II.
A departmental change in the Foreign Office at this time greatly increased the responsibilities of the Under-Secretary. Complaint had become frequent in the House of Commons of an apparently insufficient representation of the Government in regard to commercial questions, which belonged partly to the sphere of the Board of Trade and partly to that of the Foreign Office, with unsatisfactory results. Lord Granville determined, on returning to office, to make a new distribution of duties, and to take advantage of the Under-Secretaryship being occupied by a Member of Parliament whose competence on commercial questions was universally recognized to place the commercial business of the Office more completely under his control—as supervising Under-Secretary. [Footnote: This arrangement continued in the Under-Secretaryship of Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, Mr. James Bryce, Mr. Robert Bourke, and Sir James Fergusson, but was subsequently altered. See also above, p. 314.]
'On Sunday, May 2nd, Lord Granville asked me to take over general supervision of the commercial department of the Foreign Office, and, although I should have preferred to keep free of all departmental work in order to attend to larger affairs of policy, I admitted that there were strong reasons for my taking the Commercial Department, inasmuch as the commercial members of the House of Commons were dissatisfied with its management, and because also it was certain that I should have to defend in the House of Commons treaty negotiations with foreign Powers, which would in any case force me to give much time to the consideration of commercial questions. When I first agreed to take over the Commercial Department, it was only with the view of keeping it for a short time, but I was unable to rid myself of it during the whole time I was at the Foreign Office, and it gave me heavy work.'
The first and chief instalment of this burden consisted in the negotiations for a new commercial treaty with France.
In January Dilke had learnt from Gambetta that M. Léon Say, late President of the Finance Committee of the Senate, would come to London as Ambassador 'when the trouble about "Article 7" was ended.' [Footnote: See Chapter XX., p. 300.] It was in the month of May (when the "trouble" about M. Ferry's attack on the religious Orders was by no means ended) that M. Say arrived, charged with an important mission, specially suited to his qualifications as an ex-Minister of Finance. France was revising her commercial policy; several commercial treaties, including that with Great Britain, had been only provisionally prolonged up to June 30th; and M. Say was instructed to try to secure England's acceptance of the new general tariff, which had not yet passed the Senate. Gambetta and his friends still held to the ideals of Free Trade. M. Tirard, the Minister of Commerce, supported the same view, but there was a strong Protectionist campaign on foot.
M. Say arrived on May 5th, and on the 6th had his first interview with Sir
Charles:
'At this moment I was showing my disregard for the old Free-Trade notions in which I had been brought up by my grandfather, and my preference for reciprocitarian views, by carefully keeping back all grievances with the countries with which we were negotiating upon commercial matters, in order that they might be thrown in in the course of the negotiations. On this ground I managed to cause the Colonial Office to be directed to keep all Gibraltar grievances in hand.
'Immediately on taking charge of the Commercial Department, I had sent a memorandum on the wine duties to Mr. Gladstone, who replied, "I have never yet seen my way to reduction below a shilling or to a uniform rate. At present, we have not a sixpence to give away. I do not like bargaining away revenue for treaties, or buying over again from France what has been bought already…. In my view the treaty of 1860 was exceptional; it was to form an accommodation to the exigencies of the French Emperor's position. We never professed to be exchanging concessions, but only allowed him to say he had done it. I am, of course, open to argument, but must say, as at present advised, that I see but very little room for what is called negotiating a commercial treaty."'
This was discouraging, since it came from the author of the treaty of 1860, who by lowering the duties on light wines had brought into general popularity the "Gladstone clarets"; and Mr. Gladstone's expression of opinion, renewed in a second letter of May 11th, caused M. Say to 'let me clearly understand that as Mr. Gladstone was unwilling to lower the wine duties, he should resign his Embassy and try to become President of the Senate,' then vacant by the resignation of M. Martel. In this he succeeded, much to the regret of Gambetta, who afterwards said to Dilke:
'"People never know for what they are fit. There was Léon Say, the best possible Ambassador at London, who insists on resigning the Embassy in order to become a bad President of the Senate."'
