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

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He foreshadowed also his attitude towards Labour questions. He proposed,
as early as 1867, that the Factory Acts should be extended to all
employment; the best way of compelling children to attend school was, he
thought, to prohibit their employment as premature wage-earners. Another
declaration set forth that Trade Unions must be recognized, and their
funds protected just as much as those "of any association formed for
purposes not illegal." By no means were all Liberals in 1867 ready to
distinguish between Trade Unions and criminal conspiracies.

Taxation came next. His desire to "sweep away many millions of Customs and
Excise," and to establish a system so far as possible of direct taxation,
is notable because it was put forward at the very moment when he was
explaining in _Greater Britain_ to the precisians of Free Trade that young
countries, like America and the Colonies, had reasonable grounds for
maintaining a rigid Protective system.

Questions put at this first meeting with the electors elicited a
declaration for triennial Parliaments; if these failed, then for annual;
for payment of members, with preference for the plan of payment by the
constituency, advocated by "Mr. Mill, the great leader of political
thinkers." As to manhood suffrage, the candidate held "that the burden of
proof lies on those who would exclude any man from the suffrage; but I
also hold that there is sufficient proof for the temporary exclusion of
certain classes at the present time."

This, with some other points in the exposition of his political creed,
needs to be read in the light of a passage in the Memoir:

'I tried to be moderate in order to please my father, and not to lose
the general Liberal vote; my speeches are more timid than were my
opinions.'

Yet for all his efforts after moderation he was too extreme for his
father, who probably was shocked to hear that the Game Laws "needed an
amendment, which should extend perhaps to their total abolition." Sir
Wentworth Dilke remonstrated. His son replied in December, 1867:

"I am a Radical, I know; still I have for your sake done everything I
can to speak moderately. I have spoken against Fenianism in spite of
my immense sympathy for it. For my own part, though I should immensely
like to be in Parliament, still I should feel terribly hampered there
if I went in as anything except a Radical.... Radicalism is too much a
thing of nature with me to throw it off by any effort of mine. If you
think it a waste of money for me to contest Chelsea, I will cheerfully
throw the thing up and turn to any pursuit you please."

Many other matters which were to occupy Charles Dilke later are mentioned
in this first and detailed exposition of his political faith. He dealt
with army reform: would abolish "purchase of commissions and flogging"; he
condemned "an army in which we systematically deny a man those advantages
that in entering an employment he naturally looked to receive," and the
double responsibility of the Horse Guards and the War Office as "a system
which is in its very essence costly and inefficient." On Foreign Affairs
he said: "I am very wishful indeed for peace, but a peace more dignified
than that which has of late prevailed." [Footnote: Speech in Chelsea,
November 25th, 1867.]

He spoke at Chelsea, Kensington, Hammersmith, Fulham, Brompton, Notting
Hill, and Walham Green, earning from the electors the name of Mr.
Indefatigable Dilke. The borough deserved that a man who sought to
represent it should state his case thoroughly, and there was an uncommon
degree of truth in a not uncommon compliment when he called it "the most
intelligent constituency in England." South Kensington was the home of
many judges and other important lawyers, many great merchants and men of
business; Brompton was still a literary quarter; Holland Park and Notting
Hill the home of the artists who figured largely on Dilke's committee--the
names of Leighton, Maclise, Faed, and other Academicians are among the
list. The honorary committee was made up almost entirely of resident
Members of Parliament.

In Kensal Town was a very strong artisan element, and at one time a
working-man candidate was before the electors, George Odger, who was 'the
best representative of the Trade Unions, and a man of whom the highest
opinion was entertained by Mr. Mill.' He not only withdrew, but became
also an active supporter.

Of the Tory candidates, perhaps the more important was Mr. Freake, a big
contractor who had built Cromwell Road, in which he lived, and who was not
on the best of terms with his workmen. Some of this unpopularity reflected
itself on the allied candidature of Dr. W. H. Russell, whose expenses Mr.
Freake was said to be paying. But the contest led to a lasting friendship
between Charles Dilke and the famous war correspondent. The other Liberal
candidate was Sir Henry Hoare, a Radical baronet, twenty years older than
Dilke, who had for a short time sat as member for Windsor. So long as he
represented Chelsea he voted with the extreme Radicals, and his name may
be found in many division lists in the minority along with that of his
colleague. But later in life he changed his politics, joined the Carlton
Club, and was a member of it for many years. Charles Dilke always spoke of
him in terms of cordial friendship even after their political association
had long been ended.

