POLITICS AND PERSONS
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.'