"That four gentlemen of different training, belonging to different

parties in the State, approaching this subject from different points

of view, and having little, perhaps, in common except a very

intimate knowledge of the questions connected with National Defence,

should be in entire agreement as to the general lines along which

future reformation should proceed, is a fact of which the public

will doubtless take note, and which is not likely to be ignored by

those responsible for the preservation of the Empire."

'Our letter was in all the papers about February 28th (1894), with

replies from Balfour and Chamberlain. Mr. Gladstone's reply, written

just before he resigned, was in his own hand, and more than usually

legible. Though it was not marked "Private," I did not print it, as

it seemed too personal and playful. It meant that he had resigned,

but I did not know this till an hour after I had received it:

'"You will forgive my pleading eyesight, which demanded the help of

others and thereby retarded operations, as an excuse for my having

failed to acknowledge the paper on Naval Defence which you were so

good as to send me. You will, I fear, find me a less interesting

correspondent than some who have replied at length, for I fear I

ought to confine myself to assuring you that I have taken care it

should come to the notice of my colleagues."

'On March 9th I sat near to Asquith at a dinner, and he told me that

his Defence Committee of the Cabinet, favoured by Balfour and

Rosebery, would soon be "a fact." The decision was made known in a

debate which I raised on the 16th.'

A note adds: 'When the Tories came in in June, 1895, they adopted the

scheme of a Minister (the Duke of Devonshire) over both army and navy,

which had been put forward in the Dilke--Chesney--Arnold-Forster--

Wilkinson correspondence with Balfour and Chamberlain, and originally

invented by me. On the night of the Government (Liberal) defeat

Campbell-Bannerman had promised a Commander-in-Chief who should be the

Chief Military Adviser, a double triumph for my view.'

CHAPTER LVII

DEATH OF LADY DILKE--PARLIAMENT OF 1905

In 1903, Chamberlain, by raising the question of Tariff Reform and

putting himself at the head of a movement for revising the Free Trade

policy which had been accepted by both the great political parties since

1846, practically broke up the Conservative Government. It survived,

indeed, under the leadership of Mr. Balfour; but it was only a feeble

shadow of the powerful Administration which Lord Salisbury had formed in

1895.

On the motion for adjournment before the Whitsuntide recess (May 28th,

1903), Sir Charles raised the whole question of commercial policy,

directing himself chiefly to the speeches that had been made by Mr.

Balfour and by Mr. Bonar Law. But it was Mr. Chamberlain's policy that

was in question. Years later, after the whole subject has been

incessantly discussed, it is difficult to realize the effect produced by

the sudden and unexpected onset of that redoubtable champion. Free Trade

had been so long taken for granted that the case for it had become

unfamiliar; what remained was an academic conviction, and against that

Chamberlain arrayed an extraordinary personal prestige backed by a

boldness of assertion to which his position as a business man lent

authority. To meet an onset so sudden and so ably conducted was no easy

task, and for Dilke there was the unhappy personal element of a first

angry confrontation with his old ally. Mr. Chamberlain described Sir

Charles's motion as gratuitous and harassing, "an affair of spies," for

a day had been fixed for the regular encounter. Yet what was needed then

was to show on the Liberal side that confidence which anticipates the

combat. The temper of the time is well indicated by a letter from an old

friend, the Bishop of Hereford:

"I hope you will stick to the business, and protect ordinary people

from the new sophistry both by speech and writing. So few people

have any intellectual grip that everything may depend on the

leadership of a few men like yourself, who can speak with knowledge

and authority, and will take the trouble to put concrete facts

before the public."

Meanwhile Tariff Reform had begun to act as a disintegrant on the

Unionist party, and by the end of October, 1903, Lord James was writing

to Sir Charles Dilke as to the position of Unionist Free Traders: "Can

nothing be done for these unfortunate men?" There is no evidence that

their state moved Sir Charles to compassion, but it is clear that he

feared lest a regrouping of parties should destroy the commanding

position which Radicals had gained, and as soon as Parliament

reassembled he took action.

'_Thursday, February 11th_, 1904.--I sought an interview with John

Redmond, to whom I said that there seemed a rapidly increasing risk

of the speedy formation of a Whig Administration dominated by

Devonshire influence, and that it might be wise that he, with or

without Blake, should meet myself and Lloyd George for the Radicals,

J. R. Macdonald for the Labour Representation Committee, and with

him either Snowden or Keir Hardie. Redmond assented, and I then saw

Lloyd George. Lloyd George was at first inclined to assent, but on

second thoughts asked for time, which I think meant to see Dr.

Clifford.

'_Friday, February 12th_, 1904.--Lloyd George had not made up his

mind either way, but thought that it would be wise to meet except

for the fact that trouble might happen afterwards as to what had

passed. I pointed out that this could be easily guarded against by

his writing me a letter making any conditions or reservations which

he thought necessary, which I should show to Redmond, and write to

him that I had so shown. On this he promised to let me know on

Monday what he thought, and probably would prepare a draft letter.

'_February 18th, 1904.--Further talk with George. A little afraid of

being attacked by Perks for selling the pass on education. I said

that I must go on alone to a certain extent, and he then consented

to come in, and on my suggesting reservations--as, for example, on

education--he said: "No, I can trust the Irish as regards the

personal matter, and, as I come in, I will come in freely without

any reservations."'

Through the general unsettlement which Chamberlain's new policy had

created, a dissolution and a change of Government were now possibilities

of a not distant future, and speculations were rife as to the future

position of Sir Charles. Lady Dilke, who regarded the admission of her

husband to office as a proof of his public exoneration from the charges

brought against his character, was ardently desirous that he should

accept without reserve any offer of a place in the Cabinet, and it was

much against her wish that Sir Charles imposed conditions, in

conversation with a political friend who had been a member of the last

Liberal Cabinet. So far as anxiety again to hold office existed on his

part, it was more because of her wishes in the matter than from any

strong political ambition of his own. [Footnote: He wrote to Mr. Deakin

from Geneva, December 9th, 1904: "Only one word of what you say on 'too

tardy rewards in higher responsibilities'! I was in the inner ring of

the Cabinet before I was either a Cabinet Minister or a Privy

Councillor, 1880-1882, and I am not likely to have the offer of the

place the work of which would tempt me. The W.O. would kill me, but I

could not refuse it. I have been told on 'authority' that it will not

come to me."]

But the motive which in this, as in all else, swayed him so strongly was

now to be taken away.

Lady Dilke's wish for her husband's return to office was shared by many

Radical politicians, and in the course of the summer Captain Cecil

Norton, one of the Liberal Whips, in a speech expressed his opinion of

the value of Sir Charles Dilke's services, and his anticipation that the

fall of the Tory Government would bring back the Radical leader of 1885

to his full share of power. This utterance was enough to set the old

machinery in motion against him. A series of meetings had been organized

by the advanced Radical section of the House of Commons, and the first

was to have been held in Newington, Captain Norton's constituency, with

Sir Charles for the chief speaker. Threats of a hostile demonstration

reached the Newington committee, and it was decided--though Sir Charles

Dilke was opposed to any change--that the series should be opened with a

speech from him in his old constituency, the place where he was best

known and where he had most friends. It was fixed for October 20th,

1904.

Nothing of the reason for this change was told to Lady Dilke. Her health

had given some cause for anxiety, though at Dockett Eddy in August and

at Speech House in September she had been more bright, more gay, than

ever. She herself wrote to friends that she had "never been so happy in

her life," but felt need of rest, and was going to Pyrford for a long

rest.

She reached Pyrford with her husband on October 15th, and he wished her

to see a doctor, but she refused. "He would stop my going up with you on

Thursday, and I want to go. I think I ought to be there."

It was long since Dilke had stood before those whom he once represented,

and she was determined to be with him; she assisted at the triumphant

success of this meeting; but the strain of coming up to London and the

excitement justified her forecast of the doctor's opinion. That night

she was taken ill, yet till the morning would make no sign, for fear of

disturbing her husband. She admitted then that she was very ill; to

Pyrford, however, she was set on returning; in London she "could not

rest." By Sunday she seemed to be on the highroad to recovery, but on

that Sunday night the end came.

Those last days and hours have been fully described by Sir Charles in

the memoir prefixed to her posthumous book. All that he has written in

his own Memoir is this: 'October 23rd, 1904: Emilia died in my arms

after one of our happiest Sunday afternoons.'

So ended the marriage which, contracted under gloomy auspices in 1885,

had resulted in nineteen years of unbroken felicity. Her praise has been

written in love and reverence by her husband, who was her equal comrade.

The union between them was so complete as to exclude the thought of

gratitude, but whatever man can owe to a woman Sir Charles Dilke owed to

his wife; and though she died without achieving that end on which she

had set her heart, of utterly and explicitly cancelling by public assent

all the charges that had been brought against him, yet she had so lived

and so helped him to live that he was heedless of this matter, except

for her sake.

Over her grave many hands were stretched out to him. Chamberlain wrote

from Italy:

"My Dear Dilke,

"I have just seen with the deepest sympathy and sorrow the news of

the terrible loss you have sustained.

"Consolation would be idle in presence of such a blow, but I should

like you to feel that as an old friend, separated by the unhappy

political differences of these later years, I still share your

personal grief in losing a companion so devoted to you, and so well

qualified to aid and strengthen you in all the work and anxiety of

your active life.

"When the first great shock is past, I earnestly trust that you may

find in the continued performance of your public duties some

alleviation of your private sorrow, and I assure you most earnestly

of my sympathy in this time of trial.

"Believe me,

"Yours very truly,

"J. Chamberlain."

Mr. Morley wrote also:

"My Dear Dilke,

"I did not hear the news of the unhappy stroke that has befallen you

until it was a fortnight old. You need not to be told what a shock

it was. I think that I had known her longer than anybody--from the

time of a college ball at Oxford in 1859; a radiant creature she

then was. To me her friendship was unwavering, down to the last time

I saw her, when she gave me a long and _intime_ talk about the

things that, as you know, she had most at heart. I am deeply and

sincerely sorry and full of sympathy with you. Words count little in

such a disaster, but this I hope you will believe.

"Ever yours,

"John Morley."

When after his wife's death Sir Charles again took up his life in

London, those who saw him off his guard recognized keenly the effect of

this last sudden blow, heavier because unexpected. The very mainspring

of his life had been weakened. But he exerted himself to prepare Lady

Dilke's unpublished writings, and to write the memoir which prefaced

them. Of this he says:

'I put my whole soul into the work of bringing out her posthumous

book with a proper memoir, and it nearly killed me. I was never so

pleased with anything as with the success of the book. To hundreds

of the best people it seems to have meant and said all that I wished

it to say and mean.'

Probably, also, to many readers it gave for the first time a true image,

not of her only for whose sake it was written, but of him who wrote. One

letter of this moment deserves to be put on record. Mr. Arnold-Forster

wrote:

"Dear Sir Charles,

"In a very few days the Session, with all its conflicts, its

misunderstandings, and its boredom, will be upon us. Before it comes

let me take advantage of one of the few remaining days of calm to

write a line to you.

"It is inevitable, and no doubt right, that you and I should find

ourselves on different sides; we shall probably differ on a good

many points, and on some we shall very likely express our

differences. But I trust that nothing in the rough and tumble of

public work will interrupt the pleasant relations which have so long

existed between yourself and me, and the existence of which I have

so greatly valued.

"You have been a good and kind friend to me ever since I entered the

House, and I have always valued both your friendship and your good

opinion, when you could give it me. I have known well enough that I

owed much to Lady Dilke's friendship and affection for my wife; but

I shall never forget how generously that friendship was extended to

me. I was very deeply sensible of the privilege of receiving the

confidence and the good-will of a very noble and wonderfully able

woman.

"But I must not weary you with too long a letter. All I want to tell

you is that I cherish the hope that even now that this bond of

union, this comprehending and reconciling presence, is no longer

here to keep our tempers wise and sweet, you may still count me

among your warm friends, and--despite the estrangement of party

politics--may continue to give me your good-will and may believe in

the continuance of mine."

The Administration of Mr. Balfour fell in the last days of 1905. Sir

Henry Campbell-Bannerman was entrusted with the formation of a Liberal

Government, and the question was at once eagerly asked, in political

circles, whether Sir Charles Dilke would be a member of it. In February,

1905, he had written to Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice expressing a hope that

he would be outside the next Government, so as to be free to oppose the

deal with Russia which in his opinion Sir E. Grey was contemplating.

