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

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'The Prince was evidently discontented with the Emperor, but wholly
unable to believe that he himself could be done without. He told me
that he must work each day and could never take a holiday, but that
even a few minutes' work was sufficient, as all that was necessary
was that he should keep an eye on what was going on. All was now so
well arranged that the only thing which gave him trouble was the
internal condition of Alsace, which as a Reichsland had him alone as
a Minister. In the evening he chatted much about the past; told me
of his visit to London in 1842, of how a cabman tried to cheat him,
and how at last he held out all his money in his hand and said to
the man, "Pay yourself"; how then the man took less than that which
he had refused, his right fare, and then with every sign of scorn
ejaculated, "What I say is, God damn all Frenchmen!" Bismarck speaks
admirable English, with hardly any trace of accent, but spoken very
slowly. French he speaks more rapidly but less well; and of Russian
he has a fair knowledge. He told me how (also in 1842) he had
visited Barclay and Perkins's, and had been offered an enormous
tankard of their strongest ale. "Thinking of my country, I drank it
slowly to the last drop, and then left them, courteously I hope; I
got as far as London Bridge, and there I sat down in a recess, and
for hours the bridge went round." He told me how he had striven to
keep the peace through the time of Napoleon III., but finding it
useless had prepared for war; and he made no secret of the fact that
he had brought the war about. He told me himself, in so many words,
that at the last moment he had made war by cutting down a telegram
from the King of Prussia, as I have said above; [Footnote: See
Chapter XL (Vol. I., p. 157).] "the alteration of the telegram from
one of two hundred words to one of twenty words" had "made it into a
trumpet blast"--as Moltke and Von Roon, who were with him at dinner
when it came, had said--"a trumpet blast which" had "roused all
Germany." As he mellowed with his pipes he told me that, though he
was a high Tory, he had come to see the ills of absolutism, which,
to work, required the King to be an angel. "Now," he said, "Kings,
even when good, have women round them, who, even if Queens, govern
them to their personal ends." It was very plain that he was on bad
terms with the Emperor, and equally clear that he did not believe
that the Emperor would dare dismiss him.'

A commentary on the last sentence follows at no long interval, when
_Problems of Greater Britain_ appeared and 'Herbert Bismarck, in
thanking me for a copy of my book, said: "My father ... sends you
his kindest regards. He is just going to disentangle himself from
the Prussian administration altogether, and will resign the post as
Prime Minister, so that he will only remain Chancellor of the
Empire." This was on February 10th, 1890, and before long Bismarck
had been still further "disentangled," not by his own act,' but by a
blow almost as sudden and dramatic as that which, in 1661, had
struck down the owner of Vaux. [Footnote: See the _Memoires de
Fouquet_, by A. Cheruel, vol.ii., chap, xxxviii.]

'In a second letter that young Bismarck wrote, he thanked me for
sending him the famous sketch from _Punch_ (Tenniel's cartoon) of
the captain of the ship sending away the pilot. He wrote:

'"My Dear Dilke,

'"I thank you very much for your kind note, which warmed my heart,
and for the sketch you have cut out of _Punch_. It is indeed a fine
one, and my father, to whom I showed it yesterday when your letter
reached me, was pleased with its acuteness, as well as with the kind
messages you sent him and which he requites. He has left last night
for good, and I follow to-night to Friedrichsruh. It was a rather
melancholy historical event, when my father stepped out of the house
in which he has lived for the benefit of my country for nearly
twenty-eight years. When I wrote you last, my father thought only of
leaving the offices he held in Prussia, but things went on so
rapidly that he did not see his way to remain as Chancellor in
Berlin after the Emperor had let him know that His Majesty wished
him to resign. I had no choice what course to take after he had been
dismissed. My health is so much shaken that I am not able to take
upon my shoulders alone the tremendous amount of responsibility for
the foreign affairs of Germany which hitherto fell upon my father.
When we drove to the station yesterday, our carriage was almost
upset by the enthusiastic crowd of many thousand people who thronged
the streets and cheered him on his passage in a deafening way; but
it was satisfactory for my father to see that there are people left
who regret his departure. I shall come back to Berlin after April
1st to clear my house and to pack my things, and then I shall stay
with my father till the end of April. In May I hope to come to
England, and I look forward to the pleasure of seeing you then.

'"Believe me,

'"Ever yours sincerely,

'"H. Bismarck."

'He dined with me on May 15th, 1890, when Arnold Morley, Borthwick,
Jeune, Fitzmaurice, Harry Lawson, and others, came to meet him; and
from this time forward he came frequently to England.'

