The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke Volume I Part 32

'agreed that Gladstone must be Prime Minister, or would upset the Government within a year. ... Hill advised that I should take the Cabinet without Chamberlain if Gladstone was Prime Minister, but refuse the Cabinet without Chamberlain--_i.e.,_ insist on both being in the Cabinet--if Hartington was Prime Minister.'

By the night of April 23rd, when Sir Charles reached London, the question of Mr. Gladstone's primacy was settled, and Ministry-making had begun, with the decision of Lord Granville to return to the Foreign Office, and Lord Hartington's consent to act as Secretary of State for India. Mr.

Childers went to the War Office, Lord Northbrook to the Admiralty; Lord Selborne, most conservative of Whigs, became Lord Chancellor; Lord Spencer was President of the Council, Lord Kimberley took the Colonies, the Duke of Argyll the Privy Seal. Sir William Harcourt, who had been called "a Whig who talked Radicalism," was Home Secretary. Mr. Forster at the Irish Office, with Lord Cowper as Lord-Lieutenant, did not commend himself greatly to the advanced party, and Mr. Bright, in returning to the Chancellorship of the Duchy, brought with him only a tradition of Radicalism. When it is added that Mr. Dodson was President of the Local Government Board, ground will be seen for a warning which Sir Charles received that, although the victory had been forced upon them by the Radicals almost against their will, the "incorrigible old place-hunters would, if left to have their own way, appropriate the victory and the prizes calmly enough to themselves."

On Sat.u.r.day, April 24th, Sir Charles had two interviews with Sir William Harcourt, and communicated the result to Chamberlain:

'The position is that Gladstone is in the hands of Lord Wolverton, [Footnote: As Mr. Glyn he had been Chief Whip.] the evil counsellor of 1874, and that, while a Whig Premier must have had a Radical Cabinet, Gladstone will say, "You have got me; that is what you asked for," and will give us a Whig Cabinet. Stansfeld is likely to be in the Cabinet owing to W. E. Forster's influence, of which I personally shall be glad. Rosebery is likely to be put in, at which I shall not be sorry.... Gladstone disapproves strongly of people being put straight into the Cabinet who have not held office before. This is for Chamberlain and for me. They are likely to offer me the Under- Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs, which I suppose I shall be unable to accept. Later in the evening I was informally offered the Secretaryship of the Treasury, with management of the Government business in the House. Harcourt at a second interview said that Gladstone intended pedantically to follow Peel's rule that men should not be put straight into the Cabinet without going through non-Cabinet office; and that Chamberlain and I must both take non-Cabinet office; [Footnote: It is worth noting that Sir Robert Peel himself had violated this rule if it ever existed.] that he, Harcourt, strongly advised us to take Under-Secretaryships of which the Secretary was in the Upper House, or the Secretaryship of the Treasury. He then offered me the Under-Secretaryship for the Colonies, to which I replied, "Certainly not." He said, "Remember that with Mr. Gladstone Prime Minister, the Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs will have no chance to speak, because Gladstone will do all the talking." [Footnote: Sir William Harcourt's prophecy received frequent confirmation. See _infra_, pp. 384, 459, 535, and Vol. II., p. 51.] At the same time, there was evidently another reason behind--namely, that Lord Granville had sooner have anybody in his office than me; in other words, he would like me in anybody's office except his own. Harcourt strongly urged me to take office on personal grounds--namely, in order to get over the Queen's prejudice, and so succeed naturally to the first vacancy in the Cabinet. I replied that I had sooner keep my independence than take office without power. He then said curtly, "It will not be a pleasant opposition." I said it would not be an opposition at all, as far as I could see, as I should support the Government and lead a very quiet, humdrum Parliamentary existence.

Harcourt replied, "That is what is always said." "But I shall not be cross," was my last word. I telegraphed at night for Chamberlain, who replied that he would come up at five on Sunday afternoon and dine and sleep. But I prepared him, and was prepared by him, for a double refusal of office. In fact, we were decided on refusal of that which alone was offered.

'On Sunday afternoon, 25th, before seeing Chamberlain, I saw James, who went to Lord Granville and fully stated my views, reporting to me afterwards that Lord Granville seemed inclined to come round a little.

James added of Harcourt: "Confound that Home Secretary! How discreet he is even before kissing hands! I shall live at the Home Office." I went to Euston to meet Chamberlain. We were fully agreed in our line, and he remained at my house the next morning, when I was sent for by Mr. Gladstone through Lord Granville, the note being simply to ask me to call at four o'clock at Lord Granville's house, where Mr. Gladstone was. The questions which I put to Chamberlain were--"Is your former opinion changed by the fact that Mr. Gladstone can, if he likes, do without us, whereas Hartington could not? Or is it changed by the fact that Gladstone's Government will last six years, whereas Hartington's would soon have been modified by Gladstone?" Chamberlain's view was my own view, that, although we were much weaker, we could not change our att.i.tude as regards one of us being in the Cabinet. Before seeing Mr.

