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

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'On September 28th I noted: "Cabinet suddenly and most unexpectedly
summoned for Thursday to sit on Parnell, the Sultan, and the Queen,
about Ireland, Dulcigno, and Kandahar respectively."... [Footnote: The
decisions as to the Irish difficulties are dealt with in the first
portion of Chapter XXII., pp. 343-348.]

'On September 30th Chamberlain, who was staying at Sloane Street, gave
me a note of what passed at the Cabinet. With regard to Kandahar, the
Generals whose names had been suggested by the Queen had been
consulted, and had, of course, pronounced against giving it up. So the
Queen had got her own way sufficiently for the matter to be left over
till after Christmas. The Cabinet were evidently sorry that they had
not more fully and more early adopted my suggestion of British
coercion of the Turks at Smyrna. And on this occasion they agreed to
try to induce the other Powers to agree upon (1) local action, or (2)
the seizure of a material guarantee: (1) meaning a demonstration at
the Dardanelles, and (2) meaning Crete.'

But the Eastern, unlike the Irish, trouble was now nearing a close,
though--

'On October 1st Lord Granville came to sit with me, and was very
gloomy. He thought that Mr. Gladstone was inclined to give in to the
Turks rather than resort to coercion. Harcourt came in also--at one
moment, "Whatever we do, we must not be snubbed," and the next, "After
all, it will be no worse than Palmerston and Denmark."'

Sir Charles's plan for the seizure of Smyrna was now agreed to in
principle by the Ministers in London, but while it still remained
uncertain whether they could carry other Powers with them in this coup,
Lord Lyons, British Ambassador at Paris, had written expressing a wish to
see, Dilke concerning negotiations for a commercial treaty, 'and the
Foreign Office also desired that I should deal with the Danube question
later.' Sir Charles left London on October 11th.

'Before I left, Lord Granville showed me a letter from Hartington from
Balmoral saying that the Queen had not named Kandahar to him, and had
"agreed to the Smyrna seizure project," but was angry about Ireland.
Hartington added that he had pledged Forster to put down Parnell. As
to her not naming Kandahar, Lord Granville said that she never
attacked the policy of a department to its chief.'

At Paris Sir Charles was warned by Lord Lyons that '"you will find the
French Foreign Office in some confusion, as the new Under-Secretary of
State is vigorously employed in 'purging' it of clericals and
reactionaries."' On October 12th he went with Lord Lyons to see Barthelemy
Saint-Hilaire, and also Jules Ferry, the Prime Minister, and Tirard, the
Minister of Commerce, with whom he would be principally brought into
touch.

Lord Granville was in London with Mr. Gladstone, bewailing the unhappy
fate of those who have to wait for an Eastern Power to make up its mind.
But at last the Porte's decision to surrender Dulcigno was announced, and
Lord Granville wrote:

"MY DEAR DILKE,

"I accept your felicitations _d'avance_--the Turkish Note has got us
out of a great mess. My liver feels better already. I hope you will
improve the occasion by impressing upon all that it only requires firm
language from all, such as was used by them on Saturday, to make the
Turk yield.

"I wonder whether they will be keen about Turkish finance. It is
rather in their line.

"How are we to help our poor friends the Greeks?"

The letter closed by a warning not to write by the post, "unless to say
something which it is desirable the French Government should know."
Caution as to danger of gossip about his frequent meetings with Gambetta
was also urged. [Footnote: Sir Charles notes on 11th November: 'Having had
a telegram from Lord Granville to caution me, I told Gambetta that I did
not want my visits talked about because of the German newspapers. The
result of it was that the _Agence Havas_ stated that I had not seen
Gambetta, and this was copied by Blowitz next day, so that the _Times_
repeated the untrue statement!']

Acting on these suggestions, Sir Charles Dilke during the next four days
discussed with the French Foreign Office and with Gambetta (who had
written on September 28th to say, "Je reviendrai expres de Suisse pour
vous vous en causer a fond"), not only commercial negotiations, but also
Turkish finance and the affairs of Greece. According to Lord Edmond
Fitzmaurice, the interests of Greece were at this time suffering because
Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire was anxious to reconcile the Porte to those
designs "which France was executing at Tunis and contemplating at
Tripoli"; [Footnote: _Life of Granville_, vol. ii., pp. 215, 436.] and in
Sir Charles's notes of these interviews there is repeated mention of
Gambetta's references to what Lord Salisbury had promised or suggested in
regard to Tunis. Gambetta himself was strongly Philhellene, but said to
his friend on October 17th: "Mr. Gladstone has spoilt our European affairs
by putting Montenegro first." He held, and M. de Courcel agreed with him,
that the Concert was for the moment "used up," and that Greece must wait
until it could be reinvigorated. The conclusion which Sir Charles drew and
conveyed to Lord Granville was that 'France waited on Germany, and Germany
on Austria, in regard to the Eastern Question, and consequently that,
Austria being absolutely mistress of the situation, a confidential
exchange of opinions at Vienna was essential.'

