The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke Volume I Part 57

'The dynamiters chose a quiet corner, and they chose an hour when n.o.body was about, which showed that the object was not to hurt anybody, but only to get money from the United States. At the same time they picked their office most unfortunately, for the Local Government Board is the only office where people worked late at night, and two out of my four leading men were still in their rooms, although they had come at ten in the morning and the explosion did not take place till nine at night.'

Mr. Gladstone had returned at the beginning of this month, and on March 5th Sir Charles saw him for the first time in Cabinet, 'singularly quiet, hardly saying anything at all.' He did, however, say that Mr. Bradlaugh was "a stone round their necks," 'which in a Parliamentary sense he was.'

Despite one of Mr. Gladstone's greatest speeches, Government were again beaten when they proposed to let him affirm.

In this spring there was an agitation to create a Secretarys.h.i.+p of State for Scotland, and Lord Rosebery was looked upon as designate for the office. Sir Charles did not think the change necessary, but was strongly for having Lord Rosebery in the Cabinet, and wrote to Sir M. Grant Duff, Governor of Madras:

"It would be natural to give Rosebery the Privy Seal, and let him keep the Scotch work; but nothing will induce Mr. G. to look upon him as anything but a nice promising baby, and he will not hear of letting him into the Cabinet." 'Nothing,' he adds, 'was settled on this occasion.'

"A smaller Bill than those which I have mentioned, but one in which I was interested, was my Munic.i.p.al Corporations (unreformed) Bill, which had pa.s.sed the House of Lords, but failed to pa.s.s the Commons.

[Footnote: Previous reference to Sir Charles's persistent fight for this Bill is to be found in Chapter XIII.] Rosebery thought that this time it should be introduced into the Commons... because, although the Lords were pledged to it by having pa.s.sed it," this pledge must not be strained too hard by constantly waving the red flag of uncomfortable reform before the hereditary bull. "Harcourt having agreed with me that the Bill should be introduced into the Lords, and having also agreed with Rosebery that it should be introduced in the Commons, Rosebery again wrote: 'I am afraid if you go on bringing this measure before the peers they will begin to smell out suspicious matter in it."'

On April 21st 'Rosebery again promised me to introduce a Bill,' and the Bill became law in 1884.

After his brother's death on March 12th Sir Charles Dilke, in his reply to a very kind letter from the Prince of Wales in the name of himself and the Princess, mentioned Lord Rosebery and the Scotch agitation. The Prince wrote back:

"I quite agree. If Rosebery was not to be President of the Council, he ought at least to be Privy Seal. It seems very hard, as he has every claim, especially after the Midlothian election."

Several matters relating to the Queen and Royal Family appear at this time in the Memoir. At the Cabinet of March 5th

'a letter from the Queen was read as to her strong wish to have an Indian bodyguard, consisting of twenty noncommissioned officers of the native cavalry. I did not say a word, and Chamberlain not much, but all the others strongly attacked the scheme, which they ended by rejecting. Lord Derby said that the Empress t.i.tle had been forced on the former Conservative Cabinet, of which he had been a member, in the same way. It was pointed out that if India consented to pay the men, and they only carried side-arms, they might be treated as pages or servants, not soldiers, and need not be voted at all as "men" in the Army Estimates.'

'A day or two later Villiers, our military attach. in Paris, reported the existence of a military plot, said to have been got up by General Billot, the Minister of War: the plan being that fifteen commanders of corps were to turn out Grevy and put in the due d'Aumale. The story was probably a lie.'

'On March 18th there was to have been a "forgiving party" at Windsor, for Lord Derby was commanded as well as I. The Harcourts were to have gone, but the Queen sent in the morning to say she had slipped down, and must put off her Sunday dinner.'

'At this time peace was restored between Randolph Churchill and the Royal Family. The reconciliation was marked by Lady Randolph attending the Drawing-Room held on March 13th at the Queen's special wish.'

'At the Marlborough House dinner on May 27th, the Prince spoke to me about the allowance for his sons as they came of age, and told me that he thought the money might be given to him as head of the family. My own view is very much the same, but I would give it all to the Crown, and let the King for the time being distribute it so that we should not deal with any other members of the family.'

'At Claremont I found, from the conversation of the Duke of Albany and of his secretary, that if the Duke of Cambridge resigned speedily, as then seemed probable, the Duke of Connaught had no chance of obtaining the place; but it was hoped at Court that the Commander-in-Chief would hold his position for five or six years, and then might be succeeded by the Duke of Connaught.'

Later Sir Charles mentions the Duke of Albany's conversation with him as to Canada, of which he wished to be Governor, but the Queen opposed the project, and Lord Lansdowne was eventually sent out.

Returning to the Easter recess:

'The Government programme now began to be revised in the light of men's declared intentions.'

