Two other questions of abiding interest were touched on by Sir Charles this year. That of Upper Houses is mentioned in connection with interviews with Sir Graham Berry, one of his Colonial acquaintances.
'Mr. (afterwards Sir) Graham Berry, Prime Minister, or, as they call it in the Colonies, "Premier" of Victoria; a rough, able man, son of a Chelsea tradesman…. We arranged a reception, which was given to Berry by the parish of Chelsea at the Chelsea Vestry Hall, myself in the chair, when we presented him with an address expressing the hope that the Victoria Lower House might prevail in its struggle against the Upper. Professor Pearson, formerly of Oxford—a Free Trader, though Mr. Berry was a Protectionist—was with him, and they were over to try to persuade the Colonial Office to support them against the Upper House.'
'Sir Graham Berry was afterwards the Agent-General of his Colony, but still possessed the confidence of the Liberal party in Victoria in a higher degree than any other man, and he afterwards returned to local politics and became Speaker. Pearson wrote a great book before he died.'
Sir Graham Berry wrote later in this year 'for opinions upon a Bill of reform of the Upper House in his Parliament,' to which Sir Charles replied 'that I disliked Upper Houses so much as not to be in favour of reforming them.'
This attitude he always maintained. His views upon the whole question of representation were this year put into a pamphlet which
'advocated, in addition to the reforms upon which Liberals were agreed, the system of double elections, as on the Continent—that is to say, a second poll to be held when at the first the person at the head of the poll did not obtain a clear majority of votes.'
The other question takes the first place in Sir Charles's note of his conversations with Chamberlain at the beginning of the Session. This touched on economic difficulties, and runs thus:
"That it would be wise to have a motion on the condition of the realm: probably by moving for a Committee to inquire into the cause of the present distress, and that Mundella would be the best person to move, especially if the Front Bench would support him, as the distress is most severe in Sheffield."
Some years, however, elapsed before Sir Charles was able to deal with such questions authoritatively as President of the Local Government Board.
We can trace at this time the beginning of those close relations which Dilke and Chamberlain cultivated (even after they had joined Mr. Gladstone's Government) with the new power that was growing up in Parliament. On February 15th, 'we were anxious that the Irish should vote with us about the Zulu War, the more so because her leaders were hesitating upon the subject,' and Sir Charles invited Mr. Parnell to meet Mr. Chamberlain at dinner; but they 'were able to make but little of him.' Further meetings took place, from which the only practical result was a promise of Parnell's support in their opposition to the County Boards Bill, which the Conservative Government were putting forward as their main measure. The ground of opposition was that 'it was better to leave the present system alone than to create new Boards only half elective.'