The demonstration at Dulcigno was carried out in December, but no further
progress was made then towards helping their "poor friends the Greeks."

Sir Charles's health was not at this time fully restored, but he was hard
at work. Even when he went for a short rest to his villa near Toulon he
was obliged to take a cipher with him, and, having no secretary at hand,
spent much of his time (most grudgingly) in ciphering and deciphering
telegrams.

'On October 25th Lord Granville wrote to me to Toulon, in cipher, to
the effect that Odo Russell thought that "Bismarck was jealous of the
leading part in Europe which we were now taking."'

Later, in November, the Prince of Wales, just returned from Berlin,
confirmed this. At the German Court Sir Charles was regarded as a "most
dangerous man" and as "a French spy." "But," the Prince added, "they say
the same of me." On November 22nd Lord Odo Russell is quoted as saying
'that at the Court of Berlin I was considered a most dangerous man, but
that the Crown Princess fought my battles like a sound Liberal and a true
Briton as she is.'

At the close of the year, addressing his constituents, Sir Charles
delivered a very effective general reply to Lord Salisbury's attacks on
the Government's European policy. It was a little hard to be blamed for
delay in settling difficulties which all sprang from Lord Salisbury's own
"harum-scarum hurry" when he was Foreign Minister and Second
Plenipotentiary of England. Lord Salisbury might say of the naval
demonstration that the Powers might as well have sent "six washing-tubs
with flags attached to them." The fact was that only to the concerted
action of the whole of the Powers had Turkey yielded.

"The European Concert is the first real attempt in modern times to
arrive at such an understanding between the six Great Powers as might
gradually become a basis for partial disarmament, and for the adoption
of a policy which would cease to ruin nations in time of peace by
perpetual preparations for war. In arriving at the idea that when
territorial changes are to be made it is for Europe to arrange them, a
practical step has been taken in the direction of this policy."

"Quite excellent," wrote Lord Granville. "I am delighted, and so, let us
hope, is Salisbury." [Footnote: The complicated story of the negotiations
relating to the Montenegrin and Greek frontier questions will be found in
detail in the _Life of Granville_, vol. ii., chap, vi., and the _Life of
Lord Goschen_, vol. ii., chap. vii. The principal documents, with
illustrative maps, are given in Sir Edward Hertslet's _Map of Europe by
Treaty_, vol. iv.]

CHAPTER XXII

HOME POLITICS--COMMERCIAL TREATY--PERSONAL MATTERS

I.

The opening successes of British foreign policy under the Gladstone
Government were to a large extent neutralized by other difficulties in
which the new Administration found itself at once involved. Ireland
carried confusion into the very heart of Imperial authority, and discord
into the counsels of the Government.

On October 30th, 1880, Lord Tenterden wrote:

'Odo Russell says there is a general opinion abroad that the Gladstone
Government will be in a minority when Parliament meets, ... and that
then the policy of England will have to be changed. There will be no
more demonstrations, or concerts, or inconvenient proposals. I told
him that such ideas were illegitimate offspring of Musurus and the
_Morning Post_.'

These rumours of coming defeat sprang from the Irish situation. Captain
Boycott's case had given a new word to the language; agrarian murders were
frequent; and the decision to seek no powers outside the ordinary law,
which had been pressed on Mr. Forster, was vehemently challenged by the
Opposition. Radicals wished for a Bill offering compensation to tenants
evicted under harsh conditions; but this proposal bred dissension in a
Government largely composed of great landlords, two of whom, Lords
Hartington and Lansdowne, possessed wide domains in Ireland. On June 13th,
1880, Sir Charles, after dining with Lord Rosebery in company with Mr.
Gladstone, noted that there was disagreement in the Cabinet, 'all the
peers being opposed to an Irish Land Bill, and all the Commoners
supporting Forster in this branch of his proposals.'

