The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2

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The Bill of 1884 contained almost everything now to be found within the
corners of the two great measures of 1888 and 1894, which, the one
passed by a Conservative, the other by a Liberal Government, entirely
revolutionized the Local Government of England. It was, however, decided
to have no Aldermen, but a few ex-officio seats were created on the
County Council. Otherwise direct election was the method chosen for all
the new Councils. The administration of the Poor Law was kept within the
purview of the Bill, after a long controversy as to the method of
electing the representatives of urban parishes on the local Poor Law
authority, when such an authority included both a borough and a rural
district; and the limit of population that was to entitle a borough to a
complete independence from the county authority was raised from the
figure originally proposed of 20,000 to 100,000 and upwards.

It had been part of Sir Charles Dilke's plan to include education within
the framework of the Bill, making the Borough and District Councils the
local education authority, with a limited superior jurisdiction in the
County Council. But it was found that almost insurmountable difficulties
would arise in adding so immense a proposal to an already large measure,
and it had to be abandoned.

Mr. Gladstone expressed a decided view on one portion of the Bill only.
He gave his strongest support to the proposal that the price of any
increased contributions in the shape of Treasury grants should be the
complete reform of the conflict of areas and jurisdictions, which added
so much to the difficulties and the cost of local administration.
[Footnote: In a speech made at Halifax on October 13th, 1885, which
occupies nearly the whole of a page of the _Times_, Sir Charles Dilke,
after the fall of the Government, gave a full account of the proposed
measure.]

The question of female councillors inevitably found its way into the
discussions, and it was decided in their favour, notwithstanding much
divergence of opinion.

'"I am sorry," Childers wrote, "about female councillors, but I
suppose I am in a minority, and that we shall soon have women M.P.'s
and Cabinet Ministers." This shows that we had decided to clear up
the doubt as to the possibility of women serving as councillors, and
distinctly to give them the opportunity of so doing. When Ritchie
afterwards introduced portions of my Bill, he left this doubtful,
and the Lady Sandhurst decision was the result.' [Footnote: See for
"Lady Sandhurst decision," infra, p. 17.]

Sir Charles differed from other members of the Committee in the desire
to make the county and not the Local Government Board the sole appellate
authority from the district. 'I would, indeed,' he says, 'have gone
farther, had I been able to convince my colleagues, and have set up an
elective Local Government Board for England.'

Owing to the Parliamentary position, progress with any large measures of
reform was, however, difficult even in the preliminary stages; and the
road seemed to get more encumbered every day, for the period now under
review indicates the high-water mark of Parliamentary obstruction in the
skilled hands of the Irish Party and Lord Randolph Churchill, who
successfully defied the feeble reforms of procedure of 1882. So it came
about that early in 1884 Sir Charles was found rather mournfully writing
to Mr. Gladstone:

'We produced to-day our last draft of the Local Government Bill, and
had our funeral meeting over it, I fear. I wish to tell you with
what spirit and skill Edmond Fitzmaurice has gone into the matter.
He is the only man I know who is fit to be President of this Board.'

In the autumn of 1883 Sir Charles made what was rare with him, a kind of
oratorical progress. He spoke at Glasgow, at Greenock, and lastly at
Paisley, where he received the freedom of the burgh for his services
connected with the commercial negotiations. His speech at Paisley
naturally dealt with commercial policy, and drew an admiring letter from
Sir Robert Morier, who was then just bringing to a head the offer of a
commercial treaty with Spain. The Cabinet, however, had been much
inclined to issue a general declaration on the subject,

'Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville being against all commercial
treaties, I for good ones and against bad ones, and Chamberlain for
punishing Italy for her conduct to us.' [Footnote: 'March 5th,
1883.--We turned to Tariff Treaties: Lord Granville and Mr.
Gladstone wishing for a general and abstract declaration against
them, and I, with support of Childers, urging most strongly the
other view. The proposed declaration was a gratuitous piece of
folly, for we were not called on to say anything at all.']

When the proposed treaty with Spain, and the changes in duties which it
would involve, were before the Cabinet on November 10th,

'I am afraid I played upon Mr. Gladstone's favourite weakness (next
to praise of Montenegro)--namely, abuse of the Customs, a department
for the routine of which he always had a perfect loathing.'

