The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke Volume II Part 8

'Sir Stafford Northcote also wrote to me upon the subject, and pa.s.sing on to Scotland in his letter, added, "It is, I think, understood that we may have a free fight over the grouping of Scotch boroughs." This question of the Scotch boroughs was afterwards referred to me and Charles Dalrymple (M.P. for Buteshire), and I gave Dalrymple one or two changes that he wanted, which, I think, did not matter.'

Such difficulties were few and subordinate. The scheme was settled in principle, for after the Arlington Street compact

'I wrote the letter to the Boundary Commissioners the same night, and after I had signed their instructions on December 5th I had a pause in my Redistribution work for some time.'

But at the end of December Lord Hartington wrote:

'I think it will take two of us all our time to work the Bill through; and you know so much more about it than anybody else that you must necessarily take the greatest share of the details';

and ended with an invitation to Sir Charles to stay at Hardwick to do some preliminary work on the measure.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

FOREIGN AFFAIRS IN 1884

Mrs. Mark Patterson

I.

During 1884 'I warned Lord Granville, Mr. Gladstone, Fitzmaurice, and Childers, that I should not in future be able to speak on foreign affairs on account of the terrible work of the Redistribution Bill, and of the Royal Commission,' for 'I was now so busy with the preparation for working the Redistribution Bill through the House, and with the Report of the Royal Commission, that I objected to receiving Foreign Office papers not sent to other members of the Cabinet ... but Lord Granville insisted that I should still see them, and circulated a letter to that effect.'

During 1884 and 1885 Foreign Office work was not only exacting, but was connected with acute disagreements in the Ministry itself. It has been seen how closely Sir Charles was occupied with the Egyptian question, and how constantly he found himself opposed to Lord Hartington in his views of policy. Moreover, out of the Egyptian difficulty there sprang a general divergence from France, and this led to action by France in various quarters of the globe calculated to offend British susceptibilities and to injure British prestige. Sir Charles, friend of France as he was, had been strong for resenting and resisting such action, and this att.i.tude had brought him into conflict with those who on the whole had supported him in Egyptian matters. A new factor was now introduced. Bismarck had previously been content to urge on the French in their colonization policy, but in 1884 the German Chancellor, who in 1883 had been working out his schemes of national insurance, found his hand forced by the Colonial party, and, in view of the coming German elections, could no longer afford to ignore them. Bismarck, 'contrary to his conviction and his will,' said Lord Ampthill, accepted a policy of colonization, which had the secondary effect of hara.s.sing and humiliating the British Liberal Administration. [Footnote: _Life of Granville_, vol. ii., p. 355.] Sir Charles, who realized that every such annexation meant the exclusion of British trade from an actual or potential market, fought for strong British action, but he fought against the older Liberals of the Cabinet. Again and again the Radical leaders were overborne by Mr. Gladstone.

The German Government had demanded protection for a German firm of traders who had established themselves in the territory of Angra Pequena, on the west coast of Africa, 280 miles south of Walfisch Bay.

Lord Granville, after considerable delays, caused chiefly by the necessity of consulting the Colonial Office, which in its turn had to consult the Cape Government, where a change of Ministry was impending, objected to the declaration of a German protectorate.

'June 14th, 1884.--At a Cabinet at Lord Granville's house on Conference.... Waddington waiting in another room.

'H. Bismarck was also in the house, and had been very rude to Lord Granville about Angra Pequena, which was mentioned to the Cabinet, which would do nothing.

'June 2lth--... Angra Pequena was mentioned, and it was decided that Bismarck, who was greatly irritated with the Government, was to have all he wanted.

'On September 22nd Chamberlain came to me on his return from abroad.

He told me that H. Bismarck had told him that the German Chancellor was very angry at having had no answer to a full statement of German views as to Angra Pequena and other colonial matters, which had been sent to Lord Granville on August 30th, and he was astonished to learn that the Cabinet had not seen his letter....

'On the 27th Lord Granville had in the meantime written: "I will send you my letter and Bismarck's answer, but I do not wish the correspondence to be mentioned.... My only excuse, but a good one, for acting merely as a medium between the German Government and the Colonial Office, was that I had continually the most positive a.s.surances in London, and still more in Berlin, that Bismarck was dead against German colonization--as he _was_."' [Footnote: On this chapter of African history, see _Life of Granville_, vol. ii., chap.

x., _pa.s.sim_.]

This was the first of a series of instances in which, to Sir Charles's great disgust, the British Foreign and Colonial Offices 'lay down to Germany.'

Since the annexation of part of New Guinea by Queensland had been disavowed in April, 1883, all Australia was vehemently concerned over the ultimate fate of this territory, and pressed the home Government to forestall other Powers by occupying it.

'June 27th we discussed New Guinea, as to which Lord Derby was getting into serious trouble.