The feeling of the Conservative party on the question of his return to

official life is sufficiently shown by the fact that he had previously

been sounded as to his willingness to accept the chairmanship of the

Royal Commission on the Poor Law. That the attitude of the Court towards

him had changed is also clear. Not only was his attendance at Levees

approved, but he and Lady Dilke had received the royal command to the

Queen's Garden Party at Windsor. The attitude of his own party was,

however, the determining factor.

Before the critical time actually arrived, there had been tentative

conversations, and, although Sir Charles did not expect that any

invitation would come to him, Mr. Labouchere thought otherwise, and a

letter from him describes conversations which he had held with Sir Henry

Campbell-Bannerman: "I thought then from his general observations that

you would be War Minister."

In Labouchere's opinion the determining factor was a public

correspondence in which Dr. Talbot, then Bishop of Southwark, took the

lead in protesting against any such appointment. But this was probably a

mistaken view. There is no reason to believe that the Liberal leader had

any wish to include Sir Charles in his Ministry. The Cordite vote was

not forgotten by the members of the Liberal Administration of 1892-1895.

No office was offered to Sir Charles. His answer to the letter written

by Labouchere on January 6th was:

"I never thought C.-B. could possibly offer me the War Office, and I

could not have refused it or made conditions for the post, and it

would have killed me. I did not expect him to offer me any place.

Had my wife lived, that would have hurt her, and, through her, me.

As it is, I prefer to be outside--a thing which, though often true,

no one ever believes of others.

"But when in office--April, 1880, to June, 1885--I was exceptionally

powerful, and nearly always got my own way in my department. That

could never have been repeated--a strong reason why I have all along

preferred the pleasant front seat in the house to a less commanding

position on the stage."

When Mr. Haldane's name was announced for the War Office, Mr. Arnold-

Forster sent a message agreeing with Sir Charles's high estimate of the

new War Minister's abilities. "By far the best appointment they could

possibly make--with the one exception." And Mr. T. R. Buchanan,

Financial Secretary to the War Office, wrote in reply to Sir Charles's

congratulations:

"I have taken the liberty of showing your letter to Haldane, and he

desires me to thank you for what you say about him, and he values it

all the more highly because of your generosity. You would certainly

have been the natural man to be now in his place, and it is a public

loss that you are not in it."

At the election which followed Sir Charles was re-elected by an enormous

majority for his old constituency, after issuing this, the shortest of

all his habitually short addresses:

"Gentlemen,--I solicit with confidence the renewal of your trust.

"Believe me, your devoted servant,

"Charles W. Dilke."

In the autumn of 1905 he had delivered a series of addresses, mainly to

audiences of Labour men, advocating a general co-operation of Radicals

with the Irish and Labour groups. For Ireland he urged a return to the

"Parnell-Chamberlain scheme of 1885," but applied as a part of Home Rule

all round. His proposal was that the Irish members should in the autumn

sit in Dublin, the Scottish members in Edinburgh, the Welsh in Wales,

and the English at Westminster, and should then transact local affairs,

their decisions being ratified or rejected by the United House when it

met in spring as an Imperial Parliament.

In December, 1905, he wrote to Mr. Deakin:

"The composition of the new Ministry seems to me, as to everybody

else, good. The Imperial question will slumber, I think, until the

Irish question has become again acute. The Ministry ought to be able

to do very well in 1906; two Sessions up to Christmas. In 1907 I

expect a row with Redmond, in which I shall be more or less on

Redmond's side. The Liberal party will not face the fact that they

cannot avoid dealing with the Irish question without the certainty

of the Irish moderates, of whom Redmond is the most moderate, being

forced to say: 'We can no longer keep Ireland quiet for you.' The

Liberal party will not have coercion, and, that being so, they have

no alternative except to do what they ought to do. It would be wiser

to do it before they are compelled; and if they did it before

compulsion was applied, they would have more chance of carrying the

country with them."

In a lighter vein he wrote to Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, commenting on the

extraordinary predominance of Scottish members in the Cabinet, on

December 15th, 1905:

"I had already, before I received your criticism on the Scotch,

suggested to Hudson (who is with me) the things that Labouchere is

likely to say about his friends, and had yesterday got as far as his

turning round and asking us in a loud whisper: 'Who is it who

represents _England_ in this Government?'

[Footnote: The Cabinet consisted of nineteen persons. Of these, the

Prime Minister (Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman); the Chancellor (Lord

Loreburn); the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Asquith); the Secretary

of State for the Colonies (Lord Elgin); the Secretary of State for India

(Lord Morley); the Secretary of State for War (Mr. Haldane); the First

Lord of the Admiralty (Lord Tweedmouth); the Chief Secretary for Ireland

(Mr. Bryce); the Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Sinclair)--nine in

all--were Scottish Peers or represented Scottish constituencies. It was

also observed that Sir Edward Grey's constituency was the Scottish

Borderland; and it was jestingly said that John Burns was put into the

Cabinet because he had persuaded the Premier that he descended from the

poet!

Mr. Birrell, when the Government was formed, was not in Parliament, but

his last constituency had been Scotch, The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland

was Lord Aberdeen.]

"We used to think that the value of Randolph was that he gave to

politics the constant pleasure of the unexpected. Rosebery now does

this in the Lords, and Charles II.'s truthful saying about the House

of Commons, 'It is as good as a play,' becomes on account of

Rosebery temporarily true of the House of Lords. We shall all of us

be drawn there very often, and even such a House of Commons man as

your humble servant, grumbling the while, will nevertheless find

himself attracted to that 'throne.'"

When the new Parliament met in 1906, Labour had for the first time a

really important representation. [Footnote: See Chapter LII., "Labour,"

p. 346.]

Sir Charles noted in his Diary: 'The Labour party was my original scheme

for the I.L.P. as developed in talks at Pyrford, before its formation,

with Champion and with Ben Tillett. To join it or lead it was never my

thought.'

His purpose was rather to be a connecting link between the varying

groups in the development of a legislative programme which he forecast

with shrewd prevision. On January 6th, 1906, he wrote to Labouchere:

"As I now seem to have the confidence of Balfour, Redmond, and Keir

Hardie, the position will be difficult; but in the present year

Redmond and Keir Hardie will, I think, join with me in supporting

Government. Next year it will be different, unless, as I expect,

Grey goes for H.R. The small Budget of 1906 will be a

disappointment, and so, I fear, will be the big one of 1907.

"The really weak point is that the Government is damned unless it

fights the Lords in 1907, and that the promise of 'five years in

power' will prevent the hacks from fighting."

Holding these views, it was natural that he should seek to maintain that

organization of a Radical group which had existed continuously since

Fawcett established, or rather revived, it on first entering the

Parliament of 1865-1868. The Radical Club, of which Sir Charles himself

was the first secretary, grew out of this, and was largely directed by

him till 1880, when he ceased, on taking office, to be a member.

[Footnote: For earlier mention of the Radical Club, see Vol. I., Chapter

VIII., p. 100.] His brother succeeded him in the secretaryship; but with

Ashton Dilke's death the club died also, being replaced by a loose

committee organization which lasted till 1893, and then came to an

untimely end because the party Whips attempted to pack the meeting which

elected this committee. The elected body was then replaced by a

virtually self-chosen group. In 1904 an emergency committee of this

group was appointed; and when the new Parliament met, Sir Charles was

the only member of the committee left. Mr. Harcourt and Captain Norton

had taken office, Mr. Stanhope had gone to the Lords, Mr. Labouchere had

retired. It therefore fell to Sir Charles to reassemble surviving atoms

of this organism, to attract new ones, and to make known its nature and

purpose.

It had always been essential, in his view, that there should be no

"party," no chairman, and no whips; but simply a grouping for the

purpose of stimulating the Government by pressure as to practical and

immediate Parliamentary objects on which advanced men think alike or

harmoniously, and for current arrangements, such as balloting for

motions and generally making the best use of private members' time.

There was at the outset a great influx of members, and three secretaries

were appointed. At all meetings at which he was present Sir Charles took

the chair, and through this centre exercised much influence, committing

the House of Commons to a series of resolutions--abstract indeed, but

none the less important.

The various objects which Radicalism should have before it in 1906 are

sketched in a kind of shorthand summary:

"Good understanding with Irish Nationalist members, based on at

least the Parnell-Chamberlain National Council scheme of 1885, and

with the Labour party for common objects.

"So far as further political reforms are needed no registration

reform worth having, but principle of adult suffrage of all grown

men and women carries simplification and single vote.

"Payment of members and expenses.

"Single Chamber, or restriction of power of House of Lords (i.e., no

'Reform' of = stronger). [Footnote: Sir Charles always maintained

that "Reform" of the House of Lords would result in strengthening

its position.]

"Fiscal reform, capable of being dealt with by Budget or

administratively, and money to be saved by ... increased revenue

provided by increased graduation of death duties and by relieving

the Imperial Exchequer of the local grants, substituting taxation of

land values by the local authorities for the latter.

"This last point is closely connected with full power to local

authorities to acquire land for all purposes, and this with

municipal trading and other forms of municipal Socialism. The heads

of the Labour policy are now so universally embraced as not to be

specially Radical; Taff Vale, for example, being supported by all

Liberals and some Tories, and the Miners' Eight Hours receiving the

support of nearly all Liberals and of some Tories."

On the question of electoral reform, and specially of woman's suffrage,

all his action was guided by one conclusion thus expressed, and embodied

in the Franchise Bill introduced by him each Session:

"The limited franchise, if it is ever carried, will be carried as a

party Conservative measure intended to aid Conservative opinions and

to rest the franchise upon an unassailable limited base, and it will

be carried in that case against the counter-proposal of the suffrage

of all grown men and women, made by those representing the advanced

thought of the country." [Footnote: Memorandum by Sir Charles Dilke

on "Suffrage of All Grown Men and Women," issued by the People's

Suffrage Federation.]

It is unnecessary to emphasize the completeness with which political

evolution has followed the lines here marked out by him. Others reaped

the harvest. But no man then living had done more to sow the seed.

The Parliament in which he found himself was one of singular interest.

He wrote:

"The old form of party divisions is, in the great majority of

constituencies, not yet much affected by recent events. In the House

of Commons it is almost dead for the present year....

"The future cannot be foreseen, and in politics it is always foolish

to attempt to prophesy. I have frequently myself made or quoted the

remark that in politics a year is equivalent to eternity. I have now

limited myself to 1906. Whether the party system, in which British

statesmen of our time and of past generations have been nurtured,

will ever be restored is another matter. Whether the birth of a

definite Labour party, in addition to a definite Irish Nationalist

party, will be followed by any further division, or whether, as I

expect, it will not, yet the division into four parties--of which

three will compete actively for the favour of the British

electorate--will, I think, continue, and we follow here the line of

political development in which first the Australian Colonies, and

now the Commonwealth, have led the way." [Footnote: _Potentia_,

1906.]

Writing in the _Financial Review of Reviews_ for April, 1906, he spoke

of the "extraordinarily interesting nature of the debates," of which

example had already been given, and he foreshadowed no less interesting

action. The changes which he had in view, mainly financial, were "not

likely to be popular in the City, with solicitors, with the organized

representatives of the employing class," but none the less they would

probably be carried into law. The old assumption that democratic

movements would be carried into legislation "by capitalist members

steeped in Radical pledges" had ceased to correspond with the facts. A

new type of member of Parliament had appeared, and Sir Charles welcomed

the change.

"It is possible that the members are more Radical than the

constituencies. This is an arguable question; but that they are

convinced upon such questions, not by pressure, but by training and

by thought, is a conclusion which no one who knows the present House

of Commons can resist.

"There has probably never sat so interesting a House of Commons in

the history of this country. With a good deal of experience of

Parliaments and of their inner life and thought, and with the

opportunity of frequent discussion with those who, like Mr.

Gladstone, remembered all the Parliaments back to the early

thirties, and those, like Mr. Vernon Harcourt, [Footnote: George

Granville Vernon Harcourt, elected to the House of Commons as member

for Oxford in 1831. He held his seat till 1859.] who remembered much

earlier Parliaments, I am certain that there has never met at

Westminster an assembly so able and at the same time so widely

different in intellectual composition from its predecessors as that

which is now there gathered. The development of opinion, however, is

less of a surprise to those who have watched Australia and New

Zealand than to those who have confined their studies to the United

Kingdom and the Continent." [Footnote: In 1911, when Lord Hugh Cecil

described with violent rhetoric the alleged degradation of the House

of Commons, Mr. Balfour was moved to protest, and cited in support

of his own view "a man whose authority had always been admitted." "I

remember," he said, "talking over with Sir Charles Dilke the

question of general Parliamentary practice, and he said, and I

agree, that there has been no deterioration either in his or in my

Parliamentary experience."]

