APPENDIX I
'"December 21st, 1893.
'"Dear Mr. Balfour,
'"I have been thinking over the matter which you mentioned in the tea-room yesterday. I am absolutely convinced of your own detachment from party in connection with it, and I write as one not likely at any time to act generally in connection with your party, unless in the (I hope most improbable) event of doubtful or unfortunate war.
'"The suggestion that I am inclined to make is that a letter should be written, to be signed by Sir George Chesney as a Conservative, by myself as a Gladstonian Liberal, by Arnold-Forster as a Liberal Unionist, and Spenser Wilkinson as a civilian expert, to Mr. Gladstone as Prime Minister, you and Chamberlain as leaders of your parties in the House of Commons, and Lord Salisbury and the Duke of Devonshire as leaders of the same parties in the House of Lords; that a copy should be sent by me confidentially to the Prince of Wales, it not being right, of course, that we should in any way address the Queen; that this letter should not be made public either at the time or later; that this letter should press for the joint consideration of the naval and military problem, and should point to the creation of a Defence Ministry, of which the War Office and the Admiralty would be the branches, or to a more active control of the Secretary of State for War and the First Lord of the Admiralty by the Prime Minister personally. We should be put in our places by Mr. Gladstone, but I fancy, probably, not by the other four.
'"I had sooner discuss this matter first with you, if you think there is anything in it, than with Chamberlain, because he is, oddly enough, a much stronger party man than you are, and would be less inclined (on account of national objects which to him are predominant) to keep party out of his mind in connection with it. I have not, therefore, as yet mentioned the matter to him. If you think ill of the whole suggestion, and are not even disposed to suggest modification of it, it can be stopped at the present point.
'"The addition of Spenser Wilkinson to a member of each party is because I owe to him the clearing of my own mind, and believe that he is probably the best man on such questions who ever lived, except Clausewitz. When I first wrote upon them in The Present Position of European Politics in 1886-87, and in The British Army in 1887-88, I was in a fog—seeing the existing evils, but not clearly seeing the way out. In the Defence chapter of Problems of Greater Britain I began to see my way. Admiral Colomb, and Thursfield of The Times, who are really expositors of the application to our naval position of the general principles of military strategy of Clausewitz, helped me by their writings to find a road. I then set to work with Spenser Wilkinson, whose leaders in the Manchester Guardian (which he has now quitted, except as an amateur) struck me as being perfect, to think out the whole question; and we succeeded, by means of a little book we wrote together—Imperial Defence, published in February, 1892—in afterwards procuring the agreement of Lord Roberts in views widely different in many points from those which Lord Roberts had previously held. We are now in the position of being able to declare that in naval particulars there is no difference of opinion among the experts, and that in military there is so little upon points of importance that the experts are virtually agreed. This is a great point, never reached before last year, and it is owing to Spenser Wilkinson, and in a less degree to Arnold-Forster, that it has been reached.
'"The question of the length at which the proposed letter should develop the existing dangers and the remedies is, of course, secondary.
'"The dangers are much greater than even the alarmist section of the public supposes. For example, the public have not in the least grasped the fact that we were on the brink of war with France at the moment of the Siam blockade, nor have they realized the great risk of the fall of the monarchy in Italy and of a complete change in Italian policy, leading more or less rapidly to an alliance with France and Russia. The adoption of Lefevre's policy by the Liberal party, which is possible at any time, and the announcement that we do not hope to hold the Mediterranean, might attach to the Franco- Russian combination even the present advisers of King Humbert.
'"With regard to Siam, neither the English nor the French Government dare publish the despatches which passed about the blockade, and they have not been able to come to an agreement as to what portion of the papers should be published, although both Governments have long since promised publication. The words used in the House of Commons by Sir Edward Grey were altered by the French Government into meaningless words, and the words actually used excluded by Governmental action from every newspaper in France."'
