EUROPEAN POLITICS
In 1881 the general European situation was still critical. The Greeks had
seen Montenegro's claim made good while their own pretensions remained
unsatisfied, and at the beginning of the year war between Greece and
Turkey seemed so probable that Lord Houghton was writing anxiously to ask
Sir Charles by what means the antiquities of Athens could be guaranteed
against bombardment.
Sir Charles notes, on January 18th and 21st, conversations between himself
and Mr. Goschen, who had temporarily returned from his mission at
Constantinople, 'as to helping Greece by a naval force, which he and I
both desired.' But Mr. Gladstone refused his sanction to this project, and
Sir Charles for the moment took a very grave view, noting in his diary on
February 1st:
"Lord Granville has now to decide (in two days), before Goschen starts
for Constantinople via Berlin, whether he will disgracefully abandon
Greece or break up the Concert of Europe."
The Concert was kept together, but only upon condition of limiting Greece
to a frontier with which Sir Charles was extremely discontented.
'On March 27th I was in a resigning humour about Greece, but could not
get anybody to agree with me, and Chamberlain said that not even
Liberal public opinion in England would now support isolated action or
Anglo-Italian intervention. Chamberlain thought that in the interest
of Greece herself it was desirable that she should be made to take the
last Turkish offer, which gave her all the revenue-producing country,
and kept from her the costly and the dangerous country.'
A week later he wrote a minute for Lord Granville and Mr. Gladstone,
proposing that autonomy should be given to those portions of Epirote
territory which were being withheld from Greece; but this plan was
negatived, and a final settlement was reached on May 17th.
The settlement of 1881 was not a settlement which contented Greece and the
friends of Greece; and it was only a provisional settlement.
But new complications were developing elsewhere.
'On February 1st I wrote to Gambetta by our "bag" to tell him that
Sheffield' (Lord Lyons's secretary) 'would call on him from me to tell
him a secret. This secret was that the Three Emperors' League was
again revived and France once more isolated. But this was such a dead
secret that even our Cabinet were not to know for fear some of them
might talk.' [Footnote: The murder of the Emperor Alexander II. on
March 13th terminated these plans for the time. But out of them
subsequently grew the meeting of the three Emperors at Skierniewice on
September 15th and 16th, 1884; and indirectly Prince Bismarck's
"reinsurance" treaty with Russia, which his successor, Caprivi,
refused to renew in 1890.]
France, though 'isolated,' was beginning to take action which threatened
far-spreading trouble. Mention has been made of her pretension to Tunis,
and of the support to that pretension afforded by a hint of Lord
Salisbury's in 1878. In the early spring of 1881 the first serious step
was taken to threaten the independence or quasi-independence of Tunis.
This development was the more serious because an important dispute was in
progress concerning a Tunisian estate called the Enfida, to which rival
claims were put forward by M. Lévy, a British subject, and by a French
company, the Société Marseillaise. On January 12th M. Lévy's
representative, himself also a British subject, was expelled from the
property by agents of the French Consulate.
'On February 3rd there came to me at ten o'clock in my Foreign Office
boxes a telegram from Lord Lyons, which told us that the French had
sent the _Friedland_ from Toulon to Tunis to bully the Bey. I wrote
off by special messenger to Lord Granville that we ought at once to
send the fleet to Tunis unless the _Friedland_ were withdrawn, and
Lord Granville accepted this view, and telegraphed to Lord Lyons to
that effect at noon. [Footnote: 'On February 5th, the Cabinet having
approved our suggestion, we telegraphed for the _Thunderer_ and a
despatch-boat to sail at once for Tunis.']
'Our difficulty was in this matter to avoid acting with Italy. We did
not want to keep the French out of Tunis, but we could not have
ironclads used to force Tunisian law courts into giving decisions
hostile to British subjects. Barrère wrote to me from Paris at
Gambetta's wish saying that I was labouring under a grievous mistake
in thinking that the _Friedland_ was sent to settle the Enfida case
against the English. The ship was sent because the Bey "declines to
sign a treaty of alliance with us." At the same time he went on to say
that the present policy of France would not last longer than six
months, which meant, of course, that Gambetta intended to form a
Government at that time (which as a fact he did), and that "our friend
deplores the present policy of the Government and declines all
responsibility."'
