabinet
office; and that Chamberlain and I must both take non-Cabinet office;
[Footnote: It is worth noting that Sir Robert Peel himself had
violated this rule if it ever existed.] that he, Harcourt, strongly
advised us to take Under-Secretaryships of which the Secretary was in
the Upper House, or the Secretaryship of the Treasury. He then offered
me the Under-Secretaryship for the Colonies, to which I replied,
"Certainly not." He said, "Remember that with Mr. Gladstone Prime
Minister, the Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs will have no chance
to speak, because Gladstone will do all the talking." [Footnote: Sir
William Harcourt's prophecy received frequent confirmation. See
_infra_, pp. 384, 459, 535, and Vol. II., p. 51.] At the same time,
there was evidently another reason behind--namely, that Lord Granville
had sooner have anybody in his office than me; in other words, he
would like me in anybody's office except his own. Harcourt strongly
urged me to take office on personal grounds--namely, in order to get
over the Queen's prejudice, and so succeed naturally to the first
vacancy in the Cabinet. I replied that I had sooner keep my
independence than take office without power. He then said curtly, "It
will not be a pleasant opposition." I said it would not be an
opposition at all, as far as I could see, as I should support the
Government and lead a very quiet, humdrum Parliamentary existence.
Harcourt replied, "That is what is always said." "But I shall not be
cross," was my last word. I telegraphed at night for Chamberlain, who
replied that he would come up at five on Sunday afternoon and dine and
sleep. But I prepared him, and was prepared by him, for a double
refusal of office. In fact, we were decided on refusal of that which
alone was offered.

'On Sunday afternoon, 25th, before seeing Chamberlain, I saw James,
who went to Lord Granville and fully stated my views, reporting to me
afterwards that Lord Granville seemed inclined to come round a little.
James added of Harcourt: "Confound that Home Secretary! How discreet
he is even before kissing hands! I shall live at the Home Office." I
went to Euston to meet Chamberlain. We were fully agreed in our line,
and he remained at my house the next morning, when I was sent for by
Mr. Gladstone through Lord Granville, the note being simply to ask me
to call at four o'clock at Lord Granville's house, where Mr. Gladstone
was. The questions which I put to Chamberlain were--"Is your former
opinion changed by the fact that Mr. Gladstone can, if he likes, do
without us, whereas Hartington could not? Or is it changed by the fact
that Gladstone's Government will last six years, whereas Hartington's
would soon have been modified by Gladstone?" Chamberlain's view was my
own view, that, although we were much weaker, we could not change our
attitude as regards one of us being in the Cabinet. Before seeing Mr.
Gladstone I had calls from Fawcett and Lefevre. Nothing had been
offered to Fawcett; Lefevre had been sounded as to an Under-
Secretaryship, and would take it. He told me he was sure that
Stansfeld would have the Local Government Board again and be in the
Cabinet. Childers came three times to see me in the course of the day,
and said that he was most anxious that I should be in the Cabinet and
Chamberlain in a good place outside it; but that the Queen had made a
difficulty about my Republicanism, and he asked me to write him a
letter about it. I declined to say anything new, but ultimately we
agreed that I should write him a letter marked "Private," in which I
wrote to the effect that on March 13th I had been asked the question
at a meeting, and that my answer had been in the newspapers on March
15th, that it was the same answer which I had made before the election
in 1874, and that I had nothing to alter in it.' [Footnote: The rest
of the letter gave a full account of the incident of Saturday, March
13th, 1880:

"The Tories sent the 'Reverend' W. Pepperell, an ex-dissenting
minister, to a meeting of mine, who asked me 'whether it was true that
I was a republican?' I replied to the effect that 'while as a matter
of speculative opinion I thought that a country starting afresh--as
France after Sedan--would in these days generally do better to adopt a
republican form of government than a limited monarchy, yet that in a
country possessing a constitutional monarchy it would be mere folly to
attempt to upturn it, and consequently folly even to try to disturb
it.' The answer was a very long one, and was nowhere _fully_ reported,
but everything in it was on these lines."]

A copy of this letter was ultimately brought to the Queen, and on May 5th
returned by Sir Henry Ponsonby with the words, "Her Majesty accepts Sir
Charles Dilke's explanation." But Lord Granville, through whom it had been
sent, and who had by that time become Sir Charles's immediate chief,
softened the austerity of this formula by explaining that the Queen in a
private letter had said she was "quite ready to believe all I had told her
about you, having known you as a child."

