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

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'On May 13th Mr. Gladstone again stated privately that he intended to
give up the Exchequer on account of his advancing years.

'On this day the Cabinet unanimously decided to give an extradition
treaty to Russia--to my mind a most foolish proposal.

'On Monday, May 15th, Mr. Gladstone sent Chamberlain to O'Shea to see
if Parnell could be got to support the new Coercion Bill with some
changes. When Harcourt heard of this, which was done behind his back,
he was furious, and went so far as to tell me: "When I resign I shall
not become a discontented Right Honourable on a back bench, but shall
go abroad for some months, and when I come back rat boldly to the
other side." This reminds me of Randolph Churchill on Lord Derby, "A
man may rat once, but not rat and re-rat."

'On Tuesday, May 16th, Mr. Gladstone wrote, on Chamberlain's
suggestion, to Harcourt to try to smooth him over, and proposed a
Cabinet on the matter for the next day, Wednesday, May 17th, at which
Harcourt declared that if any change was made in the principle of his
Coercion Bill he would resign; but then nobody knew what was the
principle of the Bill. At this Cabinet Harcourt ... told the Cabinet
that the Kilmainham Treaty would not be popular when the public
discovered that it had been negotiated by Captain O'Shea, "the husband
of Parnell's mistress." He informed the Cabinet that ... after this it
would hardly "do for the public" "for us to use O'Shea as a
negotiator." I wrote to Grant Duff on this day (closed 18th) as to
Parnell's relations to Mrs. O'Shea as disclosed in Cabinet.

'On Friday, May 19th, Lord Derby said to me: "You were right to refuse
the Chief Secretaryship; still Mr. Gladstone must say to himself:
'Surely I am about to die, for I am not obeyed.'" On Monday, the 22nd,
Mr. Gladstone was very strongly in favour of accepting Parnell's
privately suggested amendments to the new Coercion Bill, obtained
through O'Shea, but Hartington going with Harcourt against touching
the Bill, Mr. Gladstone got no support except from Chamberlain.

'On May 25th Chamberlain was anxious to resign on account of
Harcourt's position as to coercion; but the fit passed off again.

'On June 5th I noted in my diary that I heard that Goschen was soon to
be asked to become Chancellor of the Exchequer.

'On the 9th Lord Granville told me that the hatred of Mr. Gladstone
for Goschen was such that he had point blank refused to make him
Chancellor of the Exchequer; but this proved to be untrue, for an
offer was as a fact made to him, although perhaps very privately.

'At this time I received a letter from Lord Ripon in India as to the
Kilmainham Treaty, in which he said that he was convinced that
Forster's policy had completely broken down, and went on: "But between
ourselves is not the Government still ... on a wrong track in its
coercive measures? I do not like the suspension of trial by jury....
Again, if Reuter is right, it is proposed to take a power to expel
dangerous foreigners. I am too much of a Foxite to like an Alien Bill,
and, besides, if you are not very careful, the expulsion of foreigners
will land you in a very disagreeable state of relations with the
United States." These, I noted, were exactly the arguments which
Chamberlain was using against Harcourt without avail.'

II.

On June 11th Mr. Chamberlain wrote that the Cabinet had decided on some
important changes in the Prevention of Crimes Bill, and that things looked
better.

But on that day the Alexandria riots took place, and opinion was sharply
divided as to the measures which should be taken. Here Sir Charles Dilke,
and with him Mr. Chamberlain, were strongly for forcible action, while Mr.
Bright, who in the matter of Ireland had come round towards the side of
coercion, opposed the use of force in Egypt. On July 5th there was a
stormy meeting of the Cabinet, which two days later had its echo in
public.

'Mr. Gladstone, mixing Ireland and Egypt together, broke out in the
House of Commons on July 7th, and afterwards privately told his
colleagues that he intended to resign!'

The occasion of this outbreak was a debate on the Prevention of Crimes
Bill, which the Tories were seeking to render more drastic. The Prime
Minister declared with emphasis that if coercive powers which he did not
seek were to be thrust upon him, he must "consider his personal position."
The words were at once in debate construed as a threat of retirement, and
there was a critical position in the Cabinet.

