The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke Volume I Part 16

'The Duc de Gramont and the Minister of War had been in the minority at the Cabinet on the 14th when the Cabinet withdrew the order for the mobilization of the reserves, and this minority took it upon itself in the night to maintain the order for the calling out of the reserves.

On the other hand, if there was ground for the impeachment of the Duc de Gramont, I am afraid that there was also ground for that of Ollivier in his own admissions. The declaration made to the Chambers on July 15th states that the reserves were called out on the 14th, and Ollivier allowed the decision of his Cabinet, which was his own, to be reversed in his own name, apparently with his approval. [Footnote: See note on p. 486, and the authorities cited there.]

'Bismarck's action in forcing on a war might be justified by his probable acquaintance with the engagement of Austria to France that she would join her in attacking Prussia in the early spring of 1871; but it is a curious fact that he has never, either to me or to anybody else, made use of this justification.

'Upon all these subjects the papers found in the palaces and published by the Government of National Defence had an essential bearing, and these I discussed, while they were fresh, with Gambetta and Ollivier.

The same matters were again before me in the following year (1873), when I had the opportunity of attending the Bazaine Court-Martial, presided over by the Duc d'Aumale, and of again reading the papers found in the Tuileries (including the volume afterwards suppressed) on the spot, and while the events related were fresh in men's minds, as well as of talking over all doubtful points with my two friends.

'Bazaine at the Court-Martial looked only stupid, like a fat old seal, utterly unmilitary, and, as the French would say, "become cow-like."

It was difficult to see in him the man who, however great his crimes in Mexico, had at least been a man of the most daring courage and of the most overweening ambition. In the suppressed volume of the papers of the Imperial family seized at the Tuileries there is a letter from General Felix Douay to his brother in which he describes Bazaine's attempt to become the Bernadotte of Mexico, and shows how, in order to obtain the Mexican throne, he kept up treasonable relations with the chiefs of the republican bands which it was his duty to combat. It is curious to find the French second-in-command writing to his brother, also a General, a letter which, somehow or other, came into the possession of the Emperor himself, in which he says: "It is terrible to see a great dignity prostrated in such fashion.... We have to go back to Cardinal Dubois to find such an accomplished scoundrel having made use of a situation of the highest confidence to sell his country and his master.... He will not long escape the infamy to which he is consigned by the wishes of all honest men in the army, who are daily more and more shocked by the scandal of his personal fortune." Colonel Boyer was chief of the staff to Bazaine in Mexico, and is mentioned in the correspondence between the two Generals Douay as being mixed up in these discreditable transactions; and he was afterwards, as General Boyer, concerned, it may be remembered, in the Regnier affair at Metz, when General Bourbaki was sent out under a pa.s.s from the Prussians on a fool's errand to the Empress Eugenie, there being some treasonable plot behind. This is now (1908) confirmed by the letter of the King of Prussia to the Empress Eugenie in the Bernstorff Memoirs.'

From 1872 onwards Sir Charles, in his many pa.s.sages through Paris, invariably met Gambetta, 'and spent as much time with him as possible.' He was in this way kept fully informed on French politics by the most powerful politician in France. As Gambetta's power grew, Dilke's influence grew also, until there came a time when the friendship between the two was of international interest.

II.

On returning to London after the Easter recess of 1872, Sir Charles resumed his political duties in and out of Parliament. The Radical Club, of which he remained Secretary till he took office in 1880, exercised some little influence in the House of Commons, and was of some value in bringing men together for the exchange of ideas, but began to present difficulties in its working, and soon 'dropped very much into the hands of Fawcett. Fitzmaurice, and myself.'

Apart from weekly attendance at its meetings, Sir Charles did not go out much. 'We were so wrapped up in ourselves,' he says, 'that I have no doubt we were spoken of as selfish.' The marriage had resulted in a tie much closer than the simple union of two people who would "get on very well together." Lady Dilke was a creature of glowing life. Those who remember her say that when she entered a room the whole atmosphere seemed to change: she was so brilliant, so handsome, so charged with vitality, so eager always in everything.

From this period there were dinners at 76, Sloane Street, twice a week, and among those who gathered about the Dilkes 'were Harcourt; Kinglake, the historian; Stopford Brooke (who had not then left the Church of England), Brookfield, the Queen's chaplain, commonly known as the "naughty parson," and husband of Thackeray's Amelia, Fitzmaurice; Charles Villiers; Mrs. Procter (widow of Barry Cornwall); Miss Tizy Smith, daughter of Horace Smith, of _Rejected Addresses_; James (afterwards Sir Henry James).' Browning also 'was constantly at the house,' and read there his "Red Cotton Nightcap Country"--'at his own request.' Lord Houghton began in these days an intimacy which lasted till his death. Of Americans, there were Leland ("Hans Breitmann") and Mark Twain, and with these are named a number of foreign guests: emile de Laveleye, the economist; Ricciotti Garibaldi; Moret, the Spanish Minister.