But M. Léon Say, even in the act of resigning, advanced the possibility of a treaty. While visiting Paris in May, to promote his candidature, he 'attacked Mr. Gladstone so fiercely through the French Press for not offering to lower our wine duties that the Prime Minister, afraid to face our merchants, gave way.' In the supplementary Budget, proposed on June 9th, provision was made for a reduction from one shilling to sixpence of the duty on some wines. This new scale, however, was not to take effect unless compensating advantages were obtained from other countries.
France, of course, was not the only country concerned; and the Portuguese Minister, M. Dantas, wrote to Sir Charles holding out great prospects of expansion for British trade if Portuguese wines were let into the English market at a cheaper rate.
The Prime Minister first demurred, but finally agreed that the Portuguese might be asked—
'"whether, supposing fiscal conditions allowed us to give a great advantage to their wines between 26 and 36 degrees of alcoholic strength, they could engage for some considerable improvements in their duties upon our manufactures, and what would be their general character and effect?
'"The Spaniards appear to have been much less unreasonable in their demands. Please to consider whether the same question should be put to them. Both probably should understand that we have no money, and should have to make it, so that their replies respectively would form a serious factor in our deliberations."
'Here, at last, I had got all I wanted. I merely begged leave to put the same questions at Rome and Vienna, and, obtaining his consent ("Pray do as you think best about Rome and Vienna.—W. E. G."), I went on fast.'
Cipher telegrams were despatched on May 28th to Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Austria—countries which produce strong wines more abundantly than France—inquiring what corresponding advantages would be offered for a change in the wine duties; and Sir Charles resumed his discussions with M. Say, who had returned to London.
For a time there seemed hope of a settlement, based on a new classification of wines; but when the bases of agreement arrived at were seen in France, there was violent opposition to the proposed countervailing 'amelioration,' which was construed to mean 'a lowering of duties upon the principal products of British industry.' Protectionist feeling ran too high to accept this.
While Lord Granville left commercial matters entirely to his junior colleague, every detail of every proposal had to be thrashed out with the Prime Minister, who was his own Chancellor of the Exchequer. In such a correspondence there was much for a young Minister to learn; there was also an opportunity for Mr. Gladstone to take the measure of a man whose appetite for detail was equal to his own.
One of the minor difficulties lay in the fact that the Portuguese and Spaniards wanted changes in the wine scale, but not the same as those which the French required. Owing to the accumulation of obstacles, Mr. Gladstone, on going into Committee with his Budget, dropped the proposed alteration in the wine duties for that year. But in October Sir Charles was sent to Paris in order to open the matter afresh, and on November 11th Gambetta 'promised commercial negotiations in January in London, and an immediate declaration in the Senate.' Beyond this nothing could be done in 1880. The details of this first phase of these long-drawn-out transactions will be found in a very full despatch written by Sir Charles on August 6th, 1880 (and published subsequently in the Blue Book 'Commercial Relations with France, 1880-1882'), which placed on record the whole of the dealings between himself and the two successive French Ambassadors.
'On Tuesday, June 1st, Léon Say called on me to settle the words which he should use before a Commission of the Senate in answer to a question as to the new treaty. What I think he had really come about was as to his successor. Challemel-Lacour, a friend of Gambetta, had forced himself upon his Government; … and Say came to tell me that Gambetta did not really want Challemel to come, but wanted Noailles, if an anticipated difficulty with the Queen could be got over.'
The difficulty was not got over, and so the appointment stood. The Memoir gives another version of the story, which Sir Charles heard in 1896, when he was staying with his friends the Franquevilles at Madame de Sévigné's château, Bourbilly.
'Franqueville said that Lord Granville had told him that when the Queen refused Noailles, the French Government had not meant to send him, but that he had been proposed only in order that Challemel- Lacour should be accepted. Lord G. had said: "The fact is that I told them the Queen would not have Challemel. They said they must send him or no one. Then said I, Propose Noailles…. She will refuse Noailles, and, having done that, she will take Challemel! So it happened."'
