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

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"This last point is closely connected with full power to local
authorities to acquire land for all purposes, and this with
municipal trading and other forms of municipal Socialism. The heads
of the Labour policy are now so universally embraced as not to be
specially Radical; Taff Vale, for example, being supported by all
Liberals and some Tories, and the Miners' Eight Hours receiving the
support of nearly all Liberals and of some Tories."

On the question of electoral reform, and specially of woman's suffrage,
all his action was guided by one conclusion thus expressed, and embodied
in the Franchise Bill introduced by him each Session:

"The limited franchise, if it is ever carried, will be carried as a
party Conservative measure intended to aid Conservative opinions and
to rest the franchise upon an unassailable limited base, and it will
be carried in that case against the counter-proposal of the suffrage
of all grown men and women, made by those representing the advanced
thought of the country." [Footnote: Memorandum by Sir Charles Dilke
on "Suffrage of All Grown Men and Women," issued by the People's
Suffrage Federation.]

It is unnecessary to emphasize the completeness with which political
evolution has followed the lines here marked out by him. Others reaped
the harvest. But no man then living had done more to sow the seed.

The Parliament in which he found himself was one of singular interest.
He wrote:

"The old form of party divisions is, in the great majority of
constituencies, not yet much affected by recent events. In the House
of Commons it is almost dead for the present year....

"The future cannot be foreseen, and in politics it is always foolish
to attempt to prophesy. I have frequently myself made or quoted the
remark that in politics a year is equivalent to eternity. I have now
limited myself to 1906. Whether the party system, in which British
statesmen of our time and of past generations have been nurtured,
will ever be restored is another matter. Whether the birth of a
definite Labour party, in addition to a definite Irish Nationalist
party, will be followed by any further division, or whether, as I
expect, it will not, yet the division into four parties--of which
three will compete actively for the favour of the British
electorate--will, I think, continue, and we follow here the line of
political development in which first the Australian Colonies, and
now the Commonwealth, have led the way." [Footnote: _Potentia_,
1906.]

Writing in the _Financial Review of Reviews_ for April, 1906, he spoke
of the "extraordinarily interesting nature of the debates," of which
example had already been given, and he foreshadowed no less interesting
action. The changes which he had in view, mainly financial, were "not
likely to be popular in the City, with solicitors, with the organized
representatives of the employing class," but none the less they would
probably be carried into law. The old assumption that democratic
movements would be carried into legislation "by capitalist members
steeped in Radical pledges" had ceased to correspond with the facts. A
new type of member of Parliament had appeared, and Sir Charles welcomed
the change.

"It is possible that the members are more Radical than the
constituencies. This is an arguable question; but that they are
convinced upon such questions, not by pressure, but by training and
by thought, is a conclusion which no one who knows the present House
of Commons can resist.

"There has probably never sat so interesting a House of Commons in
the history of this country. With a good deal of experience of
Parliaments and of their inner life and thought, and with the
opportunity of frequent discussion with those who, like Mr.
Gladstone, remembered all the Parliaments back to the early
thirties, and those, like Mr. Vernon Harcourt, [Footnote: George
Granville Vernon Harcourt, elected to the House of Commons as member
for Oxford in 1831. He held his seat till 1859.] who remembered much
earlier Parliaments, I am certain that there has never met at
Westminster an assembly so able and at the same time so widely
different in intellectual composition from its predecessors as that
which is now there gathered. The development of opinion, however, is
less of a surprise to those who have watched Australia and New
Zealand than to those who have confined their studies to the United
Kingdom and the Continent." [Footnote: In 1911, when Lord Hugh Cecil
described with violent rhetoric the alleged degradation of the House
of Commons, Mr. Balfour was moved to protest, and cited in support
of his own view "a man whose authority had always been admitted." "I
remember," he said, "talking over with Sir Charles Dilke the
question of general Parliamentary practice, and he said, and I
agree, that there has been no deterioration either in his or in my
Parliamentary experience."]

Payment of members he did not live to see, but he always regarded it as
"an extraordinary anomaly that payment should have been discontinued in
this country."