Payment of members he did not live to see, but he always regarded it as

"an extraordinary anomaly that payment should have been discontinued in

this country."

"Members are paid in every other country in the world, and in every

British colony (I believe without exception). Non-payment means

deliberate preference for moneyed oligarchy, as only rare exceptions

can produce a democratic member under such a system. It excludes all

poor men of genius unless they can get themselves paid by parties

like the Irish, which makes them slaves. It throws undue power into

the hands of the capital as the seat of the legislature, and it

leads to poor members selling their souls to rotten compromises."

Despite the advance of age and a growing weakness of the heart, the

impression which he produced was always one of commanding vigour. His

habit of fencing kept him alert and supple in all his movements.

Notwithstanding his elaborate preparation for the work, no man's

appearances in debate were less premeditated; he spoke when he felt

inclined: had he spoken for effect, his interpositions would have been

much less frequent. But when tactics required it, no man was more

willing to efface himself. Especially was this so in all his relations

with Labour; when he could leave to the Labour party the credit of

moving an important amendment, he gladly left it to them. Yet when he

was more likely than they to secure Liberal support, he was prepared to

move against the Government, and in one notable amendment on the Trade

Disputes Bill brought down their vast majority to the bare figure of

five. [Footnote: For a fuller account of Sir Charles's work connected

with the Taff Vale Decision and the Trade Disputes Act, see "Labour,"

Chapter LII, pp. 345 and 365.]

The work which in these last years cost him most labour--in view of his

failing health, it would have been well for his friends had he never

undertaken it--was that given to the Committee on the Income Tax, of

which he became chairman in 1906. Sir Bernard Mallet (now Registrar-

General) writes in 1916:

"In the spring of 1906 the Government decided to appoint a strong

Committee to inquire into the questions of graduation and

differentiation of the income tax, which had for some Sessions been

coming into prominence in consequence of the financial difficulties

caused by the South African War. Mr. Asquith, then Chancellor of the

Exchequer, offered the chairmanship to Sir Charles Dilke, who had

never claimed to be an expert in finance, and only accepted it after

strong pressure, and the Select Committee set to work accordingly

early in May. Having taken up the work, which occupied most of the

summer, Sir Charles threw himself into it with immense energy. He

familiarized himself with all the literature bearing on the

question, and he made a point of calling, as witnesses, not only the

usual officials, but also as many outside economists and

statisticians as might be able to throw light upon questions which,

as he rightly conceived, lay at the root of any proper consideration

of the problem before the Committee. He attached special importance

to all the evidence bearing upon foreign and colonial methods and

principles in the taxation of income and property, and to the

endeavour he made to get at statistics bearing on the distribution

of income--two vitally important factors introduced by him, for the

first time, into any official handling of the subject.

"But the result of all the knowledge, thoroughness, and enthusiasm,

which, as his friends could testify, he lavished without stint (and,

it is to be feared, to the serious detriment of his health) upon the

work, must have somewhat disappointed him. Sir Charles's attempts to

deal with the matter in a comprehensive spirit and produce a report

which would rival in interest the famous reports of two previous

Select Committees on the subject, those of 1851 and 1861, were

hampered by the necessity, under which the Committee lay, of

devising a means to increase the yield of the income tax with the

least political friction. The two expedients which came most

prominently before the Committee were those of differentiating the

rate of the income tax in favour of earned or precarious incomes,

and of imposing a supertax upon the larger incomes. Both of these

were included in the recommendations of the report which was

ultimately adopted, [Footnote: Report of the Select Committee on

Income Tax, II. of C. 365 of 1906.] and carried into effect in the

Budgets of 1907 and 1909 respectively. [Footnote: See _British

Budgets_, by Bernard Mallet (1913), pp. 262, 263, 274, 277-281, and

305, where also some comments on the recommendations of the

Committee are to be found.] Sir Charles's own view was opposed to

both these methods. He would have preferred to differentiation, even

in the limited form (up to £2,000 a year) in which it became law,

the method of separate taxation of property, or income from

property, as in Prussia and Holland, if death duties were not

considered as sufficient taxation upon property.

"He was certainly impressed by the unscientific character of the

proposed differentiation; by the difficulty of distinguishing

between 'earned' and 'unearned' incomes, and by the possibilities of

abuse which this method of dealing with the question offered.

Supertax he would have reserved for a national emergency, but it

should not be supposed that his opposition to it implied opposition

to graduation either in principle or in practice. He was, indeed,

strongly in favour of a graduated income tax, but, in his judgment,

a supertax was a somewhat clumsy way of effecting the purpose aimed

at. In his opinion the universal declaration of all taxable incomes

was an indispensable preliminary to the full and just graduation of

the income tax, and written notes of his are in existence showing

how much importance he attached to this point.

"Holding these views, he could not produce a report sufficiently

decisive in its acceptance of the methods favoured by the majority

of his colleagues.

"The stupendous increases which have taken place in the rates of the

income tax owing to the present war, increases far surpassing

anything contemplated by the Committee over which Sir Charles

presided ten years ago, have thrown all such controversies as these

into the shade; but apart from the practical results of its

recommendations, which for good or ill left at the time a very

decided mark on fiscal legislation, this investigation succeeded,

owing mainly to his influence, in eliciting a quantity of evidence

which will always make it of historical interest to students of

taxation."

CHAPTER LVIII

FOREIGN AFFAIRS: 1890 TO 1910

Even before his return, in July, 1892, to Parliament, Sir Charles Dilke

was still a powerful critic of the country's foreign policy. It is a

curious commentary on the wisdom of those who believe that, except at

moments of special excitement or of public danger, it is impossible to

interest the electorate in foreign affairs, that during this period he

was constantly able to gather large public audiences in the North of

England and in Wales, and induce them to listen to careful criticisms on

questions such as the delimitation of the African continent, the

Newfoundland fisheries, British policy in the Pacific, and the future of

the Congo State. This was achieved, although no party appeal could be

made or was attempted, and although there was a deliberate effort by an

influential section of the London Press to boycott the speaker. In these

speeches Sir Charles pointed out that a perhaps too general acquiescence

existed on the part of most Liberals in the foreign policy of the

Government, merely because Lord Salisbury had made no attempt to

continue or to revive the pro-Turkish and warlike policy which had

distinguished the Government of Lord Beaconsfield in 1878. Lord

Salisbury was now mainly intent on settling outstanding questions with

France and Germany, especially in Africa, dealing with them one by one.

The ordinary Conservative partisan still said in public that nothing

could be worse than the foreign policy and practice of the Liberal

party; but he was also saying in private that the policy of his own

party was little better, that the army both at home and in India was

neglected, and that the fleet was probably insufficient. Dread, however,

of Mr. Gladstone and of the possible return of the Liberal party to

power, made him with rare exceptions silent in Parliament; while, on the

other hand, the mass of the Liberal party had become supporters of Lord

Salisbury's foreign and colonial policy. "The fact that Lord Salisbury

had not been an active Turk or an active Jingo had proved enough to

cover everything." [Footnote: "The Conservative Foreign Policy,"

_Fortnightly Review_, January, 1892, by Sir Charles Dilke.] But the

absence of any well-sustained criticism in Parliament had evident

disadvantages, and Sir Charles's speeches at this time supplied the

deficiency.

The political fortunes of France between 1887 and 1895 were at a low

ebb. The financial scandals which led to the resignation of President

Grevy in 1887, the serio-comic political career of General Boulanger,

dangerous and constant labour disturbances in the great centres of

industry, the Panama financial scandals of 1893, the assassination of

President Carnot in 1894, and the impossibility of forming stable

Ministries, caused a general lack of confidence in the future of the

Republic both at home and abroad, which the facile glories of the Paris

Exhibition of 1889 could not conceal. The foreign policy of the country

seemed to consist in a system of "pin-pricks" directed against Great

Britain, and in hostility to Italy, which culminated in anti-Italian

riots in the South of France, a tariff war, and the entry of Italy into

the alliance of the Central Powers. The letters of Sir Charles during

this period are full of expressions of despair at the condition of

French politics and at the general lack of statesmanship. The suspicion

which he entertained of Russian intentions caused him also to look

askance at the newly formed friendship of France with Russia, which,

commencing with the visit of a French naval squadron under Admiral

Gervais to Cronstadt in August, 1891, was finally sealed by a treaty of

alliance signed in March, 1895, though the precise terms were not known.

[Footnote: In a letter to M. Joseph Reinach written after the appearance

of _The Present Position of European Politics_, Sir Charles says: "I did

_not_ say Gambetta had been a great friend to the Poles. I said he hated

the Russians. He told me so over and over again. He held the same view

as Napoleon I. as to Russia, and said, 'J'irais chercher mes alliances

n'importe oui--meme a Berlin,' and, 'La Russie me tire le pan de

l'habit, mais jamais je n'ecouterais ce qu'on me fait dire.' But, in

searching for my own reasons for this in the first article, I said that

as a law student he had been brought up with a generation which had had

Polish sympathies, and that perhaps this had caused (unconsciously, I

meant) his anti-Russian views. I know he did not believe in setting up a

Poland."]

In Germany the position was different. The Dual Alliance devised by

Prince Bismarck between Germany and Austria-Hungary had become the

Triple Alliance by the accession of Italy, and had been further

strengthened by an assurance of naval support given to Italy by Lord

Salisbury in the event of the _status quo_ in the Mediterranean being

disturbed. The presumable disturber aimed at was evidently France.

[Footnote: "In 1903 Lord Lansdowne explained that in February, 1887,

there had been that exchange of notes between Italy and ourselves of

which I had written in that year. In _The Present Position of European

Politics_ I made allusion to Disraeli's proposal, before his defeat in

1880, of a league of the Powers for the defence of the _status quo_ in

the Mediterranean. The notes of February, 1887, nominally dealt only

with the Mediterranean _status quo_ desired in common, it was said, by

Italy and Great Britain. Cynics might be tempted to ask whether all

Italian Ministers desired the maintenance of a _status quo_ in a

'Mediterranean' which included the coast of Tunis, the coast of Tripoli,

and even, Lord Lansdowne added, the Adriatic." (Sir Charles Dilke in the

_English Review_, October, 1909: "On the Relations of the Powers.") On

this subject see _Crispi Memoirs_, vol. ii., chap. v.] The meddlesome

intrigues of Russian partisans, and a long series of political outrages

culminating in the murder of M. Stambouloff, were gradually forming an

Austro-German party in Bulgaria; while the wise and progressive

administration of Bosnia and the Herzegovina by Herr von Kallay had

encouraged a belief that some good thing might even yet come out of

Austria, notwithstanding the famous expression of a belief to the

contrary by Mr. Gladstone.

In the circumstances Lord Salisbury determined to base his policy on a

good understanding with Germany, and he had his reward. The African

settlement of 1890 was a comprehensive scheme which undoubtedly made

great concessions to German wishes, but, taken in connection with

subsequent enlargements and additions, it was hoped that it had at least

removed any real danger of collision between the two Powers principally

concerned. A treaty with France, recognizing a French protectorate over

Madagascar, was defended by its authors as the complement of the

arrangements of 1890, as to Zanzibar, with Germany. Subsequent treaties

with Portugal and Italy made the period decisive as to the future

division of the African continent. Both in Great Britain and Germany the

arrangements of 1890 were attacked as having yielded too much to the

other side. But looking at the treaty from an English point of view, Sir

Charles said there had been too many graceful "concessions" all round,

and of these he made himself the critic. He did not, however, identify

himself with the extreme school of so-called "Imperial" thought, which

seemed to consider that in some unexplained manner Great Britain had

acquired a prior lien on the whole unoccupied portion of the vast

African continent.

But in the treaty of 1890 there was one clause--the last--which stood

out by itself in conspicuous isolation, and this Sir Charles never

ceased to attack and denounce. It decreed the transfer of Heligoland to

Germany. The importance of the acquisition was not fully appreciated at

the time even in Germany. What the surrender might some day mean was not

understood in Great Britain. On both sides the tendency was to belittle

the transaction. [Footnote: Reventlow, 38-51. _Hohenlohe Memoirs_, ii.