'We used to judge the position of affairs in Spain by whether Moret wore or did not wear the Golden Fleece when he came to dinner. When Castelar was dictator and the Republic proceeding upon conservative lines, the sheep hung prominently at his side. When the Republic was federalist and democratic, as was the case from time to time, the sheep was left at home in a box.'

Others in the list of guests were Taglioni, 'in her youth the famous dancer, and in her old age Comtesse Gilbert de Voisins, the stupidest and most respectable of old dames,' and Ristori, the tragedian, who stayed at Sloane Street 'with her husband, the Marquis Capranica del Grillo, and their lovely daughter Bianca.'

A novel feature at some of Lady Dilke's evenings was the production of French comedies by M. Bra.s.seur, the celebrated comedian, and father of the well-known actor of the present day. At all times in Sir Charles Dilke's life his house was a great meeting-place for those who loved and knew France and the French tongue.

Many painters were among the Chelsea const.i.tuents, and in 1868 Rossetti, having been pressed to vote, replied:

"I think if Shakespeare and Michael Angelo were going to the poll, and if the one were not opposing the other, and if there were no danger of being expected to take an active part in the chairing of either, I might prove for once to have enough political electricity to brush a vote out of me, like a spark out of a cat's back. But I fear no other kind of earthly hero could do it."

Another const.i.tuent was Carlyle, who in 1871 came to Dilke with a memorial in favour of a Civil List pension for Miss Geraldine Jewsbury. Out of him also no vote had been "brushed": he had exercised the franchise only once in his life. Pa.s.sing through his native village, he had seen a notice that persons who would pay half a crown could be registered, and he had paid his fee and had been registered. He had thought at the time, so he told Sir Charles, that "heaven and h.e.l.l hung on that vote," but he "had found out afterwards that they did not."

It was in the course of 1872 that Sir Charles carried out one of his grandfather's instructions by distributing old Mr. Dilke's books--

'in those quarters where I thought they would be useful in the cause of historic research, or where they would be best preserved. The British Museum had the first choice, and took those of the books relating to the Commonwealth, to the Stuarts, to Pope, and to Junius, which they had not already on their shelves. [Footnote: 'The Stuart papers consisted of the Caryll papers and the Seaforth Mackenzie papers, which last were first used by the Marchesa Campana da Cavelli in the preparation of a great work on the Stuart doc.u.ments, in which they were fully quoted.'] I then offered the remainder of the Junius collection to Chichester Fortescue, at that time President of the Board of Trade (afterwards Lord Carlingford), husband of the famous Lady Waldegrave, and tenant in consequence of Strawberry Hill, where he was reforming Horace Walpole's library.'

It was a house at which Sir Charles became very intimate but not till some years later. About this time Lady Strachie remembers the interest with which, as a young girl at her aunt's table, she glanced down the row of guests to catch the profile of 'Citizen Dilke,' who, with his wife, was dining there for the first time.

Lord Carlingford believed that Francis wrote Junius, a view which old Mr.

Dilke opposed.

'But Abraham Hayward, who was constantly with him, held anti- Franciscan opinions, and he would, I knew, have the full run of the books, which I was certain in Fortescue's hands would be carefully preserved. My arrangements were not concluded until the end of the following year, 1873, when I presented the last of the Pope books and all my grandfather's Pope ma.n.u.scripts to John Murray, the publisher, in consequence of his great interest in the new edition.' [Footnote: Elwin and Courthope's edition of Pope's works.]

In the same year Sir Charles Dilke made another arrangement which testified to the strength of his brotherly affection. Wentworth Dilke had left his personal property in the proportion of two-thirds to the elder son and one-third to the younger; and had also exercised a power of appointment which he held by dividing his wife's property in the same way.

Charles Dilke now decided that the shares should be equalized, and secured this by handing over one-sixth of his property to Ashton, who was at this time in Russia, on a journey of exploration extending over the greater part of that Empire.

About this time also Sir Charles purchased _Notes and Queries_ for 2,500 from its founder, Mr. Thoms, the Librarian of the House of Lords, 'one of the dearest old men that ever was worshipped by his friends,' and a devoted admirer of old Mr. Dilke. He appointed Dr. Doran to be editor, "partly as consolation for having refused him the editorship of the _Athenaeum_, for which he had asked as an old contributor and as the yearly acting editor in the 'editor's holiday.'" But Sir Charles's choice had fallen on Mr. Norman MacColl, 'that Scotch Solomon,' as he sometimes called this admirable critic, who conducted the paper for thirty years.