These preliminary conversations having occupied the morning, Sir Charles
set out after luncheon for the decisive interview.

'When I got to Lord Granville's I found Lord Granville, Lord
Wolverton, and Mr. Gladstone in the room, and Mr. Gladstone at once
offered me the Under-Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs. I asked who
was to be in the Cabinet. I was told Mr. Gladstone, Lord Granville,
Hartington, Harcourt, and Lord Spencer. Further than this, they said,
nothing was settled. I asked, "What about Chamberlain?" Mr. Gladstone
replied to the effect that Chamberlain was a very young member of the
House who had never held office, and that it was impossible to put him
straight into the Cabinet. I then said that this made it impossible
that I should accept the Under-Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs, or
any place. Mr. Gladstone said he would see whether anything could be
done, but that he feared not. I then asked whether, supposing that
anything could be done in my direction, I should be excluding Grant
Duff [Footnote: Sir M. Grant Duff had been spoken of for this office
in 1868, and had then in that Ministry become Under-Secretary of State
for India. In 1880 he was--much to Sir Charles's joy--made Under-
Secretary for the Colonies, his chief, Lord Kimberley, being in the
Lords.] from the Under-Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs, because I
said that I should be very sorry to do that, for both personal and
public reasons. He replied that if I refused it, it would not be
offered to Grant Duff; and I then left....

'On Tuesday morning Chamberlain was sent for, and accepted a seat in
the Cabinet (with the Presidency of the Board of Trade), and at one
o'clock I accepted the Under-Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs. Just
about this time I received a message from James: "Do, for the sake of
our future comfort, take something. The Bench will be dreadfully dull.
Stansfeld _in_ office must be worse than Stansfeld out." But Stansfeld
was not in office. What had interfered at the last moment to prevent
an appointment which was resolved upon I never knew for certain.
[Footnote: Mr. Stansfeld is generally believed to have refused office
owing to his wish to devote himself entirely to the cause of a special
measure of social reform in which he was interested.] But, as they had
not intended to put Chamberlain in, and I forced him in, I suppose
that Stansfeld was the man who had to make way for Chamberlain.'

II.

So ended the negotiations. The Radical wing had asserted itself, and
asserted itself successfully. It had been enabled to do so by Sir
Charles's action. To him the matter represented the mere carrying out of a
bargain; but friends were, as is natural in such a case, remonstrant, and
he was accused of "needless self-sacrifice," of "Quixotic conduct," of
"self-abnegation," of "your usual disinterestedness in politics," and the
bargain was much criticized. A letter from Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice,
congratulating Sir Charles on the stand he had made, added: "Not that I am
altogether satisfied with the result. I had assumed that as a matter of
course you would be in the Cabinet. I share the universal feeling that of
the two you had the undoubted claim to priority." But this regret was
probably based on more than personal grounds, and may well be read with a
letter written many years afterwards, in July, 1914:

"The real truth is that Dilke was too big a man to be an Under-
Secretary in 1880, and the whole position was a false one. I fancy
Lord Granville felt it to be so. One of his best points was his
readiness to recognize ability. I think he desired Dilke's sphere in
the Office to be as large as possible consistently with the general
arrangements of the Office, but it is always difficult to make special
arrangements work smoothly if they are based on a false principle.

"Dilke ought to have insisted on being in the Cabinet. It was very
much to his honour that he did not do so."

Lord Fitzmaurice goes on to say that in the making of the Cabinet public
opinion would have substituted Sir Charles Dilke for Mr. Dodson, who, in
spite of his work as Chairman of Committees from 1868 to 1873, and
afterwards as Secretary to the Treasury--("he would have made an excellent
Speaker")--had done but little in the House for the party in the long
period of Opposition from 1874 to 1880.