470-471.] Apart from some minor interests possessed by British

fishermen, Lord Salisbury described the value of the island as mainly

"sentimental," in the speech in which on July 10th he defended the

transaction in the House of Lords.

He supported the proposal by arguing that the island was unfortified,

that it was within a few hours' steam of the greatest arsenal of

Germany, that if the island remained in our possession an expedition

would be despatched to capture it on "the day of the declaration of war,

and would arrive considerably before any relieving force could arrive

from our side." "It would expose us to a blow which would be a

considerable humiliation." "If we were at war with any other Power it

would be necessary for us to lock up a naval force for the purpose of

defending this island, unless we intended to expose ourselves to the

humiliation of having it taken." This argument, Sir Charles Dilke showed

by a powerful criticism of the whole treaty in the columns of the

_Melbourne Argus_, went a great deal too far. It could be used for the

purpose of defending the cession of the Channel Islands to France. "The

Channel Islands lie close to a French stronghold, Cherbourg, and not

very far from the greatest of French arsenals, at Brest. They are

fortified and garrisoned, but they are feebly garrisoned, and they have

not been refortified in recent times, and could not be held without

naval assistance, and the argument about locking up our fleet applies in

the case of the Channel Islands, and in the case of many other of our

stations abroad, as it was said to apply in the case of Heligoland."

[Footnote: _Melbourne Argus_, September 10th, 1890. As to Heligoland,

see _Life of Granville_, ii, 362, 363, 425; Holland Rose, _Origins of

the War_, p. 18.]

Lord Salisbury went on to point out that we had obtained a consideration

for the transfer of Heligoland to Germany "on the east coast of Africa,"

a consideration which consisted mainly in an undertaking from Germany

that she would not oppose our assumption of the protectorate of

Zanzibar. But, said Sir Charles, the protectorate, when it included not

only the island of Zanzibar, but the strip of coast now forming the

maritime fringe both of British and of German East Africa, had been over

and over again refused by us. "I was one of those," Sir Charles

continued, referring to a still earlier chapter of Lord Salisbury's

policy during the short-lived Government of 1885-86, "who thought that

the policy of 1885 with regard to Zanzibar was a mistaken policy, and

that we should have insisted on supporting our East Indian subjects, who

had and have the trade on that coast and island in their hands. We had

joined with France in arrangements with regard to the whole Zanzibar

coast, and when we concluded an agreement with Germany about that coast

it became necessary for us to force that agreement upon the French on

behalf of Germany. A most mistaken policy, in my opinion, as we should

otherwise have had the support of France in resisting a German

occupation of any portion of the coast, an occupation which it is safe

to say would not have been attempted in face of a distinct statement on

our part."

Lord Salisbury expressed his inability to understand on what ground

those interested in South Africa objected to our recognizing an

imaginary German right over a strip of territory giving the Germans

access to the upper waters of the Zambesi. He said that our chief

difficulty about this territory was that we knew nothing about it; but

this consideration, Sir Charles said, "told against the agreement,

inasmuch as we had given up a territory which seemed naturally to go

with those which have been assigned to the South Africa Company, and

which might, for anything we knew to the contrary, be of high value in

the future." It was amazing to note how obediently the great majority of

the Conservative party followed Lord Salisbury's lead in accepting the

cession of Heligoland for no consideration at all, as Sir Charles

thought--in any case, for a consideration which must seem inadequate.

Contrast, he said, the grounds upon which the cession of Heligoland was

defended with those, welcomed by shouts of triumph from the

Conservatives, upon which the occupation of Cyprus was justified. It was

inconceivable that any man possessed of reasoning powers could support

holding Cyprus (which must be a weakness in time of war), and yet argue

that Heligoland must be a weakness of a similar kind, and therefore had

better be ceded. In the case of Heligoland the vast majority of the

islanders were opposed to union with Germany. In the case of Cyprus the

vast majority of the islanders were hostile to our rule, while the

majority of Heligolanders were favourable to our rule. To cede it

against the wish of the population was a step which should not be taken,

except for overwhelming national advantage, and that advantage most

certainly could not be shown.

"I am one of those," Dilke wrote, summarizing the argument of his

speeches, "who are sometimes thought by my own party to be somewhat

unduly friendly to the foreign policy of our opponents, a fact which I

mention only to show that I do not come to the present matter with

strong prejudice. I had heard during the negotiations in Berlin, and

some weeks before the publication of the agreement, the whole of its

contents with the exception of the cession of Heligoland, and I had

formed a strong opinion upon the facts then known to me--that it was a

thoroughly bad agreement, most unfavourable to British interests. The

only change since that time has been that Heligoland has been thrown in,

so that to my mind we are ceding that British possession, for which a

very high value might have been obtained, against the wish of the

inhabitants, and ceding it for less than no consideration. Lord

Salisbury seems to be subject to strange dimness of vision when Africa

is concerned. He positively claimed it as a merit, in the course of his

speech to the South African deputation, that while the Germans demanded

an enormous slice of our Bechuanaland sphere of influence, he had

induced them to put back their frontier; but I need hardly point out

that no German traveller had ever entered the country in dispute, that

we had for years acted on the assumption that it was within our sphere,

and that the Germans might as reasonably have set up a claim to the

whole sphere of influence and to all the territories previously assigned

by us to the British South Africa Company...."

In South-East Africa, too, it was to be remembered that we were dealing

with a country which is far less populated by natives and more open to

European settlement than was the case with Central Africa. [Footnote:

See supra, p. 84, as to the differences which had arisen in Mr.

Gladstone's Cabinet on this subject in 1884-85.]

"There has been in the whole matter," he declared, "a deplorable absence

of decision. If, when Lord Salisbury came into power in 1885,

immediately after the occupation by Germany of a slice of South Africa

and of the Cameroons, and at the moment of German activity at Zanzibar,

he had let it be clearly understood that we should support the policy of

Sir John Kirk, our Consul, and the Zanzibar Sultan's rule, and had at

the same time abstained from taking steps to facilitate the operations

of the Germans in Damaraland, we certainly should have occupied at the

present moment a stronger position than we do. But, instead of this,

Lord Salisbury allowed our Indian subjects established along the coast

to be ruined by German bombardments to which the British fleet was sent

to give some sort of moral support. Our explorers have carried the

British flag throughout what is now German East Africa and the Congo

State. They had made treaties by which the leading native sovereigns of

these countries had submitted to our rule, and the Germans are too

anxious for our countenance in Europe to have been willing to have

risked the loss of Lord Salisbury's friendship had he taken a very

different line." [Footnote: _Melbourne Argus_, September 6th, 1890.]

Though not professing to be himself an "African," Sir Charles also asked

how those who professed to come within that description, and speak as

advocates of an Imperial policy in the vast and undeveloped regions of

the Dark Continent, could quietly accept, as they seemed prepared to do,

the break in the so-called Cape to Cairo route which had been allowed to

form part of the great agreement of 1890.

"What, then," he asked in 1902, "have the Tories done with the free hand

that has been given them? Above all, they have 'made up to' Germany, and

this apparently for no definite object and with no definite result. They

have given to Germany as far as they could give; they have certainly

helped her to procure the renewal of the Triple Alliance, by inducing

sanguine Italians to believe that the British fleet will protect them

against France, though as a fact we all know that the House of Commons

will not allow a British fleet to do anything of the kind. France has

wholly given up the Temporal Power, and would not have threatened Italy

had Italy held aloof from the Triple Alliance; and, in spite of a recent

speech by the Minister of Austria-Hungary which was intended to 'pay

out' Italy for her talks with Russia, it is not Austria that would have

raised the question. Our Government have given Germany, so far as they

could give, a vast tract in Africa in which British subjects had traded,

but in most of which no German had ever been. They have also given

Germany Heligoland, which they might have sold dear, and which, if Mr.

Gladstone had given, they would have destroyed him for giving.... All

this for what? What have we gained by it?" [Footnote: _Fortnightly

Review_, January, 1902.]

The policy of Lord Rosebery and Lord Kimberley from 1892 to 1895

resembled that of Lord Salisbury in so far as it aimed at the settlement

of outstanding questions with Germany and France. The apprehensions of

trouble with France were still serious, because a constant succession of

short Ministries at Paris made any permanent agreement difficult if not

impossible. The few Foreign Ministers who were occasionally able to keep

their place for any length of time at the Quai d'Orsay were also

generally those who as a rule were indifferent, if not actually hostile,

to friendship with this country, such as the Duc Decazes in the early

days of the Republic, and M. Hanotaux at a later period, who, however,

was quite ready to invite Great Britain to join in reckless adventures.

[Footnote: Sir Charles notes in November, 1896, that Mr. Morley reported

that 'Hanotaux had told him that he could not understand why England had

refused to join in a France, Russia, and England partition of China.

"China is a dead man in the house who stinks."'] Towards France Lord

Rosebery's Government twice took up a firm stand: first in regard to her

aggressive action in Siam; and secondly by the clear warning, given

through Sir Edward Grey in the House of Commons, that if the expedition

of Major Marchand, which was known to be crossing Africa from west to

east, reached the Nile Valley, as it eventually did at Fashoda, British

interests would be held to be affected. The gravity of this warning was

at the moment very inadequately comprehended by the House and by the

country, notwithstanding the repeated attempts of Sir Charles to

reinforce it before rather unconvinced audiences.

A firm attitude towards France was greatly facilitated through the

friendly position adopted towards Great Britain by Count Caprivi (the

successor in 1890 of Prince Bismarck in the Chancellorship of the German

Empire) and his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Baron Marschall. This

period indicates the high-water mark of friendly relations between

Germany and Great Britain; and though Count Caprivi retired in 1894,

when he was succeeded by Prince Hohenlohe, who had special ties with

Russia, these friendly relations may be said to have been prolonged, so

far as the official relations of the two Governments were concerned,

though with ever-diminishing vitality, up to the retirement of Baron

Marschall from the Foreign Office in 1897. [Footnote: See the

observations of Reventlow, 115-118, and Büllow, _Imperial Germany_, 31,

34.] In this period German commercial policy took a strong turn towards

freer trade, to the great wrath of the feudal and military parties in

Prussia, who were the centre of the forces hostile to a good

understanding with Great Britain. The secret treaty also which Bismarck

had negotiated with Russia, behind the back of his allies, was allowed

to lapse, and a more conciliatory attitude was adopted towards the

Poles, which gratified Liberal opinion, especially in this country. But

even in the time of Baron Marschall there were evidences of the

existence in Germany of currents of opinion of a less friendly

character, which were able from time to time to assert themselves in

African affairs. As Sir Charles Dilke pointed out, Germany had joined

with France in 1894 in objecting to, and thereby nullifying, the Congo

Treaty of that year with Belgium; and some of the territories which had

been handed over to Germany in the neighbourhood of the Cameroons in

1893, with the express object, apparently, of barring a French advance

in that region, had been handed over by Germany to France by another

treaty in 1895. [Footnote: Reventlow, pp. 52, 53, admits this. For the

treaties themselves, see Hertslet, _The Map of Africa by Treaty_, ii.

658, in. 999, 1008.]

Throughout the period from 1892 to 1895 a Liberal Ministry was in

office, but hardly in power. For the next ten years a strong Tory

Administration possessing unfettered freedom of action was in real

power, with an Opposition weakened by internal dissension. It was not

unnatural that, under such discouraging conditions as to home affairs,

Sir Charles should have again devoted most of his time to foreign

questions and army reform.

"I recognize," Mr. Balfour wrote to him, in regard to some arrangements

as to the business of the House, "that no man in the House speaks with

greater authority or knowledge on foreign affairs than yourself, and

that no man has a better right to ask for opportunities for criticizing

the course in respect of foreign affairs adopted by this or any other

Government." [Footnote: March 31st, 1897.]

This recognition was general, so much so that what he spoke or wrote on

foreign affairs was constantly translated, reproduced verbatim and

commented upon in foreign newspapers--a distinction enjoyed as a rule

only by official speakers, and not always by them; while original

contributions from his pen were eagerly sought for not only at home, but

abroad, especially in France and in the colonies, "Il a pesé constamment

sur l'opinion française," the _Figaro_ wrote at the time of his death;

and his known friendship for France and everything French made plain-

speaking at times possible without exciting resentment. Even those--and

there were many in England--who disagreed with his criticisms of the

details of Lord Salisbury's policy, felt the comprehensive grasp of his

facts, and the vast store of knowledge on which he drew; and the members

of his own party, many of whom did not altogether go with him, or

sometimes, perhaps, quite grasp his standpoint, nevertheless enjoyed,

especially while their own oracles were dumb, the sound of the heavy

guns which, after his return to Parliament, from time to time poured

political shot and shell into the ranks of the self-complacent

representatives of the party opposite. In those ranks, too, there were

men who at heart agreed very largely with the speaker, while compelled

by party discipline to maintain silence. On the other hand, there nearly

always came a moment when Conservative approval passed into the

opposite, for Sir Charles had no sympathy with the vast if rather

confused ideas of general annexation which prevailed in Conservative

circles: the policy of mere earth-hunger which Mr. Gladstone had

denounced in 1893.

