The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke Volume I Part 54

'On December 14th I saw Mr. Gladstone, but a new opening had arisen, for Fawcett was very ill, and supposed to be dying, and Mr. Gladstone determined to wait for a few days to see whether he got better....

'On December 16th Mr. Gladstone pledged himself to me in writing with regard to putting me immediately into the Cabinet in some place, and on December 17th the Queen agreed that a paragraph to that effect should be sent to the newspapers. On the 18th, however, she declined to entertain the question of taking Chamberlain for the Duchy. On December 20th Mr. Gladstone wrote that he was "between the devil and the deep sea." I do not know which of the two meant the Queen, and whether the other was myself or Chamberlain. On December 21st Chamberlain came up to town to see me. On the 22nd the Dodson plan went forward in letters from Mr. Gladstone to Sir Henry Ponsonby, the Queen's Secretary, and from Lord Hartington, to the Queen. On the 22nd at night Dodson accepted it, and on the 23rd I was formally so informed, and virtually accepted the Presidency of the Local Government Board, which I nominally accepted on December 26th.'

Before Sir Charles vacated the seat by his letter of acceptance, the Tories in Chelsea had met and decided not to oppose him. Among the letters of congratulation none gratified the new Minister more than one from Lord Barrington, Lord Beaconsfield's former private secretary, who wrote, even before the appointment was officially confirmed:

"I like watching your political career as, besides personal feeling, it makes me think of what my dear old chief used to say about you-- that you were _the_ rising man on the other side."

On December 27th Lord Granville sent from Walmer Castle a letter of characteristic courtesy and charm.[Footnote: The letter given in Chapter XX., p. 311.] It crossed an expression of grat.i.tude already despatched by his junior:

"MY DEAR LORD GRANVILLE,

"Having received Mr. Gladstone's letter with the Queen's approval, I write to thank you for all your many kindnesses to me while I have been under your orders. I shall continue to attend the office until the Council, but I cannot let the day close without trying to express in one word all that I owe to you as regards the last thirty-two months.

"Sincerely yours,

"CHARLES W. DILKE."

But it was much later, when the Government had fallen, that this "one word" came to be developed.

"76, SLOANE STREET, S.W.

"_Tuesday, July 14th_, 1885.

"MY DEAR LORD GRANVILLE,

"I am glad you feel as you do about me. Malicious people and foolish people have both so long said that I wanted to be S. of S. for For.

Affs. myself that I never expect to be believed when I say the simple truth--that in my opinion it ought to be in the Lords as long as there are Lords, and that my only wish was to be of any help I could. I can only think of the Errington-Walsh business when I think over points on which we have differed, and I cannot help scoring that down to Forster and the silly Irish Government, and not to you, though you are so loyal a colleague that when you have accepted you always actively support.

"I do not suppose I shall ever, if again in office, have such pleasant official days as those I spent in the F.O. under you, but the next best thing would be at the Admiralty--the office to which all my life has always inclined me--to obey your orders from the F.O.

"I am sure you will believe this even if no one else will, and believe me also ever

"Yours very affectionately and sincerely,

"CHARLES W. DILKE."

'Trevelyan, in sending his congratulations from the Chief Secretary's Office at Dublin, asked me for the earliest possible draft of heads of my Local Government Bill for England: "in case it is settled that we are to bring one in--a move which I have come to think is necessary. They need not run on all fours, but there are points on which it would not do to adopt a different policy."'

To the Secretary of State's congratulations, Sir Julian Pauncefote, permanent head of the Foreign Office staff, added his tribute:

"How we all deplore your departure, _none so much as myself_. You will leave behind you a lasting memory of your kindness and geniality, and of your great talents."

Other friends, among them Mr. Knollys, a.s.sumed as a matter of course that the promotion would bring a change from congenial to uncongenial work.

They were right. "I shall be in the Local Government Board by Wednesday, as I shan't, after Chamberlain's kindness, put him in a place which he will like less than the Board of Trade. Shan't I hate it after this place!" Sir Charles Dilke wrote. "But," he added, "it will 'knock the nonsense out of me.'" That was the view put to him, for instance, by Lord Barrington. "In the end it is well that a Minister should go through the comparative drudgery of other offices. It gets him 'out of a groove.'"

