The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke Volume II Part 19

It is true that by the amazing irony of fate which interpenetrated this whole situation the Tories gained in Mr. Chamberlain their most powerful ally, and that Sir Charles had to encounter all the acc.u.mulated prejudice which the 'unauthorized programme' had gathered in Tory bosoms. But none of these things could be foreseen when Chamberlain, then in the full flood of his Radical propaganda, invited Sir Charles to make his temporary home at Highbury. Here, accordingly, he stayed on through August and the early part of September, breaking his stay only by two short absences. There still lived on at Chichester old Mr.

Dilke's brother, a survivor of the close-knit family group, preserving the same intense affectionate interest in Charles Dilke's career. To him this blow was mortal. Sir Charles paid him in the close of August his yearly visit: ten days later he was recalled to attend the old man's funeral in the Cathedral cloisters.

In the middle of September he crossed to France, and waited at Saint Germain for Mrs. Pattison, who reached Paris in the last days of the month. On October 1st Sir Charles crossed to London; she followed the next day, and on the 3rd they were married at Chelsea Parish Church. Mr.

Chamberlain acted as best man.

III.

Return to England meant a return to work. The General Election was fixed for November; and from August onwards Dilke had been drawn back by correspondents and by consultations with Chamberlain into the stream of politics, which then ran broken and turbulent with eddies and cross- currents innumerable. Chamberlain, sustaining alone the advanced campaign, wrote even before the marriage to solicit help at the earliest moment; and from October onwards the two Radicals were as closely a.s.sociated as ever--but with a difference. Circ.u.mstances had begun the work of Sir Charles's effacement.

When the election came, his success was personal; London went against the Liberals, his old colleague Mr. Firth failed, so did Mr. George Russell in another part of the borough, which was now split into several const.i.tuencies; but Chelsea itself stood to its own man. The elections were over on December 19th. Before that date it was apparent that the Irish party held the balance of power, and Mr. Gladstone had already indicated his acceptance of Home Rule. [Footnote: Chapter XLV., p. 196.]

Parliament met early, and by January 28th, 1886, the Tory Government had resigned. Mr. Gladstone, in framing his new Administration, thought it impossible to include a man suffering under a charge yet untried, and wrote:

'_February 2nd_, 1886

'My Dear Dilke,

'I write you, on this first day of my going regularly to my arduous work, to express my profound regret that any circ.u.mstances of the moment should deprive me of the opportunity and the hope of enlisting on behalf of a new Government the great capacity which you have proved in a variety of spheres and forms for rendering good and great service to Crown and country.

'You will understand how absolutely recognition on my part of an external barrier is separate from any want of inward confidence, the last idea I should wish to convey.

'Nor can I close without fervently expressing to you my desire that there may be reserved you a long and honourable career of public distinction.

'Believe me always,

'Yours sincerely,

'W. E. Gladstone.'

Less than a fortnight later the divorce case was heard: the charge against Sir Charles was dismissed with costs, the Judge saying expressly that there was no case for him to answer.

The Prime Minister's att.i.tude made it inevitable that while the case was untried Sir Charles should be excluded from the new Ministry; but not less inevitably his position before the world was prejudiced by that exclusion. Had Parliament met, as it usually meets, in February; had the whole thing so happened that the judgment had been given before the Ministry came to be formed, exclusion would have been all but impossible. We may take it that Mr. Chamberlain would have insisted on Sir Charles's inclusion as a condition of his own adherence; it would have been to the interest of every Gladstonian and of every follower of Chamberlain to maintain the judgment. As it was, the effect of Sir Charles's exclusion had been to prepare the way for a vehement campaign directed against him by a section of the Press.

By the law a wife's confession of misconduct is evidence against herself, ent.i.tling the husband to a divorce; but if unsupported by other witnesses it is no evidence against the co-respondent. But a question arose which afterwards became of capital importance. Should Sir Charles go into the witness-box, deny on oath the unsworn charges made against him, and submit himself to cross-examination? His counsel decided that there was no evidence to answer; they did not put their client into the box, and the course was held by the Judge to be the correct one.

