A large section of the Liberal Press was at this period very independent, and helped to frustrate Mr. Gladstone's determination to exclude Radicals from office.
Sir Charles's relations with Mr. Hill, then editor of the Daily News,
were close, as also was the alliance between the two Radical Ministers and
Mr. John Morley, who had just then become editor of the Pall Mall
Gazette.
'On May 14th John Morley asked me to see him to give him information
as to the general position of foreign affairs, and I consented to do
so. "It would be worth silver and gold and jewels," he said, "if I
could have ten minutes with you about three times a week."'
Chamberlain gave him the same privilege concerning domestic policy—a privilege 'which he used so well that no complaint ever arose in regard to it.' Chamberlain was much in touch with 'Escott of the Standard and the World.'
It was suggested at the dinner of May 1st that Mr. Courtney might succeed Sir H. Drummond Wolff on the Commission for Reforms, appointed under Article XXIII. of the Treaty of Berlin, for the European provinces of Turkey and Crete; but this too Mr. Courtney declined, and the place was eventually filled by Lord E. Fitzmaurice. Mr. Trevelyan was not included in the Ministry. [Footnote: See the Life of Goschen, by the Hon. Arthur Elliot, vol. i., pp. 215, 216; T. E. Holland, The European Concert in the Eastern Question, pp. 291, 292; also Turkey, No. 15 (1880). Lord E. Fitzmaurice was subsequently appointed British Plenipotentiary, under Articles LIV. and LV. of the Treaty of Berlin, to the Conference in regard to the navigation of the Danube. Both Mr. Courtney and Mr. Trevelyan joined the Ministry later.]
At the moment Conservative society was inclined to regard the new Ministry with suspicious wonder, and Sir Charles tells how, on May 5th, a week after taking office, when he and Chamberlain were dining with the Prince of Wales—
'most of the Cabinet were present with their wives; also the new Viceroy of India (Lord Ripon), and Rosebery and his wife. When the Duke of Cambridge came in, following the Prince and Princess, after shaking hands with those he knew, he stood staring about, whereupon Harcourt, nudging Chamberlain and myself, said, "He is looking for Bradlaugh."'
New men were coming to the front; a new political era had begun, and to the Radicals the situation was summed up by the House of Commons' jest which stated that B.C. now meant "Before Chamberlain," and A.D. "Anno Dilke."
The break with the past was real and important: 1880 is a marking date in the political history of Great Britain, and the change was due to the Radical combination.