The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Volume 1

by Stephen Lucius Gwynn

EUROPEAN POLITICS

In 1881 the general European situation was still critical. The Greeks had seen Montenegro's claim made good while their own pretensions remained unsatisfied, and at the beginning of the year war between Greece and Turkey seemed so probable that Lord Houghton was writing anxiously to ask Sir Charles by what means the antiquities of Athens could be guaranteed against bombardment.

Sir Charles notes, on January 18th and 21st, conversations between himself and Mr. Goschen, who had temporarily returned from his mission at Constantinople, 'as to helping Greece by a naval force, which he and I both desired.' But Mr. Gladstone refused his sanction to this project, and Sir Charles for the moment took a very grave view, noting in his diary on February 1st:

"Lord Granville has now to decide (in two days), before Goschen starts for Constantinople via Berlin, whether he will disgracefully abandon Greece or break up the Concert of Europe."

The Concert was kept together, but only upon condition of limiting Greece to a frontier with which Sir Charles was extremely discontented.

'On March 27th I was in a resigning humour about Greece, but could not get anybody to agree with me, and Chamberlain said that not even Liberal public opinion in England would now support isolated action or Anglo-Italian intervention. Chamberlain thought that in the interest of Greece herself it was desirable that she should be made to take the last Turkish offer, which gave her all the revenue-producing country, and kept from her the costly and the dangerous country.'

A week later he wrote a minute for Lord Granville and Mr. Gladstone, proposing that autonomy should be given to those portions of Epirote territory which were being withheld from Greece; but this plan was negatived, and a final settlement was reached on May 17th.

The settlement of 1881 was not a settlement which contented Greece and the friends of Greece; and it was only a provisional settlement.

But new complications were developing elsewhere.

'On February 1st I wrote to Gambetta by our "bag" to tell him that Sheffield' (Lord Lyons's secretary) 'would call on him from me to tell him a secret. This secret was that the Three Emperors' League was again revived and France once more isolated. But this was such a dead secret that even our Cabinet were not to know for fear some of them might talk.' [Footnote: The murder of the Emperor Alexander II. on March 13th terminated these plans for the time. But out of them subsequently grew the meeting of the three Emperors at Skierniewice on September 15th and 16th, 1884; and indirectly Prince Bismarck's "reinsurance" treaty with Russia, which his successor, Caprivi, refused to renew in 1890.]

France, though 'isolated,' was beginning to take action which threatened far-spreading trouble. Mention has been made of her pretension to Tunis, and of the support to that pretension afforded by a hint of Lord Salisbury's in 1878. In the early spring of 1881 the first serious step was taken to threaten the independence or quasi-independence of Tunis. This development was the more serious because an important dispute was in progress concerning a Tunisian estate called the Enfida, to which rival claims were put forward by M. Lévy, a British subject, and by a French company, the Société Marseillaise. On January 12th M. Lévy's representative, himself also a British subject, was expelled from the property by agents of the French Consulate.

'On February 3rd there came to me at ten o'clock in my Foreign Office boxes a telegram from Lord Lyons, which told us that the French had sent the Friedland from Toulon to Tunis to bully the Bey. I wrote off by special messenger to Lord Granville that we ought at once to send the fleet to Tunis unless the Friedland were withdrawn, and Lord Granville accepted this view, and telegraphed to Lord Lyons to that effect at noon. [Footnote: 'On February 5th, the Cabinet having approved our suggestion, we telegraphed for the Thunderer and a despatch-boat to sail at once for Tunis.']

'Our difficulty was in this matter to avoid acting with Italy. We did not want to keep the French out of Tunis, but we could not have ironclads used to force Tunisian law courts into giving decisions hostile to British subjects. Barrère wrote to me from Paris at Gambetta's wish saying that I was labouring under a grievous mistake in thinking that the Friedland was sent to settle the Enfida case against the English. The ship was sent because the Bey "declines to sign a treaty of alliance with us." At the same time he went on to say that the present policy of France would not last longer than six months, which meant, of course, that Gambetta intended to form a Government at that time (which as a fact he did), and that "our friend deplores the present policy of the Government and declines all responsibility."'

