Dilke (57 page)
Authors: Roy Jenkins
22
. D.P. 49610.
23
. D.P. 43927, 25.
24
. D.P. 49610.
25
. D.P. 43888, 6-7.
1
.
The Times
, February 13th, 1886.
2
. J. L. Garvin,
Life of Joseph Chamberlain
, II, pp. 47-9.
3
.
The Times
, February 13th, 1886.
4
. D.P. 43927, 26.
5
. D.P. 43940, 115.
6
. J. W. Robertson Scott,
The Life and Death of a Newspaper
, p. 180.
7
.
Ibid
., p. 125n.
8
. D.P. 43888, 17.
9
. D.P. 43888, 18.
10
. D.P. 43940, 121.
11
. D.P. 43940, 123.
12
. D.P. 49610.
13
. D.P. 49611.
14
. D.P. 43940, 144.
15
. D.P. 43940, 136.
16
. D.P. 49610.
17
. D.P. 43940, 144.
18
. 1886 55 L.T., 305.
19
. D.P. 43927, 26.
20
. D.P. 43888, 42.
21
. D.P. 43888, 43.
22
. Gwynn & Tuckwcll,
The Life of Sir Charles W. Dilke
, II, p . 216.
23
. D.P. 43888, 45-6.
24
. Gwynn & Tuckwell,
op. cit
., II, 219-20.
25
. D.P. 43888, 50.
26
. D.P. 43888, 67.
27
. D.P. 43940, 151.
28
. D.P. 43940, 151.
29
. D.P. 43940, 154.
1
. D.P. 49610.
2
. D.P. 49610.
3
. D.P. 49610.
4
. Gwynn & Tuckwcll,
The Life of Sir Charles W. Dilke, II
, p. 244.
5
. D.P. 43888, 100.
6
. D.P. 49447,29.
7
. D.P. 49446, 106.
8
. D.P. 49447.
9
. D.P. 49447.
10
. D.P. 49447.
11
. D.P. 49453, 122.
12
. D.P. 49452, 179.
13
. D.P. 49452, 185.
14
. D.P. 43907, 287.
15
. D.P. 49455, 254.7.
16
. D.P. 49612.
17
. D.P. 49446, 180.
18
. D.P. 49447.
19
. D.P. 46910.
20
. D.P. 49454, 22.
21. D.P. 49610.
22
. D.P. 49610.
23
. D.P. 49610.
24
. D.P. 49454, 4.
25
. D.P. 49454, 4.
26
. D.P. 49610.
27
. D.P. 49454, 33.
28
. D.P. 49612.
29
. D.P. 49611.
1
. D.P. 43907, 305.
2. D.P. 49610.
3
. D.P. 43908, 186.
4
. D.P. 43967, 288.
5
. D.P. 43967, 231.
1
. D.P. 43941, 135-9.
2
. D.P. 43889, 34.
3
. D.P. 43875, 276-8.
4
. Sir Charles Dilke,
A Radical Programme
, p. 53.
5
.
Ibid
., p. 54.
6
.
Ibid
., p . 55.
7
.
Gladstone Papers
, DCLXXXVIII, 218.
8
. D.P. 43889, 62.
9
. D.P. 43889, 82-3.
10
. D.P. 43889, 52.
1
. D.P. 43941, 271.
2
. D.P. 43927, 34.
3
. D.P. 43889, 71.
4
. D.P. 43889, 30.
5
. D.P. 43889, 116.
6
. D.P. 43889, 119.
7
. D.P. 43889, 131.
8
. Emrys Hughes,
Keir Hardie
, p. 66.
9
. Gwynn & Tuckwell,
The Life of Sir Charles W. Dilke
, II, p. 367.
10
.
Ibid
., II, pp. 378-9.
11
. D.P. 43919, 258.
12
.
Hansard
, February 1st, 1900.
13
. Gwynn & Tuckwell,
op. cit
., II p. 374.
14
.
Hansard
: June 10th, 1898.
15
.
Hansard
: December 19th, 1893.
16
. D.P. 43875, 297.
