The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke Volume I Part 41

'He in fact admitted the truth of what I had said, but added that he disapproved of the Berlin conversations. "At that time everybody was telling everybody else to take something which belonged to somebody else. One more powerful than Lord Salisbury, more powerful than Lord Beaconsfield, advised me to take Tunis. [Footnote: _Life of Lord Lyons_, vol. ii., p. 224; letter from Lord Lyons to Lord Granville, May 13th, 1881: "They got Bismarck's leave for this."] Lord Salisbury advised me to take an island, and Lord Salisbury may have advised me to take Tripoli." At the State ball in the evening, I told Odo Russell this. He told me that Lord Salisbury had disgusted Corti by forgetting him on the occasion when he told the great men at the Congress of Berlin about the occupation of Cyprus, and that Corti had never forgiven him.'

Egypt also was now a growing anxiety, made graver by the events in Tunis, which excited apprehensions of like proceedings elsewhere. In such a condition of feeling even trifling incidents--as, for example, that of the Smyrna Quays, where the Porte had violated some rights of an English company--grew delicate and critical. All such matters and many others had to be dealt with in the House of Commons by question and answer--a task of no small difficulty, since the susceptibilities of foreign Powers had to be considered, while British interests, no less sensitive, could not be ignored.

The fulfilment of the Treaty of Berlin was meanwhile an enormous addition to the work of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, especially as it was at first complicated by the ill will of Russia, which had hoped that the change of Government might bring about some modifications. It was also complicated by the Porte's unlimited capacity for wasting time. The topics regulated by the treaty and its supplementary conventions, when taken in connection with the Treaties of Paris and London, which it partly superseded, fell under at least seventeen separate heads; each of these branched off into numerous divisions and subdivisions, most of which admitted of possible controversy, while many required executive action by Commissioners on the spot, [Footnote: Thomas Erskine Holland, _The European Concert in the Eastern Question_, pp. 222-225.] such as the delimitation of the boundaries of the new States. Nearly every question involved communications with the signatory Powers, and each of them had a long diplomatic history which had to be studied. M. de Courcel told Sir Charles that in his dreams he always saw a second river flowing by the side of the Danube, as large and as swift, but black--the river of ink which had been shed over the Danube question! Sir Julian Pauncefote, the Permanent Under-Secretary, was credited by Sir Charles with being the only man in England who then understood it; and the question of the Danube, after all, was only one of many.

Questions were continually being asked in the House of Commons, where the expert in foreign affairs was not so rare as he became in a subsequent period; but the inquiries of inexpert persons were the most troublesome of all.

Sir Charles's power of terse and guarded reply was universally considered supreme, and was all the more valuable at a time when the practice had grown up, then comparatively new and since gradually limited, of asking questions on foreign and colonial affairs, with the object of embarra.s.sing Ministers, and without regard to the consequences abroad. It gradually became a dangerous growth, greatly facilitated by the lax procedure, as it then existed, of the House of Commons in regard to supplementary questions. This procedure often allowed question time to degenerate into a sort of ill-regulated debate. Mr. Gladstone's habit of allowing himself very frequently to be drawn into giving a further answer, after the carefully prepared official answer had already been given by the Under- Secretary, was another complication. The brunt of all these troubles had to be borne by the representative of the Foreign Office. [Footnote: Sir Henry Lucy, writing "From the Cross Benches" in this year, discussed critically the various styles of answering questions:

"Sir Charles Dilke's answers are perfect, whether in regard of manner, matter, or style. A small grant of public money might be much worse expended than in reprinting his answer to two questions put last night on the subject of Anglo-French commercial relations, having them framed and glazed, and hung up in the bedroom of every Minister. A good test of the perhaps unconscious skill and natural art with which the answer is drawn up would be for anyone to take the verbatim report which appears in this morning's papers and attempt to make it shorter. There is not a word too much in it. It occupies just twenty-eight lines of print, and it contains a clear and full account of an exceedingly intricate negotiation. The majority of the answers given by Ministers in their places in Parliament appear much better in print than when spoken, redundancies being cut out, parentheses put straight, and hesitancy of manner not appearing. But to the orderly mind and clear intelligence which instinctively brings uppermost and in due sequence the princ.i.p.al points of a question, Sir Charles Dilke adds a frank manner, a clear voice, and an easy delivery."]