'On July 5th there was a Cabinet called to consider what was called the "crisis"--our relation with the House of Lords over the Franchise. But so peculiar is the British Empire that, although the Cabinet was called upon this question, we immediately proceeded to consider for the greater portion of the day matters in Sumatra, in the Malay Archipelago, and the Pacific, and ... the affairs of New Guinea and so forth. Harcourt, Lord Selborne, and Mr. Gladstone violently opposed the occupation of New Guinea--Harcourt and Mr.

Gladstone on anti-imperialistic grounds, and Lord Selborne on grounds connected with the protection of the aborigines against the rapacity and violence of the Queensland settlers. Hartington, Lord Granville, Derby, Kimberley, Chamberlain, and I, took the Australian view. The matter was adjourned, as matters always are adjourned when the Prime Minister is against the Cabinet.'

'August 6th.--We then attacked New Guinea, most of us wanting annexation, some protectorate, and decided on the latter to please the Chancellor and Mr. Gladstone.'

'August 9th.--We first discussed German colonies in the South Seas.

Bismarck had seized North New Guinea, and we decided to stick to the long peninsula which faces both north and south.'

Bismarck's immediate answer was to annex, not only the north coast, but what is now called the Bismarck Archipelago.

'October 4th.--Next came New Guinea. Were we to insist, as we had done previously, on keeping the Germans off the north coast of the long eastern peninsula? The previous decision was reversed. The Cabinet, however, vetoed a suggestion for the joint commission with Germany as to land claims in the Pacific Islands being allowed to meddle in New Guinea. We then decided to annex one quarter, and several members of the Cabinet expressed a hope that _this time_ the thing would "really be done."' [Footnote: A useful sketch of these events has recently appeared in the paper read before the Royal Geographical Society by Sir Everard Im Thurn, K.C.M.G. See _Journal_, vol. xlv., No. 5, April, 1915.]

These instances did not stand alone. Two native chiefs in the Cameroons had so far back as 1882 proposed to be taken under British protection, and Sir Charles had pressed acceptance of their offer. The matter had been discussed in the Cabinet, and Lord Derby and Lord Granville were still debating what should be done, when a German expedition seized the territory.

'On September 18th I received from Chamberlain a letter from Leipsic, in which he said: "The Cameroons! It is enough to make one sick. As you say, we decided to a.s.sume the protectorate eighteen months ago, and I thought it was all settled. If the Board of Trade or Local Government Board managed their business after the fashion of the Foreign Office and Colonial Office, you and I would deserve to be hung."'

Those who thought with Sir Charles felt considerable anxiety about possibilities on the East Coast of Africa. The Cameroons were lost, but a protectorate over Zanzibar had been offered, and Zanzibar was the outlet for an important trading district, which the forward party thought of securing. The Prime Minister was opposed to all such schemes.

'On December 14th Mr. Gladstone broke out against the proposed annexations in what is now called the Kilimanjaro district.'

He wrote to Sir Charles: 'Terribly have I been puzzled and perplexed on finding a group of the soberest men among us to have concocted a scheme such as that touching the mountain country behind Zanzibar with an unrememberable name. There _must_ somewhere or other be reasons for it which have not come before me. I have asked Granville whether it may not stand over for a while.' [Footnote: The allusion is to the treaties with native chiefs which were negotiated by Mr. (afterwards Sir) Harry Johnston in 1883-84. These treaties were the foundation of what is now known as British East Africa, and related mainly to the Kilimanjaro and Taveita districts. It would appear that Mr. Gladstone himself had at first expressed an interest in the development of British influence 'over this hinterland of snow mountains and elevated plateaux,' to which his attention had been drawn by the report of Mr. Joseph Thomson.

Speaking subsequently at the Colonial Inst.i.tute, Sir Harry Johnston said that 'about twenty years ago he was making preparations for his first expedition to British Africa. He had a very distinguished predecessor, whom he regarded as the real originator of British East Africa: Mr.

Joseph Thomson, who died all too young in 1895. His great journey from Mombasa was commenced in 1882 and finished in 1884.... His reports sent home to the Royal Geographical Society had attracted the attention of Mr. Gladstone; and there was another British statesman, Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, who perhaps more than most of his colleagues saw the possibility of a white man's settlement in Equatorial Africa, and who chose to select him (Sir H. Johnston) as one agency by which this work should be commenced.' (_Journal_ of the Royal Colonial Inst.i.tute, 1903-04, No. 5, p. 317.) The territory covered by the Kilimanjaro Treaties was ceded to Germany under the arrangement made at the end of 1885, but the remainder has continued to be British (see Sir Harry Johnston, _A History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races_, pp.

376-409.]

Mr. Gladstone could not bring himself to understand that the great States of Europe had, almost without premeditation, moved into a field of policy which involved the apportionment of regions scarcely yet known in any detail to the geographers; nor did he realize the far-reaching consequences of the acquisition or refusal of some of these districts.

