II.

So ended the negotiations. The Radical wing had asserted itself, and asserted itself successfully. It had been enabled to do so by Sir Charles's action. To him the matter represented the mere carrying out of a bargain; but friends were, as is natural in such a case, remonstrant, and he was accused of "needless self-sacrifice," of "Quixotic conduct," of "self-abnegation," of "your usual disinterestedness in politics," and the bargain was much criticized. A letter from Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, congratulating Sir Charles on the stand he had made, added: "Not that I am altogether satisfied with the result. I had assumed that as a matter of course you would be in the Cabinet. I share the universal feeling that of the two you had the undoubted claim to priority." But this regret was probably based on more than personal grounds, and may well be read with a letter written many years afterwards, in July, 1914:

"The real truth is that Dilke was too big a man to be an Under- Secretary in 1880, and the whole position was a false one. I fancy Lord Granville felt it to be so. One of his best points was his readiness to recognize ability. I think he desired Dilke's sphere in the Office to be as large as possible consistently with the general arrangements of the Office, but it is always difficult to make special arrangements work smoothly if they are based on a false principle.

"Dilke ought to have insisted on being in the Cabinet. It was very much to his honour that he did not do so."

Lord Fitzmaurice goes on to say that in the making of the Cabinet public opinion would have substituted Sir Charles Dilke for Mr. Dodson, who, in spite of his work as Chairman of Committees from 1868 to 1873, and afterwards as Secretary to the Treasury—("he would have made an excellent Speaker")—had done but little in the House for the party in the long period of Opposition from 1874 to 1880.

A mistake had, in fact, been made. The strong man should be put where his services can avowedly be best utilized. This statement is true of Chamberlain. He was, as the Times put it, "the Carnot of the moment, the organizer of Liberal victory." [Footnote: Neither Sir Charles Dilke nor Mr. Chamberlain would, however, have desired to underrate the great share in organizing the victory of Mr. Adam, the principal Liberal Whip in the House of Commons, whose services were generally considered to have been very insufficiently recognized by Mr. Gladstone.] Moreover, the confidence and friendship which led to constant consultations on every point between the two men guaranteed an added power to Sir Charles behind the scenes, and to him power, and not the appearance of power, was the essential thing. But Dilke's position also as a Parliamentarian, his acknowledged power and insight on questions both of Home and Foreign Affairs, his following inside and outside the House of Commons, had created a claim of long standing to Cabinet rank, and its abandonment made the "false position" to which Lord Fitzmaurice alludes. Although Mr. Disraeli was reported to have said, apropos of Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, that an Under- Secretary for Foreign Affairs with his chief in the House of Lords holds one of the most important positions in a Ministry, nevertheless the Under- Secretary is the subordinate of his chief, and Lord Granville's reputation as Foreign Minister was great.

That personal difficulties at least were overcome is shown by a note of Lord Granville, written when Sir Charles left the Foreign Office in 1882, but the note is in itself a commentary on the "false position":

"WALMER CASTLE, "December 27th, '82.

"MY DEAR DILKE,

"As this is the day you expect to go to the Local Government Board, I cannot help writing you one line. I will not dwell upon the immense loss you are to me and to the Office. You are aware of it, and I have no doubt will continue to help us both in the Cabinet and in the House, and will be ready to advise the Under-Secretary and myself. I must, however, say how deeply grateful I am for our pleasant relations, which might easily have been a little strained from the fact that it was a sort of fluke that you were my Under-Secretary instead of being my colleague in the Cabinet. As it is, nothing could be more satisfactory and more pleasant to me, and the knowledge we have obtained of one another will strengthen and cement our friendship.