'On Sunday, February 18th, I dined with the Prince and Princess of Wales at Marlborough House, where were present Prince Edward of Saxe- Weimar, Hartington, the Duchess of Manchester, Lord and Lady Hamilton (afterwards Duke and Duchess of Abercorn), Lord and Lady Granville, Lady Lonsdale (afterwards Lady de Grey), Lord Rowton, H. Bismarck, Leighton, Alfred de Rothschild, and Sir Joseph Crowe. Lord Granville and I sat in a corner and talked Danube Conference. Lord Granville told me, when we returned to other matters, that Harcourt was in a dangerous frame of mind, and might at any moment burst out publicly about the necessity of governing Ireland by the sword. He was also threatening resignation on account of Mr. Gladstone's views about the Metropolitan Police.'
'On February 19th there was an informal Cabinet in Mr. Gladstone's room, which was now temporarily mine…. Harcourt fought against Lord Granville, Kimberley, Northbrook, Carlingford, and Childers, in favour of his violent views about the Irish. At last Carlingford, although an Irish landlord, cried out: "Your language is that of the lowest Tory." Harcourt then said: "In the course of this very debate I shall say that there must be no more Irish legislation, and no more conciliation, and that Ireland can only be governed by the sword." "If you say that," replied Carlingford, "it will not be as representing the Government, for none of your colleagues agree with you." It was only temper, and Harcourt said nothing of the kind, but made an excellent speech.' [Footnote: Sir Charles Dilke's view of the Irish movement is expressed in a letter of March 7th, 1883: "I don't think that the movement in Ireland is to be traced to the same causes as that on the Continent. The Irish movement is Nationalist. It is patriotic—not cosmopolitan, and is as detached from French Anarchism and German or American Socialism as is the Polish Nationalist movement.">[
'On March 1st I heard that when the Irish Government, through the Home Office, had applied to the Foreign Office to ask the Americans for P. J. Sheridan, the Home Office had said that they feared it was useless to apply to the United States except on a charge of murder. On this hint the Irish Government at once charged Sheridan with murder. Harcourt told me that their promptitude reminded him of a story which he had heard from Kinglake, who was once applied to by a friend as to the circumstances which would be sufficient to legalize a "nuncupative [Footnote: "Nuncupative" is a legal term for an oral as distinguished from a written will.] death-bed will." Kinglake wrote a figurative account of an imaginary case in much detail, and by the next post received a solemn affidavit from the man setting out Kinglake's own exact series of incidents as having actually occurred.'
Prosecutions and sentences had no more effect than such things generally have in face of a suppressed revolution and on the night of March 15th, 1883, a dynamite explosion took place at the Local Government Board. Sir Charles, however, did not take a very serious view of it:
'The dynamiters chose a quiet corner, and they chose an hour when nobody was about, which showed that the object was not to hurt anybody, but only to get money from the United States. At the same time they picked their office most unfortunately, for the Local Government Board is the only office where people worked late at night, and two out of my four leading men were still in their rooms, although they had come at ten in the morning and the explosion did not take place till nine at night.'
Mr. Gladstone had returned at the beginning of this month, and on March 5th Sir Charles saw him for the first time in Cabinet, 'singularly quiet, hardly saying anything at all.' He did, however, say that Mr. Bradlaugh was "a stone round their necks," 'which in a Parliamentary sense he was.' Despite one of Mr. Gladstone's greatest speeches, Government were again beaten when they proposed to let him affirm.
In this spring there was an agitation to create a Secretaryship of State for Scotland, and Lord Rosebery was looked upon as designate for the office. Sir Charles did not think the change necessary, but was strongly for having Lord Rosebery in the Cabinet, and wrote to Sir M. Grant Duff, Governor of Madras:
"It would be natural to give Rosebery the Privy Seal, and let him keep the Scotch work; but nothing will induce Mr. G. to look upon him as anything but a nice promising baby, and he will not hear of letting him into the Cabinet." 'Nothing,' he adds, 'was settled on this occasion.'
"A smaller Bill than those which I have mentioned, but one in which I was interested, was my Municipal Corporations (unreformed) Bill, which had passed the House of Lords, but failed to pass the Commons. [Footnote: Previous reference to Sir Charles's persistent fight for this Bill is to be found in Chapter XIII.] Rosebery thought that this time it should be introduced into the Commons… because, although the Lords were pledged to it by having passed it," this pledge must not be strained too hard by constantly waving the red flag of uncomfortable reform before the hereditary bull. "Harcourt having agreed with me that the Bill should be introduced into the Lords, and having also agreed with Rosebery that it should be introduced in the Commons, Rosebery again wrote: 'I am afraid if you go on bringing this measure before the peers they will begin to smell out suspicious matter in it."'
On April 21st 'Rosebery again promised me to introduce a Bill,' and the
Bill became law in 1884.