On August 25th Gambetta expressed to Dilke "profound disapprobation of all that has been done in Tunis," on which is noted: 'Possibly he would have done the same, but he is very wise after the event.'

'On May 6th Lord Granville, against Tenterden's opinion and my own, sketched drafts to Germany and Austria as to the position of the French in Tunis, with a view to raise the Concert of Europe in their path. We pointed out to him that Germany and Austria would snub us, and succeeded at last in stopping this precious scheme. The wily Russian got up the trouble by hinting verbally to Lord Granville that Russia would act with England and Italy in this matter. A curious league: England, Russia, and Italy against France; and a queer Concert. The proposal led to trouble three days later, for, of course, the Russians told the French in such a way as to make them believe that the idea was ours.'

On the evening of May eth Sir Charles met Laffitte, "the Comtist Pope," at the Political Economy Club.

'Frederic Harrison treated him as an old lady of the Faubourg would treat the Pope or the Comte de Chambord, or both rolled into one. But Laffitte happening to say that he approved of the French expedition to Tunis, Harrison's feelings became too much even for his reverence and his religion. Laffitte's remark, from Laffitte, showed, however, how unanimous was the French feeling….

'On the 9th the trouble which I had expected broke out. The French Ambassador (Challemel-Lacour) came to see me in a great rage, and told me that his Government had heard that we had tried to raise Germany against France on the Tunis question by an alliance offered at Berlin, though not through our Ambassador. This particular story was untrue. I denied it, and I then went to Lord Granville, who denied it…. I then wrote to Challemel to ask him to give up names; but he declined.'

France was in conflict with the Kroumirs on her Algerian frontier, the expeditionary force penetrated the interior, and by the middle of June the Bey had appointed M. Roustan, the French Consul, to represent him in all matters.

Justifications were put forward, and there was much discussion as to what
Lord Salisbury had said or not said at Berlin in 1878.

'Lord Salisbury had made Wolff withdraw the question, of which (foolishly from the Conservative point of view) he had given notice, but the matter having been raised, the Cabinet, on Friday, 13th, decided to publish a portion of Lord Salisbury's despatches, though not the worst…. [Footnote: A letter from Lord Granville to Sir Charles, of May 15th, 1881, shows the difficulty. "I sent, according to custom, the Salisbury Tunis papers to the Marquis. You will be surprised to hear that he does not like them. He objects to all, but principally to the extracts from Lord Lyons' despatch." Lord Granville goes on to suggest alternative courses, the first being "to consent at his request to leave out the extracts, with a warning that it is not likely it will be possible to refuse them later.">[

'I wrote to Lord Granville to say that I was sorry there had not been included in the papers a despatch of July 16th, 1878, giving the conversation between Lord Lyons and Waddington on Waddington's return to Paris' (from the Congress of Berlin). 'On the 9th, on the 11th, and on the 13th July, 1878, Lord Lyons had reported the irritation in France at the Cyprus Convention. On July 16th Waddington returned to Paris, and the row in the French Press suddenly ceased. In his despatch Lord Lyons says that Waddington told him that Lord Salisbury "had assured him" that "H. M. G. would make no objection if it suited France to take possession of Tunis." [Footnote: The Life of Lord Lyons, by Lord Newton, gives, on July 20th, 1878, a letter from Lord Salisbury which evidently refers to the despatch. In this letter Lord Salisbury says: "What M. Waddington said to you is very much what he said to me at Berlin…." A further passage in the letter is: "If France occupied Tunis tomorrow, we should not remonstrate." See Life of Lord Lyons, vol. ii., p. 152.] Waddington said that he— Waddington—had pointed out to Lord Salisbury that Italy would object, and that Lord Salisbury had replied that she must "seek compensation in Tripoli." Corti had also assured me that Lord Salisbury had said this to him at the time. I strongly urged the publication of Lord Lyons' despatch in justice to ourselves, if anything was to be published. Lord Salisbury undoubtedly, and even by his own admission, had used most impolitic language, giving up that which was contrary to British interests to give up and which was not ours to give. (He was fated to do the same thing in the case of Madagascar.) He had afterwards denied that he had done anything of the kind. He also had denied that France had minded our occupation of Cyprus, and doubly concealed the fact that after making the foolish mistake of taking Cyprus, he had got out of the difficulty in a still more foolish fashion.'