[Footnote: On December 25th, 1913, M. d'Estournelles de Constant wrote to the Frankfurter Zeitung an article warning Europe against the chance of war breaking out, not because it is desired, but "by chance, by mistake, by stupidity," and he cited an instance from his experiences in 1893:
"The stage was Siam, where British India and French Indo-China were seeking to push, one against the other, their rival spheres of influence. Lord Dufferin, British Ambassador in Paris and ex-Viceroy of India, was upholding the British claim, but it was in London that the negotiations were carried on. The irreparable conflict broke out on the day when the French Admiral, the bearer of an ultimatum, anchored his ships in the very river of Bangkok. I was negotiating, but during this time the British Government telegraphed to the Admiral commanding the Pacific station to proceed also to Bangkok with his whole fleet, which was far superior in numbers to ours.
"I knew nothing about it; no one knew anything about it. I was negotiating, and it was war almost to a certainty without anybody suspecting it. I only knew this later. Happily, wireless telegraphy did not then exist, and the orders of the Admiralty did not reach in time the British squadron, which was then sailing somewhere in the Pacific. Thanks to this chance delay, the negotiations had time to come to a successful conclusion, and the agreement was concluded.">[
On the same day Dilke received the following reply:
"I shall be most pleased to have a further conversation with you on the all-important subject on which we had a brief talk yesterday, and which is dealt with in your letter of to-day.
"I should like, however, to discuss the matter first with Lord
Salisbury (whom I shall see to-morrow), and, if you will allow me,
to show him your letter.
"I may, however, say at once that I have always been in favour of a Defence Committee of Cabinet, with expert advisers and permanent records carrying on the work from Government to Government; and that, oddly enough, I pressed the idea on Asquith last week. I think he and Rosebery would be in favour of the plan; not so the older members of the Cabinet."
'On Friday, January 5th, 1894, I had a long interview with Balfour upon my letter, and wrote on it to Wilkinson as follows:
'"Confidential.
'"76, Sloane Street, S.W., '"January 5_th_, 1894.
'"Dear Wilkinson,
'"I saw Balfour (in a full discussion) this afternoon. We provisionally agreed, with Lord Salisbury's consent, that Sir George Chesney, Arnold-Forster (if he agrees), you, and I, should sign a letter which we should address (with the view to publishing it with the replies) to Mr. Gladstone as Prime Minister and leader of my party, to Lord Salisbury and to Balfour as leaders of Sir George Chesney's party, and to the Duke of Devonshire and Chamberlain as leaders of Arnold-Forster's party, and of which I should privately send a copy to the Prince of Wales in the hope of its reaching the Queen. In this letter we should press for the joint consideration of the naval and military problem, and point either to the creation of a Defence Ministry, of which the War Office and Admiralty would be the branches—to which the objection is that Parliamentary consent would be necessary—or to a more active control over the Secretary of State for War and the First Lord of the Admiralty, and their Estimates, by the Prime Minister personally, or to that which is Balfour's own scheme and which has the support, among our people, of Rosebery and Asquith: the creation of a Defence Committee of the Cabinet, ordinarily to consist of the Prime Minister, of the leader of the other House, of the Secretary of State for War, the First Lord, and (doubtless) the Chancellor of the Exchequer (?), with expert advisers and permanent records which would carry on their work from Government to Government. Mr. Gladstone would snub us. The other four would not, and our proposal (that is, our third proposal, which is Balfour's) would probably be adopted when the Conservatives came in, and continued by the Liberals.
'"Balfour would be very willing to express his favourable opinion of our view in debate in the House of Commons, should we raise one next Session, and Lord Salisbury is less inclined to make a strong and distinctly favourable reply to our letter than is Balfour.