Sir Charles was always a close student of Indian government, and many notes on it are scattered through his diary. On January 9th, meeting Mallet at York House with the Grant Duffs, he says: 'I had always held a strong opinion against the India Council, and Mallet confirmed me in my view that the existing const.i.tution was bad. He ought to know.' The Government turned to Dilke for a.s.sistance in debates on foreign affairs, even in a case where the Government of India rather than the Foreign Office was involved.

By the beginning of 1881 England's policy in Afghanistan had been finally determined. The evacuation of Kandahar was now definitive, in spite of opposition from a high quarter. On January 18th 'the Queen telegraphed to Mr. Gladstone at length in a tone of severe rebuke that all her warnings as to Kandahar had been disregarded.' On March 8th Sir Charles received a preliminary warning from Lord Hartington to read up his Central Asian papers, and--

'the Cabinet of March 19th wrote to me to follow Edward Stanhope as to Kandahar debate' (who had been Lord Beaconsfield's Under-Secretary of State for India in 1878, and now naturally led the Tory attack). 'I had to move the direct negative on behalf of the Government. This was a great compliment, as the matter was not in my department, and the only three members of the Government who were to speak were Mr.

Gladstone and Lord Hartington and myself.'

After the debate on March 24th, Lord Granville, having first sent his own congratulations, wrote to say: "Gladstone expressed himself almost poetically about the excellence of your speech." [Footnote: "The speech of the debate was that of Sir Charles Dilke. It was close, cogent, and to the point throughout. His facts were admirably marshalled, so as to strengthen without obscuring his arguments. There was no fencing, no rhetoric, no fighting the air.

He came at once to close quarters with his adversary, and demolished his arguments one after another by a series of cut-and-thrust rejoinders, which left but little to be added by those who followed him on the same side. Mr. Stanhope's attack on the Ministry has been of conspicuous service to at least one Minister" (_Pall Mall Gazette_, edited by Mr. John Morley).]

In the course of this year, Sir Charles, once more diverging from Radical preconceptions, helped Sir Robert Sandeman, who was

'sent over by the Viceroy to state his views. I was able to give him such a.s.sistance with my colleagues as to save the districts (the Pishin districts and the Khojak frontier) to the Indian Government.'

In this Sir Charles was with Lord Ripon, but a draft treaty of Lord Ripon's, which proposed to surrender Merv ('not ours to give'), roused his fierce opposition, and was rejected by the Cabinet. He was always resolute for a strong frontier policy in Central Asia.

The a.s.sa.s.sination of the Emperor of Russia on March 13th in this year roused all the Home Offices into activity, and England was as usual taxed with being the asylum of every desperado. Sir William Harcourt inclined strongly to the demands of the police, including the prosecution of Socialist publications, and he carried the Cabinet with him.

'On March 26th I noted in my diary: "...At to-day's Cabinet Bright was the only Minister who opposed the prosecution of the _Freiheit_, and Chamberlain positively supported it."'

It may be added that Sir Charles was charged by a certain Mr. Maltman Barry with having subscribed to the funds of the _Freiheit_, which was an anarchist publication. The charge was met by an absolute denial, and was supported by no evidence. It was, however, fathered in the House by Lord Randolph Churchill, and this led to a breach of friendly relations with the latter, which lasted for some time.

'On April 9th I was in Paris, and breakfasted with Gambetta, who told me that Bismarck was about to propose a Conference, which was insisted on by Russia, concerning the right of asylum, and we agreed that England and France should refuse together to take part in it.'

A fortnight later Sir Charles, returning from Toulon, was able to offer his congratulations to Gambetta, because France had declined to attend the Conference. But the matter was still open as regarded England, and

'on April 30th, and again on May 3rd, I noted that Sir William was "wrongheaded about the right of asylum," but that I hoped he would not be allowed by his colleagues to offer to legislate on extradition to please the Russians.'

At the Cabinet on May 4th

'there was a long debate upon nihilism. Lord Granville some time before had told the Russians that legislation was intended. That was so, for a Bill had been prepared. But it was clear that it would be foolish to introduce it. Kimberley and Chamberlain were against all proposals to meet the Russians. Then came before the Cabinet the question of Harcourt's reply to Cowen's question to be put on the next day, whether information was given by the English police to the Austrian police as to Socialist addresses in Vienna, which had led to arrests. Our police say that they only told the Austrians of a place where dynamite was stored. This seemed to me a c.o.c.k and bull of Howard Vincent's. Harcourt had drafted a reply about Napoleon Bonaparte, which the Cabinet wanted him to alter, but when he is pleased with an answer it is not easy to make him alter it, as I noted. As our police virtually denied the charge, Harcourt might have given their denial, as theirs, in their own words, but nothing would induce him to do this.'