This led to correspondence between Count Corti, then Italian Ambassador at Constantinople, and Sir Charles—a discussion which was renewed later in conversation:

'He in fact admitted the truth of what I had said, but added that he disapproved of the Berlin conversations. "At that time everybody was telling everybody else to take something which belonged to somebody else. One more powerful than Lord Salisbury, more powerful than Lord Beaconsfield, advised me to take Tunis. [Footnote: Life of Lord Lyons, vol. ii., p. 224; letter from Lord Lyons to Lord Granville, May 13th, 1881: "They got Bismarck's leave for this.">[ Lord Salisbury advised me to take an island, and Lord Salisbury may have advised me to take Tripoli." At the State ball in the evening, I told Odo Russell this. He told me that Lord Salisbury had disgusted Corti by forgetting him on the occasion when he told the great men at the Congress of Berlin about the occupation of Cyprus, and that Corti had never forgiven him.'

Egypt also was now a growing anxiety, made graver by the events in Tunis, which excited apprehensions of like proceedings elsewhere. In such a condition of feeling even trifling incidents—as, for example, that of the Smyrna Quays, where the Porte had violated some rights of an English company—grew delicate and critical. All such matters and many others had to be dealt with in the House of Commons by question and answer—a task of no small difficulty, since the susceptibilities of foreign Powers had to be considered, while British interests, no less sensitive, could not be ignored.

The fulfilment of the Treaty of Berlin was meanwhile an enormous addition to the work of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, especially as it was at first complicated by the ill will of Russia, which had hoped that the change of Government might bring about some modifications. It was also complicated by the Porte's unlimited capacity for wasting time. The topics regulated by the treaty and its supplementary conventions, when taken in connection with the Treaties of Paris and London, which it partly superseded, fell under at least seventeen separate heads; each of these branched off into numerous divisions and subdivisions, most of which admitted of possible controversy, while many required executive action by Commissioners on the spot, [Footnote: Thomas Erskine Holland, The European Concert in the Eastern Question, pp. 222-225.] such as the delimitation of the boundaries of the new States. Nearly every question involved communications with the signatory Powers, and each of them had a long diplomatic history which had to be studied. M. de Courcel told Sir Charles that in his dreams he always saw a second river flowing by the side of the Danube, as large and as swift, but black—the river of ink which had been shed over the Danube question! Sir Julian Pauncefote, the Permanent Under-Secretary, was credited by Sir Charles with being the only man in England who then understood it; and the question of the Danube, after all, was only one of many.

Questions were continually being asked in the House of Commons, where the expert in foreign affairs was not so rare as he became in a subsequent period; but the inquiries of inexpert persons were the most troublesome of all.

Sir Charles's power of terse and guarded reply was universally considered supreme, and was all the more valuable at a time when the practice had grown up, then comparatively new and since gradually limited, of asking questions on foreign and colonial affairs, with the object of embarrassing Ministers, and without regard to the consequences abroad. It gradually became a dangerous growth, greatly facilitated by the lax procedure, as it then existed, of the House of Commons in regard to supplementary questions. This procedure often allowed question time to degenerate into a sort of ill-regulated debate. Mr. Gladstone's habit of allowing himself very frequently to be drawn into giving a further answer, after the carefully prepared official answer had already been given by the Under- Secretary, was another complication. The brunt of all these troubles had to be borne by the representative of the Foreign Office. [Footnote: Sir Henry Lucy, writing "From the Cross Benches" in this year, discussed critically the various styles of answering questions:

