The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke Volume I Part 46

'Chamberlain wrote on April 2nd two letters, one for me and one for me to show to Lord Granville.... In the latter he said:

'"I am very sorry to hear that any notice has been taken of the absentees in the vote for Prince Leopold's grant. Considering the strong views held on this subject by the Radical party in the country, I think their representatives in the Government made great sacrifices in order to maintain unity of action as far as possible. You and Fawcett and Trevelyan have on previous occasions, both by speech and vote, and on strictly const.i.tutional grounds, opposed these grants, and you could not have supported the present one without loss of self- respect and of public reputation. For myself, I agree in your opposition, but having never taken any public part in reference to the question, and having never voted against the grant itself, I felt myself free to yield my opinion to that of the majority, and to vote with the rest of my colleagues in the Cabinet. In your case such a course was impossible, having regard to the prominence which, through no fault or desire of your own, has been given to your past action in the matter, and which has made you in some sort the chief Parliamentary representative of objections which are widely felt to the present mode of providing for members of the Royal Family. When the Government was formed I mentioned this point to Mr. Gladstone, and told him you could not vote for any grant of the kind. He asked me if I was equally pledged, and I replied that this was not the case. Mr.

Gladstone then said that, of course, a divergence of opinion in a member of the Cabinet would be more serious than in a Minister outside the Cabinet, and I took it for granted that under the circ.u.mstances you, at least, would not be expected to vote at all. I a.s.sume that although the subject has now been referred to, there is not the slightest intention or suggestion from any quarter that you should resign on such a matter. If there were, I have not the least hesitation in saying that I should make common cause with you; and I cannot conceive that any Radical would consent to hold office in a Government which had expelled one of its most popular members, and one of the few representatives of the most numerous section of the Liberal party, for such a cause. But I cannot believe in the possibility of any such intention. If I did I might end with Lord Hartington's celebrated postscript, and 'Thank G.o.d we should soon be out of this d--d Government.'

'"Yours ever,

'"J. Chamberlain."

'I received further letters about the matter from Lord Granville, who ultimately replied on April 4th that "Gladstone does not admit your contention." But he said, "The case is not likely to arise again for some time.... In the meantime he approves my writing to the Queen off my own bat," and this was done accordingly, the letter not being shown to me, so that I do not know what was in it. But the whole matter came up again in the autumn, when it was proposed to put me in the Cabinet.'

Sir Charles wished on public grounds to get rid of questions as to these grants, the recurrence of which must always lead to trouble, and to do this by settling them on a principle. But also he was desirous to forward the wishes of the Prince of Wales, and in the month of May he devised a method for meeting the difficulty, which might be proposed by the Prince himself.

'On Friday Mr. Gladstone talked for an hour to me about the Royal Grants question, and the conversation was satisfactory on both sides, for he told the Cabinet yesterday that it had been satisfactory to him. In the course of it he said that many years ago a memorandum on the provision for the younger branches of the Royal Family had been agreed upon by the Cabinet, and shown to the chiefs of the Opposition.

He added that this was a course perhaps not so wise as would have been the appointment of a Select Committee of the House of Commons. I at once told him that the consideration of the subject, which had not been discussed by the Civil List Committee at the beginning of the reign, by a later Select Committee, would in my opinion have prevented all but most unreasonable opposition to the various grants. There are many years to spare, and I only write because the matter is fresh in my mind.... My suggestion is that when provision is proposed for the establishment of the eldest son of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, for whom a liberal provision would be made without reasonable opposition, as he is in the direct line of succession, it should (at the same time) be stated by the Government of the day that the question of the extent of the provision for the younger children of the Prince and Princess of Wales should be, on the motion of the Government, considered by a Select Committee. On that Committee all shades of opinion ought in prudence to be represented, and to it as much information be given as is given to the Civil List Committee at the beginning of the reign. Its decisions would be respected by all who value Parliamentary methods, and much unseemly wrangling would be prevented for many years. The fate of this plan, however prudent it may be, would be certain if it came from anyone except His Royal Highness himself or the Prime Minister of the day.'

Sir Charles embodied this suggestion in a letter to Mr. Knollys of May 9th. The proposal was agreed to in principle by Mr. Gladstone's Government in 1885, and it was adopted later on.

'On May 3rd I had heard from Knollys that the Prince, who had frequently been restive about not getting Foreign Office information, which Lord Granville would not allow him to have for fear he should let it out, had made Knollys write to Sir Henry Ponsonby to ask him to beg the Queen to direct Lord Granville to send the Prince the confidential telegrams.... On the 7th Knollys sent me Sir Henry Ponsonby's "not very satisfactory reply," and a copy of his answer.'

