In 1894, when the Independent Labour party was emerging into light, he had advocated in talks with Labour friends its development into the Labour party of later days. But he noted the limits which bounded his own co-operation except as an adviser: "My willingness to sink home questions and join the Tories in the event of a war, and my wish to increase the white army in India and the fleet—even as matters stand—are a bar."
There were those who prophesied that the Labour party's appearance had no permanent interest; that it owed its existence to political crises, and would soon fade out of the life of Parliament. Sir Charles, on the contrary, was clear that it constituted a definite and permanent feature in Parliamentary life. It might vary in number and in efficiency; it might, like other parties, have periods of depression; but it was henceforth a factor to be reckoned with in politics. Its power, however, must largely depend upon its independence. The point to which an independent party can carry its support of the Government in power must not be overstepped, and when, as in 1910, in the case of the "Osborne judgment" [Footnote: Mr. Osborne was a member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. He brought an action against them for a declaration that the rule providing contribution for Parliamentary representation is invalid, and for an injunction to restrain the funds being used in this way. He was successful in the Court of Appeal and in the House of Lords (A.S. of R.S. v. Osborne, 1910, A.C., 87). This practically made it impossible for trade-unions to support the Labour party.] or the Unemployed Bill, he thought that he detected weakening in the ranks of the Labour party in their fight for these Bills, he noted it gravely.
His view that Labour should find its leaders in its own ranks was not shared by Chamberlain and others who initiated Labour legislation; [Footnote: April, 1893, letter to Dilke from Chamberlain: "A political leader having genuine sympathy with the working classes and a political programme could, in my opinion, afford to set them [Labour leaders] aside." Reference to this letter has been made also in Chapter XLIX., p. 288.] but Dilke's principle was to act as spokesman for Labour only so long as it stood in need of an interpreter; when the movement had attained stability and become articulate, his work as the advocate who had expressed its aspirations and compelled public attention for them was done.
His policy did not involve his silence on points in which he differed from the Labour party. In his first speech in the House of Commons in 1893, on the question of the destitute alien, he did not agree with some trade representatives, who would in those days have excluded aliens, in fear of their competition. His dissection of the figures on which the plea of exclusion was based showed that they were misleading, since emigration and immigration were not accurately compared. He maintained that protective legislation with regard to conditions and wages would deal with the danger from competition which the trades feared, and he pointed out that anti-alien legislation must strike at the root of that right of asylum which had always been a distinguishing feature of British policy.
He met the contention of those who wished for a Labour Ministry by pointing out that co-ordination and readjustment, not addition to the number of Ministers, was needed. The size of our Cabinets was responsible for many governmental weaknesses in a country where Ministers were already far more numerous than was the case in other great European countries; too numerous to be accommodated on the Treasury Bench, and with salaries which would almost have met the cost of payment of members.
From Labour developments everything was to be hoped, and nothing to be feared, in the interests of the State or community. The only danger which menaced the gradual and wise evolution of Labour was "an unsuccessful war." The danger to peaceful evolution from such a war would be great indeed. He warned those who advocated the settlement of international difficulties by arbitration, that this result could only be obtained when the workers of the different countries were in a position to arrive at settlement by this means. Till then we could not neglect any precaution for Imperial Defence.
Complete data are needed to carry out efficient work, and to Sir Charles's orderly mind the confusion of our Labour and other statistics, and the absence of correlation arising from their production by different departments, were a source of constant irritation. Both by question and speech in the House of Commons and as President of the Statistical Society he laboured to obtain inquiry into "this overlapping, to obtain co-ordination of statistics and the possibility of combining enforcement with economy under one department," instead of under three or four. [Footnote: Sir Bernard Mallet, Registrar-General, gives an account of Sir Charles's work in this direction. See Appendix I. to this chapter.]
Trade-unionism had by no means achieved "its perfected work," and outside the highly organized trades there was a vast unorganized mass of labour, largely that of women. The existence of such a body of workers undermined the Labour position, and of all Sir Charles's efforts to improve industrial conditions none is more noteworthy than that which was done by himself and Lady Dilke for women and children. His wife's work for the Women's Trade-Union League, to which are affiliated women's trade-unions (the League increased its membership from ten to seventy thousand during her lifetime), brought him increasingly in touch with women's work; and, from his return to Parliament in 1892 to the end, scarcely a month in any Session passed without many questions being put by him in the House of Commons on points dealing with their needs. These questions tell in themselves a history of a long campaign; sometimes dealing with isolated cases of suffering, such as accident or death from ill-guarded machinery, or a miscarriage of justice through the hide- bound conservatism of some country bench; sometimes forming part of a long series of interrogatories, representing persistent pressure extending over many years, directed to increased inspection, to the enforcement of already existing legislation, or to the promotion of new. The results were shown not only by redress of individual hardships and by the general strengthening of administration, but by the higher standard reached in the various measures of protective legislation which were passed during his lifetime. Nearly every Bill for improving Labour conditions, for dealing with fines and deductions, for procuring compensation for accident, bore the stamp of his work. [Footnote: As Minister he helped in measures far outside his department. Mr. W. J. Davis, father of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trade-Union Congress, tells how once, at Dilke's own suggestion, he and Mr. Broadhurst came to see Sir Charles, then Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, about the Employers' Liability Bill and the Contracting-out Clause. "We spent an hour with him in the smoking-room," says Mr. Davis, "and left, Sir Charles having agreed to see the full Committee at 9.30 next morning. The House did not rise until 3 a.m., but Sir Charles was at our offices in Buckingham Street prompt to time. In the afternoon he met a few of us again, to consider an amendment for extending the time for the commencement of an action to six months instead of six weeks. This desirable alteration he succeeded in obtaining. When the Bill was passed—which, with all its faults, restored the workers' rights to compensation for life and limb—there was no member of the Government, even including the Home Secretary (Sir William Harcourt), from whom the Parliamentary Committee had received such valuable help as from the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs.">[
Characteristically he mustered for use every scrap of information available on a subject. Thus, he detected in the Employment of Children Act (1903) powers which neither the framers nor the promoters of the Act had foreseen, and, by speech and question, pressed their use till these previously unknown powers of protection for children were exercised by the officials to the full. Equally characteristic was his fashion of utilizing his specialized knowledge of regulations in one department in order to drive home his point in another. Thus, having cited the case of a stunted child told off to carry loads amounting to 107 pounds, he was able to add the information that, "in regulating the weight to be lifted by blue-jackets in working quick-firing guns, the limit was put at 100 pounds."
His care for women workers was not confined to public advocacy; it showed itself in unostentatious and unremitting help to those who worked with him or came to him for advice. Such advice was not confined to large questions of policy: he spent himself as faithfully on the smallest points of detail which made for the efficiency of the work. His knowledge furnished "briefs" for that group of workers which his wife's care for the Women's Trade-Union League drew round them both, and it guided and inspired their campaign. He watched every publication of the League. However busy, he would find time to correct the proofs of articles brought to him, to dissect Blue-books and suggest new points; each quarter he read the review which was issued of the League's work.