A mistake had, in fact, been made. The strong man should be put where his
services can avowedly be best utilized. This statement is true of
Chamberlain. He was, as the _Times_ put it, "the Carnot of the moment, the
organizer of Liberal victory." [Footnote: Neither Sir Charles Dilke nor
Mr. Chamberlain would, however, have desired to underrate the great share
in organizing the victory of Mr. Adam, the principal Liberal Whip in the
House of Commons, whose services were generally considered to have been
very insufficiently recognized by Mr. Gladstone.] Moreover, the confidence
and friendship which led to constant consultations on every point between
the two men guaranteed an added power to Sir Charles behind the scenes,
and to him power, and not the appearance of power, was the essential
thing. But Dilke's position also as a Parliamentarian, his acknowledged
power and insight on questions both of Home and Foreign Affairs, his
following inside and outside the House of Commons, had created a claim of
long standing to Cabinet rank, and its abandonment made the "false
position" to which Lord Fitzmaurice alludes. Although Mr. Disraeli was
reported to have said, apropos of Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, that an Under-
Secretary for Foreign Affairs with his chief in the House of Lords holds
one of the most important positions in a Ministry, nevertheless the Under-
Secretary is the subordinate of his chief, and Lord Granville's reputation
as Foreign Minister was great.

That personal difficulties at least were overcome is shown by a note of
Lord Granville, written when Sir Charles left the Foreign Office in 1882,
but the note is in itself a commentary on the "false position":

"WALMER CASTLE,
"_December 27th_, '82.

"MY DEAR DILKE,

"As this is the day you expect to go to the Local Government Board, I
cannot help writing you one line. I will not dwell upon the immense
loss you are to me and to the Office. You are aware of it, and I have
no doubt will continue to help us both in the Cabinet and in the
House, and will be ready to advise the Under-Secretary and myself. I
must, however, say how deeply grateful I am for our pleasant
relations, which might easily have been a little strained from the
fact that it was a sort of fluke that you were my Under-Secretary
instead of being my colleague in the Cabinet. As it is, nothing could
be more satisfactory and more pleasant to me, and the knowledge we
have obtained of one another will strengthen and cement our
friendship.

"Yours,

"G."

III.

Sir Charles's acknowledged authority in foreign affairs made his
appointment a matter of congratulation among foreign diplomatists. It was
welcomed on the ground that it would correct Mr. Gladstone's presumed
tenderness towards Russia, and, above all, would make a bond of union with
France through his personal relations with Gambetta, who wrote on April
28th:

"CHER AMI,

"Merci pour votre lettre de ce matin. Je trouve votre determination
excellente, et si la depeche de 4 heures qui annonce votre entree dans
le Cabinet, en qualite de sous secretaire d'etat aux Affaires
Etrangeres, est vraie, vous serez universellement approuve.

"Pour ma part, je vous felicite bien cordialement de la victoire que
vous venez de remporter, car je sais qu'avec des hommes tels que vous
on peut etre assure que c'est une victoire feconde en resultats pour
la civilisation occidentale et le droit europeen.

"Votre presence au Foreign Office est bien decisive pour dissiper les
dernieres apprehensions et effacer jusqu'aux souvenirs les plus
persistents.

"Mais vous devez avoir autre chose a faire qu'a lire des lettres
inutiles.

"Je vous serre les mains,

"LEON GAMBETTA."

The letter was 'couched in such terms as to make it desirable to answer
him with some statement of the views of the Government,' and Sir Charles
consulted Lord Granville about his reply, which would 'really be a
despatch,' and must 'say something about 1870' and the period of Lord
Granville's previous tenure of the Foreign Office. With recollections of
that time in their minds, and of England's entry upon the Black Sea
Conference without the presence of a French representative, French
politicians had commented very jealously upon some references to Gambetta
in a speech delivered by Lord Granville at Hanley in March of this year.
Lord Granville accordingly sent Dilke a memorandum in his own hand,
suggesting words for the reply. Gambetta was to be told that a speech
"made before the election" had been interpreted by some of his supporters
in the Press "as of a personal character against him," that Dilke knew
this to have been "the reverse of the speaker's intention," and that he
would be glad to have a talk with Gambetta on the subject of Lord
Granville's policy during the war when he next had the opportunity of
meeting him in Paris.

'But it was indeed difficult for Lord Granville to say anything about his
policy during the war which would please the French.' Gambetta's official
reply was, however, that, having read Lord Granville's speech, he found it
"proper under the circumstances and impartial," and that, although "absurd
ideas with regard to our recent elections had been ascribed to himself,"
he had "desired nothing in those elections" except Sir Charles's personal
triumph. To this Lord Granville rejoined: "Please thank M. Gambetta for
his friendly message. I presume you will not tell him that Lyons says his
assertion about the elections is a tremendous cracker."

