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

S >> Stephen Gwynn >> The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50

Parliament was prorogued on August 14th, but very soon compromise was in
the air.

'On August 21st and 22nd I had interviews with Hartington at his
wish, nominally to talk over the sending of Wolseley to Egypt, but
really to see what I thought of a compromise with the Lords on the
basis of Lord Cowper's letter in the _Times_--introduction of the
Redistribution Bill in October.'

The situation was profoundly modified by speeches from Lord Salisbury,
which made it clear that the plan "hatched" between Mr. Gladstone and
Sir Charles was not likely to have any terrors for him. Lord Kimberley
wrote in September:

'Now that Salisbury is going in for electoral districts, it will
become a sort of open competition which party can go furthest. I
should not be surprised if he were to trump us by proposing to
abolish the House of Lords.'

'I had now decided to agree with Lord Salisbury in advance, and
divide the counties into single-member districts if Mr. Gladstone
would let me; and Trevelyan, to whom I had broached my scheme,
wrote: "I very much approve of the scheme of dividing counties. I
hope to goodness you will be able to carry it out."'

The original draft, completed on September 18th, followed the lines laid
down in consultation with Mr. Gladstone. The object of obtaining fair
representation, and doing away with over-representation of vested
interests, was thus attacked and began with two great industrial
centres.

The scheme for England treated Lancashire and Yorkshire as urban
throughout, and divided them into single-member districts; but the
remaining 'rural' counties of England were divided into two-member
districts. Thus, 'the net increase of county members was 53.' Boroughs
which had less than 10,000 inhabitants (53 in all) were merged into the
counties; those with a population of between 10,000 and under 40,000,
which had two members, lost one. Thus, having added to the under-
represented, Sir Charles took from the over-represented, and adds: 'this
gave us 33 more seats.' Sir Charles in a secret memorandum added that he
thought the fixing of so low a limit as 10,000 showed 'an altogether
indefensible tenderness to vested interests.' 'I should carry the loss
of one member far higher than the 40,000 line adopted, and should take
away one member up to the point at which I began to give two' to a new
constituency. Dilke was in favour of carrying merger of small boroughs
to a greater extent than was adopted in the Act.

'Summing up, on our English borough scheme,' he said, 'I am struck
by its _extreme_ timidity. I do not see how it is to stand the
revolutionary criticism of Lord Salisbury.' 'My plan for the
Metropolis gave to it its legitimate proportion of members: 55 in
all.... These figures should be compared with 22--the previous
number.'

As to Ireland, he admitted that 'if you take its population as a whole
it was over-represented in our plan; yet the difference in favour of
Ireland is very small; moreover, Wales is vastly better treated than
Ireland.' Lord Spencer 'thought there would be a howl from Belfast,' and
wished for the representation of minorities. 'But the Irish Government
made no practical proposal,' and the whole of this intricate business
was left almost entirely to Sir Charles.

'On September 29th Mr. Gladstone wrote at length conveying his
general approval of my plan, and stating that he did not intend to
"handle" the Bill in the House of Commons; and so wished to defer to
the opinions of his colleagues. He gave me leave to add 12 members
to the House for Scotland, instead of taking the 12 from England;
and he congratulated me upon the "wonderful progress" which I had
made.... On the same day on which I had received Mr. Gladstone's
letter I saw one from Sir Henry Ponsonby to Mr. Gladstone with Mr.
Gladstone's reply. Sir Henry Ponsonby made proposals.... Mr.
Gladstone had refused both for the present; the former with scorn
and the latter with argument. [Footnote: The first was "that the
Lords should read the Franchise Bill a second time, and then pass a
resolution declaring that they would go into Committee as soon as
the Redistribution Bill reached them."]

'On September 30th further letters were circulated, one from Sir
Henry Ponsonby on the 27th, in which he said that the reform of the
House of Lords must in any case come, but must come later, and that
he would see the leaders of the Opposition about the second
suggestion of his previous letter as it had not been absolutely
refused (the suggestion being that the Lords should provide in the
Franchise Bill that it should come into force on January 1st, 1886,
unless the Redistribution Bill were sooner passed).