Gladstone I had calls from Fawcett and Lefevre. Nothing had been offered to Fawcett; Lefevre had been sounded as to an Under- Secretaryship, and would take it. He told me he was sure that Stansfeld would have the Local Government Board again and be in the Cabinet. Childers came three times to see me in the course of the day, and said that he was most anxious that I should be in the Cabinet and Chamberlain in a good place outside it; but that the Queen had made a difficulty about my Republicanism, and he asked me to write him a letter about it. I declined to say anything new, but ultimately we agreed that I should write him a letter marked "Private," in which I wrote to the effect that on March 13th I had been asked the question at a meeting, and that my answer had been in the newspapers on March 15th, that it was the same answer which I had made before the election in 1874, and that I had nothing to alter in it.' [Footnote: The rest of the letter gave a full account of the incident of Sat.u.r.day, March 13th, 1880:

"The Tories sent the 'Reverend' W. Pepperell, an ex-dissenting minister, to a meeting of mine, who asked me 'whether it was true that I was a republican?' I replied to the effect that 'while as a matter of speculative opinion I thought that a country starting afresh--as France after Sedan--would in these days generally do better to adopt a republican form of government than a limited monarchy, yet that in a country possessing a const.i.tutional monarchy it would be mere folly to attempt to upturn it, and consequently folly even to try to disturb it.' The answer was a very long one, and was nowhere _fully_ reported, but everything in it was on these lines."]

A copy of this letter was ultimately brought to the Queen, and on May 5th returned by Sir Henry Ponsonby with the words, "Her Majesty accepts Sir Charles Dilke's explanation." But Lord Granville, through whom it had been sent, and who had by that time become Sir Charles's immediate chief, softened the austerity of this formula by explaining that the Queen in a private letter had said she was "quite ready to believe all I had told her about you, having known you as a child."

These preliminary conversations having occupied the morning, Sir Charles set out after luncheon for the decisive interview.

'When I got to Lord Granville's I found Lord Granville, Lord Wolverton, and Mr. Gladstone in the room, and Mr. Gladstone at once offered me the Under-Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs. I asked who was to be in the Cabinet. I was told Mr. Gladstone, Lord Granville, Hartington, Harcourt, and Lord Spencer. Further than this, they said, nothing was settled. I asked, "What about Chamberlain?" Mr. Gladstone replied to the effect that Chamberlain was a very young member of the House who had never held office, and that it was impossible to put him straight into the Cabinet. I then said that this made it impossible that I should accept the Under-Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs, or any place. Mr. Gladstone said he would see whether anything could be done, but that he feared not. I then asked whether, supposing that anything could be done in my direction, I should be excluding Grant Duff [Footnote: Sir M. Grant Duff had been spoken of for this office in 1868, and had then in that Ministry become Under-Secretary of State for India. In 1880 he was--much to Sir Charles's joy--made Under- Secretary for the Colonies, his chief, Lord Kimberley, being in the Lords.] from the Under-Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs, because I said that I should be very sorry to do that, for both personal and public reasons. He replied that if I refused it, it would not be offered to Grant Duff; and I then left....

'On Tuesday morning Chamberlain was sent for, and accepted a seat in the Cabinet (with the Presidency of the Board of Trade), and at one o'clock I accepted the Under-Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs. Just about this time I received a message from James: "Do, for the sake of our future comfort, take something. The Bench will be dreadfully dull.

Stansfeld _in_ office must be worse than Stansfeld out." But Stansfeld was not in office. What had interfered at the last moment to prevent an appointment which was resolved upon I never knew for certain.

[Footnote: Mr. Stansfeld is generally believed to have refused office owing to his wish to devote himself entirely to the cause of a special measure of social reform in which he was interested.] But, as they had not intended to put Chamberlain in, and I forced him in, I suppose that Stansfeld was the man who had to make way for Chamberlain.'

II.