'In the autumn we went abroad again, and took a letter of introduction to George Sand, for whose talent Katie had a great admiration. We missed her at Trouville, but found her afterwards in Paris--an interesting person, hideously ugly, but more pleasant than her English rival novelist, the other pseudonymous George. They had few points in common except that both wrote well and were full of talent of a different kind and were equally monstrous, looking like two old horses.'

Of George Eliot's "talent" he wrote to Hepworth Dixon in 1866:

"The only fact of which I am at this present very certain ... is that Miss Evans is not far from being the best _indirect describer_ of character and the wittiest observer of human nature that has lived in England since Shakespeare, and I think that there are touches in _Amos Barton, Scenes from Clerical Life_, and in the first few chapters of _The Mill on the Floss_ quite worthy of Shakespeare himself."

Also there is reference to a letter quoted in George Eliot's Life which tells that the year 1873 "began sweetly" for her, because "a beautiful bouquet with a pretty legend was left at my door by a person who went away after ringing." 'It was I,' says Sir Charles, 'who left that bouquet and I who wrote that legend. It was Katie who prepared the bouquet and asked me to take it.'

III.

After the tempestuous scene of March 19th, Sir Charles had remained on the whole a silent member of Parliament.

'I am going to keep quiet till the general election' (he says in a letter of May 1st, 1873) 'as the best means of retaining my present seat. If I should be turned out, look out for squalls, as I should then stand on an extreme platform for every vacancy in the North.'

The main objects of the Radical group were, first, extension and redistribution of the voting power, and, secondly, a universal system of compulsory education, controlled by elective school boards. In October of this year (1872) Sir Charles and Lady Dilke went down as Mr. Chamberlain's guests to Birmingham, where Sir Charles spoke on free schools (basing himself, as usual, on his observation of other countries) with Mr.

Chamberlain in the chair. In November there was a return visit, and Mr.

Chamberlain spoke under Dilke's chairmanship at St. James's Hall on electoral reform. 'Chamberlain's was the first important speech that he had delivered to a London public meeting,' and probably these reciprocal visits and chairmanships gave the first general intimation of an alliance which for a dozen years was destined to influence Liberal policy.

In the autumn of 1872, Sir Charles 'started a small Electoral Reform Committee.' Its purpose was to a.s.sist, first, the Bill of Mr. Trevelyan making the qualification for a vote in counties the same as in boroughs, and, secondly, his own resolution which demanded that seats should be redistributed in proportion to the number of electors. The outcome was an arrangement under which Mr. Trevelyan subst.i.tuted for his Bill a resolution dealing with both matters; and this resolution, moved by him and seconded by Sir Charles, afforded annually a gauge of the progress made, as indicated by the division list.

'Chamberlain co-operated with me, but was more keen about his own education subjects.'

At this time the att.i.tude of Sir Charles and his a.s.sociates towards the Liberal party was one of detachment bordering on hostility. Chamberlain, writing from Birmingham on March 2nd, 1873, noted that the Irish University Bill was "going badly in the country, and the Noncons. and Leaguers in the House ought to have the game in their hands." He wished "they would have the pluck to tell Mr. Gladstone that they will do nothing to bolster up a Ministry which will not give satisfactory a.s.surances upon English education;" and he wanted Mr. George Dixon to go on with his resolution in favour of universal free schools and carry it to a division.

"If members do not vote with him, and there is a general election soon, they will have a nice little crow to pick with their const.i.tuents; whereas if there is no division on this issue, all our labour during the recess is lost, and our friends are disheartened....

Viewed _ab extra_, there is no doubt the boldest policy is the best.

It is probable from what I have seen that the weakest course is best suited to the atmosphere of what some people are pleased to call a '_reformed_ House of Commons.'"

In the following week the Irish University Bill which was "going badly in the country" received a new and unexpected stab: Cardinal Cullen denounced it in a pastoral on March 9th. The debate on the second reading terminated during the small hours of March 12th. Government was defeated by three on a division of 284-287. On the 13th Mr. Gladstone's Ministry tendered their resignations, and the Queen sent for Mr. Disraeli, who declined either to accept office or to recommend a dissolution. By March 20th it was formally announced that the Government would go on, but it went on with power and prestige greatly diminished.