Their candidature was not a joint one, as Dilke put himself forward
independently; but when the election actually came the Liberal candidates
joined forces, and two picture-cards represent the contest as between
rival teams of cocks. In one the Odger cock is seen retreating; Freake is
on his back, gasping; Russell and Hoare still contend, while under the
banner "Dilke and Hoare for ever," Dilke crows victorious. In the second
card Odger has no place, and Russell is as dead as Freake.

This graphic forecast was justified by the result. Polling took place on
Wednesday, November 18th, 1868, and, according to a local paper, "the
proceedings were of a most orderly character; indeed, the absence of
vehicles, favours, etc., made the election dull." The voting was open. The
results were published from hour to hour at the booths, and the unpopular
candidates were in one or two places driven away by hisses. Even in
Cromwell Road Dilke and Hoare led, and Dilke's advantage in his own
district of Chelsea proper was conspicuous. The final figures were:

Dilke........ 7,374
Hoare........ 7,183
Russell...... 4,177
Freake....... 3,929

The triumph was all the more gratifying because it had been achieved by a
volunteer canvass. No member has ever been bound to a constituency by
closer ties of personal feeling than those which linked Charles Dilke,
first to Chelsea and later to the Forest of Dean. He worked for his
constituents, and taught them to work for him.

At this same General Election Sir Wentworth Dilke lost his seat, and Lord
Granville sent him a note "to condole with you and to congratulate you. I
suspect that the cause of the latter gives you more pleasure than the
cause of the former gives you regret. How very well your son seems to have
done!"

After the election Charles Dilke sought a rest by one of his flying trips
abroad. He stopped a day in Paris to examine the details of the French
registration system. Thence he proceeded to Toulon, 'to which I took a
fancy, which ultimately led, many years after, to my buying a property
there'; the scenery of Provence captured him from the first moment.

Parliament was summoned to meet on December 10th for the election of a
Speaker, and for the swearing-in of members. By the beginning of December
the member for Chelsea was on the eve of return, rejoicing in the news of
Mr. Gladstone's defeat in South-West Lancashire and election for
Greenwich. "He is much more likely to become a democratic leader now that
he sits for a big town."

A note preserved in one of the boxes gives Charles Dilke's first
impressions of the party and Government to which he had vowed a somewhat
qualified allegiance.

"_December 10th_, 1868.--House met for election of Speaker. The
Liberal party is more even in opinion than ever before. No
Adullamites, no Radicals but myself. The Cabinet is somewhat behind
the party, which is bad. Too many peers."

The House of Commons of 1868 was superficially very much like any of its
predecessors. Dilke notes that it 'contained some survivals of the old
days, such as Mr. Edward Ellice, son of "Bear" Ellice [Footnote: This was
Mr. Edward Ellice, who had been in the House since 1836, and who continued
to represent St. Andrews till 1879. He was sometimes called "the young
Bear." See _Life of Lord Granville_, i. 80, 81, 141, 171, 175, as to the
"old Bear."] of the days of Lord Melbourne,' a consistent and typical
Liberal. The Liberal party consisted then mainly of men born into that
governing class which Lord Melbourne had in mind when he said "that every
English gentleman is qualified to hold any post which he has influence
enough to secure." This element was accompanied by a fair sprinkling of
manufacturers and other business men, for the most part Nonconformists.
But no separate Irish party existed to complicate the grouping; indeed,
the Irish were much less a corps apart than they had been in O'Connell's
time. Labour had not one direct representative, though the importance of
the artisan vote had made itself felt; and this was recognized by the
choice of Mundella, then returned as a new member for Sheffield, to second
the address at the opening of the session.

The personal composition of the assembly had greatly altered. More than a
third of its members were new to Parliament. W. Vernon Harcourt, Henry
James, and Campbell-Bannerman, sat then for the first time, and sat, as
did Charles Dilke, below the gangway. In the same quarter was Fawcett, who
helped them in creating the new phenomenon of a House of Commons alive in
all its parts.