In reply to the Attorney-General's representation that there was no case whatever which Sir Charles Dilke was called to answer, Mr. Justice b.u.t.t said that he could not see the shadow of a case. In his judgment he said: 'A statement such as has been made by the respondent in this case is not one of those things which in common fairness ought for one moment to be weighed in the balance against a person in the position of Sir Charles Dilke. Under these circ.u.mstances, I have no hesitation whatever in saying that counsel have been well advised in suggesting the course which they have induced Sir Charles Dilke to take, and the pet.i.tion, as against him, must be dismissed with costs.'

Dilke himself notes: 'On Friday, February 12th, the trial took place, and lasted but a short time, Sir Henry James and Sir Charles Russell not putting me into the box, and Sir Charles b.u.t.t almost inviting them to take that course. Lord Granville had written to me: "Will you forgive my intruding two words of advice? Put yourself unreservedly into the hands of someone who, like our two law officers, unites sense with knowledge of the law." I had done this, and had throughout acted entirely through James, Russell, and Chamberlain. In court and during the remainder of the day, Chamberlain, James, and Russell, were triumphant....'

For the moment it seemed as if misfortune had ended in triumph.

Congratulations poured in upon both Sir Charles and his wife; the official leaders welcomed the judgment. Mr. Chamberlain sent an express message to Downing Street: 'Case against Dilke dismissed with costs, but the pet.i.tioner has got his divorce against his wife.' Mr. Gladstone answered: 'My dear Chamberlain, I have received your prompt report with the utmost pleasure.' Sir William Harcourt wrote direct:

'Dear Dilke,--So glad to hear of the result and of your relief from your great trouble.--Yours ever, W. V. H.'

Lady Dilke's friends wrote to her, congratulating her on the reward that her courage and her loyalty had reaped.

But in Sir Charles's Diary of that date, where notes of any personal character are few indeed, this is written on the day after the case was heard, in comment on the action of a certain section of the Press:

'Renewed attempt to drive me out of public life. But I won't go now.

In July I said to Emilia and to Chamberlain: "Here is the whole truth--and I am an innocent man; but let me go out quietly, and some day people will be sorry and I shall recover a different sort of usefulness." They would not let me go. Now I won't go.'

A man other than innocent would have rested on the strong judgment in his favour and let agitation die down, but the attacks continued and Dilke would not wait their pa.s.sing. Chamberlain was included in these attacks, 'for having kept me out of the box,' and wrote in reply to Sir Charles: 'I was only too glad to be able in any way to share your burdens, and if I can act as a lightning conductor, so much the better.... Of course, if _you_ were quite clear that you ought to go into the box, it is still possible to do so, either by action for libel or probably by intervention of the Queen's Proctor.'

'This was the first suggestion made to me of any possibility of a rehearing of the case ... and though Hartington, James, and Russell, were all under the impression that I should find no further difficulty, it was the course which I ultimately took,' and which he pressed on with characteristic tenacity. And here laymen may be permitted to marvel at the fallibility of eminent lawyers. 'No one, of all these great lawyers,' foresaw the position in which he would be placed as a result of his application. Yet from the moment that this procedure was adopted it was possible that he might be judged without those resources of defence which are open to the meanest subject charged with an offence.

In March Sir Charles Dilke applied to the Queen's Proctor for his intervention in order that the case might be reheard. The application failed. In April he moved again, this time by a public letter, and this time the Queen's Proctor yielded. Application was made in the Court of Probate and Divorce to the President, Sir James Hannen, that Sir Charles Dilke should be made a party to the intervention or reinstated in the suit.

The President laid down that Sir Charles was no party to the suit, and had now no right to appear except as a witness, and might not be represented by counsel. The question was then taken to the Court of Appeal, but, on strictly technical grounds, the Court held that Sir Charles was no longer a party, and that he could not be allowed to intervene. Thus the first judgment, by declaring him innocent and awarding him costs as one unjustly accused, led straight to his undoing.

