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

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The outcome of these inquiries was the appointment of the Royal Commission
on Housing. The subject afforded safe ground on which to meet the Queen
when he first went down as a guest to Windsor, and it was supplemented by
another matter, on which much correspondence had passed between him and
Sir Henry Ponsonby--that of certain cement works near West Cowes, the
smoke from which killed the Queen's shrubs at Osborne.

'On Tuesday, November 27th, I dined and slept at Windsor, and the
Queen talked artisans' dwellings and Osborne chemical works. Ponsonby
I thought very able and very pleasant. I suppose I had Dizzy's rooms,
because there was not only a statue of him, but also a framed
photograph, in the sitting-room, while in the bedroom there was a
recent statue of the Empress Eugenie. The Queen was, of course, very
courteous, but she was more bright and pleasant than I had expected.
The Duke and Duchess of Albany were at Windsor, and I had her next me
at dinner. Lorne was also there, and after the Queen had gone to bed
the Duke and Lorne showed me all the curiosities, having had the whole
of the galleries lighted. We sat up very late. Loene is serious-
minded ... through his real attempt to understand his work, and would
do most things well....'

In this year Sir Charles opposed the scheme of "assisted emigration" under
which was offered to the world the amazing spectacle of a Government
paying its own subjects to quit its shores and its flag. Irish peasants,
half starved, clad in garments promiscuously flung out from the slop-shop,
often quite unfit to make their way in a strange country, were induced by
the offer of a free passage (without even inspection to see that they were
decently accommodated on board) to pour in thousands out of a country
whose rulers had no better thing to offer them than this cynical quittance
in full. Sir Charles 'violently opposed the scheme' in one of his first
Cabinets (May 5th), and again on July 25th tried to abolish it, but 'only
succeeded in getting a promise that the second year of it should be the
last.'

At the beginning of 1883 his brother Ashton was very ill at Algiers, and
on February 17th the manager of his paper, the Weekly Dispatch, brought to
Sloane Street a communication in Ashton Dilke's own hand, which contained,
amongst other directions to be carried out after his death, the actual
paragraph by which it was to be announced. When the end came, on March
12th, 1883, it meant 'a serious breaking with the past. William Dilke
alone was left to me, if, indeed, at eighty-eight one could speak of a man
as left.' This old grand-uncle, with his military memories of Waterloo
days, whom Sir Charles Dilke yearly visited at Chichester, and who often
stayed at Sloane Street, was also at this moment very ill, and supposed to
be dying; but he recovered, and lived on for more than two years. In April
Sir Charles ordered from Mr. W. E. F. Britten, the painter, whom Leighton
had commended to him, a portrait of his brother, which 'proved very good,'
and which hung always in 76, Sloane Street.

He clung to family ties, and later in the year paid a visit to distant
kindred, the heads of the Dilke family:

'On Saturday, August 25th, I went to Maxstoke, and returned on Monday,
the 27th. There dined on the Saturday night Lord and Lady Norton and
their eldest son, Charles Adderley. The old man said a very true thing
to me about the place. "What a good castle this is, and how lucky that
it has always been inhabited by people too poor to spoil it!" From the
Commonwealth times, when Peter Wentworth plundered the Dilke of his
day for delinquency after the two years during which Fairfax had held
the Castle, they have never had money, and no attempt was ever made to
rebuild the interior house after the two fires by which two-thirds of
it were successively destroyed. They are, owing to Mrs. Dilke having a
little money, a little more prosperous just now, and there is a larger
herd of deer than usual; on this occasion I counted over one hundred
from the walls.'

The loss of his only brother had been preceded by a 'heavy blow.' That
"great and illustrious friend" for whom, in the early seventies, Sir
Charles prophesied that, in spite of the opposition of French aristocracy
and clericalism, he would govern France, had passed away on the last day
of 1882. Gambetta was dead.

On New Year's Day, 1883, Sir Charles, speaking to the electors of Chelsea,
dwelt on the qualities of "the greatest of all Frenchmen of his time"--
"the magnitude of his courage, his tremendous energy, his splendid
oratory, and, for those who knew him in private, his unmatched gaiety and
sparkling wit."

Among those who wrote to him was Mr. Gladstone, condoling on a death "you
will much feel." To one friend who wrote of Gambetta's "moral power," he
replied: "It seems difficult to speak of 'moral' power about Gambetta. His
kind of power was almost purely physical; it was a power of courage,
energy, and oratory." During his visit to Paris in January, 1883, 'my
first visit after Gambetta's death,' he and Lord Lyons 'talked chiefly
about Gambetta.'