Sir Charles, while meeting the younger man thus often, never again had
sight or speech of the old Chancellor. 'In Christmas week [1892] I had a
general invitation from Prince Bismarck to stay with him again at
Friedrichsruh. But the chance never came.' Immediately on his return
from Germany Sir Charles wrote to his friend Reinach:

'Pyrford by Maybury,
'Near Woking,
'_September_ l3_th_, 1889.

'My Dear Reinach,

'Bismarck c'est la paix. As long as he lives, which he thinks will
not be long, he expects no movement. He agrees with me that the
first movement will come from Russia. He expects the Republic to
last in France. Bleichroeder tells him that Ferry is the one man of
energy and power.

'Yours,
'Chs. W. D.'

Three weeks later, in answer to a question by M. Reinach, this is added:

'Health as good as he says. But he does _not_ say that. He says he
suffers very much. The fact is that he looks very much older than he
is, and his hands look like ninety instead of seventy-four.'

What Bismarck thought of his guest may be gathered from a saying quoted
in public by Dr. Stephen Bauer. Baron Rottenburg, Bismarck's first
secretary, had told him that, after Sir Charles's visit to
Friedrichsruh, the Chancellor spoke of him as 'the most interesting of
living English statesmen.' [Footnote: At the banquet given to Sir
Charles Dilke in April, 1910.]

In spite of Bismarck's efforts to bring about another meeting, this
visit was the only occasion on which the two men met. It was at a time
when the great maker of United Germany was nearing his fall. He was
becoming the bitter adversary of the Kaiser and of his policy, a policy
which he foresaw might imperil 'the strength and glory of the German
Empire.' In the often-quoted words of his instructions to diplomatic
representatives abroad--'Do all in your power to keep up good
relationship with the English. You need not even use a secret cipher in
cabling. We have nothing to conceal from the English, for it would be
the greatest possible folly to antagonize England'--is to be found one
main point of Bismarck's diplomacy; and feeling thus, he welcomed a
conference with the English statesman of that generation whom he had
looked upon as certain to be a force in the approaching years. When at
last the meeting took place, Dilke had been overtaken by circumstances
which altered his political position in England. But neither Bismarck
nor any other statesman on the Continent anticipated that they could
possibly have the result of excluding permanently from office one of the
very few English statesmen whose names carried weight with foreign
Powers on military and international politics.

CHAPTER LI

PERSONAL LIFE--IN OPPOSITION

1895 TO 1904

Few members of the House of Commons can have been sorry to see the last
of the Parliament which ended in June, 1895; and Sir Charles had nothing
to regret in its disappearance. In respect of foreign affairs, he saw
little to choose between the Liberal and Tory Ministers except that, of
the two, Lord Salisbury was 'the less wildly Jingo.' On questions of
Imperial Defence many of his old friends in the Liberal Government were
arrayed against him; and with matters standing as they stood between the
two Houses, there was no hope of any important Labour legislation. Lord
Salisbury had again become Prime Minister, and under the new
Conservative Administration everything went more easily. Sir Charles
testified in one of his speeches that Mr. Balfour's leadership, 'by his
unfailing courtesy to all members, made the House of Commons a pleasant
place'; and Mr. Balfour's leadership was well assured of several years'
continuance.

A great Parliamentarian, Sir Charles nevertheless held no brief for
Parliament. As a practical statesman, he realized the advantages in a
strong hand of such a machine as Bismarck controlled; while his
democratic instincts made him favour the Swiss methods, with direct
intervention of the people through the Referendum.

'I trained a whole generation of professional politicians to respect the
House of Commons,' he said, 'but I was never favourable to the
Parliamentary, and I was even hostile to the Party, system.'

Nevertheless, since England was wedded to its traditional system, to
work this efficiently was the first duty of an English politician. A
note from Sir Reginald Palgrave in 1893 acknowledges gratefully some
criticisms of the tenth edition of the classical work which deals with
this subject. No one was ever better qualified than Sir Charles to say
what could or could not be done by the rules of order, and he would
certainly have inculcated upon every politician the necessity of this
knowledge as a practical equipment.

'What Dilke did,' writes Mr. McKenna, 'was to impress upon me the
importance of a thorough understanding of the procedure and business of
the House of Commons, a branch of knowledge in which he was an
accomplished master.'

