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

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There is no part of his work which brings out more the quality of
"self-effacement" to which Mr. Sidney Webb alludes. The cause of Labour
is not even yet a popular one, and there are many who held and hold that
his interest in it was not calculated to strengthen the political
position of one to whom men looked as a military expert, or an authority
on foreign affairs. But to him a grasp of social questions and a full
recognition of the place which Labour should hold in the modern State
were essential parts of a statesman's equipment, and appeals on the
ground of a weakening of his position by his unremitting care for Labour
interests could not have a feather's weight in the balance for one in
whom the chord of self had long since been struck and passed in music
out of sight.

APPENDIX I

Statistics by Sir Bernard Mallet, Registrar-General

In 1907 Sir Charles Dilke, who had been a member of the Royal
Statistical Society since 1866, accepted an invitation to become its
President, in which capacity he served for two years, with notable
advantage to the society. As the writer of the notice which appeared in
the journal on the occasion of his death observed:

"While Sir Charles Dilke would have declined the title of
statistician, and, indeed, frequently referred to himself as a 'mere
user' of statistics, he possessed in a high degree what may be
termed the statistical instinct. His genius for marshalling facts in
orderly sequence, his passion for precision of statement even in
minute detail, his accurate recollection of figures, as, indeed, of
everything which he stored in the chamber of his encyclopaedic
memory, are all primary attributes of the ideal statistician, though
in his case the wide range and magnitude of the subjects in which he
was interested led far beyond the field of statistical
investigation." [Footnote: _Journal of the Royal Statistical
Society_, February, 1911 p. 320]

His assumption of this office was thus specially appropriate on general
grounds; but it was connected in his mind, as he more than once
explained, with certain definite and practical objects. He had been
impressed, during his chairmanship of the Income Tax Committee, with the
inadequacy of the published statistics on finance, and he hoped to
signalize his period of office by the promotion of the better
organization of Government statistics. He chose this subject,
accordingly, for the presidential address which he delivered before the
society in December, 1907, [Footnote: Ibid., December, 1907, pp.
553-582.] and which Mr. Arthur Bowley, in his address to the society in
furtherance of the same crusade a few months later, described as a
"terrible indictment" of the existing system, or want of system. To a
large extent this address consisted of illustrations of the lack of
co-ordination in the collection and issue of these statistics, and the
difficulties which confronted the student who desired to make use of
them. But he did not confine himself to criticism. Although no definite
scheme for dealing with this large and difficult matter could be
usefully put forward without a searching official inquiry, Sir Charles
was willing to support any proposal which would assist the object in
view, from the institution of an advisory or consultative committee of
expert statisticians, to that of a central statistical bureau on the
Continental model. He induced the council to enlarge the scope of the
society's Census Committee, then sitting to advise on measures to
improve the census to be taken in 1911, so as to include official
statistics generally; and he persuaded the Select Committee of the House
of Commons on Publications to hear evidence on the subject. [Footnote:
_Journal of the Royal Statistical Society_, September, 1908, p. 459] He
secured the consideration of his suggestions in several official
quarters, and his criticisms undoubtedly led to some improvements in
detail. It would have been a miracle if Sir Charles Dilke's vigorous
campaign had attained a more obvious measure of success, and he himself
was well aware of the extreme difficulty of securing attention in this
country to a mere question of administrative reform as distinguished
from one of political or party interest--a question, moreover, which
aroused many departmental susceptibilities. But it would be a mistake to
ignore the utility of such efforts as his in stimulating interest in the
subject and assisting those whose labours have resulted in material
improvements in recent years.

Never had the society enjoyed the advantage of a President who took so
much interest in its proceedings. He regularly attended the meetings of
the committees. He was almost invariably in the chair at the society's
meetings, and rarely failed to add to the interest of the discussion by
some illuminating comment, and he was the life and soul of the dinners
of the Statistical Club which followed the meetings.

It is difficult to exaggerate the encouragement which a President of Sir
Charles Dilke's distinction can give in these various ways to workers in
the unpopular and unattractive paths of statistical science.

* * * * *

APPENDIX II

By Miss Mary Macarthur

The Taff Vale decision struck a vital blow at trade-union organization,
and while the case was still finally undecided the leaders of the
Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants called on Sir Charles for
advice. Afterwards, when the judgment was upheld, his services were
unreservedly at the command of the Parliamentary Committee of the
Trade-Union Congress.

