I.
Sir Charles Dilke's first concern was with foreign affairs, but he was also of high authority in whatever related to the business and management of the House of Commons; and at this period the question of remodelling forms which lent themselves to the arts of delay began to be urgent, and threatened to become paramount. Here, early in 1878, is the first considerable mention of the man whose relentless use of obstruction has affected parliamentary procedure all over the world:
'On February 20th I was asked by Lord Hartington to serve upon the Government Select Committee on the business and forms of the House, upon which Parnell was asked to represent the obstructive element. It was somewhat a distinction, as I was to be the sole representative of the English independent members, and in consequence I gave up the Standing Committee on Commons, upon which I asked Fitzmaurice to replace me. The proceedings of Sir Stafford Northcote's Committee, as the Committee on Public Business was called, presented only one singularity—namely, the examination of the Speaker—a prolonged one— by Parnell. Both of them were in a way able men; but both were extraordinarily slow of intellect—that is, slow in appreciating a point or catching a new idea—and Mr. Brand (as he then was) and Parnell used to face one another in inarticulate despair in the attempt to understand each the other's meaning. There were a good many fairly stupid men on the Committee, but there was not a single member of it who did not understand what Parnell meant by a question more quickly than could the Speaker, and not a man who could not understand what the Speaker meant by a reply more quickly than Parnell.'
'With Speaker Brand I afterwards had a singular connection.
'At the time when the President of the Free State, whose name was also Brand, had rendered important services to the British Government, I made one of the briefest of my brief minutes and put it in a box, and sent it round the Cabinet: "I think Brand should be knighted.—Ch's W. D." Nearly all the members of the Cabinet having added their initials in approval, Brand was knighted, but the wrong Brand, for they gave the G.C.B. to the Speaker, and it was only some time afterwards that the G.C.M.G. was conferred on the South African statesman. I had not thought of the Speaker, and Mr. Gladstone or his private secretary, Edward Hamilton, had forgotten the Free State. What may have been the frame of mind of the various members of the Cabinet who approved my suggestion I do not know, but some probably meant the one and some probably meant the other, and no one remembered that there were two.'
Concerning the proposals which Sir Stafford Northcote was contemplating as the result of the Committee on Public Business, but not in exact accordance with its decisions, Sir Charles notes, under June 25th, that he was not in agreement with the mass of the Liberal party.
'Our men were inclined to oppose all proposals for closure by majorities, and for investing the Speaker with large powers, while I was beginning to feel as strongly favourable to such proposals as I afterwards became. My "record" upon this subject constituted, therefore, almost as "sharp a curve" as that of others. As a rule I have not greatly changed my mind upon political subjects, but upon this one (as upon Africa [Footnote: See Chapter XVI., p. 238, and also Chapter XLVIII, (Vol. II., pp. 251-2).]) I undoubtedly turned round, and did so in consequence of the full consideration which I had to give it in the course of this single year.'
In the same year Sir Charles had secured support of Tory metropolitan members, whose constituents were affected, for his Bill to extend the hours of polling in London; and it passed before the end of January as an agreed measure. Then came another advance:
'On February 27th, at the most important sitting of my Committee on the Registration Bills, which had three Bills before it, mine being one; and Martin, who had charge of the Conservative Bill, being in the Chair, with a Conservative majority on the Committee, Martin's Bill was rejected, and mine adopted by the Committee on a division as a base for its proceedings. I at once decided that I would hand over my Bill to Martin, so as to let him have charge of it, as Chairman of the Committee, as the Bill of the Committee.'
This was designed not so much to insure the passage of his own Bill as 'to prevent Martin from carrying a mere bit of a Bill with some of the things in it which we wanted.' But, 'to the amazement of everyone,' Sir Charles's measure, under its new sponsorship, actually passed, and 'became law in 1878, and ultimately added an enormous number of voters to the franchise rolls.'