[Footnote: See above, p. 256.]

When Lord Salisbury returned to the Foreign Office in 1895, the policy

of "graceful concessions" to France seemed to Sir Charles to have begun

again--concessions in Tunis, concessions in Siam, concessions all

round--and he returned to the attack. Tunis, he again pointed out, dated

back to 1878, when M. Waddington received, in his own words as given in

his own statement, a spontaneous offer of that country in the words

"Take Tunis. England will offer no opposition." But at least certain

commercial rights and privileges were then reserved. Now they were gone.

Even the nominal independence of Madagascar had finally disappeared.

Sir Charles also drew attention to the one subject of foreign affairs

upon which, during the last Parliament, Mr. Curzon never tired of

attacking, first Mr. Gladstone's and then Lord Rosebery's Government:

this was the advance of the French in Siam. Lord Rosebery had gone to

the verge of war with France in checking the French proceedings, and

when he left office France was under a promise to evacuate Chantaboon

and the provinces of Batambong and Siamrep, and to set up a buffer State

on the Mekong. We were then in military occupation of British Trans-

Mekong Keng-Cheng. Lord Salisbury came to an arrangement which left

France in Chantaboon and these provinces, thus giving away, against our

interests, what was not ours to give--as he had done in Tunis--and he

evacuated and left to France British Trans-Mekong Keng-Cheng, in which a

50 per cent, _ad valorem_ duty had just been put on British goods (from

Burmah), a duty from which French goods were free. Not only did Lord

Salisbury himself make this arrangement, but he had to submit when

France, in alliance with Russia, forced the Government of China to yield

territory to France, in direct derogation of China's treaty engagements.

Lord Salisbury had since made what was known as the Kiang-Hung

Convention with China; and it commenced by setting forth the cession by

China to France of territory which had been ceded to China on the

express condition that it should not be so ceded to France. This action

on the part of China was brought about by the violent pressure of France

and Russia at Pekin, which Lord Salisbury passed over. "The defence of

his Siam arrangements in the House of Commons consisted in Mr. Curzon,

who had become the representative of the Foreign Office, informing the

House that the provinces (which he had formerly declared most valuable)

were unimportant to British trade, and in pacifying assurances that the

Upper Mekong was not navigable, although a French steamer was actually

working on it where Mr. Curzon said no ship could go." [Footnote: Letter

to the _Liverpool Daily Post_, December 2nd and 5th, 1898.]

In the days of these petty collisions in West Africa and all the world

over--the "policy of pin-pricks" to which at this time Mr. Chamberlain

made fierce allusion in a public speech--Sir Charles arranged to publish

a dialogue between himself and M. Lavisse of the French Academy

discussing the international situation. "I shall be answering the

_Temps_ article which replies to you," he wrote to Chamberlain on

December 26th, 1898. "Lavisse, being of the Academy, wants a month to

polish his style. The dialogue will not appear till February 1st or

15th. There will be nothing in it new to you. What is new and important

is that the French, impressed by the fleet, and pressed by their men of

business, such as Henri Germain, the Director of the Credit Lyonnais,

and Pallain, now Governor of the Bank of France, want to be friends.

I've told these two and others that it is useless to try and settle

things unless they will settle Newfoundland. These two came back after

seeing Ministers, including the Foreign Minister and the Minister for

War, Freycinet, and independently said that they want to settle

Newfoundland. They've quite made up their minds that Germany does not

want them and will not buy their friendship. I have not seen Monson (the

British Ambassador) since my second interview with them, but I told

Austin Lee last night to tell him the terms on which I thought that

Newfoundland could be settled if you want to settle it. I do not put

them on paper as I am sending this by post."

The Newfoundland dispute as to rights of fishing under the Treaties of

Utrecht and Paris was one to which Dilke always attached special

importance, and immediately after this letter to Chamberlain he wrote

upon it in the _Pall Mall Magazine_ (February, 1899), describing it as

"the most dangerous of all international questions, as it is also one of

the most difficult." [Footnote: This dispute was mainly concerned with

the question whether the French fishermen possessed an "exclusive" or

only a concurrent right in the so-called French shore, under the above-

mentioned treaties (see Fitzmaurice, _Life of Shelburne_, 2nd ed., ii.

218). It was finally settled in the Lansdowne-Delcassé agreement of

1904, with other then pending questions. Sir Charles Dilke gave a useful

summary of the history of the question and its numerous developments

after 1783, in a small volume entitled _The British Empire_, published

in 1899.] Great Britain appeared to him to "have gone infinitely beyond

the strict terms of the treaty in the concessions to France made for the

sake of peace," and to have made proposals which "would not be tolerated

for an instant if any of the other ten self-governing colonies were in

question," and were only considered because of the "poverty and

feebleness of Newfoundland." Lord Salisbury was, in his eyes, no worse a

sinner in this respect than the Liberal Government of 1893, except that

Lord Salisbury had also made concessions in giving up the existing

situation secured by treaty in Madagascar, in Tunis, and in Siam,

against which there might have been set off a settlement of this "really

dangerous question." He said that in Newfoundland the British navy was

being used to coerce British colonists into submission to the French

demands; and he foresaw peril to the colonial relation, as well as peril

in the international field.

Whether it was possible during the period now under consideration to

make an alliance, or even to establish friendly relations with Germany

on a solid and permanent basis, is a question which will never fail to

be the subject of discussion and controversy: for on it hinged the

future of Europe. With an unfriendly France and a German Chancellor--

Prince Hohenlohe--aiming, and for a time with some partial success, at

re-establishing friendly relations with Russia, the advantages of a good

understanding between Great Britain and Germany were obvious; for hardly

had the difficulties on the North-West frontiers of India been for the

time quieted by the "Pamir" Treaty of 1895, [Footnote: This Treaty was

made while Lord Kimberley was Foreign Secretary.] when the war between

Japan and China opened up the long series of events in the Far East

which culminated later on in the Russo-Japanese War. In those events all

or nearly all the European Great Powers were taking a hand; Germany was

aspiring to take a leading part, and had to a certain extent obtained it

by the command-in-chief of the Allied Forces being given to Count

Waldersee, and by the expedition to relieve the Legations in Pekin. But

the Jameson Raid and the congratulatory telegram of the Emperor to

President Kruger in January, 1896, showed that Germany might intend also

to have a South African policy, which in the hands of a less skilful or

a less friendly Foreign Secretary than Baron Marschall might open,

notwithstanding all the previous treaties, a new chapter of diplomacy.

Meanwhile Baron Marschall, with the hand of a skilful jurist, softened

down the meaning of the famous telegram, by a close and minimizing

interpretation of the words, and, as a practised diplomatist, went out

of his way to meet the wishes of Lord Salisbury, who had proposed that

the cost of the recent British Expedition to Dongola should be a charge

on the funds of the Egyptian Caisse.

But Baron Marschall's tenure of his post was becoming precarious, and

Sir Charles did not believe in the possibility of any alliance or

permanent understanding with Germany. He feared, on the contrary, that

one result of the policy of concession might be ultimately to tempt

France, Germany, and Russia, to form a practical and informal union

against Great Britain, similar to that which had proved so great a cause

of anxiety in 1884-85. This, though not a formal alliance, had been

almost as dangerous as one more specific and avowed, and it was now, he

thought, likely to be found to exist with reference to events in China.

After the defeat of China by Japan in 1895, every year brought some new

and dangerous development, and the break-up of the Chinese Empire seemed

near. Any understanding on the part of Great Britain with Russia, in

regard to China, Sir Charles believed to be unreliable, and probably

impossible, and Lord Salisbury's policy, which seemed to have gone out

of its way to let Russia into Port Arthur, showed in his opinion

deplorable weakness.

Mr. Chamberlain in a speech in the winter of 1898--which was followed by

others in the same strain--had seemed almost to propose an alliance with

Germany. Following him at Birmingham, Sir Charles pointed out that the

Secretary of State for the Colonies had said: "If the policy of

isolation which has hitherto been the policy of this country is to be

maintained in the future, then the fate of the Chinese Empire may

be--probably will be--hereafter decided without reference to our wishes

and in defiance of our interests;" and went on to say: "If, on the other

hand, we are determined to enforce the policy of the open door, to

preserve an equal opportunity for trade with all our rivals, then we

must not allow jingoes to drive us into a quarrel with all the world at

the same time, and we must not reject the idea of an alliance with those

Powers whose interests most closely approximate to our own." No doubt,

Sir Charles replied, the Government were pledged to pursue the policy of

"equal opportunity for trade," but they had not successfully maintained

that policy in action. What were the Powers, he asked, which Mr.

Chamberlain had in view when he went on to say: "Unless we are allied to

some great military Power, as we were in the Crimean War, when we had

France and Turkey as our allies, we cannot seriously injure Russia"? Mr.

Chamberlain must have referred to an alliance with Germany. Personally,

Dilke said that he "was entirely opposed to a policy of standing and

permanent alliances; but was there any prospect that Germany would ever

agree to bear in Europe the brunt of defending for us--for that was what

it would come to--the most dangerous of our responsibilities? Prince

Bismarck's policy on the subject had been avowed over and over again; he

had foreseen these suggestions, and had rejected them in advance.

Speaking in 1887, Prince Bismarck said: 'Our friendship for Russia

suffered no interruption during the time of our wars, and stands to-day

beyond all doubt.... We shall not ... let anyone throw his lasso round

our neck in order to embroil us with Russia.' And again in 1888: 'No

Great Power can, in the long-run, cling to the wording of any treaty in

contradiction to the interests of its own people. It is sooner or later

compelled to say, "We cannot keep to that," and must justify this

announcement as well as it can.' [Footnote: See, too, _Bismarck

Memoirs_, ii., pp. 258, 259.] In 1890 the present German Emperor renewed

the Triple Alliance, and the relations also of Germany and Russia had

never, he believed, been closer than they were at the present time. Any

notion of a permanent or standing alliance with Germany against Russia

was, in short, a Will-o'-the-wisp. Opposed as he was to the whole policy

of alliances as contrary to the true interests of this country, he was

specially opposed to this particular proposal, because it was calculated

to lead our people to think that they could rely on the strong arm of

another Power instead of only on their own strong arm." [Footnote: The

speech of Mr. Chamberlain referred to above was made at Birmingham. It

was followed by speeches at Wakefield on December 8th, 1898, and at

Leicester on November 20th, 1899.]

Yet a strong action in the Near East, Sir Charles thought, might have

compensated for a feebler policy on the Pacific Coast. In Armenia,

Christians for whom Great Britain was answerable under the Treaty of

Berlin were being massacred, but Lord Salisbury did nothing to help

them. In November, 1896, there was a faint stir of public opinion, but

many of the suggestions made in regard to what ought to be done were

unwise. [Footnote: _November 4th_, 1896.--'Morley told me that in order

to force the hand of the Turks, before July, 1895, Kimberley had

proposed to force the Dardanelles, and that Harcourt had stopped it. Mr.

Gladstone had written to Morley to insist on his speaking about Armenia

and to complain of his lukewarmness. I said: "But Mr. G. in 1880, when

something could have been done, confined himself to what he called

'friendly' words to the Sultan.'" See on the whole subject _Crispi

Memoirs_, vol. ii., chap. ix.]

"No one," Sir Charles had said in 1896, "would protest more emphatically

than he did against some of the advice which had been given. One of the

ablest journalists and highest of financial authorities, Mr. Wilson, had

suggested the landing of a few troops and the deportation of the Sultan

to Cyprus. The defences of the Dardanelles were not such as could be

very easily forced even by the British fleet.... No British Admiral,

even if he succeeded in forcing the Dardanelles, would have troops to

land who could overcome the Turkish guard, an army corps, and the

excited Turkish population." Elsewhere, with prophetic foresight, he

showed that the forcing of the Dardanelles could not be carried out

without "heavy loss, possibly tremendous loss, and that the loss of a

first-class British ironclad is equivalent to the loss of an army corps

with all its guns." [Footnote: Letter to the _Macclesfield Chronicle_,

September 19th, 1896.]