"Members are paid in every other country in the world, and in every
British colony (I believe without exception). Non-payment means
deliberate preference for moneyed oligarchy, as only rare exceptions
can produce a democratic member under such a system. It excludes all
poor men of genius unless they can get themselves paid by parties
like the Irish, which makes them slaves. It throws undue power into
the hands of the capital as the seat of the legislature, and it
leads to poor members selling their souls to rotten compromises."

Despite the advance of age and a growing weakness of the heart, the
impression which he produced was always one of commanding vigour. His
habit of fencing kept him alert and supple in all his movements.
Notwithstanding his elaborate preparation for the work, no man's
appearances in debate were less premeditated; he spoke when he felt
inclined: had he spoken for effect, his interpositions would have been
much less frequent. But when tactics required it, no man was more
willing to efface himself. Especially was this so in all his relations
with Labour; when he could leave to the Labour party the credit of
moving an important amendment, he gladly left it to them. Yet when he
was more likely than they to secure Liberal support, he was prepared to
move against the Government, and in one notable amendment on the Trade
Disputes Bill brought down their vast majority to the bare figure of
five. [Footnote: For a fuller account of Sir Charles's work connected
with the Taff Vale Decision and the Trade Disputes Act, see "Labour,"
Chapter LII, pp. 345 and 365.]

The work which in these last years cost him most labour--in view of his
failing health, it would have been well for his friends had he never
undertaken it--was that given to the Committee on the Income Tax, of
which he became chairman in 1906. Sir Bernard Mallet (now Registrar-
General) writes in 1916:

"In the spring of 1906 the Government decided to appoint a strong
Committee to inquire into the questions of graduation and
differentiation of the income tax, which had for some Sessions been
coming into prominence in consequence of the financial difficulties
caused by the South African War. Mr. Asquith, then Chancellor of the
Exchequer, offered the chairmanship to Sir Charles Dilke, who had
never claimed to be an expert in finance, and only accepted it after
strong pressure, and the Select Committee set to work accordingly
early in May. Having taken up the work, which occupied most of the
summer, Sir Charles threw himself into it with immense energy. He
familiarized himself with all the literature bearing on the
question, and he made a point of calling, as witnesses, not only the
usual officials, but also as many outside economists and
statisticians as might be able to throw light upon questions which,
as he rightly conceived, lay at the root of any proper consideration
of the problem before the Committee. He attached special importance
to all the evidence bearing upon foreign and colonial methods and
principles in the taxation of income and property, and to the
endeavour he made to get at statistics bearing on the distribution
of income--two vitally important factors introduced by him, for the
first time, into any official handling of the subject.

"But the result of all the knowledge, thoroughness, and enthusiasm,
which, as his friends could testify, he lavished without stint (and,
it is to be feared, to the serious detriment of his health) upon the
work, must have somewhat disappointed him. Sir Charles's attempts to
deal with the matter in a comprehensive spirit and produce a report
which would rival in interest the famous reports of two previous
Select Committees on the subject, those of 1851 and 1861, were
hampered by the necessity, under which the Committee lay, of
devising a means to increase the yield of the income tax with the
least political friction. The two expedients which came most
prominently before the Committee were those of differentiating the
rate of the income tax in favour of earned or precarious incomes,
and of imposing a supertax upon the larger incomes. Both of these
were included in the recommendations of the report which was
ultimately adopted, [Footnote: Report of the Select Committee on
Income Tax, II. of C. 365 of 1906.] and carried into effect in the
Budgets of 1907 and 1909 respectively. [Footnote: See _British
Budgets_, by Bernard Mallet (1913), pp. 262, 263, 274, 277-281, and
305, where also some comments on the recommendations of the
Committee are to be found.] Sir Charles's own view was opposed to
both these methods. He would have preferred to differentiation, even
in the limited form (up to L2,000 a year) in which it became law,
the method of separate taxation of property, or income from
property, as in Prussia and Holland, if death duties were not
considered as sufficient taxation upon property.

