The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke Volume I Part 28

CHAPTER XVIII

THE ZULU WAR AND THE GREEK COMMITTEE

The chronicle of the year 1879 begins with a visit paid by Sir Charles to Paris on his way back from his house near Toulon, to which he had returned after the brief Session of December, On February 2nd 'I breakfasted with Gambetta. His furniture was being packed up for removal to the Palais Bourbon, where he was about to take up residence as President of the Chamber,' and 'saw him again late at night at the office of his paper'

(_La Republique Francaise_). 'Gambetta was then,' says a note added later, 'at the height of his power, and, in fact, Dictator. He was a patriot, but too big for the Republic.'

'On my return to London I found that Chamberlain was most anxious to see me,' and on February 5th Sir Charles went to Birmingham, to discuss their joint line of action in the coming Session. During this visit 'Chamberlain told me of Lord Beaconsfield's pleasant prophecies with regard to myself, of which I heard from all sides just after this time.'

The "pleasant prophecies" declared that Sir Charles would certainly be Prime Minister. Mr. Gladstone, it will be seen later, came to the conclusion in 1882 that Dilke would be his natural successor in the House of Commons; but this opinion was given only a little in advance of a widely received public estimate, and it came after the test of office had proved those qualities which Lord Beaconsfield discerned while the younger statesman was still only a private member of the Opposition, not promoted to the Front Bench.

But no one, even in 1879, doubted that Sir Charles was of Front Bench rank; and close upon this came a decisive opportunity in Parliament.

Trouble, which threatened to become acute, between the Zulu power under Cetewayo and his encroaching Boer neighbours had led the British Government to carry out the annexation of the Transvaal during the course of 1877. The Zulus were inclined to trust the British more than the Dutch; but the advent of Sir Bartle Frere as High Commissioner put a new complexion on matters. Frere had made up his mind that the Zulu power must be broken, and a pretext was soon found in a demand for the abolition of the Zulu military system. This ultimatum was presented on December 11th, 1878, by Frere, of his own motion, and without warning to the Home Government. The inevitable refusal followed, leading to invasion of the Zulu territory, with disastrous result. On January 23rd, 1879, Lord Chelmsford's force was cut to pieces at Isandhlwana; and it seemed possible that the whole colony of Natal might be overrun by Zulu _impis_.

This was the governing factor of the political situation at the moment when Parliament reopened in 1879. Sir Charles had not previously taken a prominent part in the discussion of South African affairs, and his att.i.tude is indicated only by isolated pa.s.sages in the Memoir.

In 1875, when Lord Carnarvon sent J. A. Froude to 'stump South Africa' in advocacy of a scheme of federation devised in Downing Street, Sir Charles condemned a mission which seemed to him to cast a slur on the local Colonial governments. In his opinion, this mission helped to create those disturbances which rent South Africa in the succeeding years. On May 27th, 1877, he noted that the Blue Book on the Transvaal, then published, was 'an indictment of the Republic intended to justify the annexation,' but that it did not 'show the existence of any overwhelming necessity for annexation, or, indeed, any necessity at all.' Yet he gave only a half- hearted support to Mr. Courtney's opposition to the South Africa Bill when those matters were debated in the House, for, as he wrote in a letter to the _Spectator_, he was opposed, "not to the policy of annexation, which, as leading up to confederation," he supported, "but to the manner in which that annexation had been carried out." It was said to have been done by the desire of the Dutch themselves. If so, why were three battalions of British troops still needed in the Transvaal? The Bill did not establish a self-governing federation; it only provided that federation might be established by an Order in Council. What guarantee had the Dutch, he asked, that such an order would ever be issued?

Events justified his question, for the promise was never made good, even when the Liberals themselves came into office, and Sir Charles resented the iniquity of this dealing.

In February, 1878, he met Froude at dinner, and 'discussed with him the South African question, on which we took widely different views, and of which his were to be the source of much unhappiness to the Mother Country and the Colonies.'