Sir George Trevelyan, who almost alone of living men can compare from
experience the House of Commons before the Reform Bill of 1867 and after,
holds that it would be difficult to overstate the contrast. The House was
no longer an arena for set combat between a few distinguished
parliamentarians, whose displays were watched by followers on either side,
either diffident of their ability to compete, or held silent by the
unwritten rule which imposed strict reserve upon a new member. For the
greater number promotion had come through slow and steady service in the
lobbies.

Charles Dilke from the first was always in his place--that corner seat
below the gangway which became gradually his traditional possession; and
from the first he assumed a responsible part in all Parliamentary
business. "He was the true forerunner, in his processes, his industry, his
constant attendance, and his frequent speaking, of Lord Randolph
Churchill." The revolt against 'the old gang' began on the Liberal side,
and Charles Dilke was the chief beginner of it. Although the new Reform
Act had led to far-reaching change in the quality of the House of Commons,
the choice by Mr. Gladstone of the members of the Ministry made it plain
that no break with the past was contemplated by the leaders. Lowe, whose
anti-democratic utterances on Reform had been denounced by Dilke at the
Cambridge Union, was Chancellor of the Exchequer; and only half the
Cabinet were commoners. Among these was indeed Bright; but the only other
Minister whose name carried a hint of Radicalism was Forster, Vice-
President of the Council of Education, and he was not in the Cabinet when
it was first formed.

On the other hand, Bright and Forster were to an exceptional degree
responsible for the general trend of the Government policy. The
dissolution and election had turned with more than usual definiteness on a
clear issue--the proposal to conciliate Ireland by disestablishing the
privileged Church of the minority; and behind this immediate proposal lay
a less clearly defined scheme for giving security of tenure to Irish
tenants. Ireland was the first business of Charles Dilke's first
Parliament, and it was Bright more than any other man who had stirred
English feeling with the sense that England had failed in her duty to the
smaller country, and that an attempt to do justice must be made. Yet in
both Church reform and land reform the actual brunt of the Parliamentary
struggle fell upon Mr. Gladstone. Bright had a marvellous gift for rousing
political emotion, but he had not the application necessary to give
legislative effect to his aims; and Charles Dilke, though fully sensitive
to the beauty of cadence in Bright's language, and enthusiastic for the
music of "his unmatched voice," nevertheless inherited something of his
grandfather's suspicion of "that old humbug Oratory"--at all events, when
the oratorical gift was not allied with executive capacity.

There was no lack of masterful grip and handling of detail in the other
great orator of the Liberal party, yet the young Radical's attitude to his
leader was one of admiration indeed, but always of limited sympathy. Not
only did a long generation lie between them, but Charles Dilke had been
bred a Radical, and Gladstone had been bred a Tory. The Government policy
after 1868 was dominated by the education controversy, and was dictated by
Forster. There was probably no man among his colleagues with whom Dilke
more often came into collision. Forster was a strong natural Conservative,
though he had been brought up in the traditions of Radicalism, and Mr.
Gladstone was suspected of not being willing to abolish Collegiate as well
as University tests.

On the Opposition front bench Disraeli's primacy was not less marked than
Mr. Gladstone's, and his romantic figure always fascinated Dilke. But his
special admiration was for Gathorne Hardy (afterwards Lord Cranbrook), in
whom High Toryism found its most eloquent and sincerest spokesman. Later,
in 1876, Sir Charles was to complain ironically that the Conservatives
"never will be able to employ the services of the man best fitted by
nature to be their leader. Mr. Gathorne Hardy will never lead the
Conservative party because he is not a Liberal."

In 1869 he saw little of either the Tories or the Whigs, 'but acted with
the Radicals.' He had modified his first estimate of the composition of
the House. This Radical group largely represented the industrial towns and
Nonconformist interests. It included Peter Rylands, member for Warrington;
Peter Taylor, member for Leicester; Henry Richard, member for Merthyr
Tydvil; George Anderson, member for Glasgow; and Llewellyn Dillwyn, member
for Swansea. Some, such as Peter Taylor, were theoretical Republicans, but
all were peace-at-any-price men, Bright's votaries, though when Bright
joined the Government they were ready to vote against Bright.

The group contained also some men of Charles Dilke's own stamp, with whom
Cambridge associations created a bond. 'Harcourt, of whom I saw much, was
then a below-the-gangway Radical.' He, though sixteen years Dilke's
senior, was also a newcomer, but a newcomer well known already at
Westminster by his famous letters to the _Times_, signed "Historicus," and
by his career at the Parliamentary bar. Another was Lord Edmond
Fitzmaurice, who had been Charles Dilke's contemporary and coadjutor at
the Union. A great figure in the Radical group came from Trinity Hall--
Fawcett, who had first won his seat for Brighton in 1865.