"He was certainly impressed by the unscientific character of the
proposed differentiation; by the difficulty of distinguishing
between 'earned' and 'unearned' incomes, and by the possibilities of
abuse which this method of dealing with the question offered.
Supertax he would have reserved for a national emergency, but it
should not be supposed that his opposition to it implied opposition
to graduation either in principle or in practice. He was, indeed,
strongly in favour of a graduated income tax, but, in his judgment,
a supertax was a somewhat clumsy way of effecting the purpose aimed
at. In his opinion the universal declaration of all taxable incomes
was an indispensable preliminary to the full and just graduation of
the income tax, and written notes of his are in existence showing
how much importance he attached to this point.

"Holding these views, he could not produce a report sufficiently
decisive in its acceptance of the methods favoured by the majority
of his colleagues.

"The stupendous increases which have taken place in the rates of the
income tax owing to the present war, increases far surpassing
anything contemplated by the Committee over which Sir Charles
presided ten years ago, have thrown all such controversies as these
into the shade; but apart from the practical results of its
recommendations, which for good or ill left at the time a very
decided mark on fiscal legislation, this investigation succeeded,
owing mainly to his influence, in eliciting a quantity of evidence
which will always make it of historical interest to students of
taxation."

CHAPTER LVIII

FOREIGN AFFAIRS: 1890 TO 1910

Even before his return, in July, 1892, to Parliament, Sir Charles Dilke
was still a powerful critic of the country's foreign policy. It is a
curious commentary on the wisdom of those who believe that, except at
moments of special excitement or of public danger, it is impossible to
interest the electorate in foreign affairs, that during this period he
was constantly able to gather large public audiences in the North of
England and in Wales, and induce them to listen to careful criticisms on
questions such as the delimitation of the African continent, the
Newfoundland fisheries, British policy in the Pacific, and the future of
the Congo State. This was achieved, although no party appeal could be
made or was attempted, and although there was a deliberate effort by an
influential section of the London Press to boycott the speaker. In these
speeches Sir Charles pointed out that a perhaps too general acquiescence
existed on the part of most Liberals in the foreign policy of the
Government, merely because Lord Salisbury had made no attempt to
continue or to revive the pro-Turkish and warlike policy which had
distinguished the Government of Lord Beaconsfield in 1878. Lord
Salisbury was now mainly intent on settling outstanding questions with
France and Germany, especially in Africa, dealing with them one by one.
The ordinary Conservative partisan still said in public that nothing
could be worse than the foreign policy and practice of the Liberal
party; but he was also saying in private that the policy of his own
party was little better, that the army both at home and in India was
neglected, and that the fleet was probably insufficient. Dread, however,
of Mr. Gladstone and of the possible return of the Liberal party to
power, made him with rare exceptions silent in Parliament; while, on the
other hand, the mass of the Liberal party had become supporters of Lord
Salisbury's foreign and colonial policy. "The fact that Lord Salisbury
had not been an active Turk or an active Jingo had proved enough to
cover everything." [Footnote: "The Conservative Foreign Policy,"
_Fortnightly Review_, January, 1892, by Sir Charles Dilke.] But the
absence of any well-sustained criticism in Parliament had evident
disadvantages, and Sir Charles's speeches at this time supplied the
deficiency.