'Stories were at once set afloat that Challemel had shot a lot of monks, and various other inventions about him were started.' [Footnote: He had been in authority at Lyons during the war.] Matters went so far that the Prince of Wales wrote through his secretary suggesting that Sir Charles should use his personal influence with Gambetta to have the appointment cancelled. Trouble broke out in Parliament, where one Irish member put on the order paper a question specifying all the charges against the new Ambassador. The question having been (not without hesitation) allowed by the Speaker, Sir Charles gave a full reply, completely exonerating the new Ambassador from all these accusations. This, however, did not satisfy Mr. O'Donnell, who proposed to discuss the matter on a motion for the adjournment of the House. The Speaker interposed, describing this as an abuse of privilege, and when Mr. O'Donnell proceeded, Mr. Gladstone took the extreme course of moving that he be not heard. So began a most disorderly discussion, which ended after several hours in Mr. O'Donnell's giving notice of the questions which at a future date he proposed to put on the matter, but which were never put.
Gambetta wrote to Dilke on June 18th:
"Let me thank you from the bottom of my heart for the lofty manner in which you picked up the glove thrown down by that mad Irish clerical. In my double capacity of friend and Frenchman, I am happy to have seen you at this work."
A few days later the Prince of Wales's secretary wrote to say that the Prince had received M. Challemel-Lacour, and found him very agreeable. On this Dilke comments:
'Challemel was delightful when he pleased; but he did not always
please, except very late at night.'
In November of this year Dilke met Rouher, the great Minister of the fallen Empire.
'He told me that he had quite dropped out of politics, and was becoming a philosopher, and that Gambetta was the only man in France, and could do anything he pleased with it.'
Sir Charles's own opinion of contemporary France was conveyed to Lord Granville in one of several despatches, which have never been printed, partly because the Queen raised objection to his writing officially from a capital at which there was an Ambassador. It gives his impressions of the state of things under "the Grévy régime," some years later exposed in connection with the Wilson trial.
"Paris, October 17, 1880.
"Your Lordship asked me to send you any general remarks that I might have to offer upon the existing state of things in Paris, so that I may perhaps be permitted to express the conviction which I feel that at this moment there is an extraordinary contrast between the strength and wealth of France and the incapacity of those who are responsible for the administration of its Government. In addition, it is impossible not to be struck with the atmosphere of jobbery which surrounds the public offices. Transactions which in England would destroy a Ministry, in Paris arouse at the most a whisper or a smile. Something was heard in England of the terrible conversion of 'rentes' scandal of last year, and there is reason to suppose that the administration of Algeria by the persons who surround the brother of the President of the Republic, its Governor-General (Albert Grévy), constitutes a standing disgrace to France. The venality not only of the Opposition, but also of the Ministerial Press, is admitted on all sides, and the public offices are disorganised by the sudden dismissal of well-trained public servants, who are replaced by the incompetent favourites of those in power. The lightest suspicion of what is known as clericalism, even when only a suspicion, based on anonymous and calumnious denunciation, is sufficient to condemn a functionary. If it be not trivial to give a simple example, I would quote one which will, I think, remind your Lordship of the name of an old friend. Monsieur Tresca, who was for more than thirty years the Assistant-Director of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, is a member of the Institute, the most distinguished Civil Engineer in France, and not past work. The Director having lately died, I expected to find that he had been succeeded by Monsieur Tresca, but I discovered that this was not the case. I took an opportunity while sitting next to the Prime Minister at dinner at Her Majesty's Embassy to mention M. Tresca's name, in order to see if I could discover the reason for his disgrace. 'Mais il paraît qu'il est clérical,' was the phrase. Monsieur Tresca was a moderate Orleanist who followed M. Thiers when the latter gave his adhesion to the Republican form of government, and is certainly not a man who could be properly described as clerical in his views.
"Strange as it may seem, however, I am not inclined to see in the existing and increasing degradation of French politics an actual danger to the form of government which has been adopted in France. It is, on the contrary, an undoubted fact that the Imperialist, Legitimist, and Orleanist parties are continuing steadily to lose ground. But if the Government is not only to last, but to succeed, those who are responsible for its guidance will have at all hazards to abandon their present policy of suspicion and exclusion, and to adopt that of tolerance and comprehension, which, with magnificent effect upon the power of France, was followed by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1801. If they continue in their present course, the result must be fatal to the reputation and to the influence of France."