17
. D.P. 43941, 277-8.
18
. D.P. 43916, 14.
19
. D.P. 43916, 94.
20
. Gwynn & Tuckwell,
op. cit
., II, p. 423.
21
. D.P. 43915, 258.
22
. D.P. 43874, 73.
1
. D.P. 43957, 104.
2
. D.P. 43941, 317.
3
. Gwynn & Tuckwell,
The Life of Sir Charles W. Dilke
, II, p. 460.
4
. D.P. 43895, 259-60.
5
. D.P. 43918, 138.
6
. D.P. 43882, 140.
7
. D.P. 43892, 242-4.
8
. D.P. 43941, 326.
9
. Article in
Financial Review of Reviews
, April, 1906.
10
. D.P. 43892, 244.
11
. Gwynn & Tuckwell,
op. cit
., II, p. 518.
12
. D.P. 43967, 2.
1
Joseph Paxton, formerly the Duke of Devonshire's gardener at Chatsworth and later the deviser of the Crystal Palace, was one of his collaborators in this enterprise.
2
Désirée Clary, who had married Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, afterwards Charles XIV, in 1798.
3
“Accustomed to manipulate ecclesiastical machinery, the Great Diocesan (Wilberforce), a genial and often attractive prelate, fell into the trap which awaits men of good humour who become politiciansâhe made a joke at the wrong moment. When he asked Huxley which of his grandparents claimed descent from an ape, the earnestness of Clapham passed in an instant into the hands of his adversaries; his levity made Belief an issue of moral rectitude.” (Noel Annan,
Leslie Stephen
, pp. 166-7.)
4
He was also distrustful of emotional enthusiasm, at least towards the other sex. His first wife was Minnie Thackeray, younger daughter of the novelist, and on the day on which he became engaged to her he “lunched (by himself) at the Oxford and Cambridge Club, thought over the whole affair in a philosophic spirit and (then) went to 16, Onslow Gardens.” (Noel Annan,
op. cit
. p. 62.)
5
Charles Dilke alternated almost as abruptly and curiously in his attitude towards alcohol as in his religious beliefsâalthough there was no connection between the two. When he came down from Cambridge he ceased to abstain and became a normal drinker. But from 1874 to 1885, a period covering the zenith of his career, he was a complete teetotaller. In 1885 he again began to drink alcohol. Of the swing of his religious beliefs he wrote as follows: “In the course of 1863 I ceased my attendance upon Holy Communion, and fell into a sceptical frame of mind which lasted for several years, was modified in 1874, and came to an end in 1875. . . . From 1885 to 1888 the Holy Sacrament was a profound blessing to me, but in 1905 I ceased again to find any help in forms.” (D.P. 43930, 134).
6
Thus when working for his second prize essay, the subject which was Pope's couplet:
“For forms of Government let fools contest
Whate'er is best administered is best”
he spent long hours in the Reading Room of the British Museum endeavouring to familiarise himself with all the writers on political utopias and ideal commonwealths.
7
This fact combined with a motion on the American Civil War enabled G. O. Trevelyan, later to be a Cabinet colleague, to produce at the first debate which Dilke attended a remark which has all the characteristics of a typical Union joke, whether at Oxford or at Cambridge, whether of this century or the last. Trevelyan was a supporter of the South. “Can the North restore the Union?” he asked. “Never, sir; they have no building fund.” Charles Dilke, however wrote to his grandfather that the speech was “mere flash, but very witty.”
8
1846â1935. Second son of the fourth Marquess of Lansdowne. Unlike his elder brother he remained faithful to the Liberal party, and was a lifelong friend of Dilke's.
9
At this stage Dilke carried his admiration for Bismarck, never to be wholly absent from his mind, to the extent of putting up a photograph of him in his rooms.
10
His voice was also decisive in determining the form which the new building took. His choice as architectâWaterhouseâwas selected against Gilbert Scott and Digby Wyatt, whose claims were also canvassed.
1
New America.
