'All through the autumn I felt myself in considerable difficulties in dealing with the important questions which Harcourt had handed over to me from the Home Office, but as to which in many cases new departure was evidently needed which I had no authority to take. One such question was factory inspection. The current work was thrown on me, and I had to defend what the factory branch of the Home Office did. On the other hand, although I had the strongest opinion that the Inspectorate should be increased, and women inspectors appointed for factories where women were employed, Harcourt would not agree to this, and kept the patronage in his private secretary's hands, so that I had no real control.'
It was, however, in Sir Charles's power to appoint women inspectors at the Local Government Board, and he did so, thus leading the way in the movement for associating women with public work.
'The same was the case at first with regard to what were known as Cross's Acts, or the larger scheme affecting artisans' dwellings, as to which I had at the end of October some correspondence with Cardinal Manning, who was in Italy. Manning had written, in a letter which I received on November 2nd: "Without a high-handed executive nothing will be done till another generation has been morally destroyed, but construction must keep pace with destruction. Some of my parishes are so crowded owing to destruction without construction as to reproduce the same mischiefs in new places. You know I am no narrow politician, but I am impatient at political conflicts while these social plagues are destroying our people."
'The matter was brought to a head on the next day by the receipt of a letter from Mr. Gladstone sending me a letter from the Queen on the dwellings of the people, with copy of what he had said in reply. The letter was:
'"BALMORAL CASTLE, '"October 30th, '83.
'"The Queen has been much distressed by all she has heard and read lately of the deplorable condition of the homes of the poor in our great towns…. The Queen will be glad to hear Mr. Gladstone's opinion … and to learn whether the Government contemplate the introduction of any measures, or propose to take any steps to obtain more precise information as to the true state of affairs in these overcrowded, unhealthy, and squalid bodies. She cannot but think that there are questions of less importance than these which are under discussion, and which might wait till one involving the very existence of thousands, nay, millions, had been fully considered by the Government."
'Mr. Gladstone, in reply, said: "Mr. Gladstone will not fail to communicate with Sir Charles Dilke … on the subject of your Majesty's letter. He himself does not doubt that improvements in local government which he trusts are near at hand will lead to a sensible progress…."
'In consequence of this communication from the Queen, I decided to examine all the worst parts of London for myself, and on November 9th I wrote to Lyulph Stanley and to Miss Maude Stanley and others for a list of what they considered the worst places in London, "as we want to test our administrative powers under the present law. As we have to show that the Local Authority have 'made default,' it would be best to take cases as to which the Medical Officers have reported to the Vestry in the past, and nothing has been done." During the remainder of the year I met all the Medical Officers of London with the District Surveyors of the parishes, each man in his own district, and visited with them all those places on which they had reported without success; and, making my own notes, I picked out the very worst cases, and when I was certain that I was on firm ground took occasion to mention them in public.'
After some discussion, in which Mr. Gladstone and also Harcourt and Chamberlain were consulted, it was agreed that Dilke should do what he pleased in the name either of the Home Office or Local Government Board 'as to fighting Vestries about the dwellings of the poor.' At this moment, near the end of November, several delicate diplomatic questions were in hand, upon which, as a member of the Cabinet, Sir Charles was now taking a leading part. Accordingly Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, who thoroughly understood Local Government problems, took charge of the work on the detail of the Local Government Bill:
'It might be said that Fitzmaurice was doing my work and I was doing his. Although I was visiting St. Giles and the courts about the Strand, the worst streets near Judd Street (St. Pancras), Lisson Grove, and other curious places in Marylebone, Lord Salisbury's Courts in the neighbourhood of St. Martin's Lane, and the worst slums of St. George the Martyr, Newington, St. Saviour's, and St. George's in the East, yet as regarded the preparation of the details of my Bill I turned the matter over to Fitzmaurice….'