On August 25th Gambetta expressed to Dilke "profound disapprobation of all
that has been done in Tunis," on which is noted: 'Possibly he would have
done the same, but he is very wise after the event.'
'On May 6th Lord Granville, against Tenterden's opinion and my own,
sketched drafts to Germany and Austria as to the position of the
French in Tunis, with a view to raise the Concert of Europe in their
path. We pointed out to him that Germany and Austria would snub us,
and succeeded at last in stopping this precious scheme. The wily
Russian got up the trouble by hinting verbally to Lord Granville that
Russia would act with England and Italy in this matter. A curious
league: England, Russia, and Italy against France; and a queer
Concert. The proposal led to trouble three days later, for, of course,
the Russians told the French in such a way as to make them believe
that the idea was ours.'
On the evening of May eth Sir Charles met Laffitte, "the Comtist Pope," at
the Political Economy Club.
'Frederic Harrison treated him as an old lady of the Faubourg would
treat the Pope or the Comte de Chambord, or both rolled into one. But
Laffitte happening to say that he approved of the French expedition to
Tunis, Harrison's feelings became too much even for his reverence and
his religion. Laffitte's remark, from Laffitte, showed, however, how
unanimous was the French feeling....
'On the 9th the trouble which I had expected broke out. The French
Ambassador (Challemel-Lacour) came to see me in a great rage, and told
me that his Government had heard that we had tried to raise Germany
against France on the Tunis question by an alliance offered at Berlin,
though not through our Ambassador. This particular story was untrue. I
denied it, and I then went to Lord Granville, who denied it.... I then
wrote to Challemel to ask him to give up names; but he declined.'
France was in conflict with the Kroumirs on her Algerian frontier, the
expeditionary force penetrated the interior, and by the middle of June the
Bey had appointed M. Roustan, the French Consul, to represent him in all
matters.
Justifications were put forward, and there was much discussion as to what
Lord Salisbury had said or not said at Berlin in 1878.
'Lord Salisbury had made Wolff withdraw the question, of which
(foolishly from the Conservative point of view) he had given notice,
but the matter having been raised, the Cabinet, on Friday, 13th,
decided to publish a portion of Lord Salisbury's despatches, though
not the worst.... [Footnote: A letter from Lord Granville to Sir
Charles, of May 15th, 1881, shows the difficulty. "I sent, according
to custom, the Salisbury Tunis papers to the Marquis. You will be
surprised to hear that he does not like them. He objects to all, but
principally to the extracts from Lord Lyons' despatch." Lord Granville
goes on to suggest alternative courses, the first being "to consent at
his request to leave out the extracts, with a warning that it is not
likely it will be possible to refuse them later."]
'I wrote to Lord Granville to say that I was sorry there had not been
included in the papers a despatch of July 16th, 1878, giving the
conversation between Lord Lyons and Waddington on Waddington's return
to Paris' (from the Congress of Berlin). 'On the 9th, on the 11th, and
on the 13th July, 1878, Lord Lyons had reported the irritation in
France at the Cyprus Convention. On July 16th Waddington returned to
Paris, and the row in the French Press suddenly ceased. In his
despatch Lord Lyons says that Waddington told him that Lord Salisbury
"had assured him" that "H. M. G. would make no objection if it suited
France to take possession of Tunis." [Footnote: The Life of Lord
Lyons, by Lord Newton, gives, on July 20th, 1878, a letter from Lord
Salisbury which evidently refers to the despatch. In this letter Lord
Salisbury says: "What M. Waddington said to you is very much what he
said to me at Berlin...." A further passage in the letter is: "If
France occupied Tunis tomorrow, we should not remonstrate." See _Life
of Lord Lyons_, vol. ii., p. 152.] Waddington said that he--
Waddington--had pointed out to Lord Salisbury that Italy would object,
and that Lord Salisbury had replied that she must "seek compensation
in Tripoli." Corti had also assured me that Lord Salisbury had said
this to him at the time. I strongly urged the publication of Lord
Lyons' despatch in justice to ourselves, if anything was to be
published. Lord Salisbury undoubtedly, and even by his own admission,
had used most impolitic language, giving up that which was contrary to
British interests to give up and which was not ours to give. (He was
fated to do the same thing in the case of Madagascar.) He had
afterwards denied that he had done anything of the kind. He also had
denied that France had minded our occupation of Cyprus, and doubly
concealed the fact that after making the foolish mistake of taking
Cyprus, he had got out of the difficulty in a still more foolish
fashion.'
