The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Volume 2

CHAPTER XXXIV. Home Affairs

HOME AFFAIRS

OCTOBER, 1883-DECEMBER, 1884

The interval between the Sessions of 1883 and 1884 was critical for the question of electoral reform which interested Liberals beyond all other questions, but involved the risk of bringing dissensions in the Cabinet to the point of open rupture. As the months went by, Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Hartington used less and less concealment of their differences, while it was well known to all the Cabinet that the alliance between Chamberlain and Dilke was complete and unconditional. Whoever broke with Chamberlain broke with Dilke. Fortunately a certain bond of personal sympathy, in spite of divergent views, existed between Lord Hartington and Sir Charles Dilke, and this bond largely helped to hold Mr. Gladstone's Government together.

In the negotiations which followed between the leaders of the two great Parties, Sir Charles Dilke was able to show the full measure of his value to the State. It was of first-rate importance that the Liberal Party should possess at that moment a representative with whom Lord Salisbury found it congenial to treat, and whom the most advanced Liberals trusted unreservedly to treat with Lord Salisbury.

The same confidence could hardly have been given by them to Lord Hartington, who held that "equalization of the franchise was pressing mainly on account of the pledges that had been given, and not much for any other reason." [Footnote: Letter to Mr. Gladstone of October 24th, 1883, quoted by Mr. Bernard Holland in his Life of the Duke of Devonshire, vol. i., p. 395.] Most Liberals took a very different view of the need for this reform. Further, Lord Hartington held that franchise and redistribution should be treated simultaneously, and he was unwilling to extend the franchise in Ireland.

At a Cabinet on October 25th, 1883, the question of simultaneous or separate treatment of the problems had been settled. Mr. Gladstone, says Sir Charles, 'made a speech which meant franchise first and the rest nowhere.' On the Irish question, Sir Charles was instructed to get accurate statistics as to the effects of equalizing the franchise between boroughs and counties, and 'on Friday, November 16th,' he notes, 'I wrote to Chamberlain: "I have some awful figures for poor Hartington to swallow--700,000 county householders in the Irish counties."' Lord Hartington still stuck to his point of linking redistribution and franchise.

But on November 22nd,

'Mr. Gladstone read a long and admirable memorandum in favour of the views held by him, by Chamberlain, and by me, as to franchise and redistribution--that is, franchise first, with a promise of redistribution but no Bill; and Hartington received no support after this from any members of the Cabinet.'

There were, however, matters in which Lord Hartington's Conservative tendencies found an ally in the Prime Minister. On November 28th, 1883, at the Committee of the Cabinet on Local Government,

'Chamberlain noted: "Mr. Gladstone hesitates to disfranchise the freeholders in boroughs--persons voting as householders in boroughs and as freeholders in the counties in which the boroughs are constituted. I am in favour of one man one vote, and told him so." Our not getting one man one vote was entirely Mr. Gladstone's fault, for the Cabinet expected and would have taken it, Hartington alone opposing, as he opposed everything all through.'

The question of widening the franchise in Ireland was still unsettled, and Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Hartington both made allusion to it in public speeches at this moment. The speeches, apart from their marked difference in general tone, were on this point in flat contradiction to each other, and on December 2nd Lord Hartington wrote to Mr. Gladstone with a threat of resignation. On that day he delivered at Accrington a long eulogy of the Whigs, who had 'formed a connecting link between the advanced party and those classes which, possessing property, powers, and influence, are naturally averse to change.' The Whigs it was, he contended, who had by their guidance and their action reduced changes in the direction of popular reform to the 'calm and peaceful process of constitutional acts.'

'At this moment there was a conflict raging between Chamberlain and Hartington, and in their autumn speeches each of them pretty plainly attacked the other's policy. Chamberlain wrote to me: "Why does Hartington think aloud when he thinks one thing and is going to do the other? And why does he snub the Caucus when he has made up his mind to do exactly what they want? If he cannot learn to be a little more diplomatic, he will make a devil of a rum leader!" A little later Chamberlain gave me "passages from a speech which ought to be delivered: 'Yes, gentlemen, I entirely agree with Lord Hartington. It is the business and duty of Radicals to lead great popular movements, and if they are fortunate enough to kindle the fire of national enthusiasm and to stir the hearts of the people, then it will be the high prerogative of the great Whig noble who has been waiting round the corner to direct and guide and moderate the movement which he has done all in his power to prevent and discourage.'"