'On Wednesday, March 21st, I crossed to Paris, and went to Toulon. I must have been back in London on Thursday, March 29th, on which day I had a long interview with Mr. Gladstone on things in general. He had told Harcourt that he would hardly budge about the London police. His last word was that they should be retained by the Home Office for a period distinctly temporary, and to be named in the Bill. I gathered from Mr. Gladstone's talk that all idea of retirement had gone out of his mind.'

There was a Cabinet on April 7th, and 'London Government was again postponed, but, owing to the fierce conflict between Harcourt and Mr.

Gladstone, was looked upon as dead.'

Mr. Gladstone, in his anger, told Sir Charles that "Harcourt, through laziness, wanted to get out of the Government of London Bill." But the truth was, says the Memoir, 'that he could think of nothing but the dynamite conspiracy.' A Bill to meet this was being rushed through Parliament, with an almost grotesque haste, that was as grotesquely baffled in the end.

'On April 9th the Queen sat up half the night at Harcourt's wish in order to be ready to sign the Explosives Bill at once, but Mr. Palmer of the Crown Office (the gentleman who signs "Palmer" as though he were a peer) could not be found; and the other man, Zwingler, was in bed at Turnham Green, and to Harcourt's rage the thing could not be done. On the 16th Harcourt told the Chancellor that in the discussion of the Crown Office vote he should move the omission of the item for his nephew's pay.' [Footnote: Mr. Ralph Charlton Palmer was Lord Selborne's second cousin, and secretary to Lord Selborne in the Lord Chancellor's Office. He was afterwards a Commissioner in Lunacy.]

The London Government Bill was not yet given up for lost. On April 11th Sir Charles Dilke wrote to Mr. Gladstone to deprecate its withdrawal, and the Prime Minister replied, agreeing that "withdrawal ... would be a serious mischief, and a blow to the Government."

'On April 14th there was a Cabinet, at which Mr. Gladstone announced that Harcourt had written to him refusing to go on with the Government of London Bill after the second reading of the measure, and proposing that I should conduct it through Committee.'

'At the Cabinet of this day (April 21st) Mr. Gladstone said that he wanted the bearing of the Agricultural Holdings Bill on Scotland explained to him. "I wish Argyll were here," said he. "I wish to G.o.d he was," said Hartington, who had been fighting alone against the Bill, deserted even by the Chancellor and by Lord Derby. Indeed, all my lords were very Radical to-day except Hartington, who was simply ferocious, being at bay. He told us that Lord Derby was a mere owner of Liverpool ground rents, who knew nothing about land.'

'On Thursday, May 24th, there was a meeting at the Home Office of nine members of the Cabinet as to the Government of London Bill, and I wrote after it to Chamberlain: "Victory! Hartington alone dissenting, everybody was for going on with everything, and sitting in the autumn." And Chamberlain replied: "At last! But why the devil was it not decided before?"'

At a full Cabinet a few days later 'the police difficulty finally slew the London Bill.' This seemed to Sir Charles a very serious matter, and he thought of resigning. Mr. Chamberlain, however, was against this, though agreeing that he should resign in the autumn 'unless Mr. Gladstone would promise to put franchise first next year.'

So it was left. But presently Mr. Chamberlain himself became the cause of very grave dissensions. On June 13th, 1883, a great a.s.sembly was held at Birmingham to celebrate the twenty-fifth year of Mr. Bright's members.h.i.+p for the borough, and Mr. Chamberlain in speaking observed that representatives of royalty were not present, neither were they missed.

[Footnote: On Monday, June 11th, 1883, there was a "monster procession and fete const.i.tuting the popular prelude to the more serious business of the Bright celebration at Birmingham" that week. On June 13th Mr. Chamberlain said: "Twice in a short interval we have read how vast mult.i.tudes of human beings have gathered together to acclaim and welcome the ruler of the people. In Russia, in the ancient capital of that mighty Empire, the descendant of a long line of ancient Princes, accompanied by a countless host of soldiers, escorted by all the dignitaries of the State, and by the representatives of foreign Powers, was received with every demonstration of joy by the vast population which was gathered together to witness his triumphal entry. I have been told that more than a million sterling of public money was expended on these ceremonies and festivities.... Your demonstration on Monday lacked nearly all the elements which const.i.tuted the great pageant of the Russian Coronation. Pomp and circ.u.mstance were wanting; no public money was expended; no military display accompanied Mr.

Bright. The brilliant uniforms, the crowds of high officials, the representatives of Royalty, were absent, and n.o.body missed them; for yours was essentially a demonstration of the people and by the people, in honour of the man whom the people delighted to honour, and the hero of that demonstration had no offices to bestow--no ribands, or rank, or Court t.i.tles, to confer. He was only the plain citizen--one of ourselves...."