'On July 2nd trouble broke out in the Cabinet with a letter from Lord
Hartington advising the withdrawal of Forster's Irish Land Bill.
[Footnote: The Compensation for Disturbance measure.] ... I placed my
conditional resignation in Chamberlain's hands, and he his and mine in
Forster's, in case the latter was inclined to nail his colours to the
mast. I noted in my diary: "I do not care in the least about the Bill,
but I must either go out with these men or climb into the Cabinet over
their bodies, to either become a Whig or to eventually suffer the same
fate, so I prefer to make common cause. I suppose there will be a
compromise once more;" and so, at the Cabinet of the next day,
Saturday, the 3rd, there was.'

The compromise of July 3rd did not terminate dissension. Lord Lansdowne
retired from the Government, and in the first days of August the
Compensation for Disturbance Bill itself was rejected by the Lords, many
of Mr. Gladstone's nominal supporters voting against it.

This was the first revolt of the Whigs. The old order was passing, and
shrewd eyes perceived it. Lord Houghton wrote to Sir Charles from Vichy on
August 8th:

"I told Hugessen [Footnote: Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen had been created
Lord Brabourne in this summer.] that a peer always voted with his
party the first Session as a matter of etiquette; but it seems he does
not think so. The Government will have to decide in the vacation
whether they can govern without the Whigs or not. I am glad that I
have not to decide this point, but I own I am glad that I have lived
in a Whig world. It has been a wonderful combination of public order
and personal liberty. I do not care much for future order, but I care
a good deal for individual liberty, which is slipping away from under
us."

For the moment the House of Lords had given victory to the Whigs; but the
sequel was, in Mr. Gladstone's own words, "a rapid and vast extension of
agrarian disturbance," which grew all through the winter of that famine-
stricken year, presenting to the Chief Secretary the traditional Irish
problem, how to deal with a lawless demand for redress of grievances.
Towards the end of September Mr. Chamberlain wrote:

"Next Session will settle Forster one way or the other. Either he will
pass a Land Bill and be a great statesman, or he will fail and be a
pricked bubble for the rest of his natural life."

Mr. Forster wanted to pass a Land Bill, but he also wanted to deal with
lawlessness by coercive legislation, and, after the Cabinet hurriedly
called on September 28th, Mr. Chamberlain reported:

'"With regard to Ireland, Forster made a strong case for a Coercion
Bill, but the Cabinet thought it best that the insufficiency of the
present law should be thoroughly proved before new powers were asked
for."

'Chamberlain went on:

'"Probably a prosecution will be tried against Parnell and the Land
League for intimidating tenants and others. Even if it fails, it may
divert the attention of the Land League from its present agitation,
and so lead to a cessation of outrages."'

'I added in my diary: "I hope they will not commit the folly of
prosecuting Parnell, which they discussed to-day. I sent for Hill, and
got the _Daily News_ to damn the idea." But my intervention through
the _Daily News_ was not on this occasion sufficiently strong
ultimately to prevent this folly, for I had not, this time, any
following at my back.'

Later in the year he told Mr. Chamberlain that "to try to stop Irish land
agitation by making arrests was like firing a rifle at a swarm of midges."

Mr. Chamberlain replied from Birmingham on October 27th;

"I do not half like the Irish prosecutions, but I fear there is no
alternative, except, indeed, the suspension of the Habeas Corpus,
which I should like still less. Parnell is doing his best to make
Irish legislation unpopular with English Radicals. The workmen here do
not like to see the law set at defiance, and a dissolution on the
'Justice for Ireland' cry would under present circumstances be a
hazardous operation."

Mr. Forster was eager to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and wanted to have
Parliament specially summoned in order to carry through repressive
legislation.

'On Monday morning, November 15th, on my return to London, I saw
Harcourt, and told him that I should follow Chamberlain in resigning
if a special Irish Coercion Session without a Land Bill were to be
called. I saw Chamberlain immediately after the Cabinet which was held
this day. Bright and Chamberlain were as near splitting off at one end
as Lord Selborne at the other. Mr. Gladstone proposed at the Cabinet
the creation of English, Scotch, and Irish Grand Committees, but
obtained very little support....

'It seemed probable that there would be a Coercion Bill and a Land
Bill, and that the Land Bill (although the resignation of the Lord
Chancellor was threatened) would give what was known as "the three
F's," and that the Government would insist on both Bills. [Footnote:
The "three F's" were "Fair Rent" (_i.e._, judicially fixed rent),
"Free Sale" (of tenant right), and "Fixity of Tenure."] The Lords
would probably throw out the Land Bill, and the Government would
resign....