Later, turning--with the detachment of judgment which characterized his
attitude to public life--from his private friendship to his estimate of
the needs of France, he left this estimate of Gambetta and the Republic:

'Much as I loved his society, I did not think him a loss to the
Republic, for he was too dictatorial and too little inclined to let
other men do important work to suit that form of government, except,
indeed, in time of war. It is quite true that his was the only strong
personality of which France could boast, and it was possible that, so
long as he was there, the people would not be likely in a panic to
hunt in other camps for a saviour: but great as was his power--
physical power, power of courage and of oratory--and terrible as was
the hole in France made by his death, nevertheless the smaller men
were perhaps more able to conduct the Republic to prosperity and to
general acceptance by the people.'

II.

The governing fact of English politics at this moment was the general
expectation of Mr. Gladstone's retirement. Since Lord Hartington would
undoubtedly succeed him, the Radical wing, led by Dilke and Chamberlain,
was doubly eager to commit the Government in advance to Radical measures.
Each of the two main subjects contemplated had two subdivisions. Reform of
the electorate included extension of the franchise, to which the Radicals
attached most importance, and to which Lord Hartington was sullenly
opposed; it also included redistribution of seats. Reform of local
government included, first, proposals for a new system of county
government; [Footnote: These had taken some shape, and Dilke found a draft
of them in his office when he succeeded to it; but Mr. Chamberlain agreed
with him in thinking it "a poor thing which I should not like to father."]
secondly, the Bill for the Government of London, which Sir William
Harcourt and Sir Charles Dilke had prepared with the help of Mr. Beal and
Mr. Firth, and this was ready for circulation to the Cabinet.

While Dilke, with his son, was passing Christmas-time at Toulon, Mr.
Gladstone had also come to the Mediterranean coast.

'I went to Cannes, where I dined with Mr. Gladstone twice, and went to
church with him on Sunday, January 21st, 1883.

'While Mr. Gladstone was at Cannes he talked very freely to Ribot and
other Frenchmen in the presence of Mrs. Emily Crawford, the _Daily
News_ correspondent in Paris, about the London Government Bill.
Harcourt had insisted, against myself and Firth and Beal, and against
most of the Commons members of the Cabinet, including the Prime
Minister, on keeping the control of the police in the hands of the
Government. Ribot asked Mr. Gladstone whether we could really trust
London with its police, as few Frenchmen dared trust Paris, and Mr.
Gladstone said that we could and should, a statement which was at once
sent to the _Daily News_, and printed, to Harcourt's horror.'

[Illustration: LEON GAMBETTA.
From the painting by Legros in the Luxembourg Museum at Paris.]

'On February 2nd we had a conference on London Government at the Home
Office, in which the police question again came up. In consequence of
our difference of opinion Harcourt shortly after circulated to the
Cabinet a memorandum on the police authority in the new municipality
of London....

'"No competent statesmen and no authoritative body of men have
considered this matter without arriving at the same conclusion--
namely, that there ought to be one police force, and not two, in the
Metropolis. I will therefore take it for granted that it is impossible
to raise an argument against the union of the whole of the police
force in the Metropolis under one control.... There is only one
question worthy of debate--namely, whether the united force shall be
placed under the control of the corporation or of the Government.... A
practical consideration of the case will, I think, demonstrate the
sheer impossibility of vesting in a popular council the discipline and
administration of such a force as the Metropolitan Police.... Suppose,
for example, that news arrived either from America or Ireland which
required instant and secret action by the police throughout London
against a Fenian outbreak. Is it to be contended that a meeting of the
Watch Committee is to be summoned ... a debate to be raised and a vote
taken?... When the Government determined to arrest Davitt, was the
warrant to be canvassed ... in the Watch Committee?..."

'On this I wrote in strong dissent: "Suppose the same news as regards
Liverpool. A case in point was the attack on Chester Castle. Liverpool
was the Fenian centre for this. Liverpool is by far the most Fenian
town in England. Yet all the arrests were made in Liverpool, and all
worked perfectly. If all this argument were really true, there would
be Fenian Alsatias in existence now. We do not find any difference
between town and town. We do not find that the Fenians avoid London,
where Harcourt has all his force and all his powers."