'"Balfour would go more willingly, if possible, than he does into the schemes if he could see his way beforehand to the saving of money on the army for the purpose of devoting it to the navy. He says that he himself cannot put his finger on the waste which he knows must exist, that Buller has to some extent his confidence and tells him that there is none, although Balfour is not convinced by this. We discussed our Indian army scheme, to which he sees no objection, and (very fully) the Duke of Cambridge and the extent to which he will be supported by the Queen.
'"Balfour sees immense difficulty in the absence of a sufficiently commanding expert, and in the consequent jealousy between the Admiralty and War Office officials.
'"Will the letter which Sir George Chesney has do as a base, or would it be better to write a shorter and a fresh letter? If the latter, will you try your hand at it, if you approve? And after noting this will you return it to me, that I may send it to Sir George Chesney and then to Arnold-Forster?
'"Balfour had in reading us [Footnote: "Us" refers to the joint work on Imperial Defence. One of the recommendations was to substitute marines for soldiers in the small garrisons, such as Bermuda.] asked questions through George Hamilton, who agrees with us, on the point of further employment of marines, and has been told that they would be sadly costly.
'"Yours very truly,
'"Charles W. Dilke."'
APPENDIX II
In reply to the joint letter, Chamberlain wrote to Dilke:
"I have received the interesting paper on the subject of National Defence which you have communicated to me on behalf of yourself and the other signatories. One of the greatest difficulties which any politician must feel in dealing with this question has been the apparent difference of opinion among those best qualified to speak authoritatively on the subject, and it is an important advance to find practical proposals agreed to by some of those who have given special study to the problems involved. Without venturing at the present state of the inquiry to commit myself to any specific proposal, I may say that I am favourably inclined to the main lines laid down in your paper—namely, the closer union between the two great departments of national defence, and the recognition of the responsibility of the professional advisers of the Cabinet on all questions of military and naval provision and administration."
Mr. Balfour wrote:
"I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of February 12th, dealing with certain very important points connected with the problem of National Defence. Though it would be inopportune for me to pass any detailed judgment upon the scheme which you have laid before me in outline, and though it is evident that difficulties of a serious kind must attend any effort to carry out so important a change in our traditional methods of dealing with the Admiralty and the War Office, I may yet be permitted to express my own conviction that the evils that you indicate are real evils, and that the imperfections in our existing system, on which you insist, might under certain not impossible contingencies seriously imperil our most important national interests.
"That four gentlemen of different training, belonging to different parties in the State, approaching this subject from different points of view, and having little, perhaps, in common except a very intimate knowledge of the questions connected with National Defence, should be in entire agreement as to the general lines along which future reformation should proceed, is a fact of which the public will doubtless take note, and which is not likely to be ignored by those responsible for the preservation of the Empire."
'Our letter was in all the papers about February 28th (1894), with replies from Balfour and Chamberlain. Mr. Gladstone's reply, written just before he resigned, was in his own hand, and more than usually legible. Though it was not marked "Private," I did not print it, as it seemed too personal and playful. It meant that he had resigned, but I did not know this till an hour after I had received it:
'"You will forgive my pleading eyesight, which demanded the help of others and thereby retarded operations, as an excuse for my having failed to acknowledge the paper on Naval Defence which you were so good as to send me. You will, I fear, find me a less interesting correspondent than some who have replied at length, for I fear I ought to confine myself to assuring you that I have taken care it should come to the notice of my colleagues."
'On March 9th I sat near to Asquith at a dinner, and he told me that his Defence Committee of the Cabinet, favoured by Balfour and Rosebery, would soon be "a fact." The decision was made known in a debate which I raised on the 16th.'
A note adds: 'When the Tories came in in June, 1895, they adopted the scheme of a Minister (the Duke of Devonshire) over both army and navy, which had been put forward in the Dilke—Chesney—Arnold-Forster— Wilkinson correspondence with Balfour and Chamberlain, and originally invented by me. On the night of the Government (Liberal) defeat Campbell-Bannerman had promised a Commander-in-Chief who should be the Chief Military Adviser, a double triumph for my view.'