He assisted the committee in 1901 at a conference in which Mr. Asquith,
Sir Robert Reid, and Mr. Haldane, committed the Liberal party to the
initiation of legislation to reverse the Taff Vale decision, and shortly
afterwards played a similar part in an interview with Lord James of
Hereford and the late Lord Ritchie, who spoke as representing the then
Government. The second conference was also satisfactory, since it drew
from Lord James the emphatic opinion that workmen on strike were
entitled in their own interest to use moral suasion to prevent their
places being taken by others.

The Tory party did not, however, take Lord James's view, and a
resolution proposing the restoration of the _status quo_ before the Taff
Vale judgment was defeated in the House of Commons by a majority of 29.
In May, 1903, a Bill introduced by Mr. D. J. Shackleton to legalize
picketing shared the same fate; while an even more ominous event was the
appointment by the Government of a Royal Commission on which Labour was
unrepresented, and before which the leaders of the trade-union movement
refused to appear.

Arguments in favour of compromise were put forward at the Trade-Union
Congress of 1903, which followed closely on the rejection of Mr.
Shackleton's Bill, and during the next three years the position of the
unions became continuously more precarious. It looked as though trade-
unions were beginning, in the phrase of Mr. Bell, to "exist very much on
sufferance."

In this crisis Sir Charles was an inexhaustible source of strength. On
everyone he could reach and influence he pressed the policy of standing
firm, and the continuing reverses of the Tory party at by-elections
played into his hands.

The Tories accepted the decision of their constituents to the extent
that Mr. Shackleton's Bill, rejected in 1903, obtained second reading by
39 votes in 1904, and by 122 in 1905. But dislike of the measure had not
abated; so many vexatious amendments were embodied in the Bill in
Committee as to render it worse than useless; and at last all but the
Tory members retired from the Grand Committee in disgust, and the Bill
was discharged from the House. But in 1906 came the General Election, by
which the Labour party found itself abruptly in the enjoyment of
prominence and power.

Faced with responsibility for legislation, the Liberal Government abated
something of their pre-election zeal, and introduced a measure which
would have given only conditional immunity to the trade-unions; but an
indignant Labour party, having secured a majority of 300 for a
thoroughgoing measure of their own, were prepared to oppose the Bill of
the Government, and this Bill was remodelled on Labour party lines.

The result was seen by everyone, but very few people understood how at
every stage the member for the Forest of Dean had intervened, using to
the utmost his powerful influence in the one camp to fix the trade-
unionists in their demand for complete reversal of the Taff Vale
judgment and the prevention of its recurrence, and in the other to bring
about an unequivocal acceptance of the demand.

[Footnote: The Trade Disputes Act, 1906, got rid of the Taff Vale
decision by Section 4. It also legalized peaceful picketing (Section 2),
and made certain acts done in furtherance of a trade dispute not
actionable on the ground merely that they interfered with business
(Section 4). Its sections dealt with the following subjects:

Section 1 amended the law of conspiracy.

Section 2 made peaceful picketing legal.

Section 3: "An act done by a person in contemplation or furtherance of a
trade dispute shall not be actionable on the ground only that it is an
interference with the trade, business, or employment, of some other
person, or with the right of some other person to dispose of his capital
or his labour as he wills."

Section 4: "An action against a trade-union, whether of workmen or
masters, or against any members or officials thereof, on behalf of
themselves and all other members of the trade-union, in respect of any
tortious act alleged to have been committed by or on behalf of the
trade-union, shall not be entertained by any court."]

Nor after this major issue was settled triumphantly did his anxiety and
watchfulness abate. He scrutinized the provisions of the Bill with
jealous care. He desired to exclude every ambiguous word. "Too easily
satisfied," he scribbled to me after Labour members had neglected to
press an amendment he considered of importance, and as the Bill slowly
moved forward several such criticisms came into my hands.

His own work in Committee on the Bill is indicated by his summary of the
risks confronting those who took part in trade disputes:

1. The liability to be hit in respect of molestation.

2. Under the word "reasonable."

3. Under the Law of Nuisance.

The first danger he diminished in an amendment accepted by the
Government. The second he tried to lessen by moving the omission of the
words "peaceably and in a reasonable manner." Unsuccessfully, for his
Labour colleagues inclined to think him extreme, and intimated their
consent to retain "peaceably."