With the difficulty of the Transvaal the Zulu outbreak was indirectly connected. Great Britain had been drawn into strife with the Zulu power, which had for more than thirty years lived peaceably beside the Natal Government, only because the annexation had made England responsible for the peace of the disputed territories beyond the Vaal. There was also a strong if indirect connecting-link in the personality of Sir Bartle Frere, who, as High Commissioner in South Africa, had belittled the Boer claims, and who now by a violent stretch of authority had precipitated war with the Zulus.

After his discussion with Chamberlain at Birmingham, Sir Charles had decided to indict the Government's South African policy on the first possible occasion, and he communicated this intention to Lord Hartington.

Owing to the prolonged winter Session there was to be no Queen's Speech, and consequently no Address, at the opening of Parliament, and Sir Stafford Northcote was to begin the proceedings with a general statement.

Lord Hartington, after some hesitation as to the course to be pursued, ultimately commissioned Sir Charles to reply at once on behalf of the Opposition--a task which would naturally fall to the official leader of the party. The opportunity thus given to him was the more notable because the Liberal chiefs were divided as to the line which should be taken.

Harcourt, Sir Charles records, 'tried to prevent me from bringing forward any motion as to the Zulu War,' but Chamberlain was strong in the opposite sense. "We want to din into the const.i.tuencies," he wrote, "that the Government policy is one of _continual_, petty, fruitless, unnecessary, and inglorious squabbles--all due to their bullying, nagging ways." This was consonant with the Birmingham leader's fierce opposition to Jingoism; and for once he shared the view of his t.i.tular leader.

'Hartington fell in with the view taken by Chamberlain, and my notice to call attention to the South African papers and the causes of the war was given with his consent. The bad news from the Cape '--news of Isandhlwana--' which came on February 11th, had changed his former view. My speech on Northcote's motion was on the 13th February.'

He then brought forward on behalf of the Liberal party a resolution condemning the Government's policy in South Africa, and more especially the conduct of Sir Bartle Frere. The date for this main attack was not fixed till after considerable delay, and before it arrived the words of the motion which stood in Sir Charles's name were annexed bodily, and put down in the name of Lord Lansdowne, to be moved in the Lords on an earlier day. Lord Lansdowne sat on the Liberal Front Bench in the Upper House (where he took an active part in criticism of Conservative policy), and Sir Charles called this proceeding "taking the bread out of a private member's mouth," despite the implied compliment to his tact in drafting the Resolution. Sunday, the 23rd March, he spent at Mentmore, Lord Rosebery's house, where Lord and Lady Granville were staying, and he notes:

'I could not but think (although Lord Granville was very civil and told me that he had advised the King of the Belgians to go to the House of Commons on the following Thursday to hear my speech) that if Lord Granville had thought that my speech was going to be a success, he would not have stolen my motion for Lord Lansdowne to bring it on first in the House of Lords. I could not see the wisdom of the tactics, because it was already certain we should have a better division in the Commons, proportionately speaking, than in the Lords.

At Devonshire House, on the previous Wednesday, Lord Lansdowne came up to me in the entrance hall, where it is rather dark, and began talking to me, and as I did not see who it was, he introduced himself-- "Lansdowne the pirate," of course in allusion to the robbery of my words.'

The words were--

"That this House, while willing to support Her Majesty's Government in all necessary measures for defending the possessions of Her Majesty in South Africa, regrets that the ultimatum which was calculated to produce immediate war should have been presented to the Zulu king without authority from the responsible advisers of the Crown, and that an offensive war should have been commenced without imperative or pressing necessity or adequate preparation; and this House further regrets that after the censure pa.s.sed, upon the High Commissioner by Her Majesty's Government in the despatch of the 19th day of March, 1879, the conduct of affairs in South Africa should be retained in his hands."

'These words did not please all men. Fawcett wrote me two strong letters to protest against them. Lord Granville also discussed them at some length with me in writing. Fawcett was largely moved by detestation of Sir Bartle Frere, and, while my chief object was to stop the war, his object was to force Frere to resign. The feeling against the proconsul was strong among the Liberals.