'Harcourt's memorandum went on in extraordinarily violent and anti-
popular language.... To this reasoning neither Mr. Gladstone nor
Chamberlain nor I yielded.'

Extension of the franchise involved Ireland. It was certain enormously to
increase Mr. Parnell's following, and Lord Hartington's opposition to the
proposal was very largely due to this fact. The Whig leader's attitude to
Ireland was expressed in a speech at Bacup, in which he declared that it
would be "madness to give Ireland more extended self-government" unless
they could "receive from the Irish people some assurance that this boon
would not be used for the purposes of agitation."

'Chamberlain wrote to me January 20th:

'"Hartington's speech was very Conservative the other day. I cannot
complain, as he has as much right to talk Whiggism as you and I to
spout Radicalism. Only I don't see how we are to get on together when
Mr. G. goes.... But the general impression left on my mind is that the
country (_our_ country, that is--the great majority of Liberal
opinion) is ripe for a new departure in constructive Radicalism, and
only wants leaders. So if we are driven to fight, we shall easily
recruit an army."'

Speaking at Swansea on February 1st, Mr. Chamberlain said:

"So long as Ireland is without any institution of Local Government
worthy of the name, so long the seeds of discontent and disloyalty
will remain, and burst forth into luxuriant growth at the first
favourable occasion."

Radicals were already uneasy about Lord Spencer's administration, and
their uneasiness was finding expression in public. Sir Charles notes in
January, 1883, before his brother Ashton's death:

'My brother had in January placed his application for the Chiltern
Hundreds secretly in the hands of his Newcastle friends, to be used so
soon as they had found a candidate, and I managed through Chamberlain
the selection of John Morley. Lord Spencer and Trevelyan were at this
time very hostile to Morley, who was writing against their policy in
the _Pall Mall_, and was supposed to be instigated by Chamberlain. In
sending me a letter of complaint from Trevelyan, Chamberlain wrote:

'"It seems to me devilishly like Forster over again. I think it may
wait without further reply; but I fear there may be more trouble in
store in Ireland yet, and we may have to put our feet down on further
coercion."

'In a letter of February 2nd, Chamberlain wrote:

'"If Spencer and Trevelyan really believe that I have set Morley
against them, they are very foolish. On the other hand, I have done
all I can to keep him straight, but you know he is kittle cattle to
drive. If I have not converted him, I must admit that he has rather
shaken me, and I have not quite so much confidence in their discretion
as I thought it politic to express last night" (at Swansea). "The more
I think of the prosecutions of the Press and of Members of Parliament,
the less I like them. But I have said nothing of this to Morley. You
will see that I replied to Hartington by implication. I do not want to
have a row, but if it must come I shall not shrink from it.'"

The Radicals were pressing forward a proposal to deal at once with the
extension of franchise instead of with Local Government; but here they
were overruled.

'On this last point of the order of our chief Bills, Chamberlain and I
jointly consulted the Cabinet in writing, with the result that all
pronounced against our view except Mr. Gladstone, who was away and did
not write.' (Mr. Gladstone did not return from Cannes till the
beginning of March.) 'Hartington showed in his minute not only that he
wanted County Government dealt with first, but that he wanted
redistribution dealt with in the same Session with franchise. Lord
Spencer and Lord Selborne strongly agreed with Hartington. Lord
Granville was against binding ourselves to couple redistribution with
equalization of franchise, but thought that to introduce Bills dealing
with one or both of these subjects "would be prematurely hastening the
end of a good Parliament, and would delay the passing of useful
measures, including Local Government. It seems to me important to test
the utility of the new rules of procedure by several non-political
Bills, together with such Bills as the Local Government Bill and the
reform of the municipality of London." Lord Granville, of course, was
anxious to stop in, and was merely finding reasons for not touching a
subject which he thought dangerous.

'Lord Derby agreed with Lord Granville: "The objection on general
grounds to bringing forward a County Franchise Bill in the present
Session seems to me strong. You could not postpone redistribution of
seats, and this latter measure would involve the necessity for
dissolution, either in order to carry it or immediately after it was
carried. Local Government would thus be delayed for several years."
Lord Kimberley wrote: "I agree with Lord Derby. From the time when we
propose the extension of the county franchise until (by some
Governments) the redistribution of seats is carried, there will be a
political crisis, and all other measures will be postponed."