'Chamberlain had dined with me on November 17th, and had given me late
news of the condition of the Cabinet, which had been adjourned until
Friday, the 19th.

'The division was really a division between the Commons' members on
the one side (except Forster and Hartington, but with the support of
Lord Granville), and Forster and Hartington and the Peers upon the
other side; Lord Cowper, the Viceroy of Ireland' (who, although not a
member of the Cabinet, had been called in for the occasion), 'making
common cause, of course, with Forster....

'On the 19th the adjourned Cabinet was held; Forster was isolated, and
all became calm. The Queen had telegraphed on the previous evening to
Lord Granville in a personal telegram, in which she said that Mr.
Gladstone had told her nothing about the dissensions in the Cabinet,
and that she "must request Lord Granville either to tell her what
truth there is in the statement as to dissensions or to induce Mr.
Gladstone to do so!" Mr. Gladstone always held that the Queen ought
not to be told about dissensions in the Cabinet; that Cabinets existed
for the purpose of differing--that is, for the purpose of enabling
Ministers who differed to thrash out their differences--and that the
Queen was only concerned with the results which were presented to her
by, or in the name of, the Cabinet as a whole. This seems reasonable,
and ought, I think, to be the constitutional view; but the Queen
naturally ... hates to have personal differences going on of which she
is not informed....

'On November 23rd I noted in my diary that Hartington ... had grown
restive, and wanted to resign and get Forster to go with him, and that
Forster talked of it but did not mean it. Kimberley and Northbrook had
come over to Mr. Gladstone's side, and the other view was chiefly
represented by Lord Spencer and Lord Selborne; and I could not help
feeling that if, as I expected, the split with Whiggery had to come,
it had better be this split, so that we should have the great names of
Gladstone and Bright upon our side. One could not help feeling that we
had no men to officer our ranks, and that really, besides Mr.
Gladstone, who was an old man, there was only Chamberlain....
Hartington was a real man, but a man on the wrong side, and with
little chance of his getting rid of his prejudices, which were those,
not of stupidity, but of ignorance; with his stables and his wealth it
was useless to expect him to do serious work. Bright was a great name,
and had a power of stringing together a series of sound commonplaces,
so put that they were as satisfactory to the ear as distinct
statements of policy would be; and had a lovely voice, but it was
rhetoric all the same--rhetoric very different from Disraeli's
rhetoric, but equally rhetoric, and not business.'

By November 25th the severity of the crisis may be gathered from a letter
of Sir Charles's to Mrs. Pattison, which describes the grouping of forces.
On the one side were "Gladstone, Bright, Chamberlain, Granville, Harcourt,
Kimberley, Childers, Dodson, Northbrook; on the other Hartington, Forster,
Spencer, Argyll, the Chancellor." "Forster," he wrote, "talks about
resigning, but does not mean it. It is _meaning_ it which gives us so much
power."

'"If Chamberlain and I should be driven to resign alone, we shall have a
great deal of disagreeable unpopularity and still more disagreeable
popularity to go through." His old kinsfolk who cared for him were "hard-
bitten Tories": Mr. Dilke of Chichester; his cousin, John Snook, of
Belmont Castle; and Mrs. Chatfield, if she were still able to follow
political events, would "badger him horribly." Worse still, he would have
to endure "patting on the back by Biggar," to which he would prefer stones
from "a Tory mob."

The lull in Cabinet troubles was only momentary:

'On December 10th, Chamberlain, the stormy petrel, came to stay. When
we were at dinner there suddenly arrived a summons for a Cabinet to be
held on Monday, instead of Thursday for which it stood, and we went
off to Harcourt's. We found that he was not in the secret, and
therefore decided that the Cabinet must have been called at the demand
of the Queen on the suggestion of Dizzy, who was staying with her at
this moment; "but it may have been called on account of Forster's
renewed demand for coercion," as I noted.