'On the 25th the debate in the Lords took place. The House was thronged, the galleries being filled with ladies, and (there being a Court mourning) all in black--save one, Lady ----. She was in scarlet from top to toe, or more than toe, for she displayed a pair of long scarlet stockings to a startled House, and each member as he came in said, "Good gracious me, who's that?" so that Lansdowne could hardly begin for the buzz. His speech was dull, and the result was favourable to the Government. Two days later I brought forward my motion in the Commons, and had a great personal success, receiving the congratulations of all the leading men of both parties. I spoke for two hours and a half, and kept the House full, without ever for an instant being in doubt as to the complete success of the speech; greatly cheered by my own side, without being once questioned or interrupted by the other. But the speech was far from being my best speech, although it was by far my greatest success. It was an easy speech to make--a mere Blue-Book speech. The case from the papers was overwhelming. All that had to be done was to state it in a clear way, and I should think that more than half the speech consisted of mere reading of extracts, which, however, I read in such a way as to incorporate them in the body of the speech. The opening and the conclusion, both of which were effective, were not my own; for they were suggested to me, only I think on the same day, by William Rathbone, who sometimes thought of a good way of putting things. While I was gratified by the success of the speech, I could not help feeling how completely these things are a matter of opportunity, inasmuch as I had made dozens of better speeches in the House, of which some had been wholly unsuccessful.'

Nothing was wanting to the completeness of the after-effects of his House of Commons triumph.

'The general feeling seemed to be, as Lord Reay put it in his letter of congratulation, that my speech on South African affairs was "the Cape of Good Hope of the Liberal party."' [Footnote: Lord Reay (Baron Mackay of Ophemert), a Hollander by birth, then recently naturalized, spoke with special authority when South Africa was in question. The Barony was originally Scotch, and created in 1628. A peerage of the United Kingdom was conferred on Lord Reay (the eleventh Baron) in 1881.]

By this speech his contemporaries remember Sir Charles as a speaker. Sir George Trevelyan writes:

"His great speech on South Africa was a wonderful exposition, lucid, convincing, detailed, without being heavy. I can well recall how old members admired the manner in which he ticked off topic after topic, with its due amount of ill.u.s.tration from the Blue-Books."

A letter to Mrs. Pattison, written, as he says in it, "under the violent excitement of a splendid personal success," contains his own estimate. The congratulations of leading men of all parties were couched, he said, "in such a way as made me realize how badly I had always spoken before." And in his Memoir he adds the modest comment that 'praise was forthcoming in abundance. The only praise, however, that I can accept as fairly belonging to this speech, is praise for a past of work which had led up to it.'

The result, especially with an indolent man like Lord Hartington as leader, was that the conduct of the Opposition's case was increasingly left to Sir Charles Dilke. _Truth_ put the popular view amusingly enough in Hiawathan verse:

"Never absent, always ready To take up the burning question Of the hour and make a motion: Be it Cyprus, be it Zulu, He can speak for hours about it From his place below the gangway.

No Blue Book avails to fright him: He's the stomach of an ostrich For the hardest facts and figures, And a.s.similates despatches In the most surprising fashion."

A serious tribute to his success follows:

'I was asked by Sir Thomas Bazley, who was eighty-two years of age, to stand for Manchester in his place, with a promise from Manchester that my expenses would be paid. But I was under a volunteered pledge not to leave Chelsea until beaten, which I thought I should be "this time."'

Sir Charles records as one feature of the debate the sudden and painful failure of Mr. Lowe's. .h.i.therto great debating powers:

'On the second night of the debate I dined with Sir Charles Forster'

(member for Walsall, and well known as a dinner-giver to the chiefs of the Liberal party) 'to meet Lord Hartington, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr.

Bright. Almost the sole topic of conversation was the breakdown in the debate of Lowe, who had apparently been trusting as usual to his. .h.i.therto marvellous memory, when this had failed him, and he stopped short' (in the middle of a sentence), 'and failed ever, henceforward, to regain his power.'