'In consequence of the position taken up by the Cabinet, I proceeded
to draft a Local Government Bill.' [Footnote: The measure was a large
one, but he notes in his Memoir that 'it was a less complete and
comprehensive measure than that prepared by me for Chamberlain in
1886.']

Thus, immediately on his entry into the Cabinet Sir Charles found himself
entrusted with the task of framing the chief measure for the succeeding
Session. When the outlines had been sketched in, he wrote:

'Before I started for my Easter holiday I went through the draft of
the Local Government Bill. Drawing great Bills is heart-breaking work,
for one always feels that they will never be introduced or seen, so
considerable are the chances against any given Bill going forward. All
the great labour that we had given to the London Bill was wasted, and
this forms a reason why the Foreign Office is pleasanter than other
offices, as no work is wasted there.'

The decision to postpone extension of the franchise, though it eased the
situation, did not solve all difficulties. Mr. Chamberlain urged a Tenant
Rights Bill for England, which, he said to Sir Charles, "would be a great
stroke of business. Without it" they would "lose the farmers for a
certainty." Sir Charles concurred, and an Agricultural Holdings Bill was
amongst the measures carried in that Session. It did not go far in the
direction of tenant right, and therefore created no controversy with the
Whigs. But with regard to Ireland, Mr. Chamberlain 'was strongly in favour
of an Irish Local Government Bill' (which had been promised in a previous
Queen's Speech). The Prime Minister was of Mr. Chamberlain's view. On
February 3rd to 5th, when Dilke was staying with the Duke of Albany at
Claremont (and 'admiring Clive's Durbar carpet, for which the house was
built'), the Duke 'talked over Mr. Gladstone's strong desire for an Irish
Local Government Bill.' That desire was, indeed, no secret, for Mr.
Gladstone, still in his expansive mood of Cannes, gave an interview to M.
Clemenceau, in which he expressed his hope to "make the humblest Irishman
feel that he is a self governing agency, and that the Government is to be
carried on by him and for him."

At the Cabinet of February 9th

'we looked forward to what the schoolboys call "a jolly blow up," when
Mr. Gladstone should return. The letter from Mr. Gladstone, which was
read, was so steady in its terms that I passed a paper to Chamberlain,
saying: "He is quite as obstinate as you are."

'On February 12th I ... found Harcourt perfectly furious at Mr.
Gladstone's conversations as reported in the _Daily News_. I wrote to
Chamberlain to tell him, and he replied: u It is lovely. And his
conversation with Clemenceau will send Hartington into hysterics re
Irish Local Government.'

Sir Charles's first Cabinet Council was on Tuesday, February 6th, 1883.

'This was the Queen's Speech Cabinet, and my notes show that I wrote a
good deal of the speech, especially the part which concerned the
Bills. I was much surprised at the form of the circular calling the
Cabinet: "A Meeting of Her Majesty's servants will be held," etc....
We were thirteen on this day, and spent a portion of our valuable time
in wondering which of us would be gone before the year was out. Mr.
Gladstone still stated in his letters that he would retire at Easter,
or at the latest in August, and it was generally thought that he meant
August.'

A series of Cabinets followed in which the Prime Minister continued to
make himself felt, though absent, and Sir Charles wrote in his Diary:

"Talk of two Kings of Brentford! This Cabinet has to serve two
despotic monarchs--one a Tory one, at Osborne, and one a Radical one,
at Cannes."

It shows the temper of the moment that Sir Charles should have described
the second monarch as 'Radical.' But Ireland was then the central subject
of contention, and concerning Ireland Mr. Gladstone was with the Radicals,
Dilke and Chamberlain, and against those who wanted to revenge upon the
whole Irish nation, the plots of the "Invincibles," then being exposed by
the evidence of James Carey, the Phoenix Park assassin, who had been
accepted as an informer.

'On Sunday, February 18th, I dined with the Prince and Princess of
Wales at Marlborough House, where were present Prince Edward of Saxe-
Weimar, Hartington, the Duchess of Manchester, Lord and Lady Hamilton
(afterwards Duke and Duchess of Abercorn), Lord and Lady Granville,
Lady Lonsdale (afterwards Lady de Grey), Lord Rowton, H. Bismarck,
Leighton, Alfred de Rothschild, and Sir Joseph Crowe. Lord Granville
and I sat in a corner and talked Danube Conference. Lord Granville
told me, when we returned to other matters, that Harcourt was in a
dangerous frame of mind, and might at any moment burst out publicly
about the necessity of governing Ireland by the sword. He was also
threatening resignation on account of Mr. Gladstone's views about the
Metropolitan Police.'