'Bright would follow Mr. Gladstone; and Chamberlain and I decided that
if this were so, although we were against him about Egypt, which would
be one of the causes of his resignation, we must go with him all the
same and refuse to join the new administration. Although I concurred
in this view, after discussion, it was not mine. On this occasion I
thought it was our duty to stay. But after discussion, as I have
stated, I came round to Chamberlain's view so far as this--that we
decided that we would not join the new Government if Mr. Gladstone
were outside it in the House of Commons; although the case might be
different if he quitted political life or went to the Lords, and if we
were satisfied with the new bill of fare.

'At this moment Chamberlain and I were anxious to get Courtney into
the Cabinet, and Mr. Gladstone having asked us, after Playfair's worst
mess, if we thought Courtney would take the place of Chairman of Ways
and Means, we told him that we thought he would only if it was
understood that it was not to lessen his chances of obtaining Cabinet
office. [Footnote: Sir Lyon Playfair, Chairman of Committees, had
suspended eighteen Irish members on July 1st.]

'When the House met at nine o'clock [Footnote: This means after the
dinner interval, for which at this time the House used to adjourn.] on
Friday, July 7th, I sounded Trevelyan' (then Chief Secretary for
Ireland) 'as to his course, and found him most anxious to stop in at
all hazards. I then saw Childers, who had walked home with Hartington
at seven. He said that he had urged Hartington not to form a weak Whig
Administration, and had told him that if Chamberlain would stay he,
Childers, would go on, but that he thought that to go on without
Chamberlain would be fatal, and that it would be far better to let the
Tories come in, and help them through with Egypt, and then make them
go to their constituents. At ten o'clock Grosvenor came and told me
that he thought that Mr. Gladstone would stay on. Chamberlain, who
still thought that Mr. Gladstone would resign, told Hartington that in
the event of the formation of a new Liberal Ministry he should insist
that Goschen should not be put in, and that the vacancies should be
filled up by myself, Courtney, and Trevelyan. At midnight the storm
had blown over.'

A Bill to prevent eviction for arrears of excessive rents had been
demanded by the Nationalist party as a necessary amendment to the Land Act
of 1881, and it had been introduced by the Government, and was carried
through _pari passu_ with the new measure of coercion. It was furiously
opposed by the high Tories, and a new crisis seemed imminent.

'On Monday, July 10th, it again seemed probable that Mr. Gladstone
would resign. The intention of the Lords to throw out the Arrears
Bill, at Lord Salisbury's dictation, was loudly proclaimed, and it was
said by Mr. Gladstone's friends that Mr. Gladstone would at once
resign, and that if Lord Salisbury refused to form a Government, Mr.
Gladstone would retire from public life. Chamberlain was determined
then to insist with either Lord Granville or Lord Hartington for
myself, Courtney, and Trevelyan, on the ground that a Liberal
Government with a Whig Prime Minister must be Radical.'

It was the apprehension of such an increase of power to the Radicals that
made the threat of Mr. Gladstone's resignation formidable both to Whigs
and Tories.

Mr. Gladstone, however, did not resign, though Mr. Bright did, after the
bombardment of Alexandria had taken place. On the contrary, by July 12th,

'so belligerent was the Prime Minister that he had now decided, in
face of the prospect of Lord Salisbury throwing out the Arrears Bill,
unless Lord Waterford on behalf of the Irish landlords begged him not
to do so, to prorogue, have another Session a week after, and pass the
Bill again.'

This quarrel between the Houses remained open till August 8th, when Lord
Salisbury, under pressure from the Irish landlords, was forced to content
himself with acquiescence under angry protest. But in the meanwhile the
Government were in other difficulties. After the bombardment of Alexandria
it was still necessary to deal with the rebellion against the Khedive,
whose authority England was seeking to support; and the Tories, allied
with a section of the peace party, offered strong resistance to any
military expedition.

'On Wednesday, August 2nd, I had a conversation with Mr. Gladstone,
who agreed in my view that if beaten we should force the county
franchise, and dissolve only if the Lords would carry that. It began
to look as if we should sit till Christmas.

'On Monday, August 7th, I had an interesting talk with Brett. Knowing
his great influence with Hartington, I complained to him of his
chief's folly in always acting as the leader of a Whig section instead
of as deputy-leader of the whole party. Brett agreed that it was
foolish in the particular case of franchise, "as he must give in at
last." I replied: "But he has given in already, and gone back again."
Brett answered: "He declares he never voted for it." This is a curious
example of Hartington's complete detachment from politics and want of
interest in them, for he had not only voted, but had made a long,
strong, and elaborate speech, explaining his reasons for so doing, and
then absolutely forgotten the whole thing, and thought that he was
still committed to opposition. At the Cabinet of the 5th he had
declared against a Franchise Bill.'