III.

Queen Victoria's demand for investigation into the housing of the poor
[Footnote: See Vol. I., p. 509.] had led to prompt administrative
action, planned by Sir Charles before he left for his Christmas holiday.

'While I was at Toulon there were issued from the Local Government
Board the circulars on the Housing of the Working Class, which I had
prepared before leaving London.... One circular, December 29th, 1883
... called on the Vestries to make use of the powers which they
possessed for regulating the condition of houses let in lodgings.
Another, December 30th ... called attention to their powers under
the Sanitary Acts, and under the Artisans and Labourers' Dwellings
Acts; and one of the same date to a similar effect went to all urban
sanitary districts throughout the country, while a further circular
with digests of the laws was sent out on January 7th, 1884. This
action was afterwards repeated by Chamberlain and others, and taken
for new, and again by Walter Long.'

But, naturally, the first man to do it stirred up a hornets' nest.
_Punch_ of the first week in January, 1884, derides the 'Bitter Cry of
Bumbledom' against Dilke and Mr. Hugh Owen, [Footnote: Years after Sir
Hugh Owen, G.C.B., wrote to Dilke: 'I shall always remember that I owed
my first step in the Order of the Bath to you.'] Secretary to the Local
Government Board:

'_Us_ to blame? That's a capital notion! Drat them and their
"statutes" and "digests"!
"Convenience of reference." Ah! that is one of their imperent sly
jests.
Removal of Noosances? Yah! If we started on _that_ lay perniskers
There is more than a few in the Westries 'ud feel suthin' singein'
their wiskers,
Or BUMBLE'S a Dutchman. Their Circ'lar--it's mighty obliging--defines
'em,
The Noosances namely; I wonder if parties _read_ Circ'lars as signs
'em,
If so, Local Government Boarders must be most oncommonly knowin',
And I'd like to 'eave bricks at that DILKE and his long-winded
myrmidon OWEN.
The public's got Slums on the brain, and with sanitry bunkum's have
busted.
_We_ make a more wigorous use of the powers with which we're
entrusted!
Wy, if we are at it all day with their drains, ashpits, roofs, walls,
and windies,
Wot time shall we 'ave for our feeds and our little porochial
shindies!
And all for the 'labouring classes'--the greediest, ongratefullest
beggars.
I tell you these Radical lot and their rubbishy littery eggers,
Who talk of neglected old brooms, and would 'ave _us_ turn to at their
handles,
Are Noosances wus than bad smells and the rest o' their sanitry
"scandals."'

Sir Charles's main object in local government was to decentralize, and
he sought to move in this direction by stimulating the exercise of
existing powers and the habit of responsibility in local popularly
elected bodies. But inquiry was also necessary.

'On February 8th, 1884, it had been decided to appoint a Royal
Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes, and Mr. Gladstone
had expressed his wish that I should be chairman of the Commission,
on which the Prince of Wales desired to serve.'

'On the 9th it was settled that Bodley, my secretary, should be
secretary to the Royal Commission. I immediately wrote to Manning to
ask him to serve, and he consented on February 12th.'

Lord Salisbury's name lent another distinction to the list, which was
completed by February 16th. [Footnote: In addition to the Prince, the
Cardinal, and Lord Salisbury, Dilke's Commission consisted of Lord
Brownlow, Lord Carrington, Mr. Goschen, Sir Richard Cross, the Bishop of
Bedford (Dr. Walsham How), Mr. E. Lyulph Stanley, Mr. McCullagh Torrens,
Mr. Broadhurst, Mr. Jesse Collings, Mr. George Godwin, and Mr. Samuel
Morley. To these were added later Mr. Dwyer Gray and Sir George
Harrison, for Ireland and Scotland respectively.]

'A very difficult question arose about his precedence. I referred it
to the Prince of Wales, who said that he thought Manning ought to
take precedence, as a Prince, after Princes of the Blood, and before
Lord Salisbury.'