This led to correspondence between Count Corti, then Italian Ambassador at
Constantinople, and Sir Charles--a discussion which was renewed later in
conversation:
'He in fact admitted the truth of what I had said, but added that he
disapproved of the Berlin conversations. "At that time everybody was
telling everybody else to take something which belonged to somebody
else. One more powerful than Lord Salisbury, more powerful than Lord
Beaconsfield, advised me to take Tunis. [Footnote: _Life of Lord
Lyons_, vol. ii., p. 224; letter from Lord Lyons to Lord Granville,
May 13th, 1881: "They got Bismarck's leave for this."] Lord Salisbury
advised me to take an island, and Lord Salisbury may have advised me
to take Tripoli." At the State ball in the evening, I told Odo Russell
this. He told me that Lord Salisbury had disgusted Corti by forgetting
him on the occasion when he told the great men at the Congress of
Berlin about the occupation of Cyprus, and that Corti had never
forgiven him.'
Egypt also was now a growing anxiety, made graver by the events in Tunis,
which excited apprehensions of like proceedings elsewhere. In such a
condition of feeling even trifling incidents--as, for example, that of the
Smyrna Quays, where the Porte had violated some rights of an English
company--grew delicate and critical. All such matters and many others had
to be dealt with in the House of Commons by question and answer--a task of
no small difficulty, since the susceptibilities of foreign Powers had to
be considered, while British interests, no less sensitive, could not be
ignored.
The fulfilment of the Treaty of Berlin was meanwhile an enormous addition
to the work of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, especially as it was at
first complicated by the ill will of Russia, which had hoped that the
change of Government might bring about some modifications. It was also
complicated by the Porte's unlimited capacity for wasting time. The topics
regulated by the treaty and its supplementary conventions, when taken in
connection with the Treaties of Paris and London, which it partly
superseded, fell under at least seventeen separate heads; each of these
branched off into numerous divisions and subdivisions, most of which
admitted of possible controversy, while many required executive action by
Commissioners on the spot, [Footnote: Thomas Erskine Holland, _The
European Concert in the Eastern Question_, pp. 222-225.] such as the
delimitation of the boundaries of the new States. Nearly every question
involved communications with the signatory Powers, and each of them had a
long diplomatic history which had to be studied. M. de Courcel told Sir
Charles that in his dreams he always saw a second river flowing by the
side of the Danube, as large and as swift, but black--the river of ink
which had been shed over the Danube question! Sir Julian Pauncefote, the
Permanent Under-Secretary, was credited by Sir Charles with being the only
man in England who then understood it; and the question of the Danube,
after all, was only one of many.
Questions were continually being asked in the House of Commons, where the
expert in foreign affairs was not so rare as he became in a subsequent
period; but the inquiries of inexpert persons were the most troublesome of
all.