As regarded Russia, Lord Granville based himself on the fact that a similar arrangement existed between England and Germany, and he questioned whether political offenders would be much safer in a German than in a Russian court of law. To the promise of backing from France, he objected that M. Saint-Hilaire had already pledged himself to an extradition treaty with Russia. On the latter point Sir Charles answered that for this amongst other reasons M. Saint-Hilaire was about to be removed from the French Foreign Office. In the end of October, 1881, Sir Charles was seeing Gambetta frequently, and observes that he was

'much excited about the question of the extradition treaty with Russia....

'Curious though it seems to us (in 1890-1895), when we know how intensely pro-Russian Gambetta's friends now are, Gambetta was intensely anti-Russian and pro-Turk....

'There is the same difference of opinion in the French Cabinet as to the making of an extradition treaty with Russia as there is in ours, where Harcourt wants it and his colleagues do not. This was the only subject discussed at the interview of the Russian and German Emperors at Danzig' (September, 1881), 'and England and France are in their black books.'

Lord Granville constantly referred to Sir Charles for advice as to the temper of the House of Commons, though in this case he supported Sir William Harcourt, and might be excused for failing to see what was plain to Sir Charles as a practical House of Commons politician, that, apart from principles, a Liberal Ministry would be sadly embarra.s.sed if it had to defend the handing over of political refugees to the Russian police, and that the Tories would probably support the Radical wing in a vote of censure.

The combination at the Foreign Office of the two Ministers, the old and the young, the Whig and the democrat, worked excellently, and Lord Granville, in telling Sir Charles that in his absence in France during the Session Hartington must answer his questions, said that 'picking out any of those who are not in the Cabinet is an indication of what would be done when that terrible moment may come to me of your leaving the P.O.' One matter had, however, caused Sir Charles uneasiness.

In the close of the year 1880 there was a proposal to give a charter to the North Borneo Company. No ordinary politician knew anything of this Company, but Sir Charles, while in Opposition, had grounds for asking questions hostile to it, and had stirred up Mr. Rylands to do the same.

This fact Dilke mentioned to Lord Granville. But, finding Foreign Office opinion in favour of the concession, he promised that

'I would not take an active part in opposition to the Charter scheme if and providing the Cabinet approved of it.... On November 19th, 1880, the box, which had been round the Cabinet on the North Borneo business, having returned without any comment by Mr. Gladstone, I got it sent again to Mr. Gladstone, who finally decided, I was informed by Lord Granville, against Herbert of the Colonial Office, Harcourt, Chamberlain, Bright, Childers, and myself, and with Lord Kimberley, the Chancellor, and Lord Granville. So it was settled that the Charter was to be granted; but a little later Mr. Gladstone forgot the decision which he had given, insisted that he had never heard of the matter at all, went the other way and would have stopped the Charter, but for the fact that it was too late.'

This made Sir Charles exceedingly indisposed to undertake the defence of it in a House of Commons where his own questions asked in Opposition would a.s.suredly be quoted against him by Sir John Gorst, who, when the Charter was published in December, tabled a motion against it. 'It was not so much to the thing itself I was opposed as to the manner in which it was done.'

He therefore wrote to Lord Granville that he had made full search for precedents, 'the first thing which occurs to a Radical in distress,' and that finding no modern precedent, he simply could not undertake to defend the Charter, his objections being that to make such a grant without the knowledge of Parliament strained the prerogative of the Crown, and, further, that the Foreign Office was not the fit department to control a colony (as had been urged in the case of Cyprus). He notes: 'Gambetta tells me that he has at once had an application from a similar French Company--for the New Hebrides.' Lord Granville made official reply, with some asperity. But he sent a separate unofficial letter, in which, after treating of other matters, he smoothed over his more formal communication.