"Sir Charles Dilke's answers are perfect, whether in regard of manner, matter, or style. A small grant of public money might be much worse expended than in reprinting his answer to two questions put last night on the subject of Anglo-French commercial relations, having them framed and glazed, and hung up in the bedroom of every Minister. A good test of the perhaps unconscious skill and natural art with which the answer is drawn up would be for anyone to take the verbatim report which appears in this morning's papers and attempt to make it shorter. There is not a word too much in it. It occupies just twenty-eight lines of print, and it contains a clear and full account of an exceedingly intricate negotiation. The majority of the answers given by Ministers in their places in Parliament appear much better in print than when spoken, redundancies being cut out, parentheses put straight, and hesitancy of manner not appearing. But to the orderly mind and clear intelligence which instinctively brings uppermost and in due sequence the principal points of a question, Sir Charles Dilke adds a frank manner, a clear voice, and an easy delivery.">[

Sir Charles was always a close student of Indian government, and many notes on it are scattered through his diary. On January 9th, meeting Mallet at York House with the Grant Duffs, he says: 'I had always held a strong opinion against the India Council, and Mallet confirmed me in my view that the existing constitution was bad. He ought to know.' The Government turned to Dilke for assistance in debates on foreign affairs, even in a case where the Government of India rather than the Foreign Office was involved.

By the beginning of 1881 England's policy in Afghanistan had been finally determined. The evacuation of Kandahar was now definitive, in spite of opposition from a high quarter. On January 18th 'the Queen telegraphed to Mr. Gladstone at length in a tone of severe rebuke that all her warnings as to Kandahar had been disregarded.' On March 8th Sir Charles received a preliminary warning from Lord Hartington to read up his Central Asian papers, and—

'the Cabinet of March 19th wrote to me to follow Edward Stanhope as to Kandahar debate' (who had been Lord Beaconsfield's Under-Secretary of State for India in 1878, and now naturally led the Tory attack). 'I had to move the direct negative on behalf of the Government. This was a great compliment, as the matter was not in my department, and the only three members of the Government who were to speak were Mr. Gladstone and Lord Hartington and myself.'

After the debate on March 24th, Lord Granville, having first sent his own congratulations, wrote to say: "Gladstone expressed himself almost poetically about the excellence of your speech." [Footnote: "The speech of the debate was that of Sir Charles Dilke. It was close, cogent, and to the point throughout. His facts were admirably marshalled, so as to strengthen without obscuring his arguments. There was no fencing, no rhetoric, no fighting the air.

He came at once to close quarters with his adversary, and demolished his arguments one after another by a series of cut-and-thrust rejoinders, which left but little to be added by those who followed him on the same side. Mr. Stanhope's attack on the Ministry has been of conspicuous service to at least one Minister" (Pall Mall Gazette, edited by Mr. John Morley).]

In the course of this year, Sir Charles, once more diverging from Radical preconceptions, helped Sir Robert Sandeman, who was

'sent over by the Viceroy to state his views. I was able to give him such assistance with my colleagues as to save the districts (the Pishin districts and the Khojak frontier) to the Indian Government.'

In this Sir Charles was with Lord Ripon, but a draft treaty of Lord Ripon's, which proposed to surrender Merv ('not ours to give'), roused his fierce opposition, and was rejected by the Cabinet. He was always resolute for a strong frontier policy in Central Asia.

The assassination of the Emperor of Russia on March 13th in this year roused all the Home Offices into activity, and England was as usual taxed with being the asylum of every desperado. Sir William Harcourt inclined strongly to the demands of the police, including the prosecution of Socialist publications, and he carried the Cabinet with him.

'On March 26th I noted in my diary: "…At to-day's Cabinet Bright was the only Minister who opposed the prosecution of the Freiheit, and Chamberlain positively supported it."'