The political fortunes of France between 1887 and 1895 were at a low
ebb. The financial scandals which led to the resignation of President
Grevy in 1887, the serio-comic political career of General Boulanger,
dangerous and constant labour disturbances in the great centres of
industry, the Panama financial scandals of 1893, the assassination of
President Carnot in 1894, and the impossibility of forming stable
Ministries, caused a general lack of confidence in the future of the
Republic both at home and abroad, which the facile glories of the Paris
Exhibition of 1889 could not conceal. The foreign policy of the country
seemed to consist in a system of "pin-pricks" directed against Great
Britain, and in hostility to Italy, which culminated in anti-Italian
riots in the South of France, a tariff war, and the entry of Italy into
the alliance of the Central Powers. The letters of Sir Charles during
this period are full of expressions of despair at the condition of
French politics and at the general lack of statesmanship. The suspicion
which he entertained of Russian intentions caused him also to look
askance at the newly formed friendship of France with Russia, which,
commencing with the visit of a French naval squadron under Admiral
Gervais to Cronstadt in August, 1891, was finally sealed by a treaty of
alliance signed in March, 1895, though the precise terms were not known.
[Footnote: In a letter to M. Joseph Reinach written after the appearance
of _The Present Position of European Politics_, Sir Charles says: "I did
_not_ say Gambetta had been a great friend to the Poles. I said he hated
the Russians. He told me so over and over again. He held the same view
as Napoleon I. as to Russia, and said, 'J'irais chercher mes alliances
n'importe oui--meme a Berlin,' and, 'La Russie me tire le pan de
l'habit, mais jamais je n'ecouterais ce qu'on me fait dire.' But, in
searching for my own reasons for this in the first article, I said that
as a law student he had been brought up with a generation which had had
Polish sympathies, and that perhaps this had caused (unconsciously, I
meant) his anti-Russian views. I know he did not believe in setting up a
Poland."]

In Germany the position was different. The Dual Alliance devised by
Prince Bismarck between Germany and Austria-Hungary had become the
Triple Alliance by the accession of Italy, and had been further
strengthened by an assurance of naval support given to Italy by Lord
Salisbury in the event of the _status quo_ in the Mediterranean being
disturbed. The presumable disturber aimed at was evidently France.
[Footnote: "In 1903 Lord Lansdowne explained that in February, 1887,
there had been that exchange of notes between Italy and ourselves of
which I had written in that year. In _The Present Position of European
Politics_ I made allusion to Disraeli's proposal, before his defeat in
1880, of a league of the Powers for the defence of the _status quo_ in
the Mediterranean. The notes of February, 1887, nominally dealt only
with the Mediterranean _status quo_ desired in common, it was said, by
Italy and Great Britain. Cynics might be tempted to ask whether all
Italian Ministers desired the maintenance of a _status quo_ in a
'Mediterranean' which included the coast of Tunis, the coast of Tripoli,
and even, Lord Lansdowne added, the Adriatic." (Sir Charles Dilke in the
_English Review_, October, 1909: "On the Relations of the Powers.") On
this subject see _Crispi Memoirs_, vol. ii., chap. v.] The meddlesome
intrigues of Russian partisans, and a long series of political outrages
culminating in the murder of M. Stambouloff, were gradually forming an
Austro-German party in Bulgaria; while the wise and progressive
administration of Bosnia and the Herzegovina by Herr von Kallay had
encouraged a belief that some good thing might even yet come out of
Austria, notwithstanding the famous expression of a belief to the
contrary by Mr. Gladstone.

In the circumstances Lord Salisbury determined to base his policy on a
good understanding with Germany, and he had his reward. The African
settlement of 1890 was a comprehensive scheme which undoubtedly made
great concessions to German wishes, but, taken in connection with
subsequent enlargements and additions, it was hoped that it had at least
removed any real danger of collision between the two Powers principally
concerned. A treaty with France, recognizing a French protectorate over
Madagascar, was defended by its authors as the complement of the
arrangements of 1890, as to Zanzibar, with Germany. Subsequent treaties
with Portugal and Italy made the period decisive as to the future
division of the African continent. Both in Great Britain and Germany the
arrangements of 1890 were attacked as having yielded too much to the
other side. But looking at the treaty from an English point of view, Sir
Charles said there had been too many graceful "concessions" all round,
and of these he made himself the critic. He did not, however, identify
himself with the extreme school of so-called "Imperial" thought, which
seemed to consider that in some unexplained manner Great Britain had
acquired a prior lien on the whole unoccupied portion of the vast
African continent.

But in the treaty of 1890 there was one clause--the last--which stood
out by itself in conspicuous isolation, and this Sir Charles never
ceased to attack and denounce. It decreed the transfer of Heligoland to
Germany. The importance of the acquisition was not fully appreciated at
the time even in Germany. What the surrender might some day mean was not
understood in Great Britain. On both sides the tendency was to belittle
the transaction. [Footnote: Reventlow, 38-51. _Hohenlohe Memoirs_, ii.
470-471.] Apart from some minor interests possessed by British
fishermen, Lord Salisbury described the value of the island as mainly
"sentimental," in the speech in which on July 10th he defended the
transaction in the House of Lords.

