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

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"I am one of those," Dilke wrote, summarizing the argument of his
speeches, "who are sometimes thought by my own party to be somewhat
unduly friendly to the foreign policy of our opponents, a fact which I
mention only to show that I do not come to the present matter with
strong prejudice. I had heard during the negotiations in Berlin, and
some weeks before the publication of the agreement, the whole of its
contents with the exception of the cession of Heligoland, and I had
formed a strong opinion upon the facts then known to me--that it was a
thoroughly bad agreement, most unfavourable to British interests. The
only change since that time has been that Heligoland has been thrown in,
so that to my mind we are ceding that British possession, for which a
very high value might have been obtained, against the wish of the
inhabitants, and ceding it for less than no consideration. Lord
Salisbury seems to be subject to strange dimness of vision when Africa
is concerned. He positively claimed it as a merit, in the course of his
speech to the South African deputation, that while the Germans demanded
an enormous slice of our Bechuanaland sphere of influence, he had
induced them to put back their frontier; but I need hardly point out
that no German traveller had ever entered the country in dispute, that
we had for years acted on the assumption that it was within our sphere,
and that the Germans might as reasonably have set up a claim to the
whole sphere of influence and to all the territories previously assigned
by us to the British South Africa Company...."

In South-East Africa, too, it was to be remembered that we were dealing
with a country which is far less populated by natives and more open to
European settlement than was the case with Central Africa. [Footnote:
See supra, p. 84, as to the differences which had arisen in Mr.
Gladstone's Cabinet on this subject in 1884-85.]

"There has been in the whole matter," he declared, "a deplorable absence
of decision. If, when Lord Salisbury came into power in 1885,
immediately after the occupation by Germany of a slice of South Africa
and of the Cameroons, and at the moment of German activity at Zanzibar,
he had let it be clearly understood that we should support the policy of
Sir John Kirk, our Consul, and the Zanzibar Sultan's rule, and had at
the same time abstained from taking steps to facilitate the operations
of the Germans in Damaraland, we certainly should have occupied at the
present moment a stronger position than we do. But, instead of this,
Lord Salisbury allowed our Indian subjects established along the coast
to be ruined by German bombardments to which the British fleet was sent
to give some sort of moral support. Our explorers have carried the
British flag throughout what is now German East Africa and the Congo
State. They had made treaties by which the leading native sovereigns of
these countries had submitted to our rule, and the Germans are too
anxious for our countenance in Europe to have been willing to have
risked the loss of Lord Salisbury's friendship had he taken a very
different line." [Footnote: _Melbourne Argus_, September 6th, 1890.]

Though not professing to be himself an "African," Sir Charles also asked
how those who professed to come within that description, and speak as
advocates of an Imperial policy in the vast and undeveloped regions of
the Dark Continent, could quietly accept, as they seemed prepared to do,
the break in the so-called Cape to Cairo route which had been allowed to
form part of the great agreement of 1890.

"What, then," he asked in 1902, "have the Tories done with the free hand
that has been given them? Above all, they have 'made up to' Germany, and
this apparently for no definite object and with no definite result. They
have given to Germany as far as they could give; they have certainly
helped her to procure the renewal of the Triple Alliance, by inducing
sanguine Italians to believe that the British fleet will protect them
against France, though as a fact we all know that the House of Commons
will not allow a British fleet to do anything of the kind. France has
wholly given up the Temporal Power, and would not have threatened Italy
had Italy held aloof from the Triple Alliance; and, in spite of a recent
speech by the Minister of Austria-Hungary which was intended to 'pay
out' Italy for her talks with Russia, it is not Austria that would have
raised the question. Our Government have given Germany, so far as they
could give, a vast tract in Africa in which British subjects had traded,
but in most of which no German had ever been. They have also given
Germany Heligoland, which they might have sold dear, and which, if Mr.
Gladstone had given, they would have destroyed him for giving.... All
this for what? What have we gained by it?" [Footnote: _Fortnightly
Review_, January, 1902.]