The future of Greece engaged Sir Charles's attention far more constantly than this South African embroilment. Cyprus was a branch of the Greek question, and (in a speech of March 20th, 1879) he had attacked Wolseley's administration of the island. The General replied in a Blue Book, which was debated on June 20th, 1879:

'The Cypriotes were so excited that they were sending me not only every fact, but every story, and as it was difficult to sift them in London, I dare say some of the charges were untrue and some were certainly trivial.'

One telegram had complained bitterly of the injustice done to two priests whose beards were cut off in a British gaol, although nothing was said as to the justice of their imprisonment. But "the existence of forced labour under our rule had certainly been admitted," said Sir Charles in his speeches on the question, and on this and on the law which the Government of Cyprus had pa.s.sed, taking to itself powers of arbitrary exile without trial, he rested a case in which he persevered throughout the Session, debating Cyprus 'at such length, I fear, as to bore the House.' He relates that he once began a speech on Cyprus before a party of members set out for the Crystal Palace to dine, and was still delivering the same speech when they came back. Later, when in office, he was able to make the administrative changes he desired for the benefit of the island.

One result of Sir Charles's interest in the affairs of Cyprus was to bring down upon him 'an enormous correspondence in modern Greek, to read which I had to engage the services of a translator.'

'The Cypriote Bishops are the most long-winded people with whom I ever had to do, and their communications, although flattering, were somewhat burdensome. I was also receiving many letters in modern Greek from Athens and various centres of Greek activity with regard to the proceedings of the Greek Committee, and I received addresses from Epirus and from the other Turkish provinces and islands inhabited by Greeks in which there was any thought of cession. I was appointed Honorary President of the "Zenon," whatever that might be, and received similar appointments from various Greek societies. I am, indeed, also a "citizen of Athens."'

He received the freedom of that city on July 12th, 1879; the Grand Cross of the Saviour was also offered, but declined.

'On Sunday, March 30th, Hartington sent to me to exchange notes upon the position of the Greek question, and his att.i.tude seemed to me that, as he did not understand anything about it, he hoped I was being careful and not doing anything very wrong. At all events, he left me to myself, and I delivered my soul in the House.'

This he did on April 17th, putting forward a complaint that, although Greece looked to Great Britain's representatives at the Congress of Berlin for a traditional championship of the h.e.l.lenic claims, Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury had allowed the proposal for an extension of Greek territory to come from French diplomatists; and, further, that the recommendation to this effect inserted in the Treaty of Berlin had been evaded by Turkey. He described in his speech the delays and the unsatisfactory proposals which had been put forward by Turkey in conference with Greek delegates, and demanded European pressure to carry out the declared intentions of Europe. A special obligation of honour rested upon England, so he held, because England had induced Greece to desist from war when Turkey was at grips with Russia, and when the Greeks, by attacking, might easily have secured possession of the territory they desired.

These representations were put forward a month later as the general appeal of the Greek Committee, which had existed as a secret body for a year, but was formally and publicly organized on April 25th, 1879. Preparations were begun for a public meeting, and after several conferences with Lord Lansdowne

'I invited the speakers and drew up an appeal to the public, and acted as Chairman of the Executive Committee, with Rosebery for President and Lefevre for Treasurer. The meeting was held at Willis's Rooms on May 17th, 1879, and was attended by men of all shades of opinion--the Duke of Westminster, Sir Robert Peel, an independent Conservative, and several other Conservatives, as well as the ma.s.s of the Liberals. I presided, and Lansdowne moved the first resolution.'

Dilke said afterwards that this meeting had been 'sufficiently interesting to keep Harcourt and a Duke standing for three hours--putting Harcourt first because he was the more august.'

Immediately afterwards he went to Liverpool, as the guest of the Liverpool Reform Club, to speak specially upon the Greek question.

'My speech was dull; the best thing said in the course of the evening was said by a man who had been _Daily News_ correspondent in Crete-- "They talk of Europe! What is Europe? Europe is a number of wicked old gentlemen with decorations, a.s.sembled in a room."