Sir Edward Malet, Resident at Cairo, [Footnote: Afterwards Ambassador at
Berlin.] wrote:

"We have had one Under-Secretary after another" (at the Foreign
Office) "who knows nothing about these affairs, and who has therefore
never been able to exert the legitimate influence to which his
position entitled him. It will now be different, and I hope soon to
recognize the thread of your thought in the texture of the Government
policy."

M. Gennadius, the Greek Charge d'Affaires, while the matter was still
open, implored him not to decline. "All your Greek friends consider our
country's cause as dependent on your acceptance. You have done much for us
already. Make this further sacrifice."

Sir Charles entered upon his functions on Thursday, April 29th, when his
colleague, the Permanent Under-Secretary, Lord Tenterden, took him round
to be introduced to the heads of the various departments. For his private
secretary he chose Mr. George Murray, [Footnote: Now the Right Hon. Sir G.
Murray, G.C.B.] "an extraordinarily able man." But in a few weeks Mr.
Murray was transferred to the Treasury, and afterwards became secretary to
Mr. Gladstone, and, later, to Lord Rosebery when Prime Minister.

'I found' (from Bourke, his predecessor, who had written to him with
great cordiality) 'that as Under-Secretary for the Foreign Office, I
had the Cabinet key--or most secret key that at that time there was:
another still more secret key being introduced after I was in the
Cabinet, and confined to the Cabinet itself. I found in the Foreign
Office that if I liked I might have got back the "Department" which
Lord Derby took away from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary in 1874,
leaving him only the Commercial Department. [Footnote: The
"Department" assigned to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary before 1874
was 'control of' some branch of foreign affairs in its details. See
also below, p. 349.] But I at once decided that I would not have it,
as I wanted to concern myself with the Parliamentary business and with
the important business, instead of doing detailed work at the head of
one section of it.'

On the evening of his first day in office Sir Charles gave a dinner at
Sloane Street to several of his colleagues. There were present

'Fawcett, just appointed Postmaster-General, Lord Northbrook,
Childers, Forster, Hartington, and Goschen.... Chamberlain was at my
dinner, having taken up his quarters with me for a week....

'Hartington after dinner showed me Indian despatches which were very
startling. Mr. Goschen told us that he had refused the Governor-
Generalship of India and the Embassy at Constantinople, but he
afterwards took Constantinople. He appeared at this moment to have
made up his mind to stay in the House of Commons to oppose
equalization of the franchise and redistribution of seats....

'Forster told us that he was starting for Ireland to see whether he
could avoid some renewal of coercion; and Chamberlain and I told him
that he _must_ avoid it. This was the cloud no bigger than a man's
hand.'

Sir Charles goes on to tell how he stayed for a time its development:

'On the night of May 13th, between one and two o'clock in the morning,
I did a thing which many will say I ought not to have done--namely,
went down to a newspaper office to suggest an article against the
policy of another member of the Government. Under the circumstances, I
think that I was justified. I was not a member of the Privy Council or
of the Cabinet, and the interests of the party were at stake, as
subsequent events well showed. There was no shade of private or
personal interest in the matter. The effect of what I did was to stop
the policy of which I disapproved for the year, and might easily have
been to stop it for ever. I had found out in the course of the evening
that Forster was in favour of a Coercion Bill, and that the Cabinet
were likely to adopt it. I went down to the _Daily News_ office, and
told Hill, not even telling Chamberlain until two years afterwards
what I had done. The result of it was that the _Daily News_ had an
article the next morning which smashed Forster's plan.'

IV.

Chamberlain had written on May 4th to Mrs. Pattison: "The charmed circle
has been broken and a new departure made, which is an event in English
political history." But although the circle was broken, only one man had
found his way to the innermost ring; and in the composition of the
Ministry the Radicals were overwhelmingly outnumbered. Such a situation
did not lead to the stability of the Government, and by his reluctance in
the admission of Radicalism to office Mr. Gladstone had created
difficulties for himself. In the House his personal authority was
overridden in a matter which came up at once.