Crete was now again in a state of chronic rebellion against Turkish

rule; and Turkish methods of repression only stimulated the popular

demand to be joined to Greece. Sir Charles Dilke thought that, if the

Powers really wished to coerce Turkey to bring about better government

within its dominions, coercion could most safely begin in the Greek

islands, where European fleets could absolutely control the issue and no

question of Continental partition need arise. In Crete the Sultan could,

Sir Charles believed, have been compelled to accept a nominal

sovereignty, such as he retained over Cyprus; and the aspiration towards

Hellenic unity, the need for Hellenic expansion, might thus have been

satisfied.

If England had taken "instant and even isolated action," France would,

he thought, not have thwarted British policy. "The effect would

ultimately have been the addition of Crete to the Greek kingdom under

the auspices, perhaps, of all the Powers, perhaps of the Powers less

Germany, perhaps of only three or four of them." [Footnote: Ibid.]

The occasion was missed, and war, declared by Turkey against Greece,

followed, and years of anarchy in Crete. The Ministers of the Powers

"even in the free Parliaments of the United Kingdom and France" "used

pro-Turkish language," and attacked those who, because they upheld the

traditional Liberal policy of both countries, were accused of abetting

the Greeks.

"The blockade by the fleets of the Powers became pro-Turkish, and

Europe took sides against Greece in the war. If Greece had been

allowed to hold Crete, she could have exchanged it against Thessaly,

if the worst had come to the worst, without those financial

sacrifices which are now necessary. [Footnote: Such a proposal had

actually been made in 1881 by Prince Bismarck. _Life of Goschen_, i.

214; _Life of Granville_, ii. 226.] The very claim of the Powers to

have localized the war by stopping the Slav States from attacking

Turkey is in itself a claim to have interfered on one side."

When Greece was defeated, "the majority in the Parliament of the United

Kingdom, if not of the British people," Sir Charles wrote, "professed

that their burning sympathies for Greece had been destroyed by Greek

cowardice, although the stand, at Domoko, of ill-supplied young troops

against an overwhelmingly superior force of Turkish veterans deserved

fairer criticism." He interpreted his own duty differently, and when the

Hellenic cause was most unpopular he continued to express his faith in

the "rising nationalities of the Eastern Mediterranean," and looked

forward with confidence to a future in which Palmerston's generous

surrender of the Ionian Islands should be emulated by a new act of

Liberal statesmanship. "There can be little doubt that Cyprus, as a part

of a great scheme for strengthening the elements of the Eastern

Mediterranean that are hopeful for the future, will not be kept out of

the arrangement by any reluctance on the part of the United Kingdom to

let its inhabitants follow the tendencies of their race!" [Footnote: The

above Notes on Crete relate to the period when war broke out, in 1897,

between Greece and Turkey, and the Turks invaded Thessaly.]

"Oh for an hour of Canning or of Palmerston!" he said, at a great public

meeting in the North in October, 1898. "Canning was a Tory, a Tory

Foreign Secretary of State, a Tory Prime Minister, although at odds with

the Duke of Wellington upon some subjects. Lord Palmerston was looked

upon by many Radicals as a Whig, but in foreign affairs he had never

exhibited that carelessness and that absence of a willingness to run

risks for the sake of freedom which no doubt marred his conduct of home

affairs. Canning had seen the interest of Great Britain in maintaining

the Greek cause, as Palmerston had seen her interest in strengthening

Greece by allowing the Republic of the Ionian Isles, of which we had the

protectorate, to join her after the downfall of the Prince called by

Palmerston 'the spoilt child of autocracy, King Otho.' Canning had

consistently refused in circumstances of far greater difficulty and

danger than those which attended the Greek or Cretan questions in our

times, to be dragged at the heels of the great despotic Powers. Canning

resolved not only to assist the Greek cause, but in doing so to maintain

the superiority of British influence in the Eastern Mediterranean; and,

seeing the course which was clear in the interest of Europe and in our

own interest, he determined to settle the question in his own way, as he

at the same time settled that of South America to the immense advantage

of this country, which now had found in South America one of the best of

all markets for her trade. There never was a greater loss to England

than when Canning died as Prime Minister and was succeeded in office by

one of those fleeting figures who, in the language of Disraeli, were but

transient and embarrassed phantoms. [Footnote: Lord Goderich, Prime

Minister from August 8th, 1827, to January 8th, 1828.] The deeds of

Canning in the questions of Greece and South America, his regard at once

for liberty and for Britain, might be read in all the lives of that

great Minister, and what Palmerston did of the same kind in the case of

Italy was perfectly known."

In consequence of observations of this kind, he had to defend himself

more than once against the charge of "Jingoism," as the cant term of the

day had it; and more particularly in the debate on foreign policy on

June 10th, 1898, when it was made by an old political friend, Mr.

Leonard Courtney.

"I am one of those," Dilke replied, "who are in favour of large

armaments for this country, and believe in increasing the strength of

our defences for the sake of peace; and one of the very reasons why I

desire that is because I repudiate the idea of making our policy depend

upon the policy of others. I have always repudiated, and never ceased to

repudiate, the policy of grab which is commonly associated with the name

of Jingo.... I submit that the worst policy in these matters is to have

regard to our own rights only, and not to the rights of others. We want

our country to be viewed with that respect which men will ever cherish

for unbending integrity of purpose. We should be more scrupulous with

regard to asserting nominal rights which we do not intend to maintain.

"When such transactions are criticized, the Government always reply

by asking: 'Would you have gone to war at this or that particular

point, for this or that particular object?' It always appears to me

in these cases that there is some confusion in our minds about this

risk of war on such occasions. If the intention of the other Power

is to avoid war, war will be avoided when you quietly hold your own.

But if the intention of the other Power is war, there will be no

lack of pretexts to bring it about."

His policy, therefore, would have been to advance no claims but such as

could be made good, if need arose, by England's own carefully measured

resources in connection with those of France.

It was, however, impossible at this time to focus public attention upon

events in the Mediterranean, or even in the Nile Valley. The eyes of all

politicians alike were becoming fixed upon a different part of the

African continent.

Mr. Chamberlain had taken the Colonial Office in 1895, and it was in

reply to a short speech from Sir Charles Dilke during the brief Autumn

Session of that year that he expressed himself glad to outline his

general policy, and spoke of finding in the Colonies an undeveloped

estate, which he was determined to develop. His phrases caught the

popular imagination then as always. Colonial enterprise was the theme of

all pens and tongues. Then on New Year's Day of 1896 had come the

Jameson Raid. But in the stormy chapters of Parliamentary life which

followed Sir Charles took little part, beyond commending Mr.

Chamberlain's promptitude in condemning the Raid. The speech which he

made in the vote of censure on the colonial policy of Mr. Chamberlain,

moved on January 30th, 1900, as an amendment to the Address, by Lord

Edmond Fitzmaurice on behalf of the Opposition, was of an independent

character, dealing more with the military and naval aspects of the

position than those purely political. But, though standing rather apart

from the general line of attack, the speech was recognized as one of the

most weighty contributions to the debate, as it brought home to the

country on how dangerously narrow a margin of strength the policy of Mr.

Chamberlain rested, and how entirely it owed its success to the

maintenance of the navy of this country, which German Navy Bills were

about to threaten. Four years later, when the German naval preparations

were assuming a definite shape, he repeated these warnings in a still

more decisive manner by a speech which attracted great attention in

Germany itself, as well as at home. [Footnote: "Der frühere

Unterstaatsecretär des Auswärtigen, und sehr angesehene Sir Charles

Dilke, wies damals auf Deutschland bin und sagte: man vergrössere dort

die Flotte mit einer ausgewohnten Schnelligkeit und richte sich damit

öffentlich gegen England." (Reventlow, p. 242).]

Sir Charles disapproved of the Boer War, [Footnote: "I am myself opposed

to the Milner policy, which led up to the South African War. But in

spite of the Natal events I do not share the opinion either that the war

itself will be a long one, or that foreign complications will arise."

("Risk of European Coalition," _Review of the Week_, November 4th,

1899).] but he held that when the country was seized by the war-fever

interposition was useless: it did more harm than good both at home and

abroad. Staying in Paris, in the early days of the contest, when we were

suffering and beaten for the moment, he told those who commiserated us

and threatened European complications to "wait and see," laughing at the

idea that England could be permanently at a disadvantage, but not

entering into the abstract merits of the question. If forced to speak,

he admitted that the war was "unwise," but his utterances were very few.

It, however, raised a general principle, inducing him to recall facts

which had been too frequently forgotten. The party which was now

opposing government by Chartered Company was, he said, the party which

had revived it in 1881 in the case of North Borneo; while the Tories,

who then had condemned that method of colonization, were now

enthusiastic for it. Sir Charles, who had opposed the system in regard

to Borneo, where it was attended by little danger, now pointed out that

not only had it produced the Jameson Raid in South Africa, but that on

the West Coast the Niger Company threatened to involve England in

differences with France by action which England could not control. These

were conclusive proofs that the principle which in 1881 he had resisted

to the point of seriously differing from his official chief was fraught

with inconvenience and dangers. The Niger Company's position, however,

was the affair of political specialists; South African policy was

embroiled with the fortunes of a gigantic gambling speculation.

[Footnote: This is recalled by a fact in Sir Charles's personal history.

His son became entitled on coming of age in September, 1895, to a legacy

of £1,000. Sir Charles offered him in lieu of that bequest 2,000

"Chartered South African shares." Had he accepted, he could, when the

legacy became due, 'have sold them for £17,000 and cleared £16,000

profit! But he refused them when offered, and,' says Dilke, 'not

thinking them things for a politician, I sold them, and (purposely) at a

loss.']

The Transvaal War destroyed whatever prospects there might have been of

a permanent understanding with Germany, and Mr. Chamberlain before the

war was over had to make at least one speech which brought on himself

the fiercest denunciations of the German Press, when he replied in

vigorous language to the charge of cruelty brought against the British

military authorities in Africa. The absolute mastery of the sea

possessed by Great Britain probably alone prevented the Emperor forcing

his Ministers into some imprudent act; and it was clearly seen that

Count von Bülow, who had succeeded Baron Marschall as Foreign Secretary

in June, 1897, and afterwards succeeded Prince Hohenlohe as Chancellor

in 1900, though not desiring a conflict, and convinced, as he has since

told the world, that none need come, was nevertheless less friendly than

his predecessors, and intended to pursue rigidly the policy of a free

hand with a strong navy behind it. [Footnote: Bülow, _Imperial Germany_

(English translation), p. 47. A later edition, with considerable

alterations and additions, was published in 1916.] Events were visibly

fighting on the side of those who saw that France was the only possible

ally of Great Britain, and that the only other alternative was, not an

alliance with Germany, but a return to the policy of "splendid

isolation." The apologist of Prince von Bülow has himself told the world

that the policy of an absolutely "free hand" now inaugurated by the new

Chancellor was evidently one, in itself, of great difficulty, because

Germany might frequently be compelled to change front; and, to use an

expression attributed to Bismarck, might have to "face about" until

friendship with this country became impossible. The prognostication was

soon to be justified. [Footnote: Reventlow, p. 159.]

It was perhaps the decisive moment in the relations of Great Britain and

Germany, when Count von Bülow, with the ink hardly dry on the Anglo-

German treaty of October, 1900, which was supposed to be intended to

protect China against further Russian advances on the north, cynically

went out of his way to make a statement in the German Parliament that

the treaty did not apply to Manchuria. The reply of the British

Government was the Anglo-Japanese treaty of February 11th, 1902.

[Footnote: Reventlow (_German Foreign Policy_, 1888-1914) speaks of this

incident as the "Wendepunkt der Britischen Politik und der Deutsch-

Englischen Beziehungen." (p. 168). See, too, Bérard, _La Révolte de

l'Asie_, pp. 192-194, 208, 209, 293.]