2
In the Gwynn and Tuckwell life of Dilke this letter is quoted in full, and the authors then add: “âWhat a prig he was' is scrawled across the page, as Charles Dilke's judgment on himself, when later the letter fell into his hands,” The comment might have been reasonable, but it is doubtful if it was ever made. The original of the letter, amongst the Dilke papers in the British Museum, is free both of annotation and of any marks of erasure.
3
References to having “lunched off horrible oysters in the mangrove swamps of the Kaluzanga river” suggest that he was lucky not to have contracted worse diseases.
4
A large part of whose expenses at the Stafford by-election of 1869 were paid by Dilke.
1
A few years later Dilke noted that a meeting had been “sufficiently interesting to keep Harcourt and a Duke standing for three hoursâputting Harcourt first because he was the more august.”
2
He made an extended visit in the autumn of 1869, accompanied by his brother, and penetrated as far as Siberia in the east and Astrakhan in the south. A year later, he was again there for several months, and on this occasion he spent more time in St. Petersburg and Moscow. His intention was to publish a book on Russia which would be to some extent a companion volume to
Greater Britain
. But he never fulfilled this intention. Curiously, Hepworth Dixon, his companion and literary rival in America, was in the field again, and produced in 1870 exactly such a companion volumeâ
Free Russia
âto his own American book. This may have had something to do with Dilke's change of plan.
3
Even after Southwark, however, an attempt was made by the leadership to pull Dilke back into closer communion with the Liberal party. Gladstone, who never understood Dilke well and who at this time regarded him with more suspicion than respect, made a rather typically half-hearted attempt to entice him away from his militant radicalism. He asked him to second the Address to the Crown at the opening of the session of 1870, adding to the letter some rather belated words of congratulation on
Greater Britain
. Dilke accepted, appeared in the traditional court dress, and made a trite little speech entirely devoted to foreign affairs and the cloudless prospect which he saw before Europe. This done, he returned with unabated enthusiasm to his attacks on the Government on the home front.
4
Forster Square Station, Bradford
5
On one occasion fewer than a hundred liberal back-benchers voted with the Prime Minister. One hundred and thirty-two went into the lobby against him; and a similar number ostentatiously abstained.
1
Miss Kate Field, see
infra
. p. 81.
2
Dilke, no doubt in common with all other members of Parliament, was sent two tickets for this ceremony, and a report afterwards circulated that he had used them, when he had much better have stayed away. But Dilke denied this, and the tickets, clearly marked “not used,” are still to be seen amongst his papers.
3
Labouchere wrote to tell Dilke that he had heard that Lord Enfield, the son of the Earl of Strafford and a junior Minister, was proposing to stand for Chelsea as a “moderate Liberal.” Dilke's reply was not particularly moderate: “1. If Lord Enfield resigns his office and does thisâthen I run a Tory against him. 2. If he keeps office he dare not oppose a Liberal. If he did we should run a radical against every moderate Liberal m the country.” (D.P. 43892, 133.)
4
That for August 4th, 1872, provides an adequate example:
PREMIER SERVICE
Potages
Consommé
Poissons
Truite Sauce Hollandaise
Entrées
Cotelettes de Pigeon
Pieds d'Agneau billerie
Ortolans sur Canapé
Relevés
Gelée de Poisson
SECOND SERVICE
Rôtis
Filet de Boeuf aux racines
Poulet aux cressons
Entremets
Compôte
Fruit à la Condé
5
It was in fact the associated Criminal Law Amendment Act which aroused Dilke's hostility. This Act re-emphasised the provisions of an Act of 1825 which made peaceful picketing illegal. In 1875 the new Conservative Government replaced it with a measure much more favourable to the trades unions.
1
Dilke had behaved in a somewhat similar way after the death of his father in 1869. In September of that year, when there was still much to be settled he was writing to Mrs. Chatfield from Kazan, apologising for running away and leaving so much in her hands, and adding “but I could not have stood any business after the great fatigues and anxieties of the last few months.” (D.P., 43902,283.)
2
A college rhyme of the period gave an unattractive but perhaps not inaccurate picture of Pattison:
“And now the Rector goes,
With a dew drop at his nose.