'The next morning, December 11th, Lulu Harcourt came, and brought a
note: "Dear Dilke, L. will tell you what he heard from Brett. It is
odd that the Sawbones should know what we are trying to find out."
Lulu reported that Dr. Andrew Clarke had told Reggie Brett,
Hartington's secretary, that Parliament was, after all, to meet before
Christmas. When Lulu was gone, Chamberlain and I decided that if there
was only a pretended and not a real change we would resign, whatever
our unpopularity. In the afternoon of the same day Harcourt wrote to
Chamberlain that he had seen Hartington; that Forster had written to
Gladstone that he could not wait till January 6th' (for extended
powers of coercion). 'Harcourt said that the reports were not much
worse, and only of a general kind; that Hartington thought Forster
worried and ill. "In fact, I think he is like the Yankee General after
Bull Run--not just afraid, but dreadful demoralized. I have only one
counsel to give--let us all stick to the ship, keep her head to the
wind, and cram her through it. Yours ever, W. V. H."

'_Monday, December 13th._--... called before the Cabinet to find out
whether the offer of Chamberlain's place would now tempt me to sell
him! We won, after all!'

Mr. Forster had accordingly to wait till the New Year for the introduction
of his Coercion Bill.

II.

A departmental change in the Foreign Office at this time greatly increased
the responsibilities of the Under-Secretary. Complaint had become frequent
in the House of Commons of an apparently insufficient representation of
the Government in regard to commercial questions, which belonged partly to
the sphere of the Board of Trade and partly to that of the Foreign Office,
with unsatisfactory results. Lord Granville determined, on returning to
office, to make a new distribution of duties, and to take advantage of the
Under-Secretaryship being occupied by a Member of Parliament whose
competence on commercial questions was universally recognized to place the
commercial business of the Office more completely under his control--as
supervising Under-Secretary. [Footnote: This arrangement continued in the
Under-Secretaryship of Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, Mr. James Bryce, Mr.
Robert Bourke, and Sir James Fergusson, but was subsequently altered. See
also above, p. 314.]

'On Sunday, May 2nd, Lord Granville asked me to take over general
supervision of the commercial department of the Foreign Office, and,
although I should have preferred to keep free of all departmental work
in order to attend to larger affairs of policy, I admitted that there
were strong reasons for my taking the Commercial Department, inasmuch
as the commercial members of the House of Commons were dissatisfied
with its management, and because also it was certain that I should
have to defend in the House of Commons treaty negotiations with
foreign Powers, which would in any case force me to give much time to
the consideration of commercial questions. When I first agreed to take
over the Commercial Department, it was only with the view of keeping
it for a short time, but I was unable to rid myself of it during the
whole time I was at the Foreign Office, and it gave me heavy work.'

The first and chief instalment of this burden consisted in the
negotiations for a new commercial treaty with France.

In January Dilke had learnt from Gambetta that M. Leon Say, late President
of the Finance Committee of the Senate, would come to London as Ambassador
'when the trouble about "Article 7" was ended.' [Footnote: See Chapter
XX., p. 300.] It was in the month of May (when the "trouble" about M.
Ferry's attack on the religious Orders was by no means ended) that M. Say
arrived, charged with an important mission, specially suited to his
qualifications as an ex-Minister of Finance. France was revising her
commercial policy; several commercial treaties, including that with Great
Britain, had been only provisionally prolonged up to June 30th; and M. Say
was instructed to try to secure England's acceptance of the new general
tariff, which had not yet passed the Senate. Gambetta and his friends
still held to the ideals of Free Trade. M. Tirard, the Minister of
Commerce, supported the same view, but there was a strong Protectionist
campaign on foot.

M. Say arrived on May 5th, and on the 6th had his first interview with Sir
Charles:

'At this moment I was showing my disregard for the old Free-Trade
notions in which I had been brought up by my grandfather, and my
preference for reciprocitarian views, by carefully keeping back all
grievances with the countries with which we were negotiating upon
commercial matters, in order that they might be thrown in in the
course of the negotiations. On this ground I managed to cause the
Colonial Office to be directed to keep all Gibraltar grievances in
hand.

'Immediately on taking charge of the Commercial Department, I had sent
a memorandum on the wine duties to Mr. Gladstone, who replied, "I have
never yet seen my way to reduction below a shilling or to a uniform
rate. _At present, we have not a sixpence to give away._ I do not like
bargaining away revenue for treaties, or buying over again from France
what has been bought already.... In my view the treaty of 1860 was
exceptional; it was to form an accommodation to the exigencies of the
French Emperor's position. _We_ never professed to be exchanging
concessions, but only allowed him to say _he_ had done it. I am, of
course, open to argument, but must say, as at present advised, that I
see but very little room for what is called negotiating a commercial
treaty."'