These letters were received by Sir Charles on December 27th, 1881, on his return to Paris from Toulon.[Footnote: Later Sir Charles notes: 'My own objections (besides those to the form in which the matter had been considered) were to the absence of sufficient provisions with regard to domestic slavery and opium, but as regards these two latter points I succeeded in getting the gap filled in.'] The unofficial letter ran:

"I have sent you an answer on a separate piece of paper to your rather blowing-up letter about Borneo. You have been misled by Spencer's ignorance and Gladstone's very natural forgetfulness of the particulars. It was more inexcusable of me to have forgotten what it appears you told me about your and Rylands' previous action. When my liver does not act and official work becomes unusually irksome, I sometimes ask myself upon what question I should like to be beaten and turned out. The first would be fair trade. The second, which the _St.

James's_ and Raikes, the late Chairman of Committees, seem to antic.i.p.ate, is failure to reform the procedure of the Commons owing to Tory and Home Rule obstruction. I should not think Borneo a fatal question for this purpose.... There is a great run upon us now as to Ireland, but do you remember a December when it was not generally supposed that the Government of the day was going to the dogs?"

The matter pa.s.sed over, but was serious enough for Mr. Chamberlain to say in January of the following year:

"If, what I do not expect, the affair should proceed to extremities, I shall stand or fall with you."

One other matter of this period is interesting as showing Sir Charles and his chief at work. A draft was on its way to the Colonial Office, 'laying down the law for dealing with fugitive slaves who escaped into the British sphere of influence'--a case of constant occurrence at Zanzibar. Sir Charles's views on this and kindred subjects were strong, and he worked then, as always, with the Aborigines Protection Society. He stopped it--

'and Lord Granville wrote upon my views a characteristic minute': "I think our proposed draft is right and defensible in argument. I also am of opinion that your condemnation of it is right, because the fact is that the national sentiment is so strongly opposed to what is enjoined by international law that it is better not to wake the cat as long as she is asleep!"'

At the end of July, 1881, Lord Granville's health seemed seriously affected, and Sir Charles noted that, apart from his own personal feeling, his chief's enforced retirement would be 'a great misfortune.' The choice would be between Lords Derby, Hartington, Kimberley, and Northbrook. Lord Derby seemed to him 'undecided and weak,' Lord Northbrook still weaker, while Lord Hartington 'knew no French and nothing of foreign affairs.' Of Lord Kimberley's ability he had not then formed a high estimate; but he adds that, having afterwards sat with him in the Cabinet, he changed that opinion, finding him 'a wise man,' who never did himself justice in conversation.

CHAPTER XXV

COMMERCIAL RELATIONS WITH FRANCE

Although in the course of 1881 Sir Charles had refused to defend in the House of Commons a special grant for defraying the Prince of Wales's expenses on a Garter Mission to St. Petersburg, and Lord Frederick Cavendish, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, had to undertake this task, which more properly belonged to the Foreign Office, the Prince's relations with him were cordial. The Prince was increasingly inclined to interest himself in foreign politics, but received very little encouragement from the Court. In June, 1880 (when the rumours as to Challemel-Lacour were being set afloat [Footnote: For an account of these rumours see Chapter XXII., p. 353.]), Sir Charles noted that, as far as he could ascertain, the Prince of Wales,

'being not at this time admitted by the Queen to "official knowledge,"

got the whole of his modern history from the _Figaro_....

'On the evening of February 19th, 1881, I dined with Lord and Lady Spencer to meet the Prince and Princess of Wales. The Prince spoke to me about his anxiety to be kept informed of foreign affairs, and the Princess spoke to me in the same sense, telling me how fond she was of her brother the "King of Greece," and how anxious therefore about his business. The Prince asked me whether he could, while in Paris, do anything to help on the negotiation of a new treaty of commerce, and I wrote to him next morning to suggest the language that he should hold.

Ferry, the Prime Minister, I pointed out, was a Protectionist, and I suggested that the Prince should say to Ferry how important for the good understanding of the two countries it would be to conclude a fair treaty at once....

'On the 18th I had written to Gambetta to tell him that I should be in Paris on April 9th and on April 24th, and that I was to see him, but that no one was to know; and on March 20th I received his answer accepting my conditions. The Prince of Wales had carried out the suggestion which I had made, having taken my letter with him, and read it over immediately before seeing Jules Ferry, upon whom he seemed to have made some impression.'

This Sir Charles learnt from a letter of Gambetta's of March 30th, which ended: "Je vous attends le 9 avril au matin, incognito strict impenetrable, ou le 24 au retour a votre choix." At this meeting Sir Charles received from Gambetta the a.s.surance that delegates would be sent to London to attempt the negotiation of a treaty.