'On October 4th Hartington made a speech which produced a storm upon
this subject of Compromise as to Reform.' (He proposed that the
Lords should pass the Franchise Bill 'after seeing the conditions of
the Redistribution Bill and satisfying themselves that they were
fair.') 'But Mr. Gladstone went with Chamberlain and myself against
any compromise.'

Mr. Chamberlain put the point that no bargain could be considered unless
the Franchise Bill were first passed without conditions very plainly in
a speech on October 7th, and next day at the Cabinet

'Mr. Gladstone expressed his approval of Chamberlain's speech of the
previous night, and attacked Hartington for his earlier one. It
seemed to me that at this moment Lord Salisbury might have caught
Hartington by offering the compromise which Hartington had
suggested.... I refused to discuss Redistribution with the Cabinet,
telling Chamberlain that they would "drive me wild with little
peddling points."'

The appreciation of Sir Charles's competence was general. It was not
limited to Parliament, and he met the expression of it when he appeared
on the platform in three great centres of the Lancashire industrial
democracy.

'On Tuesday, October 14th, I spoke at Oldham, and on October 15th at
the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, and on the 16th at Stockport. I had
a wonderful reception at all these meetings, but especially at the
Manchester meeting.'

Sir Charles's personal record served the party well, for the Tory cry
was that the Liberals wished to preserve the inequalities of the
existing divisions. To this he answered by appealing to the projects
which he had introduced year after year, and recalling their reception
from the Tory Government:

'I have preached for redistribution in the desert, I have advocated
it unceasingly for years, I have been a bore upon it in Parliament
and out; even the franchise is no less important in my eyes as being
that which I have a dozen times called "the necessary first step to
a complete redistribution" than in and for itself. Redistribution
is, however, if possible, of even more tremendous difficulty than
importance. It offers a greater hold than any other subject to the
arts of blocking and delay.' [Footnote: October 14th, at Oldham.]

'On October 17th Spencer reported from Balmoral that the Queen was
much pleased with her "Speech"; but not so with other people's
speeches, being angry at the violence of the language used.'

Lord Salisbury had declared that if Birmingham was going to march on
London, he hoped Mr. Chamberlain would head the procession and get his
head broken for his pains. Mr. Chamberlain retorted that he would gladly
head the procession if Lord Salisbury would promise to come and meet it,
and then, if his own head were broken, 'it should be broken in very good
company.' On October 21st

'I was sent for by Mr. Gladstone about Chamberlain's speech, and
wrote to Chamberlain to ask him if he could tone it down a
little.... On October 22nd at the Cabinet Chamberlain told me that
he was willing to adopt the words of my letter in explanation of his
speech.'

He agreed to write for publication a letter to one of his Quaker
constituents; but it was judged insufficient.

'On October 28th Mr. Gladstone wrote to me: "I thought you and I
were perfectly agreed about the unfortunate expressions in
Chamberlain's speech ... and in the expectation that his letter ...
would fully meet the case. I own that in my opinion it did not come
up to the mark. All I had really wished was a note conceived in the
same spirit as that in which he withdrew the 'jackal' because it
gave offence. Can nothing more be done? You saw a recent letter of
mine in defence, written when I thought the objections taken not to
be just. I am precluded from writing any such letter with the facts
as they now stand, but I hope that you may be able to bring them to
the standard of our reasonable expectations." I sent this letter to
Chamberlain, as was intended, with a note from me to say that it was
clear that the Queen had written Mr. Gladstone a second letter about
the matter, and asked whether I should say that I thought
Chamberlain's letter met the case; and Chamberlain replied: "Yes. I
cannot and _will not_ do more." This I communicated to Mr.
Gladstone. Randolph Churchill had taken the matter up. He accused
Chamberlain of having advocated violence, and was loudly
threatening, even to me, that there should be "somebody killed at
Birmingham next time." Chamberlain told me that Randolph had tried
to get up a march against Highbury on the part of the Birmingham
Tory roughs; but they were still on speaking terms, and often
chatting together at the smoking-room at the House. On the same day,
the 28th, late in the evening Mr. Gladstone sent for me about the
Chamberlain matter, and said of the Queen: "She not only attacks him
but me through him, and says I pay a great deal too much attention
to him." When Chamberlain and I went home, as we almost always did,
together in one cab, he broke out, evidently much worried and
excited, against Mr. Gladstone.