Sir Charles's power of terse and guarded reply was universally considered
supreme, and was all the more valuable at a time when the practice had
grown up, then comparatively new and since gradually limited, of asking
questions on foreign and colonial affairs, with the object of embarrassing
Ministers, and without regard to the consequences abroad. It gradually
became a dangerous growth, greatly facilitated by the lax procedure, as it
then existed, of the House of Commons in regard to supplementary
questions. This procedure often allowed question time to degenerate into a
sort of ill-regulated debate. Mr. Gladstone's habit of allowing himself
very frequently to be drawn into giving a further answer, after the
carefully prepared official answer had already been given by the Under-
Secretary, was another complication. The brunt of all these troubles had
to be borne by the representative of the Foreign Office. [Footnote: Sir
Henry Lucy, writing "From the Cross Benches" in this year, discussed
critically the various styles of answering questions:
"Sir Charles Dilke's answers are perfect, whether in regard of manner,
matter, or style. A small grant of public money might be much worse
expended than in reprinting his answer to two questions put last night on
the subject of Anglo-French commercial relations, having them framed and
glazed, and hung up in the bedroom of every Minister. A good test of the
perhaps unconscious skill and natural art with which the answer is drawn
up would be for anyone to take the verbatim report which appears in this
morning's papers and attempt to make it shorter. There is not a word too
much in it. It occupies just twenty-eight lines of print, and it contains
a clear and full account of an exceedingly intricate negotiation. The
majority of the answers given by Ministers in their places in Parliament
appear much better in print than when spoken, redundancies being cut out,
parentheses put straight, and hesitancy of manner not appearing. But to
the orderly mind and clear intelligence which instinctively brings
uppermost and in due sequence the principal points of a question, Sir
Charles Dilke adds a frank manner, a clear voice, and an easy delivery."]
Sir Charles was always a close student of Indian government, and many
notes on it are scattered through his diary. On January 9th, meeting
Mallet at York House with the Grant Duffs, he says: 'I had always held a
strong opinion against the India Council, and Mallet confirmed me in my
view that the existing constitution was bad. He ought to know.' The
Government turned to Dilke for assistance in debates on foreign affairs,
even in a case where the Government of India rather than the Foreign
Office was involved.
By the beginning of 1881 England's policy in Afghanistan had been finally
determined. The evacuation of Kandahar was now definitive, in spite of
opposition from a high quarter. On January 18th 'the Queen telegraphed to
Mr. Gladstone at length in a tone of severe rebuke that all her warnings
as to Kandahar had been disregarded.' On March 8th Sir Charles received a
preliminary warning from Lord Hartington to read up his Central Asian
papers, and--
'the Cabinet of March 19th wrote to me to follow Edward Stanhope as to
Kandahar debate' (who had been Lord Beaconsfield's Under-Secretary of
State for India in 1878, and now naturally led the Tory attack). 'I
had to move the direct negative on behalf of the Government. This was
a great compliment, as the matter was not in my department, and the
only three members of the Government who were to speak were Mr.
Gladstone and Lord Hartington and myself.'
After the debate on March 24th, Lord Granville, having first sent his own
congratulations, wrote to say: "Gladstone expressed himself almost
poetically about the excellence of your speech." [Footnote: "The speech of
the debate was that of Sir Charles Dilke. It was close, cogent, and to the
point throughout. His facts were admirably marshalled, so as to strengthen
without obscuring his arguments. There was no fencing, no rhetoric, no
fighting the air.
He came at once to close quarters with his adversary, and demolished his
arguments one after another by a series of cut-and-thrust rejoinders,
which left but little to be added by those who followed him on the same
side. Mr. Stanhope's attack on the Ministry has been of conspicuous
service to at least one Minister" (_Pall Mall Gazette_, edited by Mr. John
Morley).]
In the course of this year, Sir Charles, once more diverging from Radical
preconceptions, helped Sir Robert Sandeman, who was
'sent over by the Viceroy to state his views. I was able to give him
such assistance with my colleagues as to save the districts (the
Pishin districts and the Khojak frontier) to the Indian Government.'
In this Sir Charles was with Lord Ripon, but a draft treaty of Lord
Ripon's, which proposed to surrender Merv ('not ours to give'), roused his
fierce opposition, and was rejected by the Cabinet. He was always resolute
for a strong frontier policy in Central Asia.
The assassination of the Emperor of Russia on March 13th in this year
roused all the Home Offices into activity, and England was as usual taxed
with being the asylum of every desperado. Sir William Harcourt inclined
strongly to the demands of the police, including the prosecution of
Socialist publications, and he carried the Cabinet with him.
'On March 26th I noted in my diary: "...At to-day's Cabinet Bright was
the only Minister who opposed the prosecution of the _Freiheit_, and
Chamberlain positively supported it."'