He had been struck out of the case; he was now a mere member of the general public. There never were, probably, legal proceedings in which from first to last law and justice were more widely asunder.

Sir Charles Dilke was, in fact, in the position from which Sir Henry James had sought to protect him--the position described in the course of his pleading for reinstatement:

'I have no desire to put forward any claim for my client other than one founded on justice, but I cannot imagine a more cruel position than that in which Sir Charles Dilke would be placed in having a grave charge against him tried while the duty of defending his interest was committed to hands other than those of his own advisers.'

The consequences which flowed from the technical construction put upon the situation were these: In reality Sir Charles Dilke was the defendant on trial for his political life and his personal honour. Yet although Sir Henry James and Sir Charles Russell were there in court ready briefed, neither was allowed to speak. Dilke's case against his accuser had to be dealt with by the counsel for the Queen's Proctor, Sir Walter Phillimore, who, though a skilled ecclesiastical lawyer, was comparatively inexperienced in the cross-examination of witnesses and in Nisi Prius procedure, and was opposed by Mr. Henry Matthews, the most skilled cross-examiner at the bar. Sir Walter Phillimore also stated publicly, and properly, that it was not his 'duty to represent and defend Sir Charles Dilke.' So strictly was this view acted upon that Sir Charles did not once meet Sir Walter Phillimore in consultation; and witnesses whom he believed to be essential to his case were never called. But that was not all. According to the practice of that court, all the information given by Dilke was at once communicated to the other side; but as Sir Charles was not a party to the suit, the Queen's Proctor did not communicate to him what he learned from that other side.

In an ordinary trial the witnesses of the accusers are heard first. And this order is recognized as giving the greatest prospect of justice, since if the defence is first disclosed the accuser may adjust details in the charge so as, at the last moment, to deprive the defence of that fair-play which the first order of hearing is designed to secure. The only possible disproof which Sir Charles could offer was an alibi. It was of vital importance to him that the accusation should be fixed to dates, places, days, hours, even minutes, with the utmost possible precision. Then he might, even after the lapse of years, establish the falsity of a charge by proof that he was elsewhere at the time specified. But in this case, owing to the form that the proceedings took, the opportunity which of right belongs to the defence was given to the accuser. The accusation being technically brought by the Queen's Proctor, who alleged that the divorce had been obtained by false evidence, Sir Charles Dilke was produced as his witness, and had at the beginning of the proceedings to disclose his defence.

Further, and even more important, the issue put to the jury was limited in the most prejudicial way.

'On the former occasion,' said Sir James Hannen, 'it was for the pet.i.tioner to prove that his wife had committed adultery with Sir Charles Dilke.' (This, as has been seen, the pet.i.tioner failed to prove against Sir Charles Dilke; the pet.i.tioner had to pay Sir Charles's costs.) 'On this occasion it is for the Queen's Proctor to prove that the respondent did not commit adultery with Sir Charles Dilke.'

How this negative was to be proved in any circ.u.mstances it is difficult to see, and under the conditions Sir Charles had no chance to attack the accusation brought against him.

Sir Charles's own comment in his Diary of the time was:

'_July 16th_--My case tried again. I not a party, and--though really tried by a kind of Star Chamber--not represented, not allowed to cross-examine, not allowed to call witnesses; and under such circ.u.mstances the trial could have but one result, which was that the jury, directed to decide if they were in doubt that the Queen's Proctor had not established his case, would take that negative course. The trial lasted from Friday, 16th, to Friday, 23rd, inclusive, and the jury decided, as they could not have helped deciding, and as I should have decided had I been one of them.'

The situation may be thus summed up:

In the first trial the pet.i.tioner failed to produce any legal evidence whatever of the guilt of Sir Charles Dilke; in the second the Queen's Proctor failed to prove his innocence. [Footnote: Technically the verdict, by dismissing the Queen's Proctor's intervention, confirmed the original judgment, which dismissed Sir Charles from the case.]