(the Times, June 14th, 1883).] He added that the country was in his opinion more Radical than the majority of the House of Commons, but not more Radical than the Government; that the country was in favour of Disestablishment, and that three things were wanted: First, "a suffrage from which no man who is not disqualified by crime or the recipient of relief shall be excluded "; secondly, equal electoral districts; and, thirdly, payment of members.

'On June 25th Mr. Gladstone had sent for me about a recent speech by Chamberlain at Birmingham.

'The Queen had been angry at his "They toil not, neither do they spin," but was still more angry about this recent speech, at which Mr.

Gladstone was also himself offended. [Footnote: "This speech is open to exception from three points of view, I think--first in relation to Bright, secondly in relation to the Cabinet, thirdly and most especially in relation to the Crown, to which the speech did not indicate the consciousness of his holding any special relation," wrote Mr. Gladstone to Sir Henry Ponsonby (Morley's Life of Gladstone, vol.

iii., p. 112).] I pointed out that Hartington had committed his colleagues on a practical question when he spoke as to Irish Local Government last January, and Mr. Gladstone had committed them when he talked on Ireland and on London government to Ribot and Clemenceau at Cannes. Mr. Gladstone defended himself, but threw over Hartington, who had "behaved worse than Chamberlain." I went to see Chamberlain about it, and found him very stiff, but tried to get him to say something about it at the Cobden Club, where he was to preside on Sat.u.r.day, the 30th. On the next day he promised that he would do this, but when he came to read me the words that he intended to use I came to the conclusion that, although they would make his own position very clear, they would only make matters worse as far as Mr. Gladstone and the Queen were concerned.'

Dilke's mediation was ultimately successful, and 'on July 2nd Mr.

Gladstone, in a letter to Chamberlain, accepted his explanations with regard to his speech.' In the House of Commons, charge of the Corrupt Practices Bill had been entrusted to the President of the Local Government Board--a very unusual arrangement--and it meant sitting late many nights, once till 5.30 a.m., after which 'I had to get up as usual for my fencing people.'

'On July 25th there was another Cabinet, before which I had "circulated" to my colleagues my local government scheme. Many members of the Cabinet objected to it as too complete, and on my communicating their views to the draftsman, Sir Henry Thring, he wrote:

'"I believe that the great superiority of your plan of local government over any other I have seen consists in its extent. I believe that you will find that your scheme, though apparently far more extreme than any scheme yet proposed, will practically not make a greater alteration in existing arrangements than a far less comprehensive scheme would make. It is, as far as I can judge, impossible to make a partial plan for local government: such a plan disturbs everything and settles nothing.... Your plan, when carried into effect, will disturb most things, no doubt, but will at the same time settle everything."'

At a Cabinet held in the recess on October 25th

'Mr. Gladstone made a speech about the next Session which virtually meant franchise first, and the rest nowhere. After this I locked up my now useless Local Government Bill, of which the princ.i.p.al draft had been dated August 24th. One of its most important parts had been the consolidation of rates and declaration of the liability of owners for half the rates. It had then gone on to establish district councils, and then the County Councils. There was, however, to be some slight resuscitation of the Bill a little later.'

Two minor concerns which interested Sir Charles exceedingly were under prolonged discussion this year. The first was the proposed purchase of the Ashburnham and Stowe collections. Sir Charles 'voted all through against the purchase of the Ashburnham ma.n.u.scripts, being certain that we were being imposed upon.' He noted

'the experts always want to buy, and always say that the thing is invaluable and a chance which will never happen again. No one can care for the National Gallery more than I do; I know the pictures very well, for I go there almost every week.'

He thought, however, that some wholesale purchases for public collections had been all but worthless, with perhaps one admirable thing in a ma.s.s of rubbish.

Secondly, there arose in May a discussion over the Duke of Wellington's statue, which Leighton and the Prince of Wales wanted to remove from Hyde Park Corner, but which Sir Charles cherished as an old friend. It was one of the matters on which he and Mr. Gladstone were united by a common conservatism:

'The ridiculous question of the Duke of Wellington's statue had come up again at the Cabinet of August 9th, and the numbers were taken three times over by Mr. Gladstone, who was in favour of the old statue and against all removals, in which view I steadily supported him, the Cabinet being against us, and Mr. Gladstone constantly trying to get his own way against the majority. It was the only subject upon which, while I was a member of it, I ever knew the Cabinet take a show of hands.'

In the last Cabinet of the Session they 'once more informally divided about the Wellington statue'; and he recorded the fact that he 'still hoped to save it.' Yet in the end he failed; and 'now,' he notes pathetically, 'I should have to go to Aldershot to see it if I wished to do so.'

CHAPTER x.x.xII

FOREIGN AND COLONIAL AFFAIRS OCTOBER, 1882, TO DECEMBER, 1883