Among Government Liberals, Lord Granville in the House of Lords was an
hereditary friend, through his attachment to Dilke's father, but belonged
to a much older generation. Grant Duff, a man to whom later on Dilke came
to be strongly attached, was Under-Secretary of State for India. From the
first, however, a close alliance formed itself between Charles Dilke and a
junior member of the Government, who had still been debating at the Union
when Dilke came to Trinity Hall. Entering Parliament in 1865, Mr.
Trevelyan had distinguished himself by a vigorous campaign against the
system of purchase in the Army, and, in 1868, he was put in office as
Junior Lord of the Admiralty. Senior to Charles Dilke by five years, he
had not known him at Cambridge; but they "speedily became very intimate."
So writes Sir George Trevelyan in a letter of 1911:

"I was a very young Minister, worked hard all day by Mr. Childers, a
very strict but very friendly taskmaster, and never, according to the
Treasury Bench discipline of those heroic times, allowed to be absent
from the House of Commons for a single moment. I used to come to the
House unlunched, and desperately hungry; and I got my dinner at four
o'clock in an empty dining-room. Afternoon after afternoon, Charles
Dilke used to come and sit with me; and a greater delight than his
company, young to the young, I can hardly describe. But it does not
need description to you, for never did anyone's talk alter less as
time went on. The last time I saw him was at the swearing-in of Privy
Councillors last May (1910), when we talked for half an hour as if we
were respectively thirty and five-and-twenty years old."

An enrichment of that talk, as his friend remembers it, lay in Charles
Dilke's multifarious knowledge. "This man seems to know all about
everything in the world," someone remarked in those days. "Yes," was the
answer, "and last week we were talking about the other world: Dilke seemed
to know all about that too."

It was characteristic of Charles Dilke to choose for his maiden effort the
most highly technical of subjects, and one which lent itself as little as
possible to tricks of oratory. He would recall how Mr. George Melly, the
member for Stoke-on-Trent, had cautioned him: "Don't talk to them about
God Almighty; even Mr. Gladstone can't; they'll only stand it from John
Bright." On March 9th, 1869, Mr. William Vernon Harcourt (as he then was)
came forward with a motion for the appointment of a Select Committee to
inquire into registration in Parliamentary boroughs. Upon this Charles
Dilke made his first speech, filled with detailed knowledge, and with
suggestions drawn from French procedure. Later speakers recognized the
special competence shown, and when the Select Committee was appointed, he
was named to serve on it--thus taking his place at once in the normal
working life of the House.

'I acquired in the early months of this Session a knowledge of the
registration and rating systems which lasted for a good many years,
and the plan for the restoration of compounding, which was accepted by
Mr. Goschen and moved by him in the form of new clauses in his Bill in
April, 1869, was of my suggestion. By the joint operation of this
plan, and of the Registration Act of 1878, which was my own, an
immense increase of the electorate in boroughs was effected.'

No subject could have appeared less attractive than all this dull lore of
compound householders and lodger's franchises.

But the spirit of official Liberalism was constantly at war with Radical
views.

'My diary continually expressed my regret at what I thought the
timidity of Mr. Gladstone's Government.' Thus, when it was beaten by
the abstention of Liberals on Fawcett's Election Expenses Bill, which
proposed to throw the necessary expenses of returning officers on the
local rates, Charles Dilke 'was angry with the Government for not
having so much as named the Bill upon their Whip.' Again, when his
group had proposed to penalize a corrupt borough, the member for which
had been unseated on petition, the entry ran: 'We Radicals beaten by
Government and Tories on the Bewdley writ,' the issue of which the
Radicals had moved to postpone for twelve months.

In the case of Fawcett's motion to abolish University Tests, of whose
injustice Dilke had personal experience: [Footnote: Having taken his
Master's degree at Cambridge in this year, Dilke was 'immediately
nominated to the Senate as an examiner for the Law Tripos by the Regius
Professor of Laws.' But on further inquiry it appeared that an examiner
for honours in Law must be a member of the Senate, and that a member of
the Senate must declare himself a member of the Church of England. Dilke,
strongly objecting to this exclusiveness, had refused to make the required
profession. The 'grace,' therefore, was withdrawn, and he was not allowed
to examine. Sir Roundell Palmer became Chancellor in 1872, on the
retirement of Lord Hatherley. He was again Chancellor from 1880 to 1885.]