When the Session ended on August 27th the question of Sir Charles Dilke's
personal position came up. Neither his refusal of the Chief Secretaryship
nor his attitude of opposition to Mr. Gladstone's own wishes as to Egypt
had in the least impaired his standing, and promotion was felt to be his
due. The old difficulties, however, were still in the way, and Sir Charles
refused to buy his way into the Cabinet by a sham recantation. The matter
accordingly stood over, as appears from this entry:

'At this moment there were fresh discussions as to my saying something
to the Queen to get over her difficulty about receiving me into the
Cabinet. Lord Granville, in congratulating me upon the way in which I
had done the Foreign Office work, said that Mr. Gladstone had been
unable to say anything to the Queen because I had hot given him enough
upon which to go. Mr. Gladstone then wrote to me a long letter in
favour of my making some statement to my constituents, but he went on
to admit in writing what he had previously admitted in conversation--
namely, that a Committee' (to inquire into the Civil List) 'would be
wise. Therefore I at once insisted that I should have the distinct
promise of this Committee before I said anything. Mr. Gladstone's
letter came very near a promise, as he said that when any new set of
cases came forward the question of a Committee would naturally come
up, and would, he hoped, be favourably entertained. I again called in
Chamberlain, and acting with him, declined to make any statement, as I
had in no way changed my opinion, but I pressed the appointment of the
Committee, or at least the promise of one. Mr. Gladstone again
promised to communicate with the Queen.'

CHAPTER XXIX

EGYPT
JANUARY TO SEPTEMBER, 1882

I.

At the beginning of 1881 the form of government which Europe had set up in
Egypt was but young. Tewfik, the Khedive chosen by the French and British
Governments to replace Ismail, had occupied his position for less than two
years. Riaz Pasha, head of the Ministry after the fall of his predecessor
Nubar, [Footnote: There is a note of October 13th, 1880: 'I saw Nubar
Pasha about Egypt, and I had received an extremely able long letter from
Rivers Wilson asking me to interfere to restore Nubar to power, but I did
not as a fact discuss Egypt with the French.'] had brought about a mutiny
of officers early in 1879, and was carrying on public affairs with
difficulty. He had been forced to sacrifice his War Minister to the second
mutiny (of February, 1881) which followed on the arrest and secured the
release of Arabi. In the spring of the year the smouldering discontent of
the army was fanned into flame by the advance of the French to Tunis.

'On May 12th' (1881--the very date on which the French Expeditionary
Force constrained the Bey of Tunis to accept French suzerainty) 'steps
were taken on behalf of Lord Hartington, Lord Granville, and myself to
see whether, now that France had knocked another bit out of the bottom
of the Ottoman Empire by her attack on Tunis, we ought to try to get
any compensation in Egypt for ourselves. Hartington was to consult the
India Office upon the question, and I wrote to Sir Edward Hertslet,
asking him to consider how we stood with reference to the despatch of
troops through Egypt in the event of (1) a rising in India, (2) an
invasion of India by Russia.'

On July 28th, 1881, there took place at the Foreign Office the first
meeting of a Committee 'to consider the affairs of Egypt, consisting of
Tenterden, myself, Pauncefote, Malet, Scott the Judge, young Maine, and
Reilly.' Sir Charles Rivers Wilson, who had been Finance Minister under
Ismail, was called in from time to time.

'My own endeavours on this Committee were directed against increasing
internationally in Egypt, as I thought the Governments of England and
France would be driven sooner or later to occupy the country with a
joint force, and that internationality (which would mean German
influence) would then be a great difficulty in the way.'

The need for intervention soon grew urgent. On September 9th, 1881, a
large body of troops, headed by Arabi, threatened the Khedive's palace,
demanding the dismissal of all the Ministers, the convocation of a
parliament, and a great increase of the army. Again the mutiny succeeded,
and this time, in Sir Edward Malet's words, "it was more than a mutiny, it
was a revolution." Riaz Pasha was replaced by Cherif, but all real power
was in the hands of the soldiery.