'Next day I warned Mr. Gladstone that it would not take much to make
a serious row.'

On October 15th Sir Charles wrote to Sir M. Grant Duff that he expected
'they would sit till February, and send the Bill up a third time.' On
October 24th Mr. Gladstone was inclined to resign at the second
rejection, which was taken for a certainty. But as to the final issue,
it was becoming daily clearer that the Commons were going to win against
the Lords. Even in the home counties Liberalism had become aggressive.

'October 24th.--Franchise and Redistribution seemed well in view
when I discovered on this day that Nathaniel Rothschild, who had
lately looked on Buckinghamshire as his own, was now down on his
knees to Carrington about it.' Work now began on the details of the
draft Bill.

'On October 25th there was a full meeting of my Committee of the
Cabinet on Redistribution. I took the chair, and Hartington,
Kimberley, Childers, Chamberlain, James, and Lefevre, sat round the
table. I got my own way in everything, and succeeded in raising the
10,000 limit of merger to 15,000. Mr. Gladstone, who disliked the
change, and who was the strongest Conservative living upon the
subject, yielded to it on the same night by letter.'

Sir Charles now threw himself into getting as big a measure as possible
by a 'truce of God' between the parties.

'On October 29th Mr. Gladstone told me that Lord Carnarvon had
proposed to him that they should meet in order to come to some
conclusion about Redistribution. He had declined, but had tried,
through Sir Erskine May, to induce the Tories to appoint a Committee
of their own to draw up a scheme. I saw Sir Erskine May and told him
to tell Northcote that I would accept, and press the acceptance of,
any scheme not obviously unfair, and not containing minority
representation, which I should be unable to carry.'

'On October 31st there was a Cabinet which was Trevelyan's first,
and very glad he and his wife were to escape from Ireland,
[Footnote: The Chief Secretaryship was offered to Mr. Shaw Lefevre,
who refused on the same ground as had previously been taken by Sir
Charles. Without Cabinet rank he was not prepared to accept it. Sir
Henry Campbell-Bannerman was then appointed. Mr. Lefevre entered the
Cabinet as Postmaster-General after the death of Mr. Fawcett, which
occurred on November 6th, 1884.] which had aged him dreadfully....
On the question of Reform Hartington told us that he had had several
interviews with Sir Michael Beach, who had expressly stated that he
was not authorized by his party to make suggestions, but had
proposed total merger up to 25,000, and loss of the second seat up
to 80,000. I, to clinch the matter, at once volunteered to draw up a
scheme on this basis.'

'James called my attention to some communications in the
Conservative newspapers, stating that he had it on very high
authority (which with James always meant Randolph Churchill) that
the extremely large schemes hinted at were Lord Salisbury's, and
would be supported by the whole Conservative party; but these
schemes suggested minority-representation in urban districts, with
single-member constituencies in counties; or, as Chamberlain said,
"Tory minority represented in towns, and Liberal minority
extinguished in county." Lord Salisbury, however, was only keeping
his friends in good humour with minority-representation. In the
evening Randolph Churchill sent me a message that he wished to have
a conference with me about Redistribution, and by an arrangement
made through Sir Erskine May, we met in the Office of the Serjeant-
at-Arms. He then told me that Beach's scheme was his, and that he
was convinced that an agreement might be come to on those lines. I
assured him of my warm support for a large scheme. I think this was
the occasion (about this time) when Randolph, who was thinking of
going to India, vented his anger as to Salisbury. Winston Churchill
told me in March, 1901, that his father had come to terms with
Salisbury as to the future Tory Government before he started for
India. I told him this could not be, as the possibility of forming
one depended on the Irish, and that Lord Salisbury could not at this
early date have agreed to buy them by the promises of (1) Enquiry
into Spencer's police, (2) no Coercion, (3) a Viceroy personally
favourable to Home Rule.

'In the evening I dined with the Duchess of Manchester to meet the
Dufferins, on which occasion Dufferin shone, but his health and
spirits were now beginning to decline. Hartington was at the dinner,
and told me that he had had a fresh interview with Beach, this time
at his (Hartington's) request.