The nice question was referred to Lord Salisbury and to many other
authorities, and finally to Lord Sydney, who wrote, from the Board of
Green Cloth, 'that in 1849, at the Queen's Levee at Dublin Castle, the
Roman Catholic Primate followed the Protestant Archbishop, but he was
not a Cardinal. _A fortiori_ I presume a Cardinal as a Prince of the
Holy Roman Empire would have precedence next to the Prince of Wales. It
showed, however, extraordinary ignorance on the part of the Lord Steward
to suppose that the Holy Roman Empire and the Papal Court were the same
thing.' [Footnote: The story of how the question of precedence was
settled in Manning's favour is given in detail in Mr. Bodley's _Cardinal
Manning, and Other Essays_ (1912).]

'It was on February 12th that I received Sir Henry Ponsonby's letter
announcing the approval of the Queen to the Prince serving on the
Commission as an ordinary member under my chairmanship, and the
Prince of Wales expressed his pleasure at the Queen's approval.'

'On February 22nd the members of the Cabinet present (at a meeting
at the Foreign Office) discussed my proposal to put Miss Octavia
Hill on my Royal Commission, no woman having ever sat on one; and
Harcourt having refused to sign the Commission if it contained a
woman's name, Mr. Gladstone, Kimberley, and Northbrook sided with
me, and Hartington with Harcourt. Lord Granville said that he was
with me on the principle, but against me on the person. After this
Mr. Gladstone went round, and said that the decision of the Cabinet
was against me. Asquith put several women on a Royal Commission a
few years later, but refused them the precedence to which they were
entitled, and gave every male member precedence before them.'

Mr. Lyulph Stanley was included to represent his sister, Miss Maude
Stanley, whom Sir Charles Dilke had wished to appoint.

Later in the year Sir Charles successfully asserted the principle for
which he was contending, by putting women on the Metropolitan Asylums
Board. Lady Ducie had the honour of the first invitation to serve, and
Sir Charles afterwards added Miss Maude Stanley and others. The question
of qualification was discussed, only to be set aside. The law officers

'knew the women would be knocked off if anyone raised the question,
and in Lady Sandhurst's case this was afterwards made clear; but no
one did raise it against my nominees, and they stayed on for life.'

'March 7th.--I had now had several interviews with Lord Salisbury
and the Prince of Wales about the Royal Commission, and the first
meeting of the Commission itself was held on March 5th.... We really
began our work on March 14th. My work was heavy at this time, with
sittings of the Commission twice a week, for which I had to prepare,
as I did all the examination in chief of the witnesses, and, indeed,
found them all and corresponded with them in advance.'

'The Commission was dull, although it produced a certain amount of
valuable evidence, and almost the only amusing incident which
occurred in the course of many months was Lord Salisbury making a
rather wild suggestion, when Broadhurst put down his pen, and,
looking up in a pause, said with an astonished air, "Why, that is
Socialism!" at which there was a loud laugh all round.'

'I wrote to Lord Salisbury on May 7th to ask him for his suggestions
as to what I called "remedies" to be proposed by our Commission, as
I had already made my own list, and wished from this time forward to
examine each witness on the same heads, with a view to collecting a
body of evidence for the Report, intended to lead to recommendation
and legislation upon these particular points....'

Some of Lord Salisbury's suggestions were 'valuable, and still throw
much light on his temporary Radicalism, which unfortunately soon wore
off.'

'It is clear that on May 9th, 1884, he was contemplating throwing
the rates upon the land, and making a long step towards leasehold
enfranchisement. Lord Salisbury's proposal on this last head was
virtually one for "judicial rents," as far as principle went, and
destructive of the old view of the rights of holders of landed
property--although, perhaps, not one carrying much advantage to
anybody!'

The Report of the Commission proposed the rating of vacant land, but
before it was drafted Lord Salisbury condemned the proposal in a
memorandum attached to the Report, which Mr. Goschen supported by
another independent minute.

Sir Charles sent also a request for the suggestion of 'remedies' to
Cardinal Manning, who, says a scribbled note, 'is our only
revolutionary!'

'On Friday, May 16th, at the Commission the Cardinal handed me his
list of suggestions, which were not only revolutionary, but ill-
considered, and I have to note how curiously impracticable a
schemer, given to the wildest plans, this great ecclesiastic showed
himself. He suggested the removal out of London, not only of prisons
and infirmaries (which no doubt are under the control of public
authorities), but also of breweries, ironworks, and all factories
not needed for daily or home work, as a means of giving us areas for
housing the working class, suggestions the value or practicability
of which I need hardly discuss.'