Mr. Gladstone, on making what Sir Charles Dilke calls 'the formal announcement' on December 23rd, wrote:

"Notwithstanding the rubs of the past, I am sanguine as to your future relations with the Queen. There are undoubtedly many difficulties in that quarter, but they are in the main confined to three or four departments. Your office will not touch them, while you will have in common with all your colleagues the benefit of two great modifying circ.u.mstances which never fail--the first her high good manners, and the second her love of truth....

"I have entered on these explanations, because it is my fervent desire, on every ground, to reduce difficulties in such high and delicate matters to their minimum; and because, with the long years which I hope you have before you, I also earnestly desire that your start should be favourable in your relations with the Sovereign."

This was written only a few weeks after the Prime Minister had spoken to his intimates of Dilke as some day his probable successor in the leaders.h.i.+p of the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone did not omit to urge that the new Minister should do his best to conciliate good-will. The Queen, he said, "looked with some interest or even keenness to the words of explanation as to the distant past," which Sir Charles himself had-- "not in any way as a matter of bargain, but as a free tender"--proposed to use.

They were guarded. In an address delivered at Kensington before his re- election, he dwelt almost exclusively on questions of Local Government, and coming to the Government of London, he said:

"There were very many subjects upon which one might modify one's opinions as one grew older; there were opinions of political infancy which, as one grew older, one might regard as unwise, or might prefer not to have uttered; but upon the Government of London--the opinions he expressed in 1867 were his personal opinions at the present time."

This and the closing admission that when he first came before the electors of Chelsea, he "was only between three-and four-and-twenty years of age, and was perhaps at that time rather scatter-brained," are all the allusions to the remote past which the speech contains; but there is every reason to believe that it was taken as satisfactory. Mr. Gladstone wrote that the comments of the Conservative press, which were pretty certain to be read at Osborne, would be useful. Finally, "to integrate their correspondence," he added this reference to Sir Charles's known wish for the Admiralty:

"I pa.s.sed over the suggestion about clearing the Admiralty (_a_) from reluctance to start Northbrook's removal to any less efficient place; (_b_) on account of Parliamentary displacements; not at all because it was too big a place to vacate and offer."

'All the same,' the Memoir adds, 'I liked the L.G.B.'

The change of office did not mean any severance from foreign policy, which Sir Charles could now approach in his proper sphere, with the authority of a Cabinet Minister. He was succeeded by Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, who had returned from his mission to Constantinople. Dilke wrote on December 23rd to Lord Granville: "I should suggest that no time be lost in getting Fitzmaurice here. He likes work, and will go at these matters like a lion."

'On the last day of the old year Lord Granville, writing from Walmer to thank me for what I had said about him to my const.i.tuents, added: "I have given the sack to ---- at the end of the five years' limit which now expires. He would like to keep the appointment on leave for six months, and might be very useful in advising the office. But would there be any House of Commons objection to this prolongation?" This was a specimen of the way in which, after I had left the Foreign Office, all Foreign Office questions were still thrown on to me; and as a matter of fact I did almost as much Foreign Office work during the year 1883 as I had done from 1880 to 1882. Fitzmaurice, however, was able, and worked very hard, and he gradually acquired an enormous mastery of the detail of the questions.' [Footnote: Sir Charles notes how glad he was to induce Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice to continue Mr.

Austin Lee in the post of official private secretary.]

His unopposed return for Chelsea did not take place till January 8th, 1883. Before this he had been formally admitted to the Privy Council.

'I had left the Foreign Office on December 27th, having been there exactly two years and eight months, and on Thursday, the 28th, I went down to a Council at Osborne to be sworn; and on the 29th addressed the princ.i.p.al meeting held in my const.i.tuency with regard to my re- election, and advocated a policy of decentralization in Local Government affairs. I was rather amused at Osborne by the punctiliousness with which, after I had kissed hands on being sworn a member of the Council, the Queen pointed out to the Clerk of the Council that it was necessary for me again to immediately go through precisely the same ceremony on appointment as President of the Local Government Board--a curious point of strict etiquette. I could not but think that the portion of the Privy Councillor's oath which concerns keeping secret matters treated of secretly in Council is more honoured in the breach than in the observance; but when Mr. Gladstone chose, which was not always, he used to maintain the view that the clause is governed by the first part of the oath, so as to make it secret only in respect of the interests of the country and the position of other members of Council. There is nothing in the oath about any limit of time, but it has always been held in practice that a time comes when all political importance has departed from the proceedings of the Council, and when the obligation of secrecy may be held to lapse.

