Thus party feeling fluctuated. On February 16th, 1877, Sir Charles's diary recorded that 'the popular name for our Front Bench with the London mob is "Bag and baggage Billy and his long-eared crew."' This showed that 'in the popular mind the personality of Mr. Gladstone had finally triumphed over that of Hartington.'
At this moment Sir Charles's views coincided with those of Lord Hartington
to the extent of being anti-Russian, and, as already seen, he was more
drawn by personal feeling to him than to any of the various leaders. Mr.
Forster and Mr. Goschen seemed to him inclined to what a letter of
Harcourt's called "the old facing-both-ways style," and the magic of Mr.
Gladstone's personality never exercised its spell on Dilke. But he liked
Lord Hartington personally, and liked also Lord Hartington's ally, the
Duchess of Manchester, who, he says—
'used to try very hard to pick up political information for Lord Hartington; but her own strong Conservative prejudices and her want of clearness of head made her by no means a useful guide, and in fact the wonder to me always was to see how Hartington's strong common sense kept him from making the mistakes into which she always tried by her influence to press him.'
That was written after an interview which Sir Charles had with her, at her request, on January 8th, 1877. The Duchess had read a report of a speech of his, in which 'I lectured on the Franco-German War, and condemned the taking of territory as bound to lead to further wars.' On February 10th he met her again to discuss the difficulties which were beginning to spring up, since Mr. Gladstone's sudden access of activity, as to the leadership of the party. In this matter Sir Charles kept himself 'absolutely independent, going now with one and now with the other, with mere regard to the opinions which they put forward…. I had a full knowledge of what was going on behind the scenes,' although, because he was not in complete agreement with either party among the Liberal leaders, he 'had not the complete confidence of either side.'
This detachment of attitude adds the more weight to the judgment which is passed in the following detailed review of the situation as it was in the spring of 1877:
'At this moment' (February 18th, 1877) 'London was a centre of intrigue. But my interest in the Eastern Question had nothing to do with persons, and was an honest one, and I found myself able to act only with those who had no candidate of their own for the leadership of the party, or who, like Lord Granville, were brought to a similar position by the conflict between party loyalty and a personal affection for Mr. Gladstone, and I was able therefore at this moment to act more steadily with Lord Granville than with any other leading member of the Liberal party. He was jealous of Lord Hartington, but he was loyal to him as the party chief. Towards Mr. Gladstone he was affectionate, but not blind.' [Footnote: Sir Charles summarises here a memorandum he drew for Lord Granville for the debate on February 19th, used then and on several other occasions. He pointed out that the Government policy, since the failure of the Conference, of leaving things alone, was safe for the moment, but it did nothing for the Eastern Christians, gave no satisfaction to the demands made in the name of the Queen by Lord Derby on September 21st, 1876, offered no bridge to Russia for the avoidance of war, and therefore left the Turkish Empire and British interests exposed to the gravest danger. Concerted action was the course Liberals desired.]
'There can be no doubt that many were making use of the Eastern Question for the purpose of advancing their particular views as to the leadership of the party. When men have to use other men as tools for the execution of any plan, it is difficult for them to refrain from that tricky handling of them which is best for the immediate end, but debases both the user and the used. To sway men by knowledge of their weaknesses is the task of a charlatan rather than of a statesman. Mr. Gladstone, with all his inconsistency upon the Eastern Question, and in spite of the fact that he had only just seen evils which had always been there, had that which the others lacked, moral conviction, and Hartington was infected with moral indifferentism. The Conservatives no doubt thought that Mr. Gladstone's attitude was mere emotional facility, a mere exhibition of spasmodic power of transient enthusiasm, an effect rather of temperament than of conviction, and unlikely therefore to produce a continued consequence of action sustained at a high level. The public, however, saw more clearly. Power over the moral fibre of other natures is not given to those whose own nature is wanting in this moral force, and Mr. Gladstone's attitude on the Eastern Question, in spite of his contradictions and of his occasional running away from the consequences of his own acts, was appreciated with accuracy by that large section of the public which ultimately followed him.'
To this estimate should be added the record of a talk which passed in June of the same year at a dinner party, where Sir Charles, 'along with Matthew Arnold, Bowen, afterwards Lord of Appeal, and Frederick Pollock,' discussed 'what is known as moral force':
'I upheld the view that to me Gathorne Hardy (although I never agreed in a word which the future Lord Cranbrook said) possessed moral force in the highest degree, but that this moral force was one which I felt had only prejudice behind it. Still to me the intense conviction of the man gave him immense strength, and made him the most really eloquent Englishman to whom I had ever listened. Gladstone, I thought, had moral force, because he believed in the particular thing of which he was speaking at the particular moment at which he spoke. I somewhat differed from the others with regard to Bright, thinking that he was seldom really in earnest, although I admitted that no man gave more strongly the impression of earnestness to his hearers, and therefore no man had "moral force" in a higher degree…. Courtney (who had come in during the autumn of 1876) and Fawcett both have "moral force."'
In March, 1877, the last stage was reached in those long-drawn negotiations by which the statesmen of Europe endeavoured to avoid war, and the declaration which Lord Derby attached in the name of England to the Protocol of London was virtually a refusal to assent to coercion of Turkey. Acting as leader of the Opposition, Lord Hartington asked Dilke to 'sketch a vote of censure on the declaration.' In the debate which took place on April 13th (the day after Russia declared war against Turkey)—