He supported the proposal by arguing that the island was unfortified,
that it was within a few hours' steam of the greatest arsenal of
Germany, that if the island remained in our possession an expedition
would be despatched to capture it on "the day of the declaration of war,
and would arrive considerably before any relieving force could arrive
from our side." "It would expose us to a blow which would be a
considerable humiliation." "If we were at war with any other Power it
would be necessary for us to lock up a naval force for the purpose of
defending this island, unless we intended to expose ourselves to the
humiliation of having it taken." This argument, Sir Charles Dilke showed
by a powerful criticism of the whole treaty in the columns of the
_Melbourne Argus_, went a great deal too far. It could be used for the
purpose of defending the cession of the Channel Islands to France. "The
Channel Islands lie close to a French stronghold, Cherbourg, and not
very far from the greatest of French arsenals, at Brest. They are
fortified and garrisoned, but they are feebly garrisoned, and they have
not been refortified in recent times, and could not be held without
naval assistance, and the argument about locking up our fleet applies in
the case of the Channel Islands, and in the case of many other of our
stations abroad, as it was said to apply in the case of Heligoland."
[Footnote: _Melbourne Argus_, September 10th, 1890. As to Heligoland,
see _Life of Granville_, ii, 362, 363, 425; Holland Rose, _Origins of
the War_, p. 18.]

Lord Salisbury went on to point out that we had obtained a consideration
for the transfer of Heligoland to Germany "on the east coast of Africa,"
a consideration which consisted mainly in an undertaking from Germany
that she would not oppose our assumption of the protectorate of
Zanzibar. But, said Sir Charles, the protectorate, when it included not
only the island of Zanzibar, but the strip of coast now forming the
maritime fringe both of British and of German East Africa, had been over
and over again refused by us. "I was one of those," Sir Charles
continued, referring to a still earlier chapter of Lord Salisbury's
policy during the short-lived Government of 1885-86, "who thought that
the policy of 1885 with regard to Zanzibar was a mistaken policy, and
that we should have insisted on supporting our East Indian subjects, who
had and have the trade on that coast and island in their hands. We had
joined with France in arrangements with regard to the whole Zanzibar
coast, and when we concluded an agreement with Germany about that coast
it became necessary for us to force that agreement upon the French on
behalf of Germany. A most mistaken policy, in my opinion, as we should
otherwise have had the support of France in resisting a German
occupation of any portion of the coast, an occupation which it is safe
to say would not have been attempted in face of a distinct statement on
our part."

Lord Salisbury expressed his inability to understand on what ground
those interested in South Africa objected to our recognizing an
imaginary German right over a strip of territory giving the Germans
access to the upper waters of the Zambesi. He said that our chief
difficulty about this territory was that we knew nothing about it; but
this consideration, Sir Charles said, "told against the agreement,
inasmuch as we had given up a territory which seemed naturally to go
with those which have been assigned to the South Africa Company, and
which might, for anything we knew to the contrary, be of high value in
the future." It was amazing to note how obediently the great majority of
the Conservative party followed Lord Salisbury's lead in accepting the
cession of Heligoland for no consideration at all, as Sir Charles
thought--in any case, for a consideration which must seem inadequate.
Contrast, he said, the grounds upon which the cession of Heligoland was
defended with those, welcomed by shouts of triumph from the
Conservatives, upon which the occupation of Cyprus was justified. It was
inconceivable that any man possessed of reasoning powers could support
holding Cyprus (which must be a weakness in time of war), and yet argue
that Heligoland must be a weakness of a similar kind, and therefore had
better be ceded. In the case of Heligoland the vast majority of the
islanders were opposed to union with Germany. In the case of Cyprus the
vast majority of the islanders were hostile to our rule, while the
majority of Heligolanders were favourable to our rule. To cede it
against the wish of the population was a step which should not be taken,
except for overwhelming national advantage, and that advantage most
certainly could not be shown.