'On May 18th, I having proposed to add to the Royal Commission a
member for Ireland and a member for Scotland before we began to take
the Scotch and Irish evidence, and having proposed Gray, the
Nationalist member and proprietor of the _Freeman's Journal_, who
was the highest Irish authority upon the subject, Ponsonby replied:
"Although the Queen cannot say she has a high opinion of Mr. Gray,
Her Majesty will approve of his appointment, and that of the Lord
Provost of Edinburgh, on the Royal Commission." Sir Henry Ponsonby
was a worthy successor of General Grey--a wise counsellor of much
prudence, invaluable to the Queen.'

'Early in June Chamberlain came a good deal to the Local Government
Board to consider the evidence which he was to give before my
Commission. His view was mine--that in the Metropolis the housing of
the working classes could only be dealt with by imposing the most
stringent obligations on the owners of property on which artisans'
dwellings already existed; and Chamberlain was willing to go so far
as to reserve such property permanently for the object, with State
interference to secure fair rents. I argued with him that a strong
case could be made against him on such points as extension of trade
from the City into Whitechapel, extension of fashionable dwellings
from Mayfair into Chelsea, and so forth. He then fell back upon a
proposal for exchange, and said that at all events there was no
practical alternative to his view, an opinion in which I agreed. On
a later day in June the Cardinal wrote to me expressing his regret
for absence from the Commission, "at which I should like to have
seen Lord Salisbury examine Mr. Chamberlain." But the Commission
kept up its character for dulness, and nothing noteworthy occurred.'

The Commission on Housing, to which so much of Sir Charles's time was
devoted, had an importance, now forgotten, in the modern development of
Social Reform.

'Up to five-and-twenty years ago,' said a writer in a daily
newspaper on Social Reform in 1910, 'when the living Sir Charles
Dilke was the President of the Local Government Board, no one cared
how the poor lived or fared. They could reside in the most
ramshackle tenements in insanitary slums, for which, by the way,
they were charged exorbitant rents, far higher than what they would
now pay for the well-ventilated and well-equipped self-contained
houses of the London County Council and building companies which
provide accommodation for the industrial classes. Sir Charles saw
the abject and helpless condition of the people of London, and
resolved, when he succeeded to office, to try and remedy the evils
under which they laboured. His enthusiasm in the cause of the poor
caught on, and in a short time "slumming" became a fashionable
craze. Committees were formed--the premier one being that which had
its headquarters at the Mansion House--to improve the dwellings of
the poor. In a short time the movement became a great success, and,
that there should be no falling back, medical officers of health,
whose sole time was to be devoted to their duties, and battalions of
sanitary inspectors, were appointed in every district in the
Metropolis.'

It cannot be said that 'no one cared,' for outside the great official
movement which Sir Charles Dilke directed were the devoted social
workers on whom he called for evidence at the Commission, and to whose
labours he always paid tribute; nor must be forgotten the Queen's fine
letter calling on her Ministers to act. But, as Miss Octavia Hill wrote
to him on March 22nd, 1884, 'you among all men realize most clearly that
action is more needed than words.'

The question of Housing is so inextricably bound up with all the
conditions of the poor, with hours of work and with those questions of
wages which Sir Charles had first studied with John Stuart Mill, that it
is natural to find him presiding over another inquiry which, though
prepared for in 1884, was carried out in the first weeks of 1885.

