'From 1870 to this date one man has stood for all the great causes of industrial progress, whether for the agricultural labourers, or in the textile trades, or in the mining industries, or with the shop assistants. That man is Sir Charles Dilke.' So, in 1910, spoke Dr. Gore, the present Bishop of Oxford, at that time Bishop of Birmingham.
In Sir Charles's early days, economists were still governed by individualist doctrines. The school of laissez faire was the prevailing school of thought, and in its teaching he was trained. "We were all Tory anarchists once," was his own summary of the views which characterized that economic theory. But to "let alone" industrial misery early became for Sir Charles a counsel of despair. Greater Britain, published in 1868, when he was twenty-five, gave indications of a change of view, and his close friendship with John Stuart Mill directly furthered this development. Mill's lapses into heresy from the orthodox economics of the day were notable, and Sir Charles was wont to point to a passage written by Mill in the forties showing that sweated wages depressed all wages, and to claim him as the pioneer of the minimum wage.
It was left for Mill's disciple to become one of the foremost champions of the legislation which now protects the industrial conditions of the worker, and also the guardian of its effective administration.
His policy was distinguished by his determination to act with those for whom the legislation was created, and to induce them to inspire and to demand measures for their own protection. The education of the industrial class, the object of "helping the workers to help themselves," was never absent from his mind. This view went farther than the interest of a class: he held the stability of the State itself to be menaced by the existence of an unorganized and depressed body of workers. An organized and intelligent corporate demand put forward by trained leaders chosen from the workers' own ranks was essential to the development and stability of industrial conditions and to appropriate legislation. Sir Charles was therefore the unwavering advocate of trade-unionism. It is worth while to emphasize his attitude, since views now generally accepted were not popular in the sixties. His first speech to his Chelsea electors in 1867 dealt with his trade-union position, as it did with the need for strengthening the Factory Acts.
Violent utterances on the part of certain sections of Labour did not affect his advocacy of its claims, for he would have endorsed the words of Cardinal Manning written to him on September 13th, 1884: "It is the cause of the people mismanaged by imprudent and rough words and deeds; but a people suffering long and stung by want of sympathy cannot speak like county magistrates." During the later period of his life he tried, at innumerable meetings all over Great Britain, to help trade-unionists to make their claims understood. So he came to fill "a unique position as counsellor, friend, and adviser to the Labour cause." [Footnote: Letter from the Rt. Hon. George Barnes, Labour M.P. for the Blackfriars division of Glasgow, and Minister for Pensions in Mr. Lloyd George's Government of 1916, once general secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers.]
His belief in trade-unionism was never shaken; for though he did not pretend that in the distant future trade-unionism would be sufficient to redress all social ills, holding it, as Lady Dilke did, to be, not "the gospel of the future, but salvation for the present," he believed that during his lifetime it was far from having perfected its work. He was a strong municipal Socialist, but with regard to State Socialism he would never bind himself to any general theory; he was in favour of large experiments and of noting those made elsewhere; beyond this he "did not see his way."
His faith in the maintenance of all safeguards for trade-unions was well demonstrated by his action on the occasion of the Taff Vale judgment and its sequel. [Footnote: Taff Vale Judgment.—As trade-unions were not incorporated, it was generally assumed that they could not be sued, but in 1900 Mr. Justice Farwell decided that a trade-union registered under the Trade-Union Acts, 1871 and 1876, might be sued in its registered name; and this decision, after being reversed in the Court of Appeal, was restored by the House of Lords in 1901. The result of this case (the Taff Vale Railway Company v. the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants) was that damages could be obtained against a trade-union for the acts of their officials in "picketing" during a strike; and by making the trustees in whom the funds were vested defendants, an order could be obtained for the payment of damages and costs out of the accumulated funds of the trade-union.] He wished to keep for them the inviolability of corporate funds which formed their strength and staying power. While he admitted that theoretically a good case could be made out against such inviolability, he was clear that in practice it was essential to the continued existence of Labour as an organized force, capable of self-defensive action. The conference on the effect of the Taff Vale decision held in October, 1901, was arranged by him after consultation with Mr. Asquith, who suggested Sir Robert Reid and Mr. Haldane as legal assessors. How grave was the position which the judgment had created may be gathered from the declaration of Mr. Asquith in a letter to Sir Charles written on December 5th, 1901: "How to conduct a strike legally now, I do not know." He advised the introduction of two Bills, one to deal with the question of trade-union funds, the other with picketing, etc. In April, 1902, Sir Charles Dilke introduced the deputation, organized to ask for special facilities for discussion, to Lord James of Hereford, who received it on behalf of the Cabinet, and to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman as Leader of the Opposition.
In an article contributed by him to the Independent Review of June, 1904, he notes a private offer of the Government for dealing with the matter by a small Royal Commission of experts, whose recommendations should be immediately followed by legislation. This was refused by the Labour leaders, and he thought it a lost opportunity for what might have been a favourable settlement. [Footnote: Mr. D. J. Shackleton, an Insurance Commissioner, and appointed Permanent Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Labour in December, 1916, was in 1906 M.P. for Clitheroe, and a prominent member of the Labour party. He writes of the passing of the Trade Disputes Act, which reversed the Taff Vale judgment: "It was my privilege to be the spokesman for the Labour party and Joint Board on the Trade Disputes Bill in the House of Commons. On the evening when the Bill was read a third time in the House of Lords, the three National Committees gave me a complimentary dinner at the House of Commons. In the course of my speech in reply to the toast, I expressed, on behalf of the Labour movement and myself, our sincere and grateful thanks to Sir Charles for the very valuable help he had given us through all our Parliamentary fights. My consultations with him whilst the Bill was before the House were almost daily. On many occasions he crossed the floor to give me points in answer to speeches that were made in opposition to the Labour position.">[ But at the same time 'the Taff Vale judgment virtually brought the separate Labour party into existence, and the difficulty of upsetting the judgment and of amending the law of conspiracy will,' he said, 'nurture, develop, and fortify it in the future.' To him this was matter for satisfaction. [Footnote: A full account of the action taken by Sir Charles on the Taff Vale judgment and the Trade Disputes Act which reversed its decision will be found in Appendix II. to this chapter, furnished by Miss Mary Macarthur (now Mrs. W. C. Anderson). Miss Macarthur, secretary of the Women's Trade-Union League from 1903, worked with Sir Charles on many questions.]
His absence from the House of Commons from 1886 to 1892 gave him leisure for deep study of industrial questions, and he drew much of illustration and advice from his knowledge of colonial enterprise in social reform. Thus, in his advocacy of a general eight-hour day, observation of colonial politics largely guided his suggestions. In his first speech in the Forest of Dean in 1889, he said: "Australia has tried experiments for us, and we have the advantage of being able to note their success or failure before we imitate or vary them at home." The experiments in regard to regulation of hours and wages which colonial analogy justified should, he urged, be carried out by Government and by the municipalities as employers and in their contracts. His visits to our Colonies were followed by constant correspondence with Colonial statesmen, especially with Mr. Deakin, and the introduction here of minimum-wage legislation may be traced to Sir Charles's close study of Colonial experiment.
But he never narrowed his policy to developments which would confine the leaders of Labour to the management of the internal affairs of their trade-unions; he early urged the representation of Labour by Labour in Parliament, where its influence on legislation affecting its interests would be direct, and there is a note in his Diary in 1906, when the "Labour party" in Parliament came into existence, chronicling the "triumph of the principles" to which during his life that part of his activities devoted to Labour had been given.