III.
When the Session was ended, Sir Charles, according to his custom, set out on travel, following a scheme mapped out far ahead. In December, 1874, he had written to Miss Kate Field, correspondent of the New York Tribune and a friend of Sir Charles and of his first wife, that he would be in America in the following September on a journey round the world, and there accordingly he appeared—'on my way to Japan, China, Java, Singapore, and the Straits of Malacca—taking with me as travelling companion my scheme for a history of the nineteenth century,' a work projected on such ample lines that a note of this year sets down 1899 as the probable date of completion, "if I live so long."
The record of this journey is to be found in the additional chapters to Greater Britain, first issued in 1876 as magazine articles, and added to the eighth edition in 1885. He saw Japan before the Satsuma rebellion had broken out in a last attempt to restore the old feudal regime, and he stayed in the Tartar General's yamen at Canton, where at gun-fire he and the other Europeans in the same house were shut up within barred gates, only representatives of the white race among 2,000,000 Chinese. As for the Japanese, he wrote:
"I'm in love with this country and people…. The theatre is where I spend all my time…. There alone can you now see the soldiers in masks, ferocious and hairy, with the chain-armour and javelins of fifteen years ago. [Footnote: This was written in 1875.] There alone can you now see the procession of daimios accompanied by two-sworded Samurai, there alone have the true old Japan of the times before this cursed 'New Reform Government' arose."
'My stay at Tokio was at the same moment as that of Shimadzu Suboro, the old Satsuma Chief, uncle and adoptive father to the Satsuma Princes, and last constitutional light of the Feudal party. The "great Marshal" Saigo was commanding in chief the forces, and was in the next year to head the Satsuma rebellion. The Corean Envoys—tall men, with wondrous stars in their hair—were at the capital also, and I met them often.'
The beauty of Java, where he stayed at the Governor's Palace at
Buitenzorg, charmed him.
His journey from the East was very rapid, and January, 1876, saw him back in England. He was in time to address his constituents as usual before the opening of Parliament.
The speech contains what he points out as notable in one who 'so seldom spoke upon the Irish question'—an attack on the Coercion Bill of the previous year. It might be better, he said, to govern Ireland on the assumption that human nature is much the same everywhere, and Irishmen under no special bar of incapacity. A majority of the Irish representatives were in favour of Home Rule, and "a reformed dual constitution might possibly be devised which would work fairly well." This was an extreme attitude for those days, and he went on to recommend "the immediate creation of a local elective body, having power to deal with public works and the like"—in short, very much what Mr. Chamberlain advocated in 1885.
The speech also protested against Lord Carnarvon's policy as Colonial Minister, "in sending out Mr. Froude to stump South Africa against the local Ministers of the Crown, which was the beginning of all the frightful evils which afflicted South African affairs for the next nine years."
The conduct of the Opposition did not escape comment. "The duty of a Liberal leader is to follow his party, and this Lord Hartington has done with exemplary fidelity and unexampled patience." Another phrase noted that the Session of 1875 had left its mark on the House of Commons, "for pillows had been for the first time provided for members who wished to sleep," and the same atmosphere of repose marked the Session of 1876. The Memoir sketches some Parliamentary operations with which Sir Charles was connected:
'Early in this session occurred the introduction of the Royal Titles Bill, conferring the Imperial title upon the Queen, and I wrote for Fawcett a motion for an address to pray the Queen that she would be graciously pleased not to assume any addition to her title in respect of India other than the title of Queen. When the matter came on for discussion Cowen, who had now come into the House for Newcastle, rose to make his first speech. He had succeeded his old father, who was a Whig in politics and an old fogey in appearance, the son being now an ultra-Radical, now a democratic Tory, dressing like a workman, with a black comforter round his neck, and the only wideawake hat at that time known in the House of Commons. The next day Mr. Disraeli said: "I am told that we are blamed for not having put up a Minister to answer Cowen. How could we? I came into the House while he was speaking. I saw a little man with one hand in his pocket, and the other arm raising and waving uncouthly a clenched fist, making what appeared to be a most impassioned oration. But I was in this difficulty. I did not understand a word of it. I turned to my colleagues, and found that they were in the same position. We could not reply to him; we did not understand the tongue in which the speech was delivered." Cowen spoke with a Newcastle burr so strong that it was not easy to follow his words, and it was only by the context that one could guess what he meant, when he used, for example, such a word as "rowing," which he pronounced "woane."…
'I again brought forward my motion with regard to unreformed corporations, with fresh illustrations and new jokes, and the second edition was voted as popular as the first. Corfe Castle, with the Lord High Admiral of the Isle of Purbeck, and a Corporation consisting of one person, was a gem. Sir John Holker, who had to deal with the question for the Government, and who prepared the Royal Commission which sat to consider it in consequence of my motions, laid down some law for my information, which I doubted, and thereon showed to Harcourt, who said: "You will find the Attorney-General's law as bad as might be expected." Holker was personally popular. But he certainly, though a great winner of verdicts from juries, was one of the dullest men who ever addressed the House of Commons.'
Although Sir Charles was active and, generally speaking, successful during this session, on two points he found himself without support. One was his opposition to the principle of the Bills dealing with the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, on both of which he "took a highly Conservative tone without securing any assistance from Conservative opinion." But a passage in his diary, March, 1877, describes his action and that of the Liberal party on the "Universities Bill" of that year, and mentions a meeting at which Lord Hartington, Goschen, Harcourt, Fawcett, and Fitzmaurice were present, and at which 'it was decided to support my amendments to the Bill.' [Footnote: See Appendix, p. 200.]