On the third question he was supported by almost half the Committee, and
only failed to carry his amendment against the Government through a
dictum of the then Attorney-General, that the Law of Nuisance could not
be invoked to stop picketing. This law has, however, since been invoked
against the pickets of the Hotel, Club, and Restaurant Workers' Union,
and under it several members of the union have been fined, and one or
two committed to gaol. The instance is a final proof, if one were
needed, of Sir Charles's prescience. The fame of Sir Charles Dilke in
the realm of industrial legislation will mount high, but to trade-
unionists nothing will endear his memory more than the knowledge that,
if and in so far as they have now a charter invulnerable alike to the
prejudice and the caprice of those who administer the law, it is largely
due to the clear vision of Sir Charles Dilke, and to the skill and
invincible courage with which he followed his aims.

CHAPTER LIII

WORK FOR NATIVE RACES

1870-1911

I.

Perhaps no one of Sir Charles Dilke's eager activities won for him more
public and private affection and regard than the part which he took both
in and out of Parliament as a defender of the weaker races against
European oppression.

At the very outset of his career, John Stuart Mill's admiring sympathy
for the youthful author of _Greater Britain_ was specially called forth
by chapters which made a natural appeal to the son of the historian of
British India. More than twenty years later, Sir Charles, revising his
work in the full maturity of his power and knowledge, emphasized again
the first precept of his policy, which enjoined not only justice, but
courtesy:

"Above all it is essential to the continuation of our rule under the
changed conditions that the individual Englishman in India should
behave towards the people as the best behave at present."

Into the question whether India would be better or worse off under some
other system he never entered; British control was accepted by him as a
fact; but, so accepting it, he insisted that justice should be done to
the Crown's Asiatic subjects.

"Men who speak better English than most Englishmen; who conduct able
newspapers in our tongue; who form the majority on town councils
which admirably supervise the affairs of great cities; who, as
Native Judges, have reached the highest judicial posts; who occupy
seats in the Provincial, the Presidency, and the Viceregal Councils,
or as powerful Ministers excellently rule vast Native States, can no
longer be treated as hopelessly inferior to ourselves in
governmental power. These men look upon the Queen's proclamations as
their charters, and point out that, while there is no legal reason
against their filling some proportion, at all events, of the highest
executive posts, there are as a fact virtually no natives high up in
the covenanted Civil Service."

Control of the military power, control of the Budget, must remain with
the governing race. But "provided war and finance are in those single
hands, autocratic or despotic if you will, which must exist for India as
a whole, in the absence of any other authority, the less we interfere in
the details of administration, to my mind, the better both for India and
for ourselves." [Footnote: _East and West_, November, 1901.]

Local self-government would give to the leading natives more opportunity
for a career, and to the governed a rule more closely in touch with
their sympathies and traditions. But there could be no general formula.
"Roughly speaking," he said, "my views are hostile to the treating of
India as a single State, and favourable to a legislative recognition of
the diversity of conditions which undoubtedly exist in India." He
contemplated administration in some parts of India by hereditary chiefs
and princes, in some cities by elective representatives of the
municipalities, in other portions of the country by a mixed system. But,
by whatever method, he was for recognizing the fact that in India we
were at many points controlling a developed though a different
civilization; that trained men were to be had in numbers; and that the
educated natives' claim for an increased and increasing part in the task
of government must be recognized.

There is a letter from him to Mr. Morley in 1897, when he thought that
freedom for the Indian Press was threatened by "blind reaction" after
the Poona murder: "The state of things in Poona has grown out of the
Committee, under the man who was stabbed but is not dead, employing
British privates (instead of employing native troops, as did General
Gatacre at Bombay) to search the houses for plague patients." The whole
position appeared to him "more dangerous than it has been at any time
since the recall of Lytton in 1880."

A policy of repression would set back the progress of liberalizing
Indian government. No one insisted more strongly on the maintenance of
sufficient force to defend the Indian Empire; but he believed that there
was a second "greatest duty" in learning "how to live with the
development of that new India which we ourselves have created."