On July 6th Chamberlain wrote to Dilke advocating an "irreconcilable policy," and asking for news of any "fanatics willing to join the Forlorn Hope and help in smashing up that whited sepulchre called the Liberal party." This letter concluded with an attack on Mr. Bright, who had just joined the reconstructed Ministry, but whose influence Mr. Chamberlain thought was "quite too small to save the Government." [Footnote: One cause of the Government's unpopularity was the attempt of Mr. Ayrton (First Commissioner of Public Works) to limit the right of public meeting in Hyde Park, to which there is this allusion: 'In July I was greatly occupied in the House of Commons in fighting against Ayrton's Parks Bill. It was at dinner at my house one night that, in his dry, quiet way, old Kinglake chirped out, "For so insignificant a personage Mr. Ayrton is quite the most pompous individual that I know." Mr. Ayrton's unpopularity was a powerful cause of Mr. Gladstone's downfall in 1874.'] Sir William Harcourt, though hardly less discontented, was openly more conformable, and towards the close of 1873 took office as Solicitor- General. He wrote:

"I do not know if I have done a very wise or a very foolish thing.

Probably the latter. But it is done, and my friends must help me to make the best of it. It was a great inducement to me the having Henry James [Footnote: Sir Henry James became Attorney-General in September, 1873.] as a colleague.... I feel like an old bachelor going to leave his lodgings and marry a woman he is not in love with, in grave doubt whether he and she will suit. However, fortunately, _she_ is going to die soon, and we shall soon again be in opposition below the gangway.

The Duke of Argyll says that now I am in harness I must be driven in blinkers; but, then, dukes are insolent by nature. Whatever comes, I shall never leave the House of Commons. I do not see why I am not to be a politician because I am a law officer. Law officers used to be politicians some years ago."

The Civil List question was raised again in Parliament in this year, when the Crown Private Estates Bill was introduced; and an amendment moved by Mr. George Anderson, member for Glasgow, complaining of the secrecy which attached to Royal wills, was supported, not only by Sir Charles, but by "the leader of the old Whigs in the House of Commons," Mr. E. P. Bouverie, a Privy Councillor, who to his horror found himself named to tell against the Bill, and thus identified with the "republican" opposition. 'Speaker Brand no doubt owed him some grudge.' [Footnote: The Right Hon. E. P.

Bouverie had been a very successful Chairman of Committees of the whole House, and was indicated by public option as a probable Speaker. He was recognized as a leading authority on the Law of Parliament.] Dilke's own speech had demanded the annual publication of the receipts and disburs.e.m.e.nts of the Crown Private Estates, and though he waited long to carry his point, he saw this amongst other proposals adopted on the recommendation of the Civil List Committee of 1910, on which he served.

Proof was not wanting that his determined att.i.tude on these matters had won him the support of great ma.s.ses of the democracy. Miners' Unions and Labourers' Unions wrote, begging, some for his portrait, others for an address; also, in places where opposition had been offered to his speaking, reprisals were exacted.

'Early in January, 1873, we went to Derby, at the request of the chairman of my meeting at Derby which had failed in the winter of '71-72, when, though a majority were upon our side, a gang of hired poachers had entrenched themselves in a corner of the room, had burned cayenne pepper, and defied all attempts to drive them out. The chairman was a man of determination who did not mean to be beaten. He organized his meeting on this occasion with almost too much care, for I fancy he brought fighting friends from Nottingham and other bruising places to it. The Tory roughs appeared, as on the former occasion.

Before we were allowed to enter the room they were charged by means of battering rams with such effect that their entrenchments were destroyed, and they themselves were mostly stunned and carried out one by one. No one was dangerously hurt, but there were many broken heads.

Lady Dilke was present in the thick of it, and, according to the newspaper reports, anxiously begged the stewards to deal gently with those whom they threw out. After this the meeting was held in peace.

But the result was a formal Government inquiry, and the removal of the chairman of the meeting from the County Bench by the Lord Chancellor.

He turned clergyman, to the benefit of _Notes and Queries_ and of the societies for antiquarian research, for, being a man of active mind, and finding the care of small parishes of ritualistic tendencies insufficient to occupy his whole time, he became the author of the famous book, _Churches of Derbyshire_, and of much other antiquarian work.'

Sir Charles notes that this address at Derby was in fact his first p.r.o.nouncement on "Free Land." In the following week, at Chelsea, he spoke upon Free Trade, and in both these speeches used the phrase, "Free land, free church, free schools, free trade, free law," laying down, early in 1873, 'the principles on which Chamberlain and John Morley afterwards went in the construction of the pamphlet known as _The Radical Programme_.'