Sir Charles's whole scheme of existence was arranged with reference to
the work of Parliament. Of it he wrote on December 15th, 1905, in reply
to Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, who had dwelt on the interest of county
government:

'The development of character in politics and the human side of the
House of Commons have an extraordinary dramatic interest for me, and
an attraction so strong that Harcourt told me that, knowing it, he
did not see how I could live out of the House of Commons. I managed
to do so, but only by shutting it for a time absolutely out of my
mind, as though it did not exist. Having the happiness of being able
to interest myself in everything, I suppose I am born to be
generally happy. You have known me so long and so closely that few
men are more aware of the kind of suffering I have gone through, but
the happiness of interest in life has rarely been wanting for long
in me, and if it were, I should go out--not of Parliament--but of
life.' [Footnote: Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice was Chairman of the
Wiltshire County Council. He had re-entered Parliament as M.P. for
North Wilts in 1898.]

Sir Charles never left London while the House was sitting, except for
the annual gathering of the Forest miners at the Speech House. On all
other working days of the session he was to be found in the House of
Commons. He held that the House offered the extremest form of interest
or of boredom, according as a man did or did not follow closely all that
was going on. For this reason, the smoking-room, where most
Parliamentary idling is transacted, saw little of him; cigars, of which
he was a great consumer, were for periods of leisure, and he was at the
House for business. He might be seen in the passages, going by with
coat-tails streaming behind him, most often in the members' lobby on his
way to the first corridor, where was his locker--marvellously stuffed
with papers, yet kept in a methodical order that made it a general
centre of reference for himself and his colleagues, who consulted him on
all subjects; or sometimes in the library, with multifarious
correspondence and documents outspread, snipping away with a pair of
scissors, after his habit, all in them that was not vitally important.
[Footnote: Mr. Hudson tells how in February, 1911, after Sir Charles's
death, he went down to clear his locker in the House of Commons, and
found it empty. Mr. Hudson surmised that, foreseeing his need for it was
over, Sir Charles had himself prepared it for his successor in its use.]
Again, since one form of relaxation which he permitted himself was his
afternoon cup--or cups, for they were many--of tea, the tea-room also
offered a chance to those who sought him. But whoever wanted Sir Charles
went first into the Chamber itself, and in five cases out of six would
find him there alert in his corner seat below the gangway, primed and
armed with documented information, and ready at any minute to interpose.
Every day he went through the whole bewildering mass of papers from
which members are presumed to instruct themselves concerning the
business of the sittings and to keep a check upon the general
proceedings of Government. In his case the presumption was realized.
Probably no private member ever equalled him in demands for 'papers to
be laid,' and certainly none was ever better able to justify his
requests for additional information. If these requests were refused, it
was never because he wanted what was superfluous, but that which, in his
hands, might become inconveniently serviceable.

One habit of his may be traced to his hatred of wasting time. The
instant a division was announced he was on his feet, hurrying so as to
avoid long minutes of waiting in a crush; and it came to be regarded as
part of the natural order that Sir Charles should be first through the
lobby.

With all this industry, the record of divisions so carefully chronicled
by the hard-working M.P. was not of moment to him. If the business did
not seem to him important, he had no objection to absent himself and
dine at home. He was weatherwise in the assembly, and knew the
conditions which might lead to unforeseen disturbance.

In questions raised by alteration of rules or standing orders, he was
never averse from innovation, and even generally an advocate of change.
But while the rules were there he insisted rigorously on their
observance, in so far as they affected the larger interests of division
or debate. Also he fulfilled punctiliously the prescribed courtesies,
making it a usage to be down early and to secure his place, although no
one ever thought of appropriating it. He rigidly observed the rule,
transgressed by others, which prescribes the wearing of a tall hat by
members in the House. The hat which was thus endeared to him by
traditional usage is therefore inseparable from Parliamentary memory of
him. He was generally to be seen handling a sheaf of papers more than
Ministerial in dimensions; and he made his hat the receptacle for them;
often it would be crammed to bursting before the speech had concluded.
Yet there remained with him always the trace of his younger days of
grave dandyism; he never abandoned the Parliamentary frock-coat, and
sketches of him in the illustrated papers convey the austere correctness
of its folds; and the hat from which so much service was exacted
appeared each day unsurpassable in gloss.

The intricate mass of historical associations delighted his imagination
at Westminster. He took pleasure in all the quaint survivals, from the
long-transmitted ceremonial of the Speaker's entrance, the formal
knockings of Black Rod, the cry of 'Who goes home?' down to the still
continued search before each session for some possible Guy Fawkes.
Keenly alive to the past and to the present, he saw with special
pleasure any happy grafting of a new usage on to that old stock of
memories. Speaking in his constituency after the lying in state of King
Edward, which he had attended (standing next to the Prime Minister as
the senior Privy Councillor present), he welcomed the precedent which
gave a new association to Westminster Hall--that 'epitome of English
history.' He recalled to his hearers the outstanding incidents and
persons whose record had then come into his mind. His habit of tracing
out links with the past made him at Westminster the best and most
animated of guides.

