"The future cannot be foreseen, and in politics it is always foolish to attempt to prophesy. I have frequently myself made or quoted the remark that in politics a year is equivalent to eternity. I have now limited myself to 1906. Whether the party system, in which British statesmen of our time and of past generations have been nurtured, will ever be restored is another matter. Whether the birth of a definite Labour party, in addition to a definite Irish Nationalist party, will be followed by any further division, or whether, as I expect, it will not, yet the division into four parties--of which three will compete actively for the favour of the British electorate--will, I think, continue, and we follow here the line of political development in which first the Australian Colonies, and now the Commonwealth, have