'My diary records a division in connection with which Sir Roundell
Palmer did us some harm, the fact being that the great lawyer, who was
afterwards Lord Selborne, was one of those gentlemen calling
themselves Liberals in whom it was difficult to find any agreement
with Liberal principles at any time or upon any subject. He was, in
fact, a High Church Tory, as I found when I served with him in a
Liberal Cabinet.'

On yet another motion of Fawcett's the Radicals found themselves in
collision with the head of the Liberal Government. This advocated open
competition for the Civil Service, and Dilke supported Fawcett by speech
as well as vote. Mr. Gladstone, following Dilke in the debate, suggested
that he had spoken without examining his facts, a charge specially
calculated to excite this conscientious worker's resentment. 'I recorded a
strong opinion as to the crushing of independent members by Mr.
Gladstone.'

Charles Dilke was already displaying that blend of opinions which made him
always a trial to the party Whips. He notes that, 'taking as I did an
independent line, I supported on the Navy Estimates the Conservative ex-
chief First Lord of the Admiralty' (Mr. Corry) 'on a motion which
deprecated the building of further turret ships till those already built
had been tested.'

[Illustration: SIR C. WENTWORTH DILKE, BART.
From the painting by Arthur Hughes.]

These outbreaks of independence led to remonstrance from his father, and
remonstrance to this reply:

"I don't mean to let either you or Glyn" (the Chief Whip, afterwards
Lord Wolverton) "frighten me into supporting the Government when I
think they are wrong, but I vote for them when I am at all doubtful."

This letter was written to Sir Wentworth Dilke, then on a tour through the
north of Europe with his son Ashton, by this time a Cambridge
undergraduate, and inclined to regard his elder brother as a very timid
politician. 'My father and my brother went to Berlin, and saw the Crown
Prince, afterwards the Emperor Frederick, and Prince Bismarck, who many
years later described to me the impression which they--the Whig and the
Republican--had made on him.' From Germany they passed into Russia, where
Wentworth Dilke was commissioned to represent England at the Horticultural
Congress. In May a sudden telegram called Charles Dilke to St. Petersburg.
His father had been attacked with 'that deadly form of Russian influenza,
a local degeneration of the tissues, which kills a man in three days,
without his being able to tell you that he feels anything except
weakness.' Before Charles Dilke could reach the Russian capital, his
father had been already 'embalmed and temporarily buried,' with a view to
interment in England.

His successor entered upon his position while still several months short
of the age of twenty-six. He took steps to give up at once Alice Holt--'a
mere shooting place'--and also sold Hawkley in Hampshire, keeping only the
London house, 76, Sloane Street, in which he had been born, and which was
to be his home till he died there. It was home also for his brother
Ashton, now reading classics and rowing in the Trinity Hall boat. The
house continued to be managed for the two young men by their grandmother,
Mrs. Chatfield, known to Sir Charles and to all his intimates as the
"Dragon," 'on account of the sportive old soul calling herself the Dragon
of Wantley whenever she attacked me in arms.' With her lived her niece,
Miss Folkard, a quiet little old lady. When Charles Dilke married, Mrs.
Chatfield and Miss Folkard made way for the bride, and Ashton Dilke's home
was then with his grandmother. When death cut short that marriage, the old
ladies returned, and lived out the end of their lives in Sloane Street.
Mrs. Chatfield was a very popular personage; and many letters from Sir
Charles's friends have affectionate or jesting messages to 'Dragon.'

II.

John Stuart Mill returned to England from Avignon in the spring of 1869,
and followed up his earlier letter of friendly criticism on _Greater
Britain_ by a suggestion of meeting. On Easter Sunday the meeting took
place, and the acquaintance 'rapidly ripened into a close friendship.'

Sir Charles was elected in May to the Political Economy Club, of which
Mill was a leading member, 'defeating George Shaw Lefevre, Sir Louis
Mallet, Lord Houghton, and John Morley, although, or perhaps because, I
was somewhat heterodox. Still,' a marginal note adds, 'Mallet and Houghton
were pretty heterodox too.'