It may be added that Sir Charles was charged by a certain Mr. Maltman Barry with having subscribed to the funds of the Freiheit, which was an anarchist publication. The charge was met by an absolute denial, and was supported by no evidence. It was, however, fathered in the House by Lord Randolph Churchill, and this led to a breach of friendly relations with the latter, which lasted for some time.

'On April 9th I was in Paris, and breakfasted with Gambetta, who told me that Bismarck was about to propose a Conference, which was insisted on by Russia, concerning the right of asylum, and we agreed that England and France should refuse together to take part in it.'

A fortnight later Sir Charles, returning from Toulon, was able to offer his congratulations to Gambetta, because France had declined to attend the Conference. But the matter was still open as regarded England, and

'on April 30th, and again on May 3rd, I noted that Sir William was "wrongheaded about the right of asylum," but that I hoped he would not be allowed by his colleagues to offer to legislate on extradition to please the Russians.'

At the Cabinet on May 4th

'there was a long debate upon nihilism. Lord Granville some time before had told the Russians that legislation was intended. That was so, for a Bill had been prepared. But it was clear that it would be foolish to introduce it. Kimberley and Chamberlain were against all proposals to meet the Russians. Then came before the Cabinet the question of Harcourt's reply to Cowen's question to be put on the next day, whether information was given by the English police to the Austrian police as to Socialist addresses in Vienna, which had led to arrests. Our police say that they only told the Austrians of a place where dynamite was stored. This seemed to me a cock and bull of Howard Vincent's. Harcourt had drafted a reply about Napoleon Bonaparte, which the Cabinet wanted him to alter, but when he is pleased with an answer it is not easy to make him alter it, as I noted. As our police virtually denied the charge, Harcourt might have given their denial, as theirs, in their own words, but nothing would induce him to do this.'

As regarded Russia, Lord Granville based himself on the fact that a similar arrangement existed between England and Germany, and he questioned whether political offenders would be much safer in a German than in a Russian court of law. To the promise of backing from France, he objected that M. Saint-Hilaire had already pledged himself to an extradition treaty with Russia. On the latter point Sir Charles answered that for this amongst other reasons M. Saint-Hilaire was about to be removed from the French Foreign Office. In the end of October, 1881, Sir Charles was seeing Gambetta frequently, and observes that he was

'much excited about the question of the extradition treaty with Russia….

'Curious though it seems to us (in 1890-1895), when we know how intensely pro-Russian Gambetta's friends now are, Gambetta was intensely anti-Russian and pro-Turk….

'There is the same difference of opinion in the French Cabinet as to the making of an extradition treaty with Russia as there is in ours, where Harcourt wants it and his colleagues do not. This was the only subject discussed at the interview of the Russian and German Emperors at Danzig' (September, 1881), 'and England and France are in their black books.'

Lord Granville constantly referred to Sir Charles for advice as to the temper of the House of Commons, though in this case he supported Sir William Harcourt, and might be excused for failing to see what was plain to Sir Charles as a practical House of Commons politician, that, apart from principles, a Liberal Ministry would be sadly embarrassed if it had to defend the handing over of political refugees to the Russian police, and that the Tories would probably support the Radical wing in a vote of censure.

The combination at the Foreign Office of the two Ministers, the old and the young, the Whig and the democrat, worked excellently, and Lord Granville, in telling Sir Charles that in his absence in France during the Session Hartington must answer his questions, said that 'picking out any of those who are not in the Cabinet is an indication of what would be done when that terrible moment may come to me of your leaving the P.O.' One matter had, however, caused Sir Charles uneasiness.