So it was in Provence, in the Forest of Dean, on the road down from
London to Surrey; so it was always in the neighbourhood of his Chelsea
home.

There could be no such companion for a ramble through its streets. His
memory, astounding in its recollections of his own time, held stories of
older records; in his eager, vivid talk the past lived again. As we
passed along Cheyne Walk, George Eliot held court in her house once
more, while a few doors off Rossetti's servant pushed aside the little
grating to inspect his visitors before admission. Carlyle dwelt again in
the house in Cheyne Row, with Whistler for his neighbour. Sir Charles
would tell how earlier the Kingsley brothers lived with their father in
the old rectory, and one at least of their novels was founded afterwards
on the traditions of the place. Then, as layer after layer of history
was lifted, Smollett wrote his novels or walked the Chelsea streets with
John Wilkes; Sir Richard Steele and 'his dear Prue' reinhabited their
house, and Dr. Johnson worked at the furnaces in the cellars where
Chelsea china was made. [Footnote: 'Sir Charles Dilke, in hunting about
for materials for his lecture on "Old Chelsea" to-morrow, has made some
very interesting discoveries. He has found that part of the building
once occupied by the famous Chelsea china works, which was thought to
have gone for ever, exists as part of a public-house with a modern
frontage looking out on the Embankment. The cellars are in an admirable
state of preservation. Another interesting point has been the
exploration of the old Moravian cemetery, which is now completely
enclosed by houses, the ironwork of the gate worn, and, as it were,
eaten out by age. Here lie the bones of Count von Zinzendorf, one of the
founders of the Moravian sect, and many other famous folk. This, again,
has led to some interesting discoveries about Sir Thomas More, all of
which will find a place in Wednesday's lecture' (Extract from _Leicester
Daily Post_, January 11th, 1888, on lecture to be delivered in Town
Hall, Chelsea).]

He would give, as a curious illustration of the way in which many years
may be covered by a few generations, the fact that he himself had known
intimately the daughter of Woodfall, printer of the _Letters of Junius_;
while Woodfall's acquaintance included Smollett as a resident, and Pope
as a visitor to Chelsea. He would talk long of Sir Thomas More,
[Footnote: He writes: 'On December 18th, 1886, Cardinal Manning wrote to
me: "On Saturday last Sir Thomas More was declared both martyr and
saint, to my great joy. We have bought a house and garden, 28, Beaufort
Street, which is said to be a piece of Sir Thomas More's garden. The
tradition seems probable. If you can give me any light about it, I shall
be very thankful."' Later (January, 1888) Sir Charles writes: 'In the
course of this same month I lectured on Old Chelsea, and made a
considerable attempt to clear up some points in the life of Sir Thomas
More, for whom I have a great admiration. The result was that Cardinal
Manning asked me to visit Father Vaughan at the house which stands on
the site of Old Beaufort House, which the Roman Catholics have purchased
as a house of expiation for the martyrdom of Sir Thomas More.'] 'the
first of Chelsea worthies,' whose memory is loved and commemorated by
every true inhabitant, and to whose voluntary poorhouse for the parish
he pointed, as the direct progenitor of the Chelsea Benevolent Society
and the Board of Guardians. But one episode in More's career specially
fascinated him: it was when two great lives touched, and More,
journeying to Calais, met that famous lady, Margaret of Austria, the
first Governess of the Netherlands, and negotiated the treaty between
the Emperor, England, and France, 1527. Great as was his respect for Sir
Hans Sloane, after whom the street in which he lived was named, and who
gave to Chelsea its beautiful Physic Garden, he never forgave him the
destruction of More's house or the removal of its water gateway.

He would describe the tidal shore, as it lies in the picture which he
bequeathed to the Chelsea Free Library, and which hangs on its
staircase, when below the old church the bank sloped to the water's
edge; or he would pass back to the earlier time when the boats of the
nobles lay there in such numbers that Charles II. described the river as
'Hyde Park upon the Thames.' Once more Bess of Hardwick lived at
Shrewsbury House, Princess Elizabeth sheltered under the Queen's Elm; at
the old Swan in Swan Walk, Doggett founded the coat and badge to be
rowed for by the watermen's apprentices 'when the tide shall be full.'
These things may be found in many a guide-book and in the lectures which
he delivered more than once in Chelsea, but told as he told them they
will never be told again.