The policy of Lord Rosebery and Lord Kimberley from 1892 to 1895
resembled that of Lord Salisbury in so far as it aimed at the settlement
of outstanding questions with Germany and France. The apprehensions of
trouble with France were still serious, because a constant succession of
short Ministries at Paris made any permanent agreement difficult if not
impossible. The few Foreign Ministers who were occasionally able to keep
their place for any length of time at the Quai d'Orsay were also
generally those who as a rule were indifferent, if not actually hostile,
to friendship with this country, such as the Duc Decazes in the early
days of the Republic, and M. Hanotaux at a later period, who, however,
was quite ready to invite Great Britain to join in reckless adventures.
[Footnote: Sir Charles notes in November, 1896, that Mr. Morley reported
that 'Hanotaux had told him that he could not understand why England had
refused to join in a France, Russia, and England partition of China.
"China is a dead man in the house who stinks."'] Towards France Lord
Rosebery's Government twice took up a firm stand: first in regard to her
aggressive action in Siam; and secondly by the clear warning, given
through Sir Edward Grey in the House of Commons, that if the expedition
of Major Marchand, which was known to be crossing Africa from west to
east, reached the Nile Valley, as it eventually did at Fashoda, British
interests would be held to be affected. The gravity of this warning was
at the moment very inadequately comprehended by the House and by the
country, notwithstanding the repeated attempts of Sir Charles to
reinforce it before rather unconvinced audiences.

A firm attitude towards France was greatly facilitated through the
friendly position adopted towards Great Britain by Count Caprivi (the
successor in 1890 of Prince Bismarck in the Chancellorship of the German
Empire) and his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Baron Marschall. This
period indicates the high-water mark of friendly relations between
Germany and Great Britain; and though Count Caprivi retired in 1894,
when he was succeeded by Prince Hohenlohe, who had special ties with
Russia, these friendly relations may be said to have been prolonged, so
far as the official relations of the two Governments were concerned,
though with ever-diminishing vitality, up to the retirement of Baron
Marschall from the Foreign Office in 1897. [Footnote: See the
observations of Reventlow, 115-118, and Buellow, _Imperial Germany_, 31,
34.] In this period German commercial policy took a strong turn towards
freer trade, to the great wrath of the feudal and military parties in
Prussia, who were the centre of the forces hostile to a good
understanding with Great Britain. The secret treaty also which Bismarck
had negotiated with Russia, behind the back of his allies, was allowed
to lapse, and a more conciliatory attitude was adopted towards the
Poles, which gratified Liberal opinion, especially in this country. But
even in the time of Baron Marschall there were evidences of the
existence in Germany of currents of opinion of a less friendly
character, which were able from time to time to assert themselves in
African affairs. As Sir Charles Dilke pointed out, Germany had joined
with France in 1894 in objecting to, and thereby nullifying, the Congo
Treaty of that year with Belgium; and some of the territories which had
been handed over to Germany in the neighbourhood of the Cameroons in
1893, with the express object, apparently, of barring a French advance
in that region, had been handed over by Germany to France by another
treaty in 1895. [Footnote: Reventlow, pp. 52, 53, admits this. For the
treaties themselves, see Hertslet, _The Map of Africa by Treaty_, ii.
658, in. 999, 1008.]

Throughout the period from 1892 to 1895 a Liberal Ministry was in
office, but hardly in power. For the next ten years a strong Tory
Administration possessing unfettered freedom of action was in real
power, with an Opposition weakened by internal dissension. It was not
unnatural that, under such discouraging conditions as to home affairs,
Sir Charles should have again devoted most of his time to foreign
questions and army reform.

"I recognize," Mr. Balfour wrote to him, in regard to some arrangements
as to the business of the House, "that no man in the House speaks with
greater authority or knowledge on foreign affairs than yourself, and
that no man has a better right to ask for opportunities for criticizing
the course in respect of foreign affairs adopted by this or any other
Government." [Footnote: March 31st, 1897.]

This recognition was general, so much so that what he spoke or wrote on
foreign affairs was constantly translated, reproduced verbatim and
commented upon in foreign newspapers--a distinction enjoyed as a rule
only by official speakers, and not always by them; while original
contributions from his pen were eagerly sought for not only at home, but
abroad, especially in France and in the colonies, "Il a pese constamment
sur l'opinion francaise," the _Figaro_ wrote at the time of his death;
and his known friendship for France and everything French made plain-
speaking at times possible without exciting resentment. Even those--and
there were many in England--who disagreed with his criticisms of the
details of Lord Salisbury's policy, felt the comprehensive grasp of his
facts, and the vast store of knowledge on which he drew; and the members
of his own party, many of whom did not altogether go with him, or
sometimes, perhaps, quite grasp his standpoint, nevertheless enjoyed,
especially while their own oracles were dumb, the sound of the heavy
guns which, after his return to Parliament, from time to time poured
political shot and shell into the ranks of the self-complacent
representatives of the party opposite. In those ranks, too, there were
men who at heart agreed very largely with the speaker, while compelled
by party discipline to maintain silence. On the other hand, there nearly
always came a moment when Conservative approval passed into the
opposite, for Sir Charles had no sympathy with the vast if rather
confused ideas of general annexation which prevailed in Conservative
circles: the policy of mere earth-hunger which Mr. Gladstone had
denounced in 1893.