'At the beginning of the new year of 1885 there were completed the
final arrangements for my presidency of the Industrial Remuneration
Conference, which was held at the end of January at Prince's Hall,
Piccadilly, on three mornings and three afternoons. A large sum of
money had been given for the purpose of promoting the consideration
of the best means for bringing about a more equal division of the
products of industry between capital and labour, so that it might
become possible for all to enjoy a fair share of material comfort
and intellectual culture--possible for all to lead a dignified life,
and less difficult to lead a good life. The trustees who were
appointed decided to promote a conference on the present system
whereby the products of industry are distributed between the various
classes of the community, and the means whereby that system should
be improved. They then divided the subject into subheads, and asked
certain persons to read papers, and an extraordinarily interesting
series of discussions was the result. In my own speech in opening
the proceedings I called attention to the nature of the German
Governmental Socialism, and quoted Prince Bismarck's speeches,
showing what was the object which the Prussian Government had in
view--namely, to try experiments as to the labour of man with the
view "to reach a state of things in which no man could say: 'I bear
the burden of society, but no one cares for me.'" This Conference
first introduced to London audiences all the leaders of the new
Unionism, and future chiefs of the Dockers' Strike. Among the
speakers were Arthur Balfour and John Burns, who told us of his
dismissal from his employment as an engineer at Brotherhoods
[Footnote: A great engineering firm at Chippenham in Wiltshire.] for
attending as delegate of the "S.D.F."'

'I am convinced,' wrote Mr. Burns in 1914 from the Office of the
Local Government Board, over which he then presided, 'that few, if
any, conferences held in London in recent years have done more good
for the cause of social progress than the Industrial Remuneration
Conference of 1885. The Conference focussed public opinion and
sympathy upon a large number of important questions, which have
since made greater headway than they would have done if the
Conference had not taken place. I have the highest opinion of the
value of its work, and of the good influence it exercised in
stimulating inquiry and action in many directions.'

Six years later, when Sir Charles was before the electors of the Forest
of Dean as their chosen candidate, he discussed the whole question of
limiting by law the hours of work; and he told them how his experience
of those days spent in the chair of the Conference in 1885 had converted
him 'from a position of absolute impartiality to one strongly favourable
to legislative limitation.'

A speech delivered by him in January, 1884, to the Liberals of Bedford
Park, brings together the two sides of his work. For him political
reform lay at the very base of social reform; in his opinion the
government of London and extension of the franchise ought not to be
party questions at all; his desire was to call the whole people of the
country into citizenship of the State, and he would make exercise of the
voting power compulsory and universal. People said there was no 'magic
in the vote.' He wanted as many citizens as possible to have the right
to consider 'the sort of magic by which many persons contrived to live
at all under the existing social conditions.'

A proof of his friendship for the cause of labour, and of his desire to
associate manual workers with the administration, was given by him in a
use of patronage, in which he departed from his principle of confining
it to the men in his office, tendering the chance of official employment
to two leading representatives of labour in August, 1884.

'I had a "good" appointment under the Local Government Board to
make, and I offered it not only to Broadhurst, but afterwards to
Burt. I expected both of them to decline, which both did, but I
should have been glad if either of them would have taken it, for
both were competent.'

IV.

As to his departmental work, Sir Charles notes in July, 1884:

'I have said but little of my work at the Local Government Board,
because, though heavy, it was of an uninteresting nature.'
[Footnote: There are, however, many entries, of which this for 1884
is typical:

'September 8th.--With the Local Government Board Inspectors Fleming
and Courtenay to the worst villages in England. I made my way from
Bridport to Yeovil, Nettlecombe, Powerstock, Maiden Newton, Taunton
and its neighbourhood, Wiveliscombe, Bridgwater, and North
Petherton.'

'Between September 21st and 27th I was visiting workhouses and
infirmaries every day, and on the 27th I completed my visits to
every workhouse, infirmary, and poor-law school in or belonging to
Metropolitan Unions.]

'My chief new departure was in connection with the emigration of
pauper children, which had been long virtually prohibited, and which
I once more authorized.'

Mr. Preston Thomas has fortunately preserved a note of another
innovation. The Guardians of a certain union in Cambridgeshire had
committed the offence of spending three shillings and threepence of
public money on toys for sick pauper children in the workhouse
infirmary. The case had occurred before, and the Board's legal advisers
had held the expenditure to be unwarrantable, and had surcharged the
offending Guardians. Dilke was questioned in the House about the matter,
and admitted the previous decisions, but said that the Board had changed
its mind. So the children at Wisbech kept their toys; and not only that,
but a circular went out from Whitehall suggesting that workhouse girls
should be supplied with a reasonable number of skipping-ropes and
battledores and shuttlecocks.