At this same General Election Sir Wentworth Dilke lost his seat, and Lord Granville sent him a note "to condole with you and to congratulate you. I suspect that the cause of the latter gives you more pleasure than the cause of the former gives you regret. How very well your son seems to have done!"
After the election Charles Dilke sought a rest by one of his flying trips abroad. He stopped a day in Paris to examine the details of the French registration system. Thence he proceeded to Toulon, 'to which I took a fancy, which ultimately led, many years after, to my buying a property there'; the scenery of Provence captured him from the first moment.
Parliament was summoned to meet on December 10th for the election of a Speaker, and for the swearing-in of members. By the beginning of December the member for Chelsea was on the eve of return, rejoicing in the news of Mr. Gladstone's defeat in South-West Lancashire and election for Greenwich. "He is much more likely to become a democratic leader now that he sits for a big town."
A note preserved in one of the boxes gives Charles Dilke's first impressions of the party and Government to which he had vowed a somewhat qualified allegiance.
"December 10th, 1868.—House met for election of Speaker. The Liberal party is more even in opinion than ever before. No Adullamites, no Radicals but myself. The Cabinet is somewhat behind the party, which is bad. Too many peers."
The House of Commons of 1868 was superficially very much like any of its predecessors. Dilke notes that it 'contained some survivals of the old days, such as Mr. Edward Ellice, son of "Bear" Ellice [Footnote: This was Mr. Edward Ellice, who had been in the House since 1836, and who continued to represent St. Andrews till 1879. He was sometimes called "the young Bear." See Life of Lord Granville, i. 80, 81, 141, 171, 175, as to the "old Bear.">[ of the days of Lord Melbourne,' a consistent and typical Liberal. The Liberal party consisted then mainly of men born into that governing class which Lord Melbourne had in mind when he said "that every English gentleman is qualified to hold any post which he has influence enough to secure." This element was accompanied by a fair sprinkling of manufacturers and other business men, for the most part Nonconformists. But no separate Irish party existed to complicate the grouping; indeed, the Irish were much less a corps apart than they had been in O'Connell's time. Labour had not one direct representative, though the importance of the artisan vote had made itself felt; and this was recognized by the choice of Mundella, then returned as a new member for Sheffield, to second the address at the opening of the session.
The personal composition of the assembly had greatly altered. More than a third of its members were new to Parliament. W. Vernon Harcourt, Henry James, and Campbell-Bannerman, sat then for the first time, and sat, as did Charles Dilke, below the gangway. In the same quarter was Fawcett, who helped them in creating the new phenomenon of a House of Commons alive in all its parts.
Sir George Trevelyan, who almost alone of living men can compare from experience the House of Commons before the Reform Bill of 1867 and after, holds that it would be difficult to overstate the contrast. The House was no longer an arena for set combat between a few distinguished parliamentarians, whose displays were watched by followers on either side, either diffident of their ability to compete, or held silent by the unwritten rule which imposed strict reserve upon a new member. For the greater number promotion had come through slow and steady service in the lobbies.
Charles Dilke from the first was always in his place—that corner seat below the gangway which became gradually his traditional possession; and from the first he assumed a responsible part in all Parliamentary business. "He was the true forerunner, in his processes, his industry, his constant attendance, and his frequent speaking, of Lord Randolph Churchill." The revolt against 'the old gang' began on the Liberal side, and Charles Dilke was the chief beginner of it. Although the new Reform Act had led to far-reaching change in the quality of the House of Commons, the choice by Mr. Gladstone of the members of the Ministry made it plain that no break with the past was contemplated by the leaders. Lowe, whose anti-democratic utterances on Reform had been denounced by Dilke at the Cambridge Union, was Chancellor of the Exchequer; and only half the Cabinet were commoners. Among these was indeed Bright; but the only other Minister whose name carried a hint of Radicalism was Forster, Vice- President of the Council of Education, and he was not in the Cabinet when it was first formed.
On the other hand, Bright and Forster were to an exceptional degree responsible for the general trend of the Government policy. The dissolution and election had turned with more than usual definiteness on a clear issue—the proposal to conciliate Ireland by disestablishing the privileged Church of the minority; and behind this immediate proposal lay a less clearly defined scheme for giving security of tenure to Irish tenants. Ireland was the first business of Charles Dilke's first Parliament, and it was Bright more than any other man who had stirred English feeling with the sense that England had failed in her duty to the smaller country, and that an attempt to do justice must be made. Yet in both Church reform and land reform the actual brunt of the Parliamentary struggle fell upon Mr. Gladstone. Bright had a marvellous gift for rousing political emotion, but he had not the application necessary to give legislative effect to his aims; and Charles Dilke, though fully sensitive to the beauty of cadence in Bright's language, and enthusiastic for the music of "his unmatched voice," nevertheless inherited something of his grandfather's suspicion of "that old humbug Oratory"—at all events, when the oratorical gift was not allied with executive capacity.