'On Saturday, November 1st, I had some correspondence with
Hartington about these interviews, of which I warmly approved; and
on the 3rd Hartington wrote to me that he was going to see Beach
again that day, and I placed all my scheme before him for
communication to the Conservative front bench.'

Publicly there was war.

'On November 4th was the laying of the foundation-stone of the
National Liberal Club, at which Harcourt, after saying that he was a
moderate politician, compared the House of Lords to Sodom and
Gomorrah.'

But privately

'on this day Hartington again saw Beach, and afterwards
Churchill.... Beach said that Lord Salisbury unreservedly accepted
the Queen's suggestion for a meeting of the leaders.... Conferences
went on, but all through the month Beach declined to take a
"representative character, or negotiate in such a way as would
commit his party"--to use Hartington's words. Hartington now thought
"Mr. Gladstone would be able either to come to terms with Lord
Salisbury or to put him completely in the wrong." Hartington added:
"Beach very much regrets the Lowther and John Manners speeches,"'

and probably Lord Hartington expressed regret for Sir William Harcourt's
references to Sodom and Gomorrah.

'On the 6th there was a meeting of my Committee on Redistribution to
consider Beach's proposals, at which I took the chair, but did
little else, and left all the talking to the others, and their view
came to this--that they were quite willing to agree to the Tory
revolutionary scheme, provided the Tories would take the odium with
the House of Commons of proposing it.'

'On November 7th the Cabinet decided that I should be joined to
Hartington as recognized plenipotentiary.'

On the 10th

'I proposed and Mr. Gladstone agreed to write to Lord Salisbury
"distinctly accepting the Queen's offers." On November 11th we
confirmed our decisions at the last Cabinet as to completely taking
away from Lord Salisbury the power of saying that he had accepted
and we declined the Queen's proposals, by unreservedly supporting
Mr. Gladstone's letter to the Queen.'

On November 15th Mr. Gladstone informed the Cabinet that the Lords were
unyielding.

'Northcote had taken tea with him on the previous evening. The Lords
would not part with the Franchise Bill till the Redistribution Bill
was in their House. As regarded Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford
Northcote, Mr. Gladstone considered the door absolutely closed, but
he was informed that the Duke of Richmond and Lord Cairns did not
agree with the leaders. We then drew up a statement to be made on
Monday, November 17th, in both Houses of Parliament as to the steps
we had taken to produce conciliation, Harcourt saying: "This is the
apple-woman spitting on her old apples and shining 'em up!"--the
fact being that it was only done to put the Lords in the wrong.'

'On Monday, November 17th, when I returned from Sandringham, I had
to see Lord Rowton, who had been sent to me by the Prince of Wales
to try and produce a settlement of the Redistribution difficulty,
but we only sat and smiled at one another; he saying that he had
come because he had been told to come, and I saying that I had
nothing new to tell him, for Lord Salisbury knew all we had to say.'

'On November 19th there was a Cabinet. The first matter mentioned
was the arrangement with the Conservatives for an interview, and at
four o'clock on this day, November 19th, occurred the first meeting
of the parties: an interview between Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford
Northcote on the one side, and Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville on
the other. Lord Salisbury had written to me about it already, and
had privately seen my papers the previous day at the Commission, and
had asked me a great number of questions, and I had given him my
division of the Metropolis and of Lancashire at his wish, and
received from him the following note: "I do not know whether it will
be possible to discuss the application of the one-member principle
to the Counties and the Metropolitan Constituencies and the suburbs
of the larger towns." The hesitating way in which he asked shows
that we might have avoided the single-members had we fought upon the
point. But, as I liked them myself, I fought the other way, against
Mr. Gladstone. At the interview between the leaders of the two
parties and the two Houses it was merely decided that the real
interview should take place on Saturday, November 22nd, at noon
between the two Conservative chiefs and Mr. Gladstone, Lord
Hartington, and me, Lord Granville being left out as knowing nothing
of the subject. On November 21st I continued my private conference
with Lord Salisbury at the Royal Commission, and we settled who the
Boundary Commissioners should be. On Saturday, November 22nd, I had
a conference with Chamberlain before going to the meeting with Lord
Salisbury. Chamberlain was in favour of two-member seats as against
single members, especially for boroughs. He was as clear as was Lord
Salisbury that the single-member system would damage the Liberal
party in the Metropolis.