The question of the Congo, for example, involved, as Sir Robert Morier had foreseen, the settlement of the whole West African coast. In April Sir Charles had recorded how he

'had to read up African papers, and found reason to fear that the King of the Belgians was contemplating the sale of his Congo dominions to France. We had a meeting at the Foreign Office in the afternoon, [Footnote: April 26th, 1884.] at which were present Lord Granville, Kimberley, Chamberlain, myself, and Fitzmaurice, and, finding that we could not possibly carry our Congo Treaty with Portugal, we determined to find a way out by referring it to the Powers.' [Footnote: The following extract from an article in the _Quarterly Review_ explains the importance attached by Sir Charles to this Congo treaty, and the far-reaching results which it would have had:

'In 1875 the results of Lieutenant Cameron's great journey across Africa became known.... They revealed ... the material for a Central African Empire awaiting the enterprise of a European or an Asiatic power. There is now little doubt that, had the famous treaty negotiated by Sir Charles Dilke, Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, and Sir Robert Morier in 1884, been ratified and carried out ... the Congo Basin would have been added to the British Empire, together with Delagoa Bay and Nyasaland, before its time; with Dahomey also, and an all-British West African Coast between Sierra Leone and the Gaboon.' (_Quarterly Review_, January, 1906.)

It would perhaps have been more accurate had the author spoken of the 'treaty proposed to be negotiated.' The original plan of Sir Robert Morier--part of a large scheme for the settlement of all outstanding questions with Portugal--contemplated _inter alia_ some territorial acquisition on the Congo by Great Britain. But the Cabinet put a veto on this. The Foreign Office had therefore to fall back on the alternative but less ambitious plan contained in the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1884, which was never ratified, owing to the opposition of Germany.

(_Life of Granville_, vol. ii., chap. x.; and supra, I. 418. See also on this subject the observations of Sir Harry Johnston in his _History_, quoted above, pp. 277, 278, 343, 405.)]

In October he goes on to relate how

'Lord Granville had been frightened by Plessen, the Prussian, coming to invite him to a Conference at Berlin, but explained that he had been much relieved on finding, as he put it, that it was only about the Congo. It was, however, the famous Africa Conference which virtually settled the whole future of the Dark Continent.'

Sir Charles notes the result in January, 1885:

'The sittings of the West African Conference, as it was called, were at this time taking place at Berlin, and the General Act was signed in the following month--that of February, 1885. [Footnote: He notes in this month, February 4th, at "a meeting at the Admiralty of all the Ministers in town, Childers and I stand alone in support of Portugal as regards the Congo. I stated very freely what I still believe, that we had behaved shamefully to the Portuguese; but this neither convinced Lord Granville at the time, nor excused the subsequent behaviour of the Portuguese." On February 11th Sir Charles wrote to a diplomatic friend: "I cannot quite follow the present phase of Congo, but I hope that nothing will be done to back up the rascally a.s.sociation against Portugal. I believe that Portugal will seize the disputed territory, and I certainly should if I were the Portuguese Ministry."] I was very busy with this work, in which I had long taken a deep interest, and was much relieved when I found that what I thought the folly of the House of Commons in upsetting our Congo Treaty, and preventing a general arrangement with the Portuguese as regarded both West Africa and South-East Africa, had turned out better than could have been antic.i.p.ated, owing to the interposition of the Germans. My joy was short-lived, for King Leopold has not kept his promises.'

The interests thus claimed or created beyond the seas had to be defended upon the seas. Either Great Britain must be prepared to abate her pretensions, or she must strengthen her power to enforce them. Dilke and Chamberlain were strongly against giving way to anything which could be regarded as usurpation. Mr. Gladstone, on the other hand, pointed out that to maintain a control, or veto, over the allocation of unappropriated portions of the globe meant large increase of naval expenditure, and he set his face against both. On December 2nd

'Naval expenditure was mentioned. The Cabinet had been about to agree both to Northbrook's proposals (for Egypt) and to the sums suggested for the defence of coaling-stations, when Mr. Gladstone suddenly broke out, told us that he did not much care for himself, as he now intended to retire, but that had he been twenty-five years younger nothing could have induced him to consent. A loan he would not tolerate. Then there was a general veer round, and all went against the fortifications. Mr. Gladstone, however, said that he should retire as soon as the Redistribution Bill was carried.'

The affairs of South Africa, where Great Britain was consolidating her position, are also touched on in 1884.

'On March 22nd we had another Cabinet without Mr. Gladstone. The first matter discussed was Zululand, Chamberlain opposing Kimberley and Derby, who wished to increase the British Protectorate. At last Kimberley said: "I see the Cabinet do not want more n.i.g.g.e.rs," and dropped the scheme.

'On May 17th ... we decided to defend the Zululand reserve against all comers.'