In the reply Mr. Knollys pointed out that the Prince was under the impression that the Queen would have wished him to know as much of what was going on as possible. The question whether telegrams were to be shown to the Prince depended entirely on Her Majesty, as Lord Granville would not be likely to raise difficulties in the matter if the Prince put his wishes before him. The fact that the private secretaries of Cabinet Ministers had Cabinet keys, and therefore had access to all confidential doc.u.ments, was quoted as showing the curious position of the Prince.

The Queen persisted in her objection, and Sir Charles supplied the lack of official access to the papers by keeping the Prince privately informed from day to day in critical moments. He spent the first Sunday in February of this year at Sandringham,

'where the company was chiefly sporting, even the clergyman who performed the service being the famous "Jack" Russell, eighty-seven years of age, known in Devonshire as "the hunting parson"....

'On March 21st the Prince of Wales invited me to go with him to see the Channel Tunnel works, and to bring the map of Central Asia, and to explain to him the matters that we were discussing with the Russians.

But I was unable or unwilling to go--probably unwilling because of overwork, and dislike to commit myself to the Channel Tunnel project.

I was one of those who thought that the Channel Tunnel was far less important in a commercial sense than was generally believed, and, on the other hand, I feared that the creation of it might lead to panic....'

Later: 'I converted the Prince of Wales to oppose the Channel Tunnel.'

The one matter which, Sir Charles notes, still caused serious friction between himself and his Chief came up in this Session. On February 12th

'I was still fighting about Borneo and about a Garter Mission to the King of Saxony, which I thought a waste of public money, and I was in a difficulty with the Cabinet as to Errington's mission--of the details of which I was not kept informed.

'Wolff, who evidently had been told something by Errington himself, gave notice of a question to ask Hartington whether communications had taken place with the Papal See as to prelates in India, and Lord Granville directed me to answer that no such communications had been made by Her Majesty's Government. As, however, I thought that communications had been made by Errington, I felt that this would be a virtual lie, and wrote to Hartington to ask him. Hartington then took the answer upon himself, and in his reply to me he said that there had been some discussions on a closely connected matter, but not exactly on that mentioned in the question, and that nothing had been done by him in the matter. Who, then, instructed Errington?... The Errington mission led for a moment to strained relations between Lord Granville and myself, and one of my letters he said was evidently intended to be "wholesome in Lent." "The tone of it is hardly that of two members of the same Government, more particularly when they are excellent friends."'

Sir Charles apologized frankly and cordially for the tone of his certainly peremptory letter, but

'I had to stick to my text....

'It was evidently monstrous that I should be made to answer questions about negotiations of which I knew nothing, thus leading the House of Commons to believe that I was in some sense responsible to them for what pa.s.sed, when as a matter of fact I was not informed, except privately, and in strict confidence, by Errington himself. One result of the concealment as to the whole Errington business was that Mr.

Gladstone on one occasion gave an answer in the House of Commons which was untrue, although he did not know that it was untrue, and that on another occasion the same thing happened to Courtney, who as Under- Secretary of State for the Colonies denied that a Roman Catholic question affecting the Colonies' (the proposal for a cathedral at Gibraltar) 'had been discussed, when Errington himself told me that it had. The Colonial Office did not know.'

Later:

'There never was a more discreditable piece of business than the whole of this Errington matter. Errington himself is an excellent fellow. I have not a word to say against him. It is the Government and not Errington that must be blamed.

'At this time I received a pamphlet from Auberon Herbert on the t.i.tle- page of which he had drawn a picture of Gladstone in the fiery pit beckoning me, and I, winged and crowned as an archangel, falling from heaven to him, with the inscription: "Lapsus e coelo; or how C.D.

accepted an invitation."'

II.

Notwithstanding his attention to domestic politics, Sir Charles was first and foremost the representative of the Foreign Office, and during the spring of 1882 he was ceaselessly concerned in the negotiations which were in progress between the Russian Government and the British India Office, over which Lord Hartington then presided.

'I had received from the India Office on January 6th a private communication suggesting arrangement with Russia as to the delimitation of the new Russo-Persian frontier. The India Office were inclined to hand over Merv nominally to Persia, regardless of the fact that the Russians would not consent to any proposal of the kind. I wrote to Lord Granville on the 9th, "I must say I don't like it at all," and he answered: "It appears to me that some of the permanent Jingoes in the I.0. want to establish that they are always pressing the F.O. to do spirited things, and constantly thwarted. I rather agree with you that it is better to do nothing than to do that which is not really effective, but Hartington is very anxious not to be altogether quiet.--G."