'In the afternoon the Conference took place, and there never was so
friendly and pleasant a meeting. I fully described it in three
letters to Chamberlain, in which I said, among other things: "It
looks as though Lord Salisbury is really anxious that we should pass
our Bill." No memorandum on this day passed in writing, and the
written compact was concluded between Lord Salisbury and me only on
November 28th. The meeting of the 22nd was known at the time as the
Downing Street meeting; and the other as "the Arlington Street
compact."

'On Sunday, November 23rd, Lord Salisbury wrote to me a letter which
I sent on to Mr. Gladstone and which he kept. Mr. Gladstone replied
on the same day undertaking to move the adjournment of the House for
a week, and showing that he was not at all sure that Lord Salisbury,
having got from us the whole of our scheme and given us nothing in
writing which was worth anything, did not mean to sell us.
Chamberlain wrote on the same day in reply to my letters, "I cannot
make head or tail of Salisbury. He appears to be swallowing every
word that he has ever written or spoken about Redistribution.... I
wonder if he will carry his party with him.... On the whole, you
seem to be doing very well."'

Discussion now went on by correspondence between Sir Charles and Lord
Salisbury, and it touched subjects which might easily have led to
friction. Lord Salisbury proposed to create a number of urban
constituencies by grouping; his plan being to get the small towns taken
out of rural districts which he looked upon as otherwise Conservative,
and to group them with small manufacturing boroughs:

'I was aghast at this suggestion, because it was a very difficult
thing, in a Parliamentary sense, to create a few such groups in
England; and if the thing was to be carried far and not confined to
a few cases only it would entirely have destroyed the whole of the
work that we had done, because all the counties would have had their
numbers altered. I therefore fought stoutly for my own scheme, which
I succeeded in carrying almost untouched. Lord Salisbury's letter
crossed one from me to him in which, after Mr. Gladstone's leave
(conveyed in the words "I see no objection to sending him this
excellent and succinct paper marked Secret"), I had communicated to
Lord Salisbury my views and the grounds on which they were based.'

'On the 26th, at four o'clock, we met at Downing Street, all five
being present.... Lord Salisbury, yielding to my reasoning, gave up
grouping,' on the understanding that the Boundary Commissioners were
'to keep the urban patches as far as possible by themselves....
Ultimately it was settled that single-member districts should be
universal in counties, and that we should leave open for the present
the question of how far it should be applied to boroughs.'

Lord Salisbury wished to retain the minority clause in places where he
thought it had worked well, but he did not ask for it in Birmingham and
Glasgow. 'All this showed great indecision,' says Sir Charles, and he
observes that 'Lord Salisbury did not seem to me thoroughly to
understand his subject.' It is probable, at all events, that he was no
match on the details either for Sir Charles or for Mr. Gladstone, who,
after the Conference, thus summed up his impressions in a letter dated
November 26th:

'My Dear Dilke,

'I send you herewith for your consideration a first sketch which I
have made of a possible communication to-morrow after the Cabinet
from us to the Legates of the opposite party. I think that if the
Cabinet make it an _ultimatum_ we should be safe with it. There was
a careful abstention to-day on their side from anything beyond
praising this or that, and at the outset they spoke of the
one-member system for boroughs "with exceptions" as what they
desired.

'Yours sincerely,

'W. E. Gladstone.'

'Mr. Gladstone's memorandum was on my lines. On the next morning,
November 27th, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Granville, Hartington, I, and
Chamberlain met before the Cabinet at 11 o'clock, and kept the
Cabinet waiting, the Cabinet having been called for twelve, and
Redistribution alone being considered at it. I announced at the
Cabinet that the Tories proposed and we accepted single-member
districts universally in counties, boundaries to be drawn by a
commission who were to separate urban from rural as far as possible,
without grouping and without creating constituencies of utterly
eccentric shape. The names of the commissioners had been settled,
and both sides were pledged to accept their proposals, unless the
two sides agreed to differ from them. [Footnote: At the meeting of
the 26th 'it was agreed that the Boundary Commissioners should
consist of those gentlemen who had been advising me.']