His conservatism in academic matters revealed itself fully in 1878, as did that abiding feeling for his old college which characterized every after— allusion to it or to his University life. The Papal diplomatist, Bishop Bateman, founder of Trinity Hall, was mentioned by Sir Charles with the respect due to a patron saint. No traditions were dearer to him than those of Trinity Hall. Speaking at the College annual dinner, he impressed upon the reforming Fellows their obligation, in the college interests, to retain its exclusive teaching and qualifications for fellowship as laid down by its founder, "for the study of the canon and civil law." [Footnote: A scrap of the menu of the dinner of June 19th, 1878, is preserved, which shows these toasts: '"The Lord Chief Justice of England— proposed by the Master; responded to by the Lord Chief Justice of England, Sir Alexander Cockburn. Fellows and ex-Fellows—proposed by Sir Charles Dilke, Bart., M.P.; responded to by (Fellows) Professor Fawcett, M.P., (ex-Fellows) R. Romer, Esq. Our Old Blues and Captains of the T.H. Boat and Cricket Clubs—Proposed by Leslie Stephen, Esq.">[
"It is a good thing for a small college that it should not be merely one of the herd. It is a bad thing that a small college should be driven to teach everything—classics, mathematics, law, theology, medicine, and science, physical and moral—for if it teaches so many things, of necessity, from its poverty in money and in men, it cannot teach all well. A small college can only keep at a high moral and social and intellectual level by having a distinguishing note or accent. In our dear old House we have already in existence by our history and by the Instrument of Foundation that special mark to distinguish us from others which the most advanced University Reformers clamour to see created as regards each College in the University….
"It should keep its distinguishing note, and flourish for another five hundred and twenty-eight years, not only in manners, good-fellowship, and rowing, but as a school of law.
"In rowing and law it had fallen off, but good-fellowship still differentiates the College, and prevents it from surrendering to the prevailing tendency to make the colleges in our grand old University pale copies of French lycées—all cut on one pattern and administered by schoolmasters, who will rule over dunces of universal acquirements examined to the point of death."
The other question on which he failed to secure support was his attack on the Royal Academy:
'What I really wanted was that the Academy should be reminded that they obtained their present magnificent site upon conditions which have not been observed, and that they ought at least to give a free day a week at their exhibition, and give up a portion of their privileges against outsiders.'
But the attack, as he admits, was not pressed with spirit for he had only the Pall Mall Gazette and the Examiner with him in the Press. In the House Lord Elcho [Footnote: Better known as Lord Wemyss, long the venerable father of Parliament.] and Mr. George Bentinck 'alone understood the question,' and the latter was too intimate with all the Academy leaders to afford a hope that he would do otherwise than take their side. So, feeling his isolation in the matter, Dilke limited himself to moving for some papers, which were given.
By the summer of 1876 Sir Charles was well again:
'I began this year to stay a great deal at Lady Waldegrave's, both at Dudbrook in Essex and at Strawberry Hill; and ultimately I had a room at Strawberry Hill, to which I went backwards and forwards as I chose. The house was extremely pleasant, and so was Fortescue, and he passionately adored his wife, and was afterwards completely broken down and almost killed by her death. Fortescue was my friend; but she was an excellent hostess, and the house was perfectly pleasant, and that in a degree in which no other house of our time has been. The other house which was always named as "the rival establishment," Holland House, I also knew. Some of the same people went there— Abraham Hayward, commonly called the "Viper," and Charles Villiers, for example. Lady Waldegrave always made everybody feel at home, which Lady Holland did not always do. Those of whom I saw the most this year, in addition to the Strawberry Hill people (who were Harcourt, James, Ayrton, Villiers, Hayward, Dr. Smith the editor of the Quarterly, Henry Reeve the editor of the Edinburgh, the Comte de Paris, and the Due d'Aumale), were Lord Houghton and Mrs. Duncan Stewart. Lord Houghton never met me without referring to a review of his collected works, which appeared in the Athenaeum in the spring, and which had cut the old man to the heart' (because it rated his poetry on a level with that of Eliza Cook).
'One of the most agreeable parties of clever people to which I ever went was a luncheon given by Mrs. Stewart, when she was living a few doors from me in my street, at which I was the only man, the party chiefly consisting of old ladies; indeed, I was by far the youngest person present. Besides Mrs. Stewart herself, there were friends, Lady Hamilton Gordon, Lady Pollock, Lady Hopetoun, Mrs. Frank Hill, Mrs. Oliphant, and Mrs. Lynn Linton—Lady Gordon, a remarkably able woman, one of the bedchamber women of the Queen and a great gossip; Lady Pollock, slow, but full of theatrical anecdote, being stage-mad, as was her husband, old Sir Frederick, the Queen's Remembrancer, father of my Cambridge friend Professor Pollock (now Sir Frederick) and of Walter Pollock, the editor of the Saturday Review. A few days later I met Lady Pollock at a great party given by Lord Houghton. Irving was coming down the stairs, at the bottom of which we stood, having Mrs. Singleton (now, 1894, the Ambassadress, Lady Currie) upon his arm. Old Lady Pollock, clutching at my arm, exclaimed: "Who is that woman with Irving?" To which I answered: "Mrs. Singleton, author of Denzil Place—Violet Fane." "She won't do him any harm, will she?" was the embarrassing question by which Lady Pollock replied to me.'
In this summer Sir Charles gave dinner-parties which included ladies—'a plan which I found so uncomfortable for a politician who had only a grandmother to entertain them that I dropped it after August, 1876.' His dinners were always among the pleasantest in London, but till 1886 they were only dinners of men.
Of men friends of this year he specially notes 'Gennadius, the Greek
Secretary, afterwards Minister,' with whom his friendship was lifelong.