In the close of the year 1880 there was a proposal to give a charter to the North Borneo Company. No ordinary politician knew anything of this Company, but Sir Charles, while in Opposition, had grounds for asking questions hostile to it, and had stirred up Mr. Rylands to do the same. This fact Dilke mentioned to Lord Granville. But, finding Foreign Office opinion in favour of the concession, he promised that

'I would not take an active part in opposition to the Charter scheme if and providing the Cabinet approved of it…. On November 19th, 1880, the box, which had been round the Cabinet on the North Borneo business, having returned without any comment by Mr. Gladstone, I got it sent again to Mr. Gladstone, who finally decided, I was informed by Lord Granville, against Herbert of the Colonial Office, Harcourt, Chamberlain, Bright, Childers, and myself, and with Lord Kimberley, the Chancellor, and Lord Granville. So it was settled that the Charter was to be granted; but a little later Mr. Gladstone forgot the decision which he had given, insisted that he had never heard of the matter at all, went the other way and would have stopped the Charter, but for the fact that it was too late.'

This made Sir Charles exceedingly indisposed to undertake the defence of it in a House of Commons where his own questions asked in Opposition would assuredly be quoted against him by Sir John Gorst, who, when the Charter was published in December, tabled a motion against it. 'It was not so much to the thing itself I was opposed as to the manner in which it was done.' He therefore wrote to Lord Granville that he had made full search for precedents, 'the first thing which occurs to a Radical in distress,' and that finding no modern precedent, he simply could not undertake to defend the Charter, his objections being that to make such a grant without the knowledge of Parliament strained the prerogative of the Crown, and, further, that the Foreign Office was not the fit department to control a colony (as had been urged in the case of Cyprus). He notes: 'Gambetta tells me that he has at once had an application from a similar French Company—for the New Hebrides.' Lord Granville made official reply, with some asperity. But he sent a separate unofficial letter, in which, after treating of other matters, he smoothed over his more formal communication. These letters were received by Sir Charles on December 27th, 1881, on his return to Paris from Toulon.[Footnote: Later Sir Charles notes: 'My own objections (besides those to the form in which the matter had been considered) were to the absence of sufficient provisions with regard to domestic slavery and opium, but as regards these two latter points I succeeded in getting the gap filled in.'] The unofficial letter ran:

"I have sent you an answer on a separate piece of paper to your rather blowing-up letter about Borneo. You have been misled by Spencer's ignorance and Gladstone's very natural forgetfulness of the particulars. It was more inexcusable of me to have forgotten what it appears you told me about your and Rylands' previous action. When my liver does not act and official work becomes unusually irksome, I sometimes ask myself upon what question I should like to be beaten and turned out. The first would be fair trade. The second, which the St. James's and Raikes, the late Chairman of Committees, seem to anticipate, is failure to reform the procedure of the Commons owing to Tory and Home Rule obstruction. I should not think Borneo a fatal question for this purpose…. There is a great run upon us now as to Ireland, but do you remember a December when it was not generally supposed that the Government of the day was going to the dogs?"

The matter passed over, but was serious enough for Mr. Chamberlain to say in January of the following year:

"If, what I do not expect, the affair should proceed to extremities, I
shall stand or fall with you."

One other matter of this period is interesting as showing Sir Charles and his chief at work. A draft was on its way to the Colonial Office, 'laying down the law for dealing with fugitive slaves who escaped into the British sphere of influence'—a case of constant occurrence at Zanzibar. Sir Charles's views on this and kindred subjects were strong, and he worked then, as always, with the Aborigines Protection Society. He stopped it—

'and Lord Granville wrote upon my views a characteristic minute': "I think our proposed draft is right and defensible in argument. I also am of opinion that your condemnation of it is right, because the fact is that the national sentiment is so strongly opposed to what is enjoined by international law that it is better not to wake the cat as long as she is asleep!"'

At the end of July, 1881, Lord Granville's health seemed seriously affected, and Sir Charles noted that, apart from his own personal feeling, his chief's enforced retirement would be 'a great misfortune.' The choice would be between Lords Derby, Hartington, Kimberley, and Northbrook. Lord Derby seemed to him 'undecided and weak,' Lord Northbrook still weaker, while Lord Hartington 'knew no French and nothing of foreign affairs.' Of Lord Kimberley's ability he had not then formed a high estimate; but he adds that, having afterwards sat with him in the Cabinet, he changed that opinion, finding him 'a wise man,' who never did himself justice in conversation.