By June 7th the Registration Bill was read a third time, and
'My Hours of Polling Bill had now become "Dilke's Act," and I felt as though I was making such progress towards the political reforms I had long advocated that there might be some faint chance that one day redistribution itself might be accomplished.'
Six years later he himself carried out redistribution and extension of the suffrage on a scale hardly dreamed of by politicians in 1878. Already, in the debate of February 22nd, when Sir Charles, as usual, seconded Mr. Trevelyan's annual motion on the equalization of voting power, the division was better than ever before, and the Annual Register, which a few years earlier had known nothing but contempt and aversion for this Radical group, devoted considerable space to the arguments by which reform was supported, with full reference to Sir Charles's speech. Mr. Goschen and Mr. Lowe were the only Liberals of note who opposed the motion—if, indeed, Mr. Lowe could still be called a Liberal—and Lord Hartington spoke for it.
One of Sir Charles's preoccupations at this moment was the choice of a Liberal candidate to stand for Chelsea with him, and the matter presented difficulties.
'Horace Davey … was wishful to stand with us, and I had asked him to a dinner at which he met some of the leading men, and later he called on me to see whether he would "do." In the meantime I had sounded our best people, and found that he would not…. I told him at once that he must vote against fresh dowries to the Royal Family until a Civil List inquiry had been held, which … sent him away.'
Another lawyer followed, and was shown off at several dinners, but 'the borough did not seem inclined to welcome Queen's Counsel,' and ultimately settled, very much to its own satisfaction and Sir Charles's, on a great friend, Mr. Firth.
The campaign in defence of open spaces was actively carried on this year, and in March Sir Charles was fighting on behalf of the Commons Preservation Society to resist the erection of a new cottage with an enclosure for the Deputy Ranger in Hyde Park. The cottage was erected, but Sir Charles and his allies 'were ultimately able to get back a large part of the land which had been enclosed near it.' Another encroachment was resisted more successfully, and by other means. In Fulham 'the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had made an enclosure shutting out the public from Eelbrook Common, the use of which it had enjoyed for many years.'
'I went to a meeting at Beaufort House, and made, as I thought, a moderate speech recommending abstention from acts of violence, but one at the close of which the meeting went off to the place, pulled down the fence, and burnt it in a large bonfire. The enclosure was never reasserted, and the ground was ultimately handed over to the Metropolitan Board of Works to be managed as an open space, and is open now for ever…. In Lord Eversley's Commons, revised edition of 1910, he names my services to the "cause," but not this one.'
At the close of the Session
'On September 4th I addressed my constituents, and received an ovation in consequence of the passing of the Hours of Polling Bill (letting them vote till eight in the evening instead of four) and of my Registration Bill. Vast numbers of electors had been disfranchised by the former hours, who were able now to record their votes. My Registration Act was only to come into force in the course of the following year, and was to affect the next registration and revision.
'Turning to foreign affairs, I pointed out the absolute impossibility of the fulfilment of the promises which the Government had made to give to Asiatic Turkey "rest from the heavy weight of military service, rest from the uncertainty of unjust Judges and persons placed in command." I went on to discuss the Greek question, which I had to do somewhat fully, because the Greek Committee was at present only operating in the dark, and had not made known its constitution to the public. [Footnote: He made in this year the acquaintance of 'Delyannis, Greek Minister for Foreign Affairs. He was a very inferior man to his great rival, Tricoupis.']
'Two days after my speech, on September 6th, I learnt that the Greek Government had decided to recognize the insurgent Debt of 1824. People often talk of the possibilities of Ministers speculating on the Stock Exchange on secret information. It is a curious and perhaps an interesting fact that during the more than five years that I was in office I do not think that any official information came into my hands the possession of which would have enabled any Minister to make money on the Stock Exchange, although a private secretary was charged with the offence during those years—most unjustly charged. On the other hand, it is the case that on at least two occasions when I was a private member of Parliament, before I had held office, I had secret information of a certain kind upon which I might have speculated, and which very probably was given me with the intention that I should do so. This was one of the two occasions. The other was my knowledge of the financial intervention in Egypt before it took place. [Footnote: He knew this from something said to him by Nubar Pasha.]