So ended the negotiations. The Radical wing had a.s.serted itself, and a.s.serted itself successfully. It had been enabled to do so by Sir Charles's action. To him the matter represented the mere carrying out of a bargain; but friends were, as is natural in such a case, remonstrant, and he was accused of "needless self-sacrifice," of "Quixotic conduct," of "self-abnegation," of "your usual disinterestedness in politics," and the bargain was much criticized. A letter from Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, congratulating Sir Charles on the stand he had made, added: "Not that I am altogether satisfied with the result. I had a.s.sumed that as a matter of course you would be in the Cabinet. I share the universal feeling that of the two you had the undoubted claim to priority." But this regret was probably based on more than personal grounds, and may well be read with a letter written many years afterwards, in July, 1914:

"The real truth is that Dilke was too big a man to be an Under- Secretary in 1880, and the whole position was a false one. I fancy Lord Granville felt it to be so. One of his best points was his readiness to recognize ability. I think he desired Dilke's sphere in the Office to be as large as possible consistently with the general arrangements of the Office, but it is always difficult to make special arrangements work smoothly if they are based on a false principle.

"Dilke ought to have insisted on being in the Cabinet. It was very much to his honour that he did not do so."

Lord Fitzmaurice goes on to say that in the making of the Cabinet public opinion would have subst.i.tuted Sir Charles Dilke for Mr. Dodson, who, in spite of his work as Chairman of Committees from 1868 to 1873, and afterwards as Secretary to the Treasury--("he would have made an excellent Speaker")--had done but little in the House for the party in the long period of Opposition from 1874 to 1880.

A mistake had, in fact, been made. The strong man should be put where his services can avowedly be best utilized. This statement is true of Chamberlain. He was, as the _Times_ put it, "the Carnot of the moment, the organizer of Liberal victory." [Footnote: Neither Sir Charles Dilke nor Mr. Chamberlain would, however, have desired to underrate the great share in organizing the victory of Mr. Adam, the princ.i.p.al Liberal Whip in the House of Commons, whose services were generally considered to have been very insufficiently recognized by Mr. Gladstone.] Moreover, the confidence and friendship which led to constant consultations on every point between the two men guaranteed an added power to Sir Charles behind the scenes, and to him power, and not the appearance of power, was the essential thing. But Dilke's position also as a Parliamentarian, his acknowledged power and insight on questions both of Home and Foreign Affairs, his following inside and outside the House of Commons, had created a claim of long standing to Cabinet rank, and its abandonment made the "false position" to which Lord Fitzmaurice alludes. Although Mr. Disraeli was reported to have said, apropos of Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, that an Under- Secretary for Foreign Affairs with his chief in the House of Lords holds one of the most important positions in a Ministry, nevertheless the Under- Secretary is the subordinate of his chief, and Lord Granville's reputation as Foreign Minister was great.

That personal difficulties at least were overcome is shown by a note of Lord Granville, written when Sir Charles left the Foreign Office in 1882, but the note is in itself a commentary on the "false position":

"WALMER CASTLE, "_December 27th_, '82.

"MY DEAR DILKE,

"As this is the day you expect to go to the Local Government Board, I cannot help writing you one line. I will not dwell upon the immense loss you are to me and to the Office. You are aware of it, and I have no doubt will continue to help us both in the Cabinet and in the House, and will be ready to advise the Under-Secretary and myself. I must, however, say how deeply grateful I am for our pleasant relations, which might easily have been a little strained from the fact that it was a sort of fluke that you were my Under-Secretary instead of being my colleague in the Cabinet. As it is, nothing could be more satisfactory and more pleasant to me, and the knowledge we have obtained of one another will strengthen and cement our friendship.

"Yours,

"G."

III.

Sir Charles's acknowledged authority in foreign affairs made his appointment a matter of congratulation among foreign diplomatists. It was welcomed on the ground that it would correct Mr. Gladstone's presumed tenderness towards Russia, and, above all, would make a bond of union with France through his personal relations with Gambetta, who wrote on April 28th:

"CHER AMI,

"Merci pour votre lettre de ce matin. Je trouve votre determination excellente, et si la depeche de 4 heures qui annonce votre entree dans le Cabinet, en qualite de sous secretaire d'etat aux Affaires etrangeres, est vraie, vous serez universellement approuve.

"Pour ma part, je vous felicite bien cordialement de la victoire que vous venez de remporter, car je sais qu'avec des hommes tels que vous on peut etre a.s.sure que c'est une victoire feconde en resultats pour la civilisation occidentale et le droit europeen.

"Votre presence au Foreign Office est bien decisive pour dissiper les dernieres apprehensions et effacer jusqu'aux souvenirs les plus persistents.

"Mais vous devez avoir autre chose a faire qu'a lire des lettres inutiles.

"Je vous serre les mains,

"LeON GAMBETTA."