This habit of associating the prosaic business of his daily work in
Parliament with picturesque traditions, and of peopling the dingy
streets of London with great figures of the past, gave colour and
character to his town life. He entertained still--at 76, Sloane Street,
or at the House of Commons.

For exercise he relied on fencing, rowing, and his morning ride. Busy
men, he held, needed what 'good exercise as contrasted with mere chamber
gymnastics' could give them: 'a second life, a life in another world--
one which takes them entirely out of themselves, and causes them to
cease to trouble others or to be troubled by the vexations of working
life.' [Footnote: _Athletics for Politicians_, reprinted from _North
American Review_.]

He was nowhere more characteristically English than through his faith in
this regimen, and in the pages of the _North American Review_ he
addressed to American public men in 1900 an advocacy of 'Athletics for
Politicians.' This exists as a pamphlet, and some of the friends who
received it were surprised to find themselves cited in confirmation of
the theory that nearly all English politicians, 'having been athletes as
boys, have found it wise as well as pleasant to keep to some sport in
later life.' But Mr. Chamberlain, 'the most distinguished debater in the
Government of the United Kingdom, who has an excellent seat on a horse,
but is never now seen on one, and who is no mean hand at lawn tennis,
which he scarcely ever plays,' had to be cited as a heretic who thought
himself 'better without such gymnastics.'

Sculling on sliding-seats [Footnote: In 1873 'sliding-seats' had just
taken the place of fixed ones, and Sir Charles, having gone as usual to
see the Boat Race, criticized the crews, in a notice which he wrote, as
not having yet learnt to make the best possible use of the slide.] and
rapier fencing were the exercises which Sir Charles recommended to men
no longer young. He continued his fencing in London and Paris. In Paris
he frequented chiefly the school of Leconte in the Rue Saint Lazare, and
always kept an outfit there. Teachers of this school remember with
wonder Sir Charles's habit of announcing, at the termination of each
stay in Paris, the precise day and hour, perhaps many months ahead, at
which he would appear--and at which, like Monte Cristo, he never failed
to be exactly punctual--to the joy and amusement of the expectant
school.

It was at his riverside home that he found the exercise which beyond all
others pleased him best.

'1890 I took a good deal of holiday in the summer and early autumn,
doing much rowing with McKenna and others in a racing pair; we
challenged any pair of our united ages.'

'On my fifty-third birthday,' he notes, 'I began to learn sculling. My
rowing, to judge by the "clock," still improves. Fencing, stationary or
declining.'

He timed himself regularly in his daily burst up and down the reach with
some first-rate oarsman, very often 'Bill' East, now the King's
Waterman, whose photograph stood with one or two others on the
mantelpiece of his study in Sloane Street. In the same way he kept a
daily record of his weight, which up to 1904 ranged between fourteen
stone and thirteen.

Dockett was essentially a boating-place, a place for sun and air, where
life was lived in the open or in the wide verandah hailed by Cecil
Rhodes and others as the only 'stoep' in England. His son, who was
travelling abroad much at this time, shared Sir Charles Dilke's love for
Dockett, and was frequently there in the intervals of his journeyings.
Other than boating friends came to lunch or to dine and sleep, for the
mere pleasure of talk. Such were the Arnold-Forsters, the H. J.
Tennants, Lady Abinger (the daughter of his old friend Sir William
White) and her husband: and there came also members of Parliament--Mr.
Lloyd George, or in a later day Mr. Masterman; and the knights errant of
politics, Mr. Cunninghame Graham and Mr. Schreiner. Many nationalities
were represented--often, indeed, through official personages such as M.
Cambon, the French Ambassador, or some member of the French Embassy.
Baron Hayashi and his wife came with many other Japanese friends, and
the various representatives of the Balkan States met in pleasant
converse. It was one of these who afterwards wrote: 'I never pass the
house in Sloane Street without raising my hat to the memory of its
former inmates.' That close friend M. Gennadius came also, and his
predecessors in the Greek Legation, M. Metaxas, M. Athos Romanes, and
half a score of other diplomatists, including Tigrane Pasha, and even
Ras Makonnen, who was brought to Dockett by the British representative
in Abyssinia, Sir John Harrington, a friend and correspondent of Dilke.
Thither also for leisure, not for athletics, came Cecil Rhodes,
described in _Problems of Greater Britain_ as a 'modest, strong man';
there came Prince Roland Bonaparte, Coquelin, and Jules Claretie, with a
host of others, politicians, wits, and artists, English and foreign. M.
Claretie thus, after Sir Charles's death, chronicled one visit: