The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke Volume I Part 9

While engaged in the writing of Greater Britain, Charles Dilke entered upon the main business of his life by coming forward as a candidate for the House of Commons. Immediate action was necessary; for the position of parties indicated the near approach of a General Election.

The const.i.tuency to which he addressed his candidature in the autumn of 1867 was the borough of Chelsea, a new Parliamentary division created by the Reform Act of that year. It was of vast extent, embracing Chelsea, Fulham, Hammersmith, Kensal Town, and Kensington. In Chelsea Charles Dilke had his home, and, as representing the Parliamentary borough, he would speak "backed by the vote and voice of 30,000 electors." "I would willingly wait any time," he said in his opening address on November 25th, in the Vestry Hall at Chelsea, "rather than enter the House of Commons a member for some small trumpery const.i.tuency." The electors should hear his opinions, "not upon any one subject or upon any two subjects or any three, but as nearly as might be upon all."

His speech began with the electoral machinery of democracy--questions of franchise and redistribution.

Purity of election he laid down as a necessary condition of reform, and to that end two points must be a.s.sured: the removal of election pet.i.tions from the House of Commons to a legal tribunal, [Footnote: A Bill with that object was at the time pa.s.sing through Parliament.] and, secondly, the security of the ballot. Upon the first matter he came perhaps to doubt the new system after he had seen it tried; upon the second he was able to tell his audience from first-hand knowledge that in Australia opposition to the ballot was unknown, and that in Virginia a conquered minority looked to it as their best defence against oppression.

From the machinery of Government he pa.s.sed to its application. Ireland was then the burning question, and Dilke's att.i.tude upon Ireland may be indicated in a sentence. After the Church should have been disestablished, the land system reformed, [Footnote: His views on the Irish Land Question had been stated in _Greater Britain_ (popular edition), p. 209: "Customs and principles of law, the natural growth of the Irish mind and the Irish soil, can be recognized and made the basis of legislation without bringing about the disruption of the Empire. The first Irish question that we shall have to set ourselves to face is that of land. Permanent tenure is as natural to the Irish as free-holding to the English people. All that is needed of our statesmen is that they recognize in legislation that which they cannot but admit in private talk--namely, that there may be essential differences between race and race."] and a wide measure of Parliamentary reform given to Ireland; after they should have pa.s.sed Fawcett's Bill "for throwing open Trinity College, Dublin, and destroying the last trace of that sectarian spirit which has. .h.i.therto been allowed to rule in Ireland"

--they might hope "not perhaps for instant quiet in the country, but at least for the gradual growth of a feeling that we have done our duty, and that we may well call upon the Irish to do theirs."

There went with that a moderate censure upon the lawlessness of Fenianism.

But the Irish question did not occupy so much s.p.a.ce in his discourse as in those of most speakers at that moment, and this for a reason which he gave later in his life: 'About Ireland I was never given to saying much, because, except for a short time in 1885, when moderate Home Rule could have been carried, I never thoroughly saw my own way.' But as early as 1869 he deplored the lack of local deliberative bodies which elsewhere did much of the State's work, and in 1871 he advocated their creation as a means of relieving Parliament. This, rather than any special sympathy with Nationalism as such, was always the governing consideration with him on the Irish question. 'I showed in this way,' he notes, 'a working of the opinion which in 1874 caused me to vote, alone of English members unpledged by their const.i.tuents, in support of Mr. b.u.t.t when he brought forward his Home Rule Bill.' [Footnote: Eight in all voted; all except Dilke represented Northern const.i.tuencies, with a large Irish vote among miners or operatives.]

He foreshadowed also his att.i.tude towards Labour questions. He proposed, as early as 1867, that the Factory Acts should be extended to all employment; the best way of compelling children to attend school was, he thought, to prohibit their employment as premature wage-earners. Another declaration set forth that Trade Unions must be recognized, and their funds protected just as much as those "of any a.s.sociation formed for purposes not illegal." By no means were all Liberals in 1867 ready to distinguish between Trade Unions and criminal conspiracies.

Taxation came next. His desire to "sweep away many millions of Customs and Excise," and to establish a system so far as possible of direct taxation, is notable because it was put forward at the very moment when he was explaining in _Greater Britain_ to the precisians of Free Trade that young countries, like America and the Colonies, had reasonable grounds for maintaining a rigid Protective system.

Questions put at this first meeting with the electors elicited a declaration for triennial Parliaments; if these failed, then for annual; for payment of members, with preference for the plan of payment by the const.i.tuency, advocated by "Mr. Mill, the great leader of political thinkers." As to manhood suffrage, the candidate held "that the burden of proof lies on those who would exclude any man from the suffrage; but I also hold that there is sufficient proof for the temporary exclusion of certain cla.s.ses at the present time."

This, with some other points in the exposition of his political creed, needs to be read in the light of a pa.s.sage in the Memoir:

'I tried to be moderate in order to please my father, and not to lose the general Liberal vote; my speeches are more timid than were my opinions.'

Yet for all his efforts after moderation he was too extreme for his father, who probably was shocked to hear that the Game Laws "needed an amendment, which should extend perhaps to their total abolition." Sir Wentworth Dilke remonstrated. His son replied in December, 1867:

"I am a Radical, I know; still I have for your sake done everything I can to speak moderately. I have spoken against Fenianism in spite of my immense sympathy for it. For my own part, though I should immensely like to be in Parliament, still I should feel terribly hampered there if I went in as anything except a Radical.... Radicalism is too much a thing of nature with me to throw it off by any effort of mine. If you think it a waste of money for me to contest Chelsea, I will cheerfully throw the thing up and turn to any pursuit you please."

Many other matters which were to occupy Charles Dilke later are mentioned in this first and detailed exposition of his political faith. He dealt with army reform: would abolish "purchase of commissions and flogging"; he condemned "an army in which we systematically deny a man those advantages that in entering an employment he naturally looked to receive," and the double responsibility of the Horse Guards and the War Office as "a system which is in its very essence costly and inefficient." On Foreign Affairs he said: "I am very wishful indeed for peace, but a peace more dignified than that which has of late prevailed." [Footnote: Speech in Chelsea, November 25th, 1867.]

He spoke at Chelsea, Kensington, Hammersmith, Fulham, Brompton, Notting Hill, and Walham Green, earning from the electors the name of Mr.

Indefatigable Dilke. The borough deserved that a man who sought to represent it should state his case thoroughly, and there was an uncommon degree of truth in a not uncommon compliment when he called it "the most intelligent const.i.tuency in England." South Kensington was the home of many judges and other important lawyers, many great merchants and men of business; Brompton was still a literary quarter; Holland Park and Notting Hill the home of the artists who figured largely on Dilke's committee--the names of Leighton, Maclise, Faed, and other Academicians are among the list. The honorary committee was made up almost entirely of resident Members of Parliament.

In Kensal Town was a very strong artisan element, and at one time a working-man candidate was before the electors, George Odger, who was 'the best representative of the Trade Unions, and a man of whom the highest opinion was entertained by Mr. Mill.' He not only withdrew, but became also an active supporter.

Of the Tory candidates, perhaps the more important was Mr. Freake, a big contractor who had built Cromwell Road, in which he lived, and who was not on the best of terms with his workmen. Some of this unpopularity reflected itself on the allied candidature of Dr. W. H. Russell, whose expenses Mr.

Freake was said to be paying. But the contest led to a lasting friendship between Charles Dilke and the famous war correspondent. The other Liberal candidate was Sir Henry h.o.a.re, a Radical baronet, twenty years older than Dilke, who had for a short time sat as member for Windsor. So long as he represented Chelsea he voted with the extreme Radicals, and his name may be found in many division lists in the minority along with that of his colleague. But later in life he changed his politics, joined the Carlton Club, and was a member of it for many years. Charles Dilke always spoke of him in terms of cordial friendship even after their political a.s.sociation had long been ended.

Their candidature was not a joint one, as Dilke put himself forward independently; but when the election actually came the Liberal candidates joined forces, and two picture-cards represent the contest as between rival teams of c.o.c.ks. In one the Odger c.o.c.k is seen retreating; Freake is on his back, gasping; Russell and h.o.a.re still contend, while under the banner "Dilke and h.o.a.re for ever," Dilke crows victorious. In the second card Odger has no place, and Russell is as dead as Freake.

This graphic forecast was justified by the result. Polling took place on Wednesday, November 18th, 1868, and, according to a local paper, "the proceedings were of a most orderly character; indeed, the absence of vehicles, favours, etc., made the election dull." The voting was open. The results were published from hour to hour at the booths, and the unpopular candidates were in one or two places driven away by hisses. Even in Cromwell Road Dilke and h.o.a.re led, and Dilke's advantage in his own district of Chelsea proper was conspicuous. The final figures were:

Dilke........ 7,374 h.o.a.re........ 7,183 Russell...... 4,177 Freake....... 3,929

The triumph was all the more gratifying because it had been achieved by a volunteer canva.s.s. No member has ever been bound to a const.i.tuency by closer ties of personal feeling than those which linked Charles Dilke, first to Chelsea and later to the Forest of Dean. He worked for his const.i.tuents, and taught them to work for him.

At this same General Election Sir Wentworth Dilke lost his seat, and Lord Granville sent him a note "to condole with you and to congratulate you. I suspect that the cause of the latter gives you more pleasure than the cause of the former gives you regret. How very well your son seems to have done!"

After the election Charles Dilke sought a rest by one of his flying trips abroad. He stopped a day in Paris to examine the details of the French registration system. Thence he proceeded to Toulon, 'to which I took a fancy, which ultimately led, many years after, to my buying a property there'; the scenery of Provence captured him from the first moment.

Parliament was summoned to meet on December 10th for the election of a Speaker, and for the swearing-in of members. By the beginning of December the member for Chelsea was on the eve of return, rejoicing in the news of Mr. Gladstone's defeat in South-West Lancashire and election for Greenwich. "He is much more likely to become a democratic leader now that he sits for a big town."

A note preserved in one of the boxes gives Charles Dilke's first impressions of the party and Government to which he had vowed a somewhat qualified allegiance.

"_December 10th_, 1868.--House met for election of Speaker. The Liberal party is more even in opinion than ever before. No Adullamites, no Radicals but myself. The Cabinet is somewhat behind the party, which is bad. Too many peers."

The House of Commons of 1868 was superficially very much like any of its predecessors. Dilke notes that it 'contained some survivals of the old days, such as Mr. Edward Ellice, son of "Bear" Ellice [Footnote: This was Mr. Edward Ellice, who had been in the House since 1836, and who continued to represent St. Andrews till 1879. He was sometimes called "the young Bear." See _Life of Lord Granville_, i. 80, 81, 141, 171, 175, as to the "old Bear."] of the days of Lord Melbourne,' a consistent and typical Liberal. The Liberal party consisted then mainly of men born into that governing cla.s.s which Lord Melbourne had in mind when he said "that every English gentleman is qualified to hold any post which he has influence enough to secure." This element was accompanied by a fair sprinkling of manufacturers and other business men, for the most part Nonconformists.

But no separate Irish party existed to complicate the grouping; indeed, the Irish were much less a corps apart than they had been in O'Connell's time. Labour had not one direct representative, though the importance of the artisan vote had made itself felt; and this was recognized by the choice of Mundella, then returned as a new member for Sheffield, to second the address at the opening of the session.

The personal composition of the a.s.sembly had greatly altered. More than a third of its members were new to Parliament. W. Vernon Harcourt, Henry James, and Campbell-Bannerman, sat then for the first time, and sat, as did Charles Dilke, below the gangway. In the same quarter was Fawcett, who helped them in creating the new phenomenon of a House of Commons alive in all its parts.

Sir George Trevelyan, who almost alone of living men can compare from experience the House of Commons before the Reform Bill of 1867 and after, holds that it would be difficult to overstate the contrast. The House was no longer an arena for set combat between a few distinguished parliamentarians, whose displays were watched by followers on either side, either diffident of their ability to compete, or held silent by the unwritten rule which imposed strict reserve upon a new member. For the greater number promotion had come through slow and steady service in the lobbies.

Charles Dilke from the first was always in his place--that corner seat below the gangway which became gradually his traditional possession; and from the first he a.s.sumed a responsible part in all Parliamentary business. "He was the true forerunner, in his processes, his industry, his constant attendance, and his frequent speaking, of Lord Randolph Churchill." The revolt against 'the old gang' began on the Liberal side, and Charles Dilke was the chief beginner of it. Although the new Reform Act had led to far-reaching change in the quality of the House of Commons, the choice by Mr. Gladstone of the members of the Ministry made it plain that no break with the past was contemplated by the leaders. Lowe, whose anti-democratic utterances on Reform had been denounced by Dilke at the Cambridge Union, was Chancellor of the Exchequer; and only half the Cabinet were commoners. Among these was indeed Bright; but the only other Minister whose name carried a hint of Radicalism was Forster, Vice- President of the Council of Education, and he was not in the Cabinet when it was first formed.