'The storm between Hartington and Chamberlain having broken out again, Chamberlain wrote to me on December 5th, enclosing a letter of reproof from Mr. Gladstone, and saying: "I replied casuistically that I would endeavour to exclude from my speeches the slightest reference to Hartington, but that he was really too trying. I reminded Mr. G. that I had asked if I were free to argue the question, and that he had said: Yes--no one taking exception." In the following week Chamberlain came to town and dined with me, and we discussed the matter. Although Mr. Gladstone had blown Chamberlain up, he was really much more angry with Hartington.'

It appears from the Life of the Duke of Devonshire that Mr. Gladstone continued through December his attempts to mediate. [Footnote: See Life of the Duke of Devonshire, by Mr. Bernard Holland, vol. i, p. 398 et seq.] The matter is thus related by Sir Charles, though not from first- hand knowledge, since he went to Toulon in the middle of December, and stayed there till January 8th, 1884:

'During my absence I had missed one Cabinet, the first that I ever missed, and perhaps the only one. It was held suddenly on January 3rd, and I could not arrive in time. Mr. Gladstone had come up from Hawarden under the impression that Hartington was going to resign, because we would not produce a redistribution scheme along with franchise. On the morning of the 3rd, however, he received a letter in which Hartington gave way on the understanding that Mr. Gladstone would state the general heads of his redistribution scheme. The subject was not named at the Cabinet of the 3rd, which dealt with Egypt only. But the Cabinet adjourned to the 4th, and on January 4th discussed South Africa, and also ... received a statement from Mr. Gladstone as to his intention to state the heads of our redistribution scheme in "very general terms." On the 10th I noted: "The Cabinets have resulted in peace between Lord Hartington and Mr. Gladstone, but the Reform Bill will be less complete than I had hoped." "Mr. Gladstone calmed Hartington by promising not to run away from us after franchise and before redistribution, which was what Hartington feared he meant to do."'

Discussion upon the detail of the Bill was resumed, and on January 23rd, 1884,

'the Chancellor (Lord Selborne), Hartington, Kimberley, and Dodson, supported by Mr. Gladstone, forced, against Harcourt, Chamberlain, and myself, a decision not to attach any condition of residence to the property vote.'

'On January 28th there was a meeting of the Committee of the Cabinet on the Franchise Bill in Mr. Gladstone's room. Chamberlain was anxious to "make Hartington go out on franchise." I asked him how he thought it was to be done, and he replied: "If he is restive now, raise the question of Mr. Gladstone's statement on redistribution, and oppose all limitations in that statement"; and he added that Mr. Gladstone had only agreed to make the statement unwillingly to quiet Hartington, and that if Hartington were not quieted Mr. Gladstone would go back about it. Chamberlain and I on this occasion tried to make the Franchise Bill more Radical, but failed, Mr. Gladstone opposing us on old-fashioned grounds.'

'Chamberlain came to me' (on April 26th) 'about a plan which Mr. Gladstone was to broach at the next Cabinet, for putting off the operation of the Franchise Act until January 1st, '86, in order to give time for redistribution to be dealt with. We decided to oppose it, on the ground that it would not improbably lead to our being forced into holding an election on the old franchise.'

At the beginning of the Session Sir Charles helped on the general policy of Radicalism by one of his many minor electoral reforms. This was a Bill to extend over the United Kingdom the right of keeping the poll open till eight o'clock at night, which he had secured as a privilege for Londoners in 1878. He notes that on February 11th he 'fought with Tory obstructives as to hours of polling, and won'; but the violent resistance which was offered at first did not continue, and the Bill passed quietly in July, after time had been given to discuss it in the constituencies.

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