In February, 1901, a typical article from Sir Charles's pen appeared in

the _Figaro_, strongly urging the absolute necessity for the creation of

really cordial relations between Great Britain and France, which he

considered were the sure and sufficient guarantee of European peace. It

was true, no doubt, that the increasing strength and efficiency of the

French army were a guarantee, up to a certain point, of peace with

Germany, just as the weakness of the French army had been an active

temptation to Germany in 1870 to attack France. The joint action of the

Powers in China at the moment was also itself a sign of improved

relations. Nevertheless, as Moltke had said, Germany would remain armed

for half a century after 1870, if she intended, as she did intend, to

keep Alsace-Lorraine; and as Europe had for the present to remain an

armed camp, more could hardly be hoped than to maintain peace, however

burdensome the cost. Europe, Sir Charles urged, should try to realize

that a great war would probably be fatal, whoever might be the victor,

to her commercial world-supremacy--as the great and ruinous burdens,

which would everywhere result, would surely cause that supremacy to pass

to America. There the development of the resources, not of the United

States only, but also of the Argentine Confederation, ought to give

pause to those who did not look beyond the immediate future and seemed

unable to realize that a Europe laden with all the effects of some

gigantic struggle would prove a weak competitor with the New World on

the other side of the Atlantic. To remind Frenchmen that the English

have not always been victorious in war was no very difficult task; but

he ventured to remind Englishmen also that, as the English army was

quite inadequate to take a large part in a Continental war under the

changed conditions of modern warfare, Great Britain and France, while

united, should more than ever walk warily, and distrust the counsels of

those who occasionally in Great Britain spoke lightly of war. It was

easy to talk about the victories of Marlborough and Wellington; but the

military history of England was really a very chequered one, and of this

Englishmen were, unfortunately, mostly unaware. Our military prestige

had never been great in the commencement of our wars, and, as he had

said in the recent debates on the Boer War, [Footnote: House of Commons,

February 1st, 1900] we had too often had to "muddle through." On more

than one occasion--in America, for example, during the Seven Years' War,

and more recently in New Zealand--we had only been got out of our

difficulties by the help of our own colonists. Here at least was a great

future source of as yet undeveloped strength. The disastrous Walcheren

Expedition was on record; even Wellington had had to retire over and

over again in the earlier period of the Peninsular War; in the Crimea we

had not shown any great military quality beyond the bravery of our

troops. These were truths, unpalatable truths, but they had to be

uttered, if on the one hand the cause of army reform in Great Britain

was to prosper, and if on the other France was not to reckon too much on

the assistance of a British army on the Continent of Europe, especially

in the earlier stages of a war. [Footnote: _Figaro_, February 11th,

1901.]

In a cordial understanding with France, therefore, Sir Charles Dilke

considered to lie the sheet-anchor of British foreign policy and the

best guarantee of peace. In 1898 the arrival of the French force at

Fashoda, on the Nile, had brought things to a crisis, and the firm

attitude then adopted by Lord Salisbury at length convinced France, as

Sir Charles always believed it would, that she must make her choice

between Germany and Great Britain. In the action of Lord Lansdowne, who

had succeeded Lord Salisbury at the Foreign Office in 1900, and in the

policy eventually embodied in the Anglo-French agreement of 1904, Sir

Charles recognized the views which persistently, but not always

successfully, he had urged for many years on his own friends in France

and England. But the new departure was only rendered possible by the

appearance at the French Foreign Office of a statesman who, after the

bitter experience of the final failure of the policy of "pin-pricks"

before Lord Salisbury's firm stand in the Fashoda affair, boldly threw

his predecessors overboard, and managed to make himself the inevitable

Foreign Minister of France for a long period of years, successfully

maintaining himself in office against every competitor and every rival,

while other Ministers came and went. Late, perhaps too late, the policy

of Gambetta was revived by M. Delcassé, and it held its own.

By 1903, owing to the complete change in the attitude of France, matters

had so much improved as between England and the Republic that Sir

Charles could write in the _Empire Review_ of "An Arrangement with

France" as possible, basing himself on recent articles in _La Dépêche

Coloniale_, which had been the extreme anti-British organ. "That the

French colonial party should have come frankly to express the desire

which they now entertain for an arrangement of all pending questions

between the English and the French is indeed a return towards relations

better than any which have existed since Gambetta's fall from power."

But this improvement in the relations of the two countries was

materially aided by the influence of the personality of King Edward

VII., which Sir Charles fully recognized, as he also did one of the

consequences, which was perhaps not so fully seen by others. "The wearer

of the crown of England plays in foreign affairs," he wrote, "a part

more personal than in other matters is that of the constitutional King.

No one can deny that there are advantages, and no one can pretend that

there are never drawbacks, attendant on this system. It is not my

purpose to discuss it, but it makes the adoption in this country of

control by a Parliamentary Committee difficult, if not impossible."

[Footnote: _English Review_, October, 1909. Article by Sir C. Dilke.]

"The great and sudden improvement in the relations between the

English-speaking world and France is largely due to the wisdom and

courtesy with which the King made clear to France that there was no

ground for the suspicions which prevailed."

[Footnote: _Quarterly Review_, July, 1905, p. 313. Article by Sir C.

Dilke. With France Sir Charles had for the moment again a certain

official relation, having been placed on the Royal Commission charged

with British interests at the Paris Exhibition--an honour due to him not

only in his own right, but as his father's son. At this moment also,

when relations between the neighbouring countries were severely

strained, he gave to the Luxembourg the reversion of Gambetta's

portrait, and sent the portrait itself to be placed among the works of

Legros on exhibition in June, 1900. M. Léonce Bénédez, curator of the

Luxembourg, in writing to press for the chance of exhibiting the

picture, said:

"Je m'excuse vivement de mon importunité, mais je serais très

désireux que notre public peut être admis à juger Legros sur cette

belle oeuvre. De plus, je serais, en meme temps, très heureux que

les amis de votre grande nation, plus nombreux que la sottise de

quelques journalistes ne voudrait le laisser croire, fussent à même

d'apprécier la pensée élevée et délicate de l'illustre homme d'état

anglais qui, au milieu des circonstances présentes, a tenu à donner

à notre pays une marque si touchante de sympathie en lui offrant le

portrait d'un de ses plus glorieux serviteurs."

The exhibition drew Sir Charles and Lady Dilke for a summer visit to

Paris, and it was during this visit that the sculptor Roty executed his

medallion of Sir Charles.]

But wisdom and courtesy were not a little aided by the royal habit of

mixing easily with men at home and abroad, just as, on the other hand,

the long retirement of Queen Victoria had been injurious in an opposite

direction. This feeling finds expression in the fragment of commentary

in which Sir Charles dealt with the change of Sovereigns:

'The Accession Council after the Queen's death was a curious comment

on history. History will tell that Victoria's death plunged the

Empire into mourning, and that favourable opinion is more general of

her than of her successor. Yet the Accession Council, attended

almost solely by those who had reached power under her reign, was a

meeting of men with a load off them. Had the King died in 1902, the

Accession Council of his successor would not have been thus gay;

there would have been real sorrow.'

Sir Charles thought hopefully of the situation at this moment, and there

is a letter dated as far back as 1900 in which Mr. Hyndman noted the

"unusual experience" of finding an Englishman who took a more favourable

view of France than he himself, and expressed his fear that Sir Charles

underrated "the strength of the National party." [Footnote: How well he

understood France may perhaps best be judged by an article written, at

the desire of M. Labori, for the _Grande Revue_ in December, 1901. It is

called "Torpeur Républicaine," and begins with the observation that

English Radicals are tempted to think French Republicans more

reactionary than any English Tories, for the reason that all English

parties had practically, if not in theory, accepted municipal Socialism.

"In France," he said, "the electors of certain cities return Socialist

municipal councils. They are all but absolutely powerless. We, on the

other hand, elect Tory or Whig municipalities, and they do the best of

Socialist work."] But, notwithstanding the alliance of France with

Russia, the action of Russia in the Far East in the period covered by

the events which ended in the Japanese War had not diminished Sir

Charles's rooted dislike of any idea of _entente_ or alliance between

Russia and Great Britain. He considered that Sir Edward Grey meant to be

Foreign Secretary in the next Liberal Government, and was intent on

making an arrangement or alliance with Russia to which he would

subordinate every other consideration. "Grey," he wrote early in 1905 to

Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, "has always favoured the deal with Russia. I

hope I may be able to stay outside the next Government to kill it, which

I would do if outside, not within. This," he said, alluding to the

recent death of Lady Dilke, "assumes that I regain an interest in

affairs which I have wholly lost. I am well, but can at present think of

nothing but of the great person who is gone from my side." [Footnote:

February 2nd, 1905.] At this time the old controversy was again raging,

both at home and in India, over the question of the defence of the

North-Western Frontier of India; and a recent Governor-General and his

Commander-in-Chief in India, it was believed, had not altogether seen

eye to eye. The latter was credited with very extensive views as to the

necessity of an increase in the number of British troops, with a view to

the defence of the frontier against Russian attack. Sir Charles put

neither the danger of a Russian invasion nor the general strength of

Russia as a military nation so high as did some who claimed to speak

with authority; and he did not believe that we had any reason for

constant fear in India or elsewhere, or to seek alliances, in order to

avoid a Russian attack on India. The vulnerability of Russia on the

Pacific, which he had always pointed to, was demonstrated in the

Japanese War; as well as the miserable military administration of

Russia, which he had indicated thirty-eight years before as a permanent

source of weakness, certain to be exposed whenever Russia undertook

operations on a large scale at any great distance from her base.

[Footnote: In _Greater Britain_, ii. 299-312.] The Japanese alliance, he

believed, could never be directly utilized for resisting in Afghanistan

an attack by Russia on India. Happily, as he considered, the facts had

demonstrated that there was no need for such a display of timidity as

would be involved in marching foreign troops across India to defend it

on the frontier. [Footnote: _Monthly Review_, December, 1905. It is to

be observed that this argument does not involve any criticism of the

Anglo-Japanese Treaty considered as a defensive measure elsewhere.]

But if he thought that an alliance with Russia was not a necessity for a

sound British foreign policy, on the other hand he was equally convinced

that a good understanding with the United States of America was such a

necessity. He believed that if fresh subjects of difference were not

created, and any remaining questions of difference--like the Fisheries--

were settled, as the _Alabama_ and Alaska questions had been settled,

the old Jeffersonian tradition of suspicion of English policy would die

out, even in the Democratic party, and that no obstacle would then

remain to prevent the co-operation of all the branches of the race in a

common policy.

In a speech made in June, 1898, he had referred to the improved

relations with the United States in terms which gave credit for the

improvement mainly to Sir Julian Pauncefote, then Ambassador at

Washington, for whose services he had the greatest admiration.

[Footnote: Sir Julian Pauncefote had previously been Permanent Under-

Secretary for Foreign Affairs for many years.] When, in 1896, the

question of Venezuela had threatened to make trouble between the two

English-speaking Powers, he counted the claims of Great Britain in

respect of the frontiers of Guiana as "dust in the balance" when weighed

against the advantage of not "running across the national line of policy

of the United States." He desired to sink all such petty affairs in a

policy of Anglo-American co-operation in the Far East. Rivals for trade

in China they must be, but the interest of both lay in working for the

"open door" which admitted a friendly rivalry. He wrote in the _American

Independent_ for May 1st, 1899: "The will of the United States, if it be

in accordance with the will of Great Britain and of the Australian

Commonwealth--the will, in other words, of the English-speaking

peoples--will be paramount in the Pacific if they are united"; and he

was never weary of urging the improvement in England's relations with

the United States which would follow from a friendly settlement with

Ireland. [Footnote: In _Present Position of European Politics_, 1887, he

had said: "I, for one, still have hope that the causes of strangement

between Great Britain and the chief of her daughter-countries, which are

mainly to be found in the friction produced by the Irish Question, may

even within our lifetime be removed, and the tie of blood, and tongue,

and history and letters, again drawn close." And in a note written later

in his own copy are the words: "It is for the Americans of the United

States to decide how far towards firm alliance this shall be carried."

Cf. _Life of Beaconsfield_, iv. 231.]

Bearing in mind all these considerations, he believed, notwithstanding

all the wars and the rumours of wars, that the Great Armageddon so much

dreaded could be avoided by diplomacy combined with proper measures of

defence. The long chain of events formed by the Sino-Japanese War, the

Boer War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Anglo-Japanese Treaty, and the Russo-

Japanese War, were in his opinion "secondary events," however important,

appearing to threaten the peace of Europe from time to time--very

disquieting, no doubt, and ominous occasionally of yet worse things--but

things such as diplomacy had conjured away before, and ought to be able

to conjure away again. He did not think that Morocco, long regarded at

the Foreign Office as a danger-point, would ever prove a sufficient

object to induce Germany to break the general peace. She would threaten,

take all she could get, and then withdraw with the spoils, just avoiding

the danger-point; and so it no doubt turned out to be in 1905-06 at the

time of the troubles which ended in the Algeciras Conference. But he

recognized the personal character of the German Emperor as a new factor

of danger in the situation.