[Footnote: See above, p. 256.]

When Lord Salisbury returned to the Foreign Office in 1895, the policy
of "graceful concessions" to France seemed to Sir Charles to have begun
again--concessions in Tunis, concessions in Siam, concessions all
round--and he returned to the attack. Tunis, he again pointed out, dated
back to 1878, when M. Waddington received, in his own words as given in
his own statement, a spontaneous offer of that country in the words
"Take Tunis. England will offer no opposition." But at least certain
commercial rights and privileges were then reserved. Now they were gone.
Even the nominal independence of Madagascar had finally disappeared.

Sir Charles also drew attention to the one subject of foreign affairs
upon which, during the last Parliament, Mr. Curzon never tired of
attacking, first Mr. Gladstone's and then Lord Rosebery's Government:
this was the advance of the French in Siam. Lord Rosebery had gone to
the verge of war with France in checking the French proceedings, and
when he left office France was under a promise to evacuate Chantaboon
and the provinces of Batambong and Siamrep, and to set up a buffer State
on the Mekong. We were then in military occupation of British Trans-
Mekong Keng-Cheng. Lord Salisbury came to an arrangement which left
France in Chantaboon and these provinces, thus giving away, against our
interests, what was not ours to give--as he had done in Tunis--and he
evacuated and left to France British Trans-Mekong Keng-Cheng, in which a
50 per cent, _ad valorem_ duty had just been put on British goods (from
Burmah), a duty from which French goods were free. Not only did Lord
Salisbury himself make this arrangement, but he had to submit when
France, in alliance with Russia, forced the Government of China to yield
territory to France, in direct derogation of China's treaty engagements.
Lord Salisbury had since made what was known as the Kiang-Hung
Convention with China; and it commenced by setting forth the cession by
China to France of territory which had been ceded to China on the
express condition that it should not be so ceded to France. This action
on the part of China was brought about by the violent pressure of France
and Russia at Pekin, which Lord Salisbury passed over. "The defence of
his Siam arrangements in the House of Commons consisted in Mr. Curzon,
who had become the representative of the Foreign Office, informing the
House that the provinces (which he had formerly declared most valuable)
were unimportant to British trade, and in pacifying assurances that the
Upper Mekong was not navigable, although a French steamer was actually
working on it where Mr. Curzon said no ship could go." [Footnote: Letter
to the _Liverpool Daily Post_, December 2nd and 5th, 1898.]

In the days of these petty collisions in West Africa and all the world
over--the "policy of pin-pricks" to which at this time Mr. Chamberlain
made fierce allusion in a public speech--Sir Charles arranged to publish
a dialogue between himself and M. Lavisse of the French Academy
discussing the international situation. "I shall be answering the
_Temps_ article which replies to you," he wrote to Chamberlain on
December 26th, 1898. "Lavisse, being of the Academy, wants a month to
polish his style. The dialogue will not appear till February 1st or
15th. There will be nothing in it new to you. What is new and important
is that the French, impressed by the fleet, and pressed by their men of
business, such as Henri Germain, the Director of the Credit Lyonnais,
and Pallain, now Governor of the Bank of France, want to be friends.
I've told these two and others that it is useless to try and settle
things unless they will settle Newfoundland. These two came back after
seeing Ministers, including the Foreign Minister and the Minister for
War, Freycinet, and independently said that they want to settle
Newfoundland. They've quite made up their minds that Germany does not
want them and will not buy their friendship. I have not seen Monson (the
British Ambassador) since my second interview with them, but I told
Austin Lee last night to tell him the terms on which I thought that
Newfoundland could be settled if you want to settle it. I do not put
them on paper as I am sending this by post."