'The Greek information of September 6th reached me in Paris, whither I had gone on the day after my speech, and to which I was followed by very favourable criticism upon it. Gambetta, with whom I breakfasted on the 6th, told me that Lord Salisbury, who had been in Paris, had come there with a view to reopen the Egyptian question, but had not received encouragement.
'On Thursday, September 12th, I breakfasted with Gambetta in the country, he coming to fetch me at the Grand Hotel, and driving me down in a victoria. We talked partly of Egypt, partly of people.'
That autumn Sir Charles spent in the South of France, still working on his History. [Footnote: History of the Nineteenth Century. See Chapter XI., p. 154; also Chapter LX. (Vol. II., p. 537).] His son, then four years old, used to be with him at La Sainte Campagne, Cap Brun, his house near Toulon. In November a new crisis arose. 'There seemed a chance of war with Russia about the Afghan complications,' and Sir Charles proposed to his brother Ashton that, 'in the event of Russia's entry on the war, he should bring out a daily halfpenny noonday paper, to give, on a small sheet, news only, and not opinions. At that time evening papers could not be bought till four o'clock, and the idea was discussed between us until it became clear that we were only going to fight Afghans, and not Russians.'
The situation was serious enough to demand an autumn Session, because the beginnings of the war were directly connected with Russian action. After the Queen had assumed her new title of Empress of India, Lord Lytton was instructed to propose a Mission to the Amir. But the Amir, who had previously declined to admit surveying parties of British officers, now refused this. In the spring of 1878, when war threatened between England and Russia, the Russian Government also proposed an Embassy to Kabul, and although they likewise met with a refusal, the Mission was despatched and reached Kabul.
The Indian Government now saw themselves under a slight; Russia's Mission had been received, theirs had been refused entrance. Peremptorily they renewed their request. No answer was returned; the Mission set out, and was stopped by armed force. Declaration of war followed, and by November 20th British troops had crossed the frontier. Invasion of Afghanistan was in full progress when Parliament assembled.
Sir Charles saw Gambetta on December 3rd, and returned to England, and by the 4th was discussing at the Radical Club the course to be taken on the Address. In his travels he had visited the north-west frontier of India. It was settled that he should speak, but, as he notes, the debate in the Commons 'was swamped by that in the Lords,' and, further, 'I found myself once again in a difficulty on the Afghan question, as I had been on the Eastern Question, that of not agreeing with either side.'
Lord Hartington, as usual, had been prompt in the assurance of patriotic support for a Government actually engaged in war; Mr. Gladstone was passionate in denunciation of the war itself. Between these poles Sir Charles had to steer, and the pith of his speech was a charge against the Government that they were punishing the Afghans for having submitted to a violent act of aggression perpetrated by Russia.
'On Tuesday, December 10th, I spoke in the debate, doing my best to calm down a revolt which had broken out below the gangway against Hartington for not having countenanced an amendment to the Address, and for having made on the Address a speech supposed to be too friendly to the Government.
'On the other hand, Edward Jenkins, [Footnote: Author of Ginx's Baby.] who called himself a Radical, and who was a strong Imperialist, was busy drawing amendments which were mere pretexts for voting with the Government, and I noted in my diary my despair at finding such men blaming Hartington for going too far, when Chamberlain was blaming him for not going far enough. While I was speaking on the 10th Wilfrid Lawson passed to me his copy of the Orders of the Day, bearing at the head the lines:
'"Lord Salisbury once was the 'master of jeers,
But now he has met with disaster;
For, on reading the Blue Book, it plainly appears
That Giers is Lord Salisbury's master."