'On February 19th there was an informal Cabinet in Mr. Gladstone's
room, which was now temporarily mine.... Harcourt fought against Lord
Granville, Kimberley, Northbrook, Carlingford, and Childers, in favour
of his violent views about the Irish. At last Carlingford, although an
Irish landlord, cried out: "Your language is that of the lowest Tory."
Harcourt then said: "In the course of this very debate I shall say
that there must be no more Irish legislation, and no more
conciliation, and that Ireland can only be governed by the sword." "If
you say that," replied Carlingford, "it will not be as representing
the Government, for none of your colleagues agree with you." It was
only temper, and Harcourt said nothing of the kind, but made an
excellent speech.' [Footnote: Sir Charles Dilke's view of the Irish
movement is expressed in a letter of March 7th, 1883: "I don't think
that the movement in Ireland is to be traced to the same causes as
that on the Continent. The Irish movement is Nationalist. It is
patriotic--not cosmopolitan, and is as detached from French Anarchism
and German or American Socialism as is the Polish Nationalist
movement."]

'On March 1st I heard that when the Irish Government, through the Home
Office, had applied to the Foreign Office to ask the Americans for P.
J. Sheridan, the Home Office had said that they feared it was useless
to apply to the United States except on a charge of murder. On this
hint the Irish Government at once charged Sheridan with murder.
Harcourt told me that their promptitude reminded him of a story which
he had heard from Kinglake, who was once applied to by a friend as to
the circumstances which would be sufficient to legalize a "nuncupative
[Footnote: "Nuncupative" is a legal term for an oral as distinguished
from a written will.] death-bed will." Kinglake wrote a figurative
account of an imaginary case in much detail, and by the next post
received a solemn affidavit from the man setting out Kinglake's own
exact series of incidents as having actually occurred.'

Prosecutions and sentences had no more effect than such things generally
have in face of a suppressed revolution and on the night of March 15th,
1883, a dynamite explosion took place at the Local Government Board. Sir
Charles, however, did not take a very serious view of it:

'The dynamiters chose a quiet corner, and they chose an hour when
nobody was about, which showed that the object was not to hurt
anybody, but only to get money from the United States. At the same
time they picked their office most unfortunately, for the Local
Government Board is the only office where people worked late at night,
and two out of my four leading men were still in their rooms, although
they had come at ten in the morning and the explosion did not take
place till nine at night.'

Mr. Gladstone had returned at the beginning of this month, and on March
5th Sir Charles saw him for the first time in Cabinet, 'singularly quiet,
hardly saying anything at all.' He did, however, say that Mr. Bradlaugh
was "a stone round their necks," 'which in a Parliamentary sense he was.'
Despite one of Mr. Gladstone's greatest speeches, Government were again
beaten when they proposed to let him affirm.

In this spring there was an agitation to create a Secretaryship of State
for Scotland, and Lord Rosebery was looked upon as designate for the
office. Sir Charles did not think the change necessary, but was strongly
for having Lord Rosebery in the Cabinet, and wrote to Sir M. Grant Duff,
Governor of Madras:

"It would be natural to give Rosebery the Privy Seal, and let him keep
the Scotch work; but nothing will induce Mr. G. to look upon him as
anything but a nice promising baby, and he will not hear of letting
him into the Cabinet." 'Nothing,' he adds, 'was settled on this
occasion.'

"A smaller Bill than those which I have mentioned, but one in which I
was interested, was my Municipal Corporations (unreformed) Bill, which
had passed the House of Lords, but failed to pass the Commons.
[Footnote: Previous reference to Sir Charles's persistent fight for
this Bill is to be found in Chapter XIII.] Rosebery thought that this
time it should be introduced into the Commons... because, although the
Lords were pledged to it by having passed it," this pledge must not be
strained too hard by constantly waving the red flag of uncomfortable
reform before the hereditary bull. "Harcourt having agreed with me
that the Bill should be introduced into the Lords, and having also
agreed with Rosebery that it should be introduced in the Commons,
Rosebery again wrote: 'I am afraid if you go on bringing this measure
before the peers they will begin to smell out suspicious matter in
it."'