The Newfoundland dispute as to rights of fishing under the Treaties of
Utrecht and Paris was one to which Dilke always attached special
importance, and immediately after this letter to Chamberlain he wrote
upon it in the _Pall Mall Magazine_ (February, 1899), describing it as
"the most dangerous of all international questions, as it is also one of
the most difficult." [Footnote: This dispute was mainly concerned with
the question whether the French fishermen possessed an "exclusive" or
only a concurrent right in the so-called French shore, under the above-
mentioned treaties (see Fitzmaurice, _Life of Shelburne_, 2nd ed., ii.
218). It was finally settled in the Lansdowne-Delcasse agreement of
1904, with other then pending questions. Sir Charles Dilke gave a useful
summary of the history of the question and its numerous developments
after 1783, in a small volume entitled _The British Empire_, published
in 1899.] Great Britain appeared to him to "have gone infinitely beyond
the strict terms of the treaty in the concessions to France made for the
sake of peace," and to have made proposals which "would not be tolerated
for an instant if any of the other ten self-governing colonies were in
question," and were only considered because of the "poverty and
feebleness of Newfoundland." Lord Salisbury was, in his eyes, no worse a
sinner in this respect than the Liberal Government of 1893, except that
Lord Salisbury had also made concessions in giving up the existing
situation secured by treaty in Madagascar, in Tunis, and in Siam,
against which there might have been set off a settlement of this "really
dangerous question." He said that in Newfoundland the British navy was
being used to coerce British colonists into submission to the French
demands; and he foresaw peril to the colonial relation, as well as peril
in the international field.

Whether it was possible during the period now under consideration to
make an alliance, or even to establish friendly relations with Germany
on a solid and permanent basis, is a question which will never fail to
be the subject of discussion and controversy: for on it hinged the
future of Europe. With an unfriendly France and a German Chancellor--
Prince Hohenlohe--aiming, and for a time with some partial success, at
re-establishing friendly relations with Russia, the advantages of a good
understanding between Great Britain and Germany were obvious; for hardly
had the difficulties on the North-West frontiers of India been for the
time quieted by the "Pamir" Treaty of 1895, [Footnote: This Treaty was
made while Lord Kimberley was Foreign Secretary.] when the war between
Japan and China opened up the long series of events in the Far East
which culminated later on in the Russo-Japanese War. In those events all
or nearly all the European Great Powers were taking a hand; Germany was
aspiring to take a leading part, and had to a certain extent obtained it
by the command-in-chief of the Allied Forces being given to Count
Waldersee, and by the expedition to relieve the Legations in Pekin. But
the Jameson Raid and the congratulatory telegram of the Emperor to
President Kruger in January, 1896, showed that Germany might intend also
to have a South African policy, which in the hands of a less skilful or
a less friendly Foreign Secretary than Baron Marschall might open,
notwithstanding all the previous treaties, a new chapter of diplomacy.
Meanwhile Baron Marschall, with the hand of a skilful jurist, softened
down the meaning of the famous telegram, by a close and minimizing
interpretation of the words, and, as a practised diplomatist, went out
of his way to meet the wishes of Lord Salisbury, who had proposed that
the cost of the recent British Expedition to Dongola should be a charge
on the funds of the Egyptian Caisse.

But Baron Marschall's tenure of his post was becoming precarious, and
Sir Charles did not believe in the possibility of any alliance or
permanent understanding with Germany. He feared, on the contrary, that
one result of the policy of concession might be ultimately to tempt
France, Germany, and Russia, to form a practical and informal union
against Great Britain, similar to that which had proved so great a cause
of anxiety in 1884-85. This, though not a formal alliance, had been
almost as dangerous as one more specific and avowed, and it was now, he
thought, likely to be found to exist with reference to events in China.

After the defeat of China by Japan in 1895, every year brought some new
and dangerous development, and the break-up of the Chinese Empire seemed
near. Any understanding on the part of Great Britain with Russia, in
regard to China, Sir Charles believed to be unreliable, and probably
impossible, and Lord Salisbury's policy, which seemed to have gone out
of its way to let Russia into Port Arthur, showed in his opinion
deplorable weakness.