The question now came to be, Who should step in to establish order? The
Sultan of Turkey, who saw a chance of making his nominal suzerainty real,
proposed to despatch troops, but confined himself to sending envoys. As a
counter-demonstration, France and England each sent a warship to
Alexandria; and Gambetta's accession to power in November meant a great
reinforcement to the policy of joint intervention.

Sir Charles was then in Paris engaged in the commercial negotiations
already described, and he chronicled in his diary a sporting suggestion:

"_September 19th_, 1881.--After the seventeenth sitting of the Treaty
Joint Commission I had an interview with Delia Sala, the Italian who
is an Egyptian General, and governs the Soudan. He is a great fencer,
and has killed his man before now. He declares himself willing to put
down insubordination in the Egyptian Army by calling out three of the
Colonels in succession. A more practical but hardly less bold
suggestion of his is that he should be allowed to increase his anti-
slavery regiment of 600 men, and then to use it as a bodyguard for
Malet instead of the putting down of slavery."

'On December 27th, 1881, Lord Granville asked me by letter to discuss
with Gambetta all the possible alternatives, and especially joint
occupation (to which Lord Granville saw objection), and a Turkish
intervention under the control of England and France (to which French
opinion was opposed): "The more you can get out of Gambetta without
committing us the more grateful we shall be." I have no recollection
of having discussed Egypt with Gambetta.'

Shortly afterwards

'Malet wrote from Cairo to Paris, telling me that he still had
confidence in the moderation of the progressist party represented by
Arabi and the Colonels, and that he was managing them through Wilfrid
Blunt, who was acting as a go-between; but a little later on the
relations between Blunt and Malet became such as to show that each had
thought he was using the other as a tool.'

"Moderation" is an ambiguous term. When the Chamber of Notables met at the
end of December, 1881, the army put forward through the Minister for War a
demand for an increase of 18,000 men. This increase the European
controllers refused to sanction, on the ground that the country could not
afford it. Thus came to pass a conflict between the national movement and
the joint European control upon an issue which united the interests of the
military party with the aspirations of the parliamentarian Nationalists
for the power of the purse. Gambetta, however, was now dominant in France,
and Gambetta had no tolerance for the pretensions of what he called a
"sham assembly." A Joint Note, dated January 6th, 1882, was issued by the
two Powers, in which England and France declared their intention to "guard
by their united efforts against all cause of complication, internal or
external, which might menace the order of things established in Egypt."
Another phrase in the Note attributed the exchange of views between the
Powers to "recent circumstances, especially the meeting of the Chamber of
Notables convoked by the Khedive," and this was naturally construed by
Nationalists to mean that parliamentary institutions were internal causes
of complication.

The issue of this Note is one of the marking-points of modern Egyptian
history. It asserted the determination of the joint Powers to make their
will obeyed in Egypt, by force if necessary. According to general
admission, its issue was due to the overmastering influence of Gambetta.
Dilke, whom everyone knew to be Gambetta's intimate, was in France almost
continuously from the time when Gambetta became Prime Minister on November
10th, 1881, till the eve of the issue of the Joint Note. In 1878, while in
Opposition, he had publicly advocated a policy of annexation in Egypt, and
it was inevitable that critics should fasten upon him a special
responsibility for the course pursued.

Yet, as the Memoir makes clear, in 'this weighty affair' Dilke had
virtually no voice. He was not in the Cabinet, and he was absent from
Paris for nearly the whole of December, taking a holiday in Provence from
commercial negotiations. Only on his return, on December 27th, did he
receive Lord Granville's letter--which was dated December 21st--asking him
to discuss with Gambetta the possible alternatives. But although the two
men met repeatedly between December 27th and January 2nd, when Dilke left
Paris, Gambetta refrained from discussing Egypt. The Memoir says, under
date January 7th, 1882:

'The Cabinet had before it the state of affairs in Egypt, and resolved
upon agreeing on Gambetta's policy of a Joint Note on the part of
England and of France in support of the Khedive against the
revolutionary party. Mr. Ashmead Bartlett, misled by the dates of
interviews, has asserted from that time to this (1890) that the Joint
Note was arranged in Paris between Gambetta and myself. I have
repeatedly denied that statement, for curiously enough it so happens
that the Joint Note was the only important matter relating to Foreign
Affairs which happened while I was at the Foreign Office in which I
was not consulted. Gambetta never broached the subject with me, and I
knew nothing of it until it was done. As we talked a little about
Egypt, I suppose that he had reasons for not wishing to speak of the
Joint Note to me, but I do not know what they were.'