The letter was 'couched in such terms as to make it desirable to answer him with some statement of the views of the Government,' and Sir Charles consulted Lord Granville about his reply, which would 'really be a despatch,' and must 'say something about 1870' and the period of Lord Granville's previous tenure of the Foreign Office. With recollections of that time in their minds, and of England's entry upon the Black Sea Conference without the presence of a French representative, French politicians had commented very jealously upon some references to Gambetta in a speech delivered by Lord Granville at Hanley in March of this year.

Lord Granville accordingly sent Dilke a memorandum in his own hand, suggesting words for the reply. Gambetta was to be told that a speech "made before the election" had been interpreted by some of his supporters in the Press "as of a personal character against him," that Dilke knew this to have been "the reverse of the speaker's intention," and that he would be glad to have a talk with Gambetta on the subject of Lord Granville's policy during the war when he next had the opportunity of meeting him in Paris.

'But it was indeed difficult for Lord Granville to say anything about his policy during the war which would please the French.' Gambetta's official reply was, however, that, having read Lord Granville's speech, he found it "proper under the circ.u.mstances and impartial," and that, although "absurd ideas with regard to our recent elections had been ascribed to himself,"

he had "desired nothing in those elections" except Sir Charles's personal triumph. To this Lord Granville rejoined: "Please thank M. Gambetta for his friendly message. I presume you will not tell him that Lyons says his a.s.sertion about the elections is a tremendous cracker."

Sir Edward Malet, Resident at Cairo, [Footnote: Afterwards Amba.s.sador at Berlin.] wrote:

"We have had one Under-Secretary after another" (at the Foreign Office) "who knows nothing about these affairs, and who has therefore never been able to exert the legitimate influence to which his position ent.i.tled him. It will now be different, and I hope soon to recognize the thread of your thought in the texture of the Government policy."

M. Gennadius, the Greek Charge d'Affaires, while the matter was still open, implored him not to decline. "All your Greek friends consider our country's cause as dependent on your acceptance. You have done much for us already. Make this further sacrifice."

Sir Charles entered upon his functions on Thursday, April 29th, when his colleague, the Permanent Under-Secretary, Lord Tenterden, took him round to be introduced to the heads of the various departments. For his private secretary he chose Mr. George Murray, [Footnote: Now the Right Hon. Sir G.

Murray, G.C.B.] "an extraordinarily able man." But in a few weeks Mr.

Murray was transferred to the Treasury, and afterwards became secretary to Mr. Gladstone, and, later, to Lord Rosebery when Prime Minister.

'I found' (from Bourke, his predecessor, who had written to him with great cordiality) 'that as Under-Secretary for the Foreign Office, I had the Cabinet key--or most secret key that at that time there was: another still more secret key being introduced after I was in the Cabinet, and confined to the Cabinet itself. I found in the Foreign Office that if I liked I might have got back the "Department" which Lord Derby took away from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary in 1874, leaving him only the Commercial Department. [Footnote: The "Department" a.s.signed to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary before 1874 was 'control of' some branch of foreign affairs in its details. See also below, p. 349.] But I at once decided that I would not have it, as I wanted to concern myself with the Parliamentary business and with the important business, instead of doing detailed work at the head of one section of it.'

On the evening of his first day in office Sir Charles gave a dinner at Sloane Street to several of his colleagues. There were present

'Fawcett, just appointed Postmaster-General, Lord Northbrook, Childers, Forster, Hartington, and Goschen.... Chamberlain was at my dinner, having taken up his quarters with me for a week....

'Hartington after dinner showed me Indian despatches which were very startling. Mr. Goschen told us that he had refused the Governor- Generalship of India and the Emba.s.sy at Constantinople, but he afterwards took Constantinople. He appeared at this moment to have made up his mind to stay in the House of Commons to oppose equalization of the franchise and redistribution of seats....

'Forster told us that he was starting for Ireland to see whether he could avoid some renewal of coercion; and Chamberlain and I told him that he _must_ avoid it. This was the cloud no bigger than a man's hand.'

Sir Charles goes on to tell how he stayed for a time its development:

'On the night of May 13th, between one and two o'clock in the morning, I did a thing which many will say I ought not to have done--namely, went down to a newspaper office to suggest an article against the policy of another member of the Government. Under the circ.u.mstances, I think that I was justified. I was not a member of the Privy Council or of the Cabinet, and the interests of the party were at stake, as subsequent events well showed. There was no shade of private or personal interest in the matter. The effect of what I did was to stop the policy of which I disapproved for the year, and might easily have been to stop it for ever. I had found out in the course of the evening that Forster was in favour of a Coercion Bill, and that the Cabinet were likely to adopt it. I went down to the _Daily News_ office, and told Hill, not even telling Chamberlain until two years afterwards what I had done. The result of it was that the _Daily News_ had an article the next morning which smashed Forster's plan.'