The verdict of the jury at the second trial was not a verdict of Guilty against Sir Charles; it was a declaration that his innocence was not proven, the question put to the Jury by the clerk after their return into Court following the words of the Act of Parliament, and being whether the decree nisi for the dissolution of the marriage of the pet.i.tioner and the respondent was obtained contrary to the justice of the case by reason of material facts not being brought to the knowledge of the Court. The Jury's answer followed the same words. [Footnote: See report in _Daily News_, Sat.u.r.day, July 24th, 1886.] When we add to that the conditions under which the question was tried, we see that they were such as to make the proof of innocence impossible.

Those about Sir Charles at this time remember how even at that bitter moment he began to look round for any method by which his case might be reheard. He wrote to Sir Henry James that it would be a proper course for himself to invite a trial for perjury; and though Lady Dilke was so ill 'from sick and sleepless nights' that she had been ordered at once to Royat, he waited for three weeks before accompanying her abroad, to give time for action to be taken, and wrote to Sir Richard Webster (then Attorney-General) practically inviting a prosecution.

He did not abandon hope of a rehearing, and worked for many years in the trust that the evidence acc.u.mulated by himself and his friends might be so used, nor did he cease his efforts till counsel in consultation finally a.s.sured him 'that no means were open to Sir Charles Dilke to retry his case.'

Sir Eyre Crowe, a friend valued for his own as well as for his father's sake (Sir Joseph Crowe, to whom Sir Charles was much attached), wrote at the time of Sir Charles's death: 'How he bore for long years the sorrow and misfortunes of his lot had something heroic about it. I only once talked to him about these things, and was intensely struck by his Roman att.i.tude.' It was the only att.i.tude possible to such a man. Placed by his country's laws in the situation of one officially acquitted by a decision which was interpreted into a charge of guilt; forced then, in defence of his honour, into the position of a defendant who is debarred from means of defence; a.s.sured after long effort that no legal means were open to him to attempt again that defence, he solemnly declared his innocence, and was thereafter silent.

'By-and-by it will be remembered that as a fact the issue was never fairly represented and never fairly met,' was the estimate of Sir Francis Jeune, afterwards President of the Divorce Court. And from the first there were many lawyers and thinking men and women who would have endorsed it. From the first also there were those who believed Sir Charles's word. Among such faithful friends, Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, Sir Robert Collins, Mr. Cyril Flower, Mrs. Westlake and Mr. Westlake, Q.C., Mr. Thursfield of the _Times_, Mr. Chamberlain, Sir Francis and Lady Jeune, Sir Charles's old college friend Judge Steavenson, stand out in memory. He himself says: 'I received after the trial ... a vast number of letters from people who wrote to express their belief in me.

Some, as, for example, from Dr. Hatch' (the eminent Oxford theologian) 'and his wife, and from Dr. Percival, Head-master of Rugby, [Footnote: Dr. Percival was President of Trinity College, Oxford, till 1887, when he went to Rugby. He became Bishop of Hereford.] and his wife, were from firm friends of Emilia, brought to me by their belief in her; some from friends, some from political foes, of all sorts--all breathing confidence and devotion.'

Mr. Chamberlain wrote: 'I feel bitterly my powerlessness to do or say anything useful at the present time.' In such a case the testimony of intimates is weighty, and Sir John Gorst sent in June, 1913, his recollection of words used by Mr. Chamberlain in the autumn of 1886: 'I a.s.sure you that, as a man of honour, I don't believe the charges made against him. If you had been in and out of his house at all times as I have been, you would see they were impossible.'

Then as now there existed a certain body of opinion which would have discriminated between a man's private honour and his public usefulness, holding that the nation which throws aside a great public servant because of charges of personal immorality is confusing issues, and sacrificing the country's welfare to private questions. Whatever is to be said for this view, it was one to which Sir Charles Dilke wished to owe nothing. He did not share it, and those whose adherence he acknowledged were those who believed his word. From different sources, then, Sir Charles had found confidence and support, but they were small stay in that gradually acc.u.mulating torrent of misfortune.