There is nothing, however, more delicate than the question of where the line is drawn. Chamberlain was directed by the Cabinet, for example, at the time of the Kilmainham Treaty, to carry on negotiations with Parnell which were absolutely impossible except by a partial revelation of matters discussed secretly in Council; but as the Prime Minister was a party to this, I suppose that the Queen's consent to the removal of the obligation would be in such a case a.s.sumed, though it was not in this case real. Another difficulty about the oath is that it in no way provides for the position towards their chiefs of members of the Government not members of the Privy Council.

'It is difficult, therefore, to say that the oath in practice imposes any obligation other than that which any man of honour would feel laid upon him by the ordinary observances of gentlemen.'

Sir Charles was only thirty-nine when he entered the Cabinet, yet the general feeling was that his admission was overdue rather than early, and no one had shown more anxiety for it than the future King.

'During the whole month while my position in the Cabinet was under hot discussion, I saw a great deal of the Prince of Wales, who wished to know from day to day how matters stood, and I was able to form a more accurate opinion both of himself and of the Princess, and of all about them, than I had formed before. The Prince is, of course, in fact, a strong Conservative, and a still stronger Jingo, really agreeing in the Queen's politics, and wanting to take everything everywhere in the world and to keep everything if possible, but a good deal under the influence of the last person who talks to him, so that he would sometimes reflect the Queen and sometimes reflect me or Chamberlain, or some other Liberal who had been shaking his head at him. He has more sense and more usage of the modern world than his mother, whose long retirement has cut her off from that world, but less real brain power. He is very sharp in a way, the Queen not sharp at all; but she carries heavy metal, for her obstinacy const.i.tutes power of a kind.

The strongest man in Marlborough House is Holzmann, the Princess's Secretary and the Prince's Librarian. He is a man of character and solidity, but then he is a Continental Liberal, and looks at all English questions as a foreigner! The Princess never talks politics.... It is worth talking seriously to the Prince. One seems to make no impression at the time ... but he does listen all the same, and afterwards, when he is talking to somebody else, brings out everything that you have said.'

Some letters of this date show how strongly the personal friends.h.i.+p of Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain had developed during their political alliance.

In September, 1881, Mr. Chamberlain writes that he has been "reading over again a book called _Greater Britain_, written, I believe, by a young fellow of twenty-five, and a very bright, clever, and instructive book it is." He pet.i.tions for a copy "properly inscribed to your devoted friend and admirer, J. C." Sir Charles, in acknowledging this, protested against the word "instructive," and his friend apologized. "But it is instructive for all that. When you next come to Birmingham you shall inscribe my copy.... Let me add that in all my political life the pleasantest and the most satisfactory incident is your friends.h.i.+p."

These expressions were further emphasized by another letter of this date.

Sir Charles, hurrying into Mr. Chamberlain's room in the House of Commons, had found him busy and preoccupied, and so followed up his visit with a letter. Mr. Chamberlain replied:

"_December 6th._

"I am not sorry to have the opportunity of saying how much I appreciate and how cordially I reciprocate all your kind words.

"The fact is that you are by nature such a reserved fellow that all _demonstration_ of affection is difficult, but you may believe me when I say that I feel it--none the less. I suppose I am reserved myself.

The great trouble we have both been through has had a hardening effect in my case, and since then I have never worn my heart on my sleeve.

"But if I were in trouble I should come to you at once--and that is the best proof of friends.h.i.+p and confidence that I know of."

About that same time Lord Granville was writing to Sir Charles on foreign affairs, and diverged into general politics, remarking on the Free Trade speeches then being delivered. "With what ability Chamberlain has been speaking! I doubt whether going on the stump suits the Tory party." To this Sir Charles replied with an enthusiasm rare in his utterances:

"Chamberlain's speech was admirable, I thought. I, as you know, delight in his triumphs more than he does himself. It is absurd that this should be so between politicians, but so it is. Our friends.h.i.+p only grows closer and my admiration for him stronger day by day."