It may be added that Sir Charles was charged by a certain Mr. Maltman
Barry with having subscribed to the funds of the _Freiheit_, which was an
anarchist publication. The charge was met by an absolute denial, and was
supported by no evidence. It was, however, fathered in the House by Lord
Randolph Churchill, and this led to a breach of friendly relations with
the latter, which lasted for some time.
'On April 9th I was in Paris, and breakfasted with Gambetta, who told
me that Bismarck was about to propose a Conference, which was insisted
on by Russia, concerning the right of asylum, and we agreed that
England and France should refuse together to take part in it.'
A fortnight later Sir Charles, returning from Toulon, was able to offer
his congratulations to Gambetta, because France had declined to attend the
Conference. But the matter was still open as regarded England, and
'on April 30th, and again on May 3rd, I noted that Sir William was
"wrongheaded about the right of asylum," but that I hoped he would not
be allowed by his colleagues to offer to legislate on extradition to
please the Russians.'
At the Cabinet on May 4th
'there was a long debate upon nihilism. Lord Granville some time
before had told the Russians that legislation was intended. That was
so, for a Bill had been prepared. But it was clear that it would be
foolish to introduce it. Kimberley and Chamberlain were against all
proposals to meet the Russians. Then came before the Cabinet the
question of Harcourt's reply to Cowen's question to be put on the next
day, whether information was given by the English police to the
Austrian police as to Socialist addresses in Vienna, which had led to
arrests. Our police say that they only told the Austrians of a place
where dynamite was stored. This seemed to me a cock and bull of Howard
Vincent's. Harcourt had drafted a reply about Napoleon Bonaparte,
which the Cabinet wanted him to alter, but when he is pleased with an
answer it is not easy to make him alter it, as I noted. As our police
virtually denied the charge, Harcourt might have given their denial,
as theirs, in their own words, but nothing would induce him to do
this.'
As regarded Russia, Lord Granville based himself on the fact that a
similar arrangement existed between England and Germany, and he questioned
whether political offenders would be much safer in a German than in a
Russian court of law. To the promise of backing from France, he objected
that M. Saint-Hilaire had already pledged himself to an extradition treaty
with Russia. On the latter point Sir Charles answered that for this
amongst other reasons M. Saint-Hilaire was about to be removed from the
French Foreign Office. In the end of October, 1881, Sir Charles was seeing
Gambetta frequently, and observes that he was
'much excited about the question of the extradition treaty with
Russia....
'Curious though it seems to us (in 1890-1895), when we know how
intensely pro-Russian Gambetta's friends now are, Gambetta was
intensely anti-Russian and pro-Turk....
'There is the same difference of opinion in the French Cabinet as to
the making of an extradition treaty with Russia as there is in ours,
where Harcourt wants it and his colleagues do not. This was the only
subject discussed at the interview of the Russian and German Emperors
at Danzig' (September, 1881), 'and England and France are in their
black books.'
Lord Granville constantly referred to Sir Charles for advice as to the
temper of the House of Commons, though in this case he supported Sir
William Harcourt, and might be excused for failing to see what was plain
to Sir Charles as a practical House of Commons politician, that, apart
from principles, a Liberal Ministry would be sadly embarrassed if it had
to defend the handing over of political refugees to the Russian police,
and that the Tories would probably support the Radical wing in a vote of
censure.
The combination at the Foreign Office of the two Ministers, the old and
the young, the Whig and the democrat, worked excellently, and Lord
Granville, in telling Sir Charles that in his absence in France during the
Session Hartington must answer his questions, said that 'picking out any
of those who are not in the Cabinet is an indication of what would be done
when that terrible moment may come to me of your leaving the P.O.' One
matter had, however, caused Sir Charles uneasiness.
In the close of the year 1880 there was a proposal to give a charter to
the North Borneo Company. No ordinary politician knew anything of this
Company, but Sir Charles, while in Opposition, had grounds for asking
questions hostile to it, and had stirred up Mr. Rylands to do the same.