Speaking on July 13th, 1909, when the murder of Mr. A. M. T. Jackson at
Nasik was fresh in all minds, he urged continued "measures of amnesty
and appeasement," and deprecated the policy of deporting leading members
of the National Congress. "If reform was dangerous," he said, "it was
less dangerous than leaving things alone." Describing Lord Ripon, whose
death had only just taken place, as "the Viceroy who more than any other
had touched the imagination of the people of India," he added: "If our
rule, excellent in intention, but rather wooden, is to be made
acceptable, imagination must play its part."

This lifelong advocacy of generous principles was not unrecognized. In
the last autumn of his life he was pressed in flattering terms to attend
the twenty-fifth National Congress; and for some time he entertained the
idea, which was specially urged on him by his friend and honorary agent
for the Forest of Dean, Sir William Wedderburn, who was presiding over
the Congress that year.

The project was finally set aside in view of the momentous autumn
session of 1910; but he did not feel equal to the journey. When the end
came, India mourned for him.

* * * * *

II.

Sir Charles Dilke's concern with the vast network of problems arising
throughout Africa and the Pacific Islands from the contact of white men
with natives was infinitely detailed; yet more and more it tended to
reduce itself to one broad issue. In this relation the coloured man is
everywhere the white man's labourer; Dilke's object was to insure that
he should not be his slave. Against actual slavery he was always a
crusader, and for long years he contended against the recognition of it
implied by the practice of restoring runaway slaves in Zanzibar. Under a
Liberal Government, he carried his point at last. A letter written on
August 17th, 1907, fitly sums up this matter:

"Dear Sir Charles Dilke,

"I have just heard, on arriving here, that the announcement has been
made in the House of Commons of the intention of the Government to
abolish the legal status of slavery in Mombasa and the Coast
District on October 1st. I can hardly say how much pleasure this has
given me, nor can I refrain from writing to say how much we out here
are indebted to you for the part you have taken in bringing the
Government to this decision. I feel that without your assistance the
affair would have dragged on, possibly, for years. With many and
grateful thanks,

"Believe me, yours very sincerely,

"Alfred R. Tucker,

"_Bishop of Uganda_"

To Sir Charles men turned if protest had to be made against the illegal
flogging of natives, or against those punitive expeditions which under a
Liberal Government were often called military patrols.

As early as 1870 he had become a correspondent of the Aborigines'
Protection Society; in 1871 he supported their action in defence of the
Demerara negroes; and to the end of his life he was in constant
communication with their leading men.

His brief tenure of office gave him power to put in force principles for
which he had contended as a private member. In 1877 he wrote to Mr.
Chesson that since 1868 he had been interested to secure fair treatment
for China, [Footnote: In 1869 Sir Charles wrote letters to the _Times_
on Chinese affairs, which, says the Memoir, 'possess a certain interest
as showing that I held the same views as to China which I have always
continued to have at heart,' and which may be sufficiently illustrated
by quotation of a single phrase. He condemned "the old, bad, world-wide
party ... which never admits that weak races have rights as against the
strong."] but China's friends must bring pressure to bear to limit the
use of torture. In 1880, having become Under-Secretary for Foreign
Affairs, he was able to inform the same correspondent that he had
"succeeded in making it certain that a strong direction would be made on
the subject of Chinese torture."

Cases of gross barbarity, cases of actual slave trading, always found
him ready to act, but his great object was to check the growth of all
systems and institutions which made for industrial servitude--to his
mind a graver peril than direct slavery. Thus, in 1878 he was in
correspondence with the Aborigines' Protection Society concerning the
proposed establishment of a Chartered Company in Borneo, and observed
that such arrangements could not be justified by proving the existence
of bad government in independent Native States. "The worse the
government of these States, the greater the difficulties which crop up
when we intermeddle." In 1881 as a Minister he resisted the grant of
that charter. All these surrenders of territory and jurisdiction to
commercial associations filled him with suspicion. He knew that
expedients lay ready to the white man's hand by which the native
population could easily be enslaved; and to these even the best
representatives of direct colonial government under the Crown were prone
to resort. In 1878 he had written anxiously to Mr. Chesson concerning
the labour tax in Fiji, which, although instituted by a Governor in whom
the society had special trust, seemed "opposed to all the principles for
which you have hitherto contended." Nearly twenty years later he was
maintaining this vigilance. "I am always uneasy about Fiji," he wrote to
Mr. Fox Bourne in August, 1896. "I attacked the labour system when it
was instituted, and continue to hold the strongest opinion against it."
But by that time the new developments which he had resisted in the
seventies had spread fast and far.