On the other hand, Bright and Forster were to an exceptional degree responsible for the general trend of the Government policy. The dissolution and election had turned with more than usual definiteness on a clear issue--the proposal to conciliate Ireland by disestablishing the privileged Church of the minority; and behind this immediate proposal lay a less clearly defined scheme for giving security of tenure to Irish tenants. Ireland was the first business of Charles Dilke's first Parliament, and it was Bright more than any other man who had stirred English feeling with the sense that England had failed in her duty to the smaller country, and that an attempt to do justice must be made. Yet in both Church reform and land reform the actual brunt of the Parliamentary struggle fell upon Mr. Gladstone. Bright had a marvellous gift for rousing political emotion, but he had not the application necessary to give legislative effect to his aims; and Charles Dilke, though fully sensitive to the beauty of cadence in Bright's language, and enthusiastic for the music of "his unmatched voice," nevertheless inherited something of his grandfather's suspicion of "that old humbug Oratory"--at all events, when the oratorical gift was not allied with executive capacity.

There was no lack of masterful grip and handling of detail in the other great orator of the Liberal party, yet the young Radical's att.i.tude to his leader was one of admiration indeed, but always of limited sympathy. Not only did a long generation lie between them, but Charles Dilke had been bred a Radical, and Gladstone had been bred a Tory. The Government policy after 1868 was dominated by the education controversy, and was dictated by Forster. There was probably no man among his colleagues with whom Dilke more often came into collision. Forster was a strong natural Conservative, though he had been brought up in the traditions of Radicalism, and Mr.

Gladstone was suspected of not being willing to abolish Collegiate as well as University tests.

On the Opposition front bench Disraeli's primacy was not less marked than Mr. Gladstone's, and his romantic figure always fascinated Dilke. But his special admiration was for Gathorne Hardy (afterwards Lord Cranbrook), in whom High Toryism found its most eloquent and sincerest spokesman. Later, in 1876, Sir Charles was to complain ironically that the Conservatives "never will be able to employ the services of the man best fitted by nature to be their leader. Mr. Gathorne Hardy will never lead the Conservative party because he is not a Liberal."

In 1869 he saw little of either the Tories or the Whigs, 'but acted with the Radicals.' He had modified his first estimate of the composition of the House. This Radical group largely represented the industrial towns and Nonconformist interests. It included Peter Rylands, member for Warrington; Peter Taylor, member for Leicester; Henry Richard, member for Merthyr Tydvil; George Anderson, member for Glasgow; and Llewellyn Dillwyn, member for Swansea. Some, such as Peter Taylor, were theoretical Republicans, but all were peace-at-any-price men, Bright's votaries, though when Bright joined the Government they were ready to vote against Bright.

The group contained also some men of Charles Dilke's own stamp, with whom Cambridge a.s.sociations created a bond. 'Harcourt, of whom I saw much, was then a below-the-gangway Radical.' He, though sixteen years Dilke's senior, was also a newcomer, but a newcomer well known already at Westminster by his famous letters to the _Times_, signed "Historicus," and by his career at the Parliamentary bar. Another was Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, who had been Charles Dilke's contemporary and coadjutor at the Union. A great figure in the Radical group came from Trinity Hall-- Fawcett, who had first won his seat for Brighton in 1865.

Among Government Liberals, Lord Granville in the House of Lords was an hereditary friend, through his attachment to Dilke's father, but belonged to a much older generation. Grant Duff, a man to whom later on Dilke came to be strongly attached, was Under-Secretary of State for India. From the first, however, a close alliance formed itself between Charles Dilke and a junior member of the Government, who had still been debating at the Union when Dilke came to Trinity Hall. Entering Parliament in 1865, Mr.

Trevelyan had distinguished himself by a vigorous campaign against the system of purchase in the Army, and, in 1868, he was put in office as Junior Lord of the Admiralty. Senior to Charles Dilke by five years, he had not known him at Cambridge; but they "speedily became very intimate."