Mr. Chamberlain in a speech in the winter of 1898--which was followed by
others in the same strain--had seemed almost to propose an alliance with
Germany. Following him at Birmingham, Sir Charles pointed out that the
Secretary of State for the Colonies had said: "If the policy of
isolation which has hitherto been the policy of this country is to be
maintained in the future, then the fate of the Chinese Empire may
be--probably will be--hereafter decided without reference to our wishes
and in defiance of our interests;" and went on to say: "If, on the other
hand, we are determined to enforce the policy of the open door, to
preserve an equal opportunity for trade with all our rivals, then we
must not allow jingoes to drive us into a quarrel with all the world at
the same time, and we must not reject the idea of an alliance with those
Powers whose interests most closely approximate to our own." No doubt,
Sir Charles replied, the Government were pledged to pursue the policy of
"equal opportunity for trade," but they had not successfully maintained
that policy in action. What were the Powers, he asked, which Mr.
Chamberlain had in view when he went on to say: "Unless we are allied to
some great military Power, as we were in the Crimean War, when we had
France and Turkey as our allies, we cannot seriously injure Russia"? Mr.
Chamberlain must have referred to an alliance with Germany. Personally,
Dilke said that he "was entirely opposed to a policy of standing and
permanent alliances; but was there any prospect that Germany would ever
agree to bear in Europe the brunt of defending for us--for that was what
it would come to--the most dangerous of our responsibilities? Prince
Bismarck's policy on the subject had been avowed over and over again; he
had foreseen these suggestions, and had rejected them in advance.
Speaking in 1887, Prince Bismarck said: 'Our friendship for Russia
suffered no interruption during the time of our wars, and stands to-day
beyond all doubt.... We shall not ... let anyone throw his lasso round
our neck in order to embroil us with Russia.' And again in 1888: 'No
Great Power can, in the long-run, cling to the wording of any treaty in
contradiction to the interests of its own people. It is sooner or later
compelled to say, "We cannot keep to that," and must justify this
announcement as well as it can.' [Footnote: See, too, _Bismarck
Memoirs_, ii., pp. 258, 259.] In 1890 the present German Emperor renewed
the Triple Alliance, and the relations also of Germany and Russia had
never, he believed, been closer than they were at the present time. Any
notion of a permanent or standing alliance with Germany against Russia
was, in short, a Will-o'-the-wisp. Opposed as he was to the whole policy
of alliances as contrary to the true interests of this country, he was
specially opposed to this particular proposal, because it was calculated
to lead our people to think that they could rely on the strong arm of
another Power instead of only on their own strong arm." [Footnote: The
speech of Mr. Chamberlain referred to above was made at Birmingham. It
was followed by speeches at Wakefield on December 8th, 1898, and at
Leicester on November 20th, 1899.]

Yet a strong action in the Near East, Sir Charles thought, might have
compensated for a feebler policy on the Pacific Coast. In Armenia,
Christians for whom Great Britain was answerable under the Treaty of
Berlin were being massacred, but Lord Salisbury did nothing to help
them. In November, 1896, there was a faint stir of public opinion, but
many of the suggestions made in regard to what ought to be done were
unwise. [Footnote: _November 4th_, 1896.--'Morley told me that in order
to force the hand of the Turks, before July, 1895, Kimberley had
proposed to force the Dardanelles, and that Harcourt had stopped it. Mr.
Gladstone had written to Morley to insist on his speaking about Armenia
and to complain of his lukewarmness. I said: "But Mr. G. in 1880, when
something could have been done, confined himself to what he called
'friendly' words to the Sultan.'" See on the whole subject _Crispi
Memoirs_, vol. ii., chap. ix.]

"No one," Sir Charles had said in 1896, "would protest more emphatically
than he did against some of the advice which had been given. One of the
ablest journalists and highest of financial authorities, Mr. Wilson, had
suggested the landing of a few troops and the deportation of the Sultan
to Cyprus. The defences of the Dardanelles were not such as could be
very easily forced even by the British fleet.... No British Admiral,
even if he succeeded in forcing the Dardanelles, would have troops to
land who could overcome the Turkish guard, an army corps, and the
excited Turkish population." Elsewhere, with prophetic foresight, he
showed that the forcing of the Dardanelles could not be carried out
without "heavy loss, possibly tremendous loss, and that the loss of a
first-class British ironclad is equivalent to the loss of an army corps
with all its guns." [Footnote: Letter to the _Macclesfield Chronicle_,
September 19th, 1896.]