The essential point since 1871, he wrote in 1905, had been that there

never had existed a serious and settled intention of making the much-

dreaded "European War" on the part of any of those with whom the great

decision rested. There was, he said, to the good this main

consideration--that, if any Power had intended war, a sufficient

pretext could always have been found, yet the war had not come. The

security for the maintenance of the long "armed peace" was, in fact,

this: that no Power had really intended war, or intended it now. What

the consequences would be was too well known by the responsible leaders.

The sudden heats which most seemed to jeopardize peace had arisen in

regard to questions not of European importance, mostly outside Europe,

where sometimes on one side or the other, and sometimes upon both,

tactful treatment in advance, and what might be styled "a long view,"

would have saved the world from trouble altogether, and ought to do so

in future under analogous circumstances, whenever the question of the

Bagdad Railway and the remaining questions relating to Africa came up

for final settlement. [Footnote: _English Review_, October, 1909.]

The guarantee of peace he believed to lie in the policy of _ententes_,

but on condition that the policy begun by Lord Lansdowne and M. Delcassé

should aim at agreement between two Powers only, and be limited to

specific objects. [Footnote: See the same opinion expressed in 1871,

Vol. I., p. 133.] Beyond this it was dangerous to go. An _entente_

between more than two Powers, as distinct from one between two only,

reminded him of an American game of cards which he had seen played in

the Far West. This game when played by two persons was called _euchre_,

but when played by three persons was called by another and very

disagreeable name, because it so frequently ended in the use of knives.

The Franco-Italian agreements of 1898 and 1900, the Anglo-French

agreement of 1904, the Franco-Spanish agreement of 1904, the agreements

between Japan and Russia which had followed and grown out of the

Portsmouth Treaty of September, 1905, the Anglo-Japanese Treaty which

followed, and the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907 as to Persia, were

guarantees for peace, because they came within the above definition. It

does not appear, however, that he considered the alliance of France and

Russia, dating so far as was then known from 1895, as a real guarantee

for peace, or that he shared the later views attributed to Gambetta, of

the desirability of an _entente_ between Great Britain, France, and

Russia.

[Footnote: "M. Gaston Thomson publishes in the _Matin_ extracts from

letters by Gambetta to M. Ranc. In one letter, written apparently at the

time of the crisis of 1875, Gambetta says:

"'You must know that the forger of the Ems despatch is about to

commit another act of treachery. But our calmness and

self-possession will prevent us from falling into the same trap as

in 1870. The croakings of a sinister raven will not plunge us into

folly this time. He has understood his mistake. He has been able to

transform a divided and impotent Germany into a great, strong,

disciplined Empire. For us and for himself he was less well inspired

when he exacted the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, which was the

germ of death for his work.... Until they have remedied this error

no one will disarm. The world's peace, which is so necessary for all

peoples, will remain always at the mercy of an incident.' In order

to prepare France to meet the future, Gambetta strove to bring about

the alliance which to-day unites France, Great Britain, and Russia.

In a striking passage he writes:

"'The number and importance of Russia's difficulties grow every day.

L---- keeps the Prince of Wales informed day by day of the

difficulties of that Power. The political ambitions of Russia will

be impeded by Austria, who is already assuming a hostile attitude.

She is exerting pressure upon Rumania. Do you see, as a consequence,

Austria allying herself with Rumania and Turkey against Russia? What

a conflict!

"'The Prince of Wales, however, foresees it. He does not share the

hostility of a section of the English nation against Russia. With

all his young authority he fights against measures which may be

prejudicial to Russia. I see in him the makings of a great

statesman....

"'I desire that our enemies should be Russia's enemies. It is clear

that Bismarck wants an alliance with the Austrians. Russia must

therefore be made to see that we might be her ally.... Since the

Revolution our country exerts great influence in Europe. Before long

I see Russia and England at our side, if we only have a proper

internal policy.'" (_Times_, December 30th, 1915).]

He was strongly convinced that the improvement of the French army since

1871 had been so great that it afforded by itself a sufficient reason to

give Germany pause, and he believed that the German Emperor considered

the French army better in some respects than his own. [Footnote: Baron

Beyens says that in 1911 it was the general opinion that in many

respects the French was in advance of the German army (_L'Allemagne

avant la Guerre_, p. 229). Ibid., p. 220.] An alliance between the two

Western Powers and Russia might, in given circumstances, on the one hand

encourage the party of _revanche_ and push the country into dangerous

adventures, and on the other tempt the war party in Germany to try again

some extreme course, as it had in 1875.

From this point of view Dilke regarded with suspicion and anxiety the

journeys of the King on the Continent after 1905, unaccompanied by a

Secretary of State according to the ancient constitutional practice, but

accompanied by the Permanent Under-Secretary of State from the Foreign

Office, a former Ambassador to St. Petersburg. This gave plausible

opportunities for encouraging the belief then prevalent in Germany that

some mysterious policy was being devised, outside the ordinary channels

of diplomacy and Parliamentary knowledge--a policy which, with the aid

of France and Russia, was to take the shape of encircling Germany with

enemies, and cutting her off from legitimate development. These

anxieties were stimulated by a considerable amount of foolish writing in

London newspapers, and still more foolish and unauthorized talk.

"France and Russia," he wrote in 1908, "are drawn together by

geographical considerations--given the detachment of French territory to

the benefit of Germany in 1871. It did not need the parade of an

alliance to cause Kings and statesmen to recognize the fact. War was

made impossible in 1875--the last occasion when the well-informed

thought renewed German attack on France probable--by the absolute

refusal of the German Emperor; but behind that refusal lay the certainty

that Russia would not forward the aims of the Prussian military party,

as she had done, for a consideration, in 1870. It is, perhaps, too

trivial a suggestion, but one which comes inevitably to the mind, that

the householder is apt to be friendly with the man who lives next door

but one, on account of their common dislike of their next-door

neighbour. During the 'reign of force,' still extant upon the Continent

of Europe, a more appropriate simile may be found in the proverbial

habit of each of two men, in a street fight, frightening his opponent by

recognition of a personage in the background. That Germany, however

ambitious, and however boastful of her military strength, should be

rendered nervous by the menace of Franco-Russian co-operation is a

consideration modified only by the universal recognition of the desire

of France for self-respecting peace. As soon as another Power is

suspected of any intention of making use of the Franco-Russian

co-operation for the purpose of isolating Germany, a dangerous situation

has arisen.

"We are so confident in our own profound knowledge of our wish for

European peace that we hardly realize the extreme danger for the

future which is caused by all suggestion that we have succeeded in

isolating Germany, or are striving to bring about that result. The

London articles written in violent support of a supposed alliance

did the harm; and to anyone who keeps touch for himself of

Continental opinion the harm was undoubted, and tended to produce

several undesirable results.

"There is a word to be addressed to those who believe that our navy

is our true defence, until the progress of pacific thought in the

working classes of all countries has rendered the other Powers as

peaceful as France. Those who crowed over the isolation of Germany

took the best means of increasing the German Fleet, and contributed

at the same time, by the proposed inflation of our expeditionary

force, to the weakening of the British Navy.

"The true explanation of the _entente_, and it needs no better, is

to be found in the defence of its essentially pacific nature by one

of its original authors, M. Delcassé. [Footnote: M. Delcassé had to

resign office in 1905, under German pressure, in connection with the

controversies about Morocco.] He had his faults as a Minister, and

on two occasions provoked alarms or dangers, which afterwards,

however, he did more than any other man to allay. Should

circumstances change and European war become likely, as it has not

in fact been likely since 1871, the basis for our alliances, if we

needs must have them, lies in our peaceful policy, our vigour, and

our fleet.

"Thanks to the alarm itself, which the harum-scarum articles

excited, prudence will once more gain control of our foreign

affairs. The _entente_ will continue: Italy, we may hope, will not

once more be scared out of her improved relations with Powers

outside the Triplice. Recent occurrences may be turned to useful

end, by courage in speaking out displayed by those who insist that a

policy, profoundly peaceful in fact, shall not be exposed to being

represented as directed against any one of the European Powers."

Italy, he believed--and events have justified the forecast--would be

compelled by the pressure of circumstances to leave the Triple Alliance.

How far Germany would be able to keep a permanent hold on Austria-

Hungary might also, he thought, be doubtful, as it would largely depend

on the developments of home issues in Austria itself, as to which

prophecy was always rash. Like other statesmen of an older school, he

still probably clung to the hope that the Dual Empire might yet be

gradually converted into a Federal State, in which the Slavonic

populations of the Empire would play a larger part and would not submit

to take marching orders from Berlin in regard to policy in the Balkans.

[Footnote: A short time before his death, in 1902, Lord Kimberley said

to Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice: "If ever there is another Liberal

Government--which is perhaps doubtful--Grey or you, or both of you, may

have something to say to foreign affairs. Now, remember, there is on no

account to be any quarrelling with Austria. She has been the only steady

friend we have had in Europe--I mean since 1866. The Hungarians have

always been our friends. So, I repeat, _no quarrelling with Austria_. I

have said the same thing to Grey." (Notes communicated by Lord

Fitzmaurice). See, too, the opinion of M. Ribot, cited in René Henry's

_Questions d'Autriche-Hongrie_, pp. 176-178: "Quant à l'Autriche, nos

rapports avec elle ont toujours été bons; ils ont été pleins, non

seulement de courtoisie, mais de quelque chose de plus; parceque

l'Autriche sait que, de toutes les puissances européennes, la France est

la dernière qui pourrait souhaiter que l'Empire d'Autriche, garantie

nécessaire de l'équilibre européen, se brisat et disparût pour le

malheur de l'Europe." (Speech in the Senate, March 11th, 1903). An

interesting collection of opinions on the development of Austria into a

federal State, and the probable results on the Balkan Peninsula, will be

found in the last chapter of the work of Dr. Aurel Popovici, _Die

Vereinigten Staaten von Gross-Oesterreich_ (Leipzig, 1906).]

Both in 1908 and 1909, in the debates on the Foreign Office Votes in the

House of Commons, Sir Charles had expressed apprehensions of the

development of Great Britain's _entente_ with Russia, in regard to

Persia, into something far more extensive, and therefore dangerous--into

something, in fact, very like an "alliance." He feared that in the

Bosnian question it had been pushed to extreme limits. The result, he

said, had been to lead to a diplomatic humiliation. He claimed also that

recent debates in the French Chamber, which had taken place at the time

of the fall of M. Clemenceau's Ministry in the later half of 1909,

showed that a large body of French opinion shared this view. [Footnote:

See, for a summary of these views, an article by Sir C. Dilke in the

_English Review_ of October, 1909, p. 495; and Hansard for 1908,

cxviii., 955-970; and for 1909, vol. viii., 621-635.]

With these preoccupations present to his mind he spoke on the last

occasion on which he addressed the House of Commons at any length on

foreign affairs--on July 22nd, 1909--when the policy of Sir Edward Grey

in regard to the final annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina by

Austria-Hungary was discussed on the Foreign Office Vote. He attacked

this policy because it seemed to confirm the belief in the alleged

tendency of the Foreign Office to extend the Anglo-Russian arrangement

in regard to Persia into a general _entente_, with the probable result

of producing exactly the opposite of the result intended, and of thereby

strengthening the consolidation of the Central Powers. The diplomatic

admissions and confessions of Lord Salisbury, both before and at the

time of the Berlin Congress of 1878, had, he thought, made it difficult

for the Foreign Office to take any decided stand against the final

annexation, which the existing position had been certain to cause sooner

or later. Turkey and Servia both complained. He did not deny that the

Turkish Revolution brought about by the so-called "Young Turks," who

were the cause of the crisis in the Balkans, held out some possible

prospect of a future less hopeless than the previous state of things;

but this might have been conceded without expressing "unreserved

approval of a military pronouncement attended by a good deal of

hanging." Servia also, no doubt, might be said in some degree to

represent democratic principles upon the banks of the Danube; but he

thought it difficult to reconcile the expression before a rather cynical

Europe--and in very strong language, too--of our official horror at the

conduct of the Servians in the barbarous murder of their King and Queen,

with our joining Russia so very soon afterwards in a support of Servia

against Austria-Hungary too absolute even for French concurrence.