So writes Sir George Trevelyan in a letter of 1911:

"I was a very young Minister, worked hard all day by Mr. Childers, a very strict but very friendly taskmaster, and never, according to the Treasury Bench discipline of those heroic times, allowed to be absent from the House of Commons for a single moment. I used to come to the House unlunched, and desperately hungry; and I got my dinner at four o'clock in an empty dining-room. Afternoon after afternoon, Charles Dilke used to come and sit with me; and a greater delight than his company, young to the young, I can hardly describe. But it does not need description to you, for never did anyone's talk alter less as time went on. The last time I saw him was at the swearing-in of Privy Councillors last May (1910), when we talked for half an hour as if we were respectively thirty and five-and-twenty years old."

An enrichment of that talk, as his friend remembers it, lay in Charles Dilke's multifarious knowledge. "This man seems to know all about everything in the world," someone remarked in those days. "Yes," was the answer, "and last week we were talking about the other world: Dilke seemed to know all about that too."

It was characteristic of Charles Dilke to choose for his maiden effort the most highly technical of subjects, and one which lent itself as little as possible to tricks of oratory. He would recall how Mr. George Melly, the member for Stoke-on-Trent, had cautioned him: "Don't talk to them about G.o.d Almighty; even Mr. Gladstone can't; they'll only stand it from John Bright." On March 9th, 1869, Mr. William Vernon Harcourt (as he then was) came forward with a motion for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into registration in Parliamentary boroughs. Upon this Charles Dilke made his first speech, filled with detailed knowledge, and with suggestions drawn from French procedure. Later speakers recognized the special competence shown, and when the Select Committee was appointed, he was named to serve on it--thus taking his place at once in the normal working life of the House.

'I acquired in the early months of this Session a knowledge of the registration and rating systems which lasted for a good many years, and the plan for the restoration of compounding, which was accepted by Mr. Goschen and moved by him in the form of new clauses in his Bill in April, 1869, was of my suggestion. By the joint operation of this plan, and of the Registration Act of 1878, which was my own, an immense increase of the electorate in boroughs was effected.'

No subject could have appeared less attractive than all this dull lore of compound householders and lodger's franchises.

But the spirit of official Liberalism was constantly at war with Radical views.

'My diary continually expressed my regret at what I thought the timidity of Mr. Gladstone's Government.' Thus, when it was beaten by the abstention of Liberals on Fawcett's Election Expenses Bill, which proposed to throw the necessary expenses of returning officers on the local rates, Charles Dilke 'was angry with the Government for not having so much as named the Bill upon their Whip.' Again, when his group had proposed to penalize a corrupt borough, the member for which had been unseated on pet.i.tion, the entry ran: 'We Radicals beaten by Government and Tories on the Bewdley writ,' the issue of which the Radicals had moved to postpone for twelve months.

In the case of Fawcett's motion to abolish University Tests, of whose injustice Dilke had personal experience: [Footnote: Having taken his Master's degree at Cambridge in this year, Dilke was 'immediately nominated to the Senate as an examiner for the Law Tripos by the Regius Professor of Laws.' But on further inquiry it appeared that an examiner for honours in Law must be a member of the Senate, and that a member of the Senate must declare himself a member of the Church of England. Dilke, strongly objecting to this exclusiveness, had refused to make the required profession. The 'grace,' therefore, was withdrawn, and he was not allowed to examine. Sir Roundell Palmer became Chancellor in 1872, on the retirement of Lord Hatherley. He was again Chancellor from 1880 to 1885.]

'My diary records a division in connection with which Sir Roundell Palmer did us some harm, the fact being that the great lawyer, who was afterwards Lord Selborne, was one of those gentlemen calling themselves Liberals in whom it was difficult to find any agreement with Liberal principles at any time or upon any subject. He was, in fact, a High Church Tory, as I found when I served with him in a Liberal Cabinet.'

On yet another motion of Fawcett's the Radicals found themselves in collision with the head of the Liberal Government. This advocated open compet.i.tion for the Civil Service, and Dilke supported Fawcett by speech as well as vote. Mr. Gladstone, following Dilke in the debate, suggested that he had spoken without examining his facts, a charge specially calculated to excite this conscientious worker's resentment. 'I recorded a strong opinion as to the crushing of independent members by Mr.