II.

Sir Charles Dilke's policy for Egypt differed from that of his chief, who
always inclined to leave Turkey to undertake the necessary coercion, under
the surveillance of England and France. Dilke, with Gambetta, desired
joint intervention. [Footnote: Lord Cromer wrote to Sir Charles Dilke
asking him about a letter of M. Joseph Reinach's of July 28th, 1909, in
which the latter spoke of his doubts as to the complete sincerity of the
English Government at the time of the Gambetta Ministry. At that moment
Dilke, in whose company he had breakfasted at Gambetta's with MM. Rouvier,
Spuller, and other guests, did not, in spite of his great friendship for
Gambetta, believe in the duration of his Ministry, any more than the
English Government did. M. Reinach thought that Sir Charles Dilke's Diary
would throw an interesting light on the point as to whether, foreseeing
Gambetta's fall, the English Government did not foresee the probability of
their sole intervention in Egypt.

Sir Charles's comment was as follows:

"My diary (agreed to by Chamberlain after he had changed the opinions
he held at the time described) shows that permanent occupation was not
thought consistent with British interests by any who took a leading
part in the Cabinet action. I was not in the Cabinet until after Tel-
el-Kebir, but, as you know, I was--from the time of the riots at
Alexandria--of the 'inner Cabinet' for such purposes. Of course, all
men knew that the Gambetta Cabinet was dead before its birth. Hanotaux
... is right on this. But we wanted the Turk to go for us, and,
failing the Turk (under our lead), then Italy in place of France,
after France backed out....

"There was no moment up to '96--or perhaps '98--when if France had
known her mind and meant business she could not have had her way--
'reasonably.'

"Gambetta's policy was dominated by hatred of Russia. 'I will seek my
alliances--n'importe ou, meme a Berlin'--meant anywhere except at St.
Petersburg.... Say to Reinach that I tell you that I don't mind
_showing_ him the governing passages in my diaries if he wants to
_see_ them, but that they are dead against him."]

'On January 15th, 1882, I started the idea that England and France
should not act as England and France only, but should ask Europe for a
mandate, and on the 16th Lord Granville took it up, and wrote to Lord
Lyons in its favour on the 17th. I sent to Lord Granville notes of
what I proposed to say in a speech on Egypt. I pointed out that I had
been one of those who had opposed the creation of the Anglo-French
control, but that it was the invention of our predecessors. Lord Derby
had created, when Conservative Foreign Secretary, a mild form of
control, which had been raised into the sharper form of control by
Lord Salisbury, who had refused successively to Germany, to Austria,
and to Italy, any share in the control. Lord Salisbury was wholly
responsible for it; but, however great its political dangers, from the
Egyptian and the economical point of view it had worked well, and,
being there, must be maintained, as it was the only thing between us
and anarchy. It was due to the controllers that the country had been
relieved from arbitrary rule. The co-operation with France
deliberately created by Lord Salisbury must be loyally maintained.

'Lord Granville wrote back praising the proposed statement, but
suggesting that I should not run down the control so much, and not
initiate an attack upon our predecessors. Although I slightly toned
down my observations upon this occasion, when we were afterwards
attacked on the matter in the House of Commons I more than once said
everything that I had proposed to say against the control and our
responsibility for its existence.'

'On January 18th Sheffield' (Lord Lyons's secretary) 'came to see me.
He said that Gambetta was angry with Malet, as Malet was under the
influence of Wilfrid Blunt, which meant that of Arabi Bey. I wrote a
minute of our conversation upon this point, and Lord Granville
replied: "Gambetta must not drag us into too arbitrary a way of
dealing with the Egyptians. He is _tres autoritaire_." On the 20th
Lord Granville received a private letter from Lord Lyons, who would
not hear of the mandatories of Europe plan for Egypt, which, however,
Mr. Gladstone had approved. It was from Lord Lyons's reply that I
discovered that Lord Granville had given the credit of the scheme to
Malet. I had never heard Malet mention any such idea; but on the next
day, January 21st, Malet did telegraph the plan, and I could not help
wondering who had sent it to him.