This fact Dilke mentioned to Lord Granville. But, finding Foreign Office
opinion in favour of the concession, he promised that
'I would not take an active part in opposition to the Charter scheme
if and providing the Cabinet approved of it.... On November 19th,
1880, the box, which had been round the Cabinet on the North Borneo
business, having returned without any comment by Mr. Gladstone, I got
it sent again to Mr. Gladstone, who finally decided, I was informed by
Lord Granville, against Herbert of the Colonial Office, Harcourt,
Chamberlain, Bright, Childers, and myself, and with Lord Kimberley,
the Chancellor, and Lord Granville. So it was settled that the Charter
was to be granted; but a little later Mr. Gladstone forgot the
decision which he had given, insisted that he had never heard of the
matter at all, went the other way and would have stopped the Charter,
but for the fact that it was too late.'
This made Sir Charles exceedingly indisposed to undertake the defence of
it in a House of Commons where his own questions asked in Opposition would
assuredly be quoted against him by Sir John Gorst, who, when the Charter
was published in December, tabled a motion against it. 'It was not so much
to the thing itself I was opposed as to the manner in which it was done.'
He therefore wrote to Lord Granville that he had made full search for
precedents, 'the first thing which occurs to a Radical in distress,' and
that finding no modern precedent, he simply could not undertake to defend
the Charter, his objections being that to make such a grant without the
knowledge of Parliament strained the prerogative of the Crown, and,
further, that the Foreign Office was not the fit department to control a
colony (as had been urged in the case of Cyprus). He notes: 'Gambetta
tells me that he has at once had an application from a similar French
Company--for the New Hebrides.' Lord Granville made official reply, with
some asperity. But he sent a separate unofficial letter, in which, after
treating of other matters, he smoothed over his more formal communication.
These letters were received by Sir Charles on December 27th, 1881, on his
return to Paris from Toulon.[Footnote: Later Sir Charles notes: 'My own
objections (besides those to the form in which the matter had been
considered) were to the absence of sufficient provisions with regard to
domestic slavery and opium, but as regards these two latter points I
succeeded in getting the gap filled in.'] The unofficial letter ran:
"I have sent you an answer on a separate piece of paper to your rather
blowing-up letter about Borneo. You have been misled by Spencer's
ignorance and Gladstone's very natural forgetfulness of the
particulars. It was more inexcusable of me to have forgotten what it
appears you told me about your and Rylands' previous action. When my
liver does not act and official work becomes unusually irksome, I
sometimes ask myself upon what question I should like to be beaten and
turned out. The first would be fair trade. The second, which the _St.
James's_ and Raikes, the late Chairman of Committees, seem to
anticipate, is failure to reform the procedure of the Commons owing to
Tory and Home Rule obstruction. I should not think Borneo a fatal
question for this purpose.... There is a great run upon us now as to
Ireland, but do you remember a December when it was not generally
supposed that the Government of the day was going to the dogs?"
The matter passed over, but was serious enough for Mr. Chamberlain to say
in January of the following year:
"If, what I do not expect, the affair should proceed to extremities, I
shall stand or fall with you."
One other matter of this period is interesting as showing Sir Charles and
his chief at work. A draft was on its way to the Colonial Office, 'laying
down the law for dealing with fugitive slaves who escaped into the British
sphere of influence'--a case of constant occurrence at Zanzibar. Sir
Charles's views on this and kindred subjects were strong, and he worked
then, as always, with the Aborigines Protection Society. He stopped it--
'and Lord Granville wrote upon my views a characteristic minute': "I
think our proposed draft is right and defensible in argument. I also
am of opinion that your condemnation of it is right, because the fact
is that the national sentiment is so strongly opposed to what is
enjoined by international law that it is better not to wake the cat as
long as she is asleep!"'
At the end of July, 1881, Lord Granville's health seemed seriously
affected, and Sir Charles noted that, apart from his own personal feeling,
his chief's enforced retirement would be 'a great misfortune.' The choice
would be between Lords Derby, Hartington, Kimberley, and Northbrook. Lord
Derby seemed to him 'undecided and weak,' Lord Northbrook still weaker,
while Lord Hartington 'knew no French and nothing of foreign affairs.' Of
Lord Kimberley's ability he had not then formed a high estimate; but he
adds that, having afterwards sat with him in the Cabinet, he changed that
opinion, finding him 'a wise man,' who never did himself justice in
conversation.