"The fashion of the day," he wrote in September, 1895, "sets so strongly
towards veiled slavery that there is nothing now to be done by
deputation to Ministers. We ought to appeal to the conscience of the
electorate, and I am willing greatly to increase my little gifts to your
society if that is done."

Part of his concern was engendered by the revelation, then recent, that
the Chartered Niger Company imposed by contract a fine of L1,000 on any
agent or ex-agent of theirs who should publish any statement respecting
the company's methods, even after his employment was ended. "I am
convinced," Sir Charles wrote, "that the secrecy which it has been
attempted to maintain puts them wholly in the wrong, even if they are
angels;" and upon this ground he kept up a steady campaign against the
Niger Company by question and debate in Parliament until Government
bought the company out and assumed direct responsibility for the
country.

South Africa was a graver centre of disquietude, for there commercial
enterprise was on a greater scale. He wrote in December, 1900, after
Great Britain had occupied the Transvaal: "My point is that the Rand
Jews have already got slavery, and our Government must repeal the laws
they have. Reading together the Pass Law and the coloured labour clause,
which you will find was the end of the latest Gold Law, we have slavery
by law."

The remedy lay, for him, in the guarantee of citizenship, at least in
some degree, to this class of labour; and with that object he put
himself at the centre of a concerted movement as soon as opportunity
offered. When, after the Boer War, the mine owners returned to the Rand,
and, pleading shortage of Kaffir labour, demanded the introduction of
indentured Chinese coolies, Sir Charles vigorously protested. The
question played a considerable part in the elections which returned the
Liberals to power with an enormous majority. It was not, however, as the
party man that Sir Charles made his protest, but as the upholder of
human rights. He feared lest "South Africa is to become the home of a
great proletariat, forbidden by law to rise above the present
situation."

When the Union of South Africa was proposed, it became manifest that
division existed as to the status of non-European citizens. In 1906,
when the Liberals came into power, immediate action was taken by a small
group of members, who addressed a letter to the Prime Minister begging
that, in view of the contemplated federation, steps should be taken to
safeguard such political rights as natives actually enjoyed in the
various colonies, and also the tribal institutions of separate native
communities. The letter advocated also an extension of Native Reserves,
and it was promptly followed (on February 28th) by a motion, brought
forward by Mr. Byles, which declared that "in any settlement of South
African affairs this House desires a recognition of Imperial
responsibility for the protection of all races excluded from equal
political rights, the safeguarding of all immigrants against servile
conditions of labour, and the guarantee to the native populations of at
least their existing status, with the unbroken possession of their
liberties in Basutoland, Bechuanaland, and other tribal countries and
reservations."

Sir Charles himself took no part in the debate; but he notes: 'I am
proud to have planned this letter and drawn the motion for Byles so that
it was carried unanimously by the House.' A resolution much stronger in
terms could easily have been carried in that Parliament; but it would
not have been unanimous, and it could hardly have been enforced later
on. Here a principle was so firmly laid down that the House could not
recede from it; and the importance of the step soon became apparent.
When the Bill for the South African Union came before Parliament in
1909, Colonel Seely, who had been one of the signatories to the letter
of 1906, represented the Colonial Office in the Commons; and Sir
Charles, warned by friends of the natives in South Africa, questioned
him as to whether the Bill as drafted empowered the self-governing
colonies to alter the existing boundaries of the Protectorates. He
received a private promise that the matter should be put beyond doubt;
and this was done in the Committee stage by a solemn declaration that
the Imperial Government absolutely reserved its right of veto upon the
alienation of native lands. As soon as the text of the proposed
Constitution became known, he raised his protest against what he
considered a permanent disfranchisement of labour; for labour in South
Africa, he held, must for all time be coloured labour. Six weeks later,
when the Bill was brought to Westminster, Mr. W. P. Schreiner, who came
specially to plead the rights of the civilized men of colour, was in
constant intercourse with Sir Charles, and scores of letters on detailed
proposals for amendment attest the thoroughness of that co-operation.
Dilke, with the support of some Labour men and Radicals, fought
strenuously against the clauses which recognized a colour-bar, and in
the opinion of some at least in South Africa, the essence of the
position was secured.