The lines were excellent, and I burst out laughing in the middle of my speech. Giers was the new Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, and the phrase quoted in Lawson's first line was, of course, an abridgment of Mr. Disraeli's memorable quotation from Shakespeare about his colleague, and the four lines formed a summary of my speech…. [Footnote: On August 5th, 1874, Disraeli, speaking in the debate on the Lords' disagreement to certain amendments made by the House of Commons in the Public Worship Regulation Bill, had described Lord Salisbury as "a great master of gibes and flouts and jeers.">[ It came out clearly in these debates that Northcote had not expected war, and that Lord Lytton had acted directly under the instructions of the Prime Minister, and had not only expected, but intended it. I called Lord Lytton in my speech "a diplomatist rather than a Viceroy, a Secretary of Legation rather than a ruler of men." This was not intended for abuse, but to bring the House to see him as I had seen him in my knowledge of him as Secretary at Paris, in order to show that he had been sent out to India to be an instrument—obedient to a policy dictated to him from home.' [Footnote: Sir Charles had been staying with the Commander-in-Chief at Madras, General Haines, afterwards Field-Marshal, in January, 1876, when the news came of Lord Lytton's appointment as Governor-General. 'The old soldier absolutely refused to credit the information, being a strong Conservative, and unwilling to admit that Mr. Disraeli could have been guilty of so extraordinary a mistake.']
This Afghan War, so lightly begun, and fraught with so much disaster, was the first of a series of events which sapped the credit of the Government that had triumphantly claimed to bring back "peace with honour" from the Congress of Berlin.
Some intimate aspects of that gathering are preserved in Sir Charles's account of a dinner-party at Sir William Harcourt's house on December 11th, the guests including the Russian Ambassador, who had been one of the plenipotentiaries.
'Schouvalof was very funny. He gave us a fancy picture of the whole Congress of Berlin. He described almost every member of the Congress, standing up at the table speaking English when he did Lord Beaconsfield, and mimicking the Prime Minister's grave manner, with absurdly comical effect. At last he came to Lord Salisbury, who, according to him, spoke bad French. He made Lord Salisbury coin an extraordinary phrase, at which he himself (Schouvalof), all the Frenchmen, and Gortschakof, shrugged their shoulders with one accord. Lord Salisbury turned fiercely round, and asked what was the matter with it, to which Saint-Vallier replied that "there was nothing the matter with it except that it was not French." "Not French?" said Lord Salisbury, and rang the electric bell by the button in front of him, and when the door was opened, holding up his hand to show the messenger who had rung, said: "Fetch Mr. Currie." Philip Currie appeared at the door, bowing deeply, whereon Lord Salisbury read his phrase to him, and said, "Mr. Currie, is that good French?" to which Currie replied, "Excellent French, my lord;" whereon Lord Salisbury turned, said Schouvalof, "to our French colleagues, and said: 'There!'" Schouvalof carried on violent discussions between Lord Beaconsfield, speaking English, and Gortschakof, speaking French, about various boundary questions, and brought in Bismarck every minute or two as a chorus, the Chancellor stalking up and down the room with his arms folded, and growling in a deep voice: "Eh bien, messieurs, arrangez-vous; car, si vous ne vous arrangez pas, demain je pars pour Kissingen." Under this Bismarckian pressure Schouvalof, after making us shriek for half an hour, brought his Congress to an end…. In a confidential talk with me afterwards Schouvalof said: "I have known many rude people, but I never knew anyone so rude as was Bismarck at the Congress. I happened to name our poor clients, the Montenegrins, when Bismarck roared at me: "Je ne veux pas entendre parler de ces gens-là." Schouvalof also said of our relations with the Afghans: "You don't understand dealing with Orientals. Compare your letters to the Amir and ours, published in your Blue-Book. We call him the Sun and Moon, and you call him an 'earthen pipkin.'" This last was an allusion to the phrase used to the Amir, "an earthen pipkin between two iron pots," the iron pots being ourselves and Russia.'