'On January 17th I had the first of a series of important interviews with Brett, Hartington's secretary, with regard to Central Asian affairs. He gave up Merv, and in return I agreed with him that the Foreign Office should propose to the India Office to ask Russia to define the Persian frontier by an English-Russian-Persian Commission, and the Afghan frontier by an English-Russian-Afghan Commission. Lord Granville was unfavourable, Lord Hartington favourable to this view, which after a great number of meetings at the Foreign Office prevailed, the Russians ultimately accepting the Afghan delimitation, a matter to which I shall have to return. The policy to which I have always adhered was on this occasion stated in a paper which we drew up--a secret "Memorandum on the question of the undefined frontiers between Persia, Afghanistan, and Russia"--in words which, referring to the probability that without an agreement Russia would establish herself at Herat, went on:

'"Peace might be maintained for a time, but it would always be a precarious peace, for the direct influence of Russia, backed by her show of military force, would in time overawe the Afghans, and give her a preponderance of which we should feel the effects, either in the necessity for costly defensive preparations and a large increase of the garrison of India, or in the danger to the tranquillity and permanence of our rule.... Secure on a strong line, flanked at one end by Balkh and at the other by Herat, covered towards Kabul by a zone of friendly Hazara tribes ... and connected by rail and steam with her bases in the Caucasus and on the Volga, she could afford to laugh at threats from India, and might deal at leisure with Afghan tribes and leaders."'

Two later jottings on the ma.n.u.script follow:

'"This is still true in 1906."

'"In 1908 I approved the main lines of an agreement with Russia."

'On February 20th (1882) a conference took place between Lord Granville, Lord Hartington, Tenterden, and myself as to Central Asia.

Hartington wanted to pay Persia to hold the Turcoman oasis--a most monstrous proposition.

'On the next day, the 21st, a telegram was written to go to India, which was so drawn by Hartington as to make the Foreign Office approve his absurd Merv scheme. I got it altered, and Merv left out, and guarding words put in.

'On February 22nd the Russian Amba.s.sador promised Lord Granville that we should be allowed to carry out my idea of a joint commission for the Afghan frontier.

'On March 10th there was a meeting between Lord Hartington and Lord Granville and myself as to Central Asia.'

Lord Ripon wrote from Simla on May 15th to condemn Lord Hartington's policy of

'"trying to interpose Persia as a buffer between Russia and the Afghans.... I do not believe either in the strength or in the good faith of Persia," said Lord Ripon. "...I am afraid that the India Office have by no means got rid of the notions which were afloat in Salisbury's time." On the other hand, Lord Ripon was in favour of a treaty with the Afghans, to which I was opposed except in the form of a mere frontier delimitation.'

The India Office, however, never caused Dilke so many heart-burnings as sprang from his concern with those African and Australasian matters on which the Foreign Office was obliged to secure co-operation from the Colonial Office.

'On January 13th, in addition to further trouble about Borneo, a new controversy sprang up between me and the Colonial Office. It was, I think, on January 6th, 1882, that I received from Mr. Gladstone the letter which began: "Cameroon River, West Africa. Mr. Gladstone. Dear Sir, We both your servants have meet this afternoon to write to you these few lines of writing, trusting it may find you in a good state of life, as it leaves us at present. As we heard here that you are the chief man in the House of Commons, so we write to you to tell you that we want to be under Her Majesty's control." It ended: "Please to send us an answer as quick as you can. With kind regards, we are, dear sir, your obedient servants, King Bell and King Akua."

'Lord Kimberley had absolutely refused; but I, holding that this spot was after all the best on the West Coast of Africa, and the only one where a health station could be established, urged acceptance, without being able to get my own way. Lord Granville wrote concerning Lord Kimberley' (not without a retrospective glance at his own Under-Secretary): '"Perhaps he fears Cameroon cold water too much in consequence of the scalding water from Borneo." Being entirely unable to get my way, I proposed that the letter of the Kings should be "made official," and sent to Lord Granville; that he should officially invite the opinion of the Colonial Office on it, and that if the Colonial Office wrote a despatch against it we should refuse, but not refuse without the Colonial Office opinion being on official record. The offer of the cession of the Cameroons having been renewed later, and I having again most strongly urged acceptance, a consul was sent to the country to investigate the matter, when the Germans suddenly interfered; snapped it up, and made it a new colony. Kimberley was entirely responsible, as I had persuaded Lord Granville to agree with me.'

III.

Among the pa.s.sages which carry on the Parliamentary narrative come sundry jottings and observations. Those for the first session of 1882 concern themselves mainly with two names--Bismarck and Gambetta.

'On January 14th I heard from Germany that the Crown Prince had suddenly broken away from Bismarck on the issue of the last rescript, and that he had sent his secretary to the Liberal leaders to tell them that he had first heard of the rescript when he read it in the paper.

Writing to Grant Duff, I added that the Crown Prince "swears that nothing will induce him to employ Bismarck when he ascends the throne." This was but a pa.s.sing feeling caused by Bismarck's attacks on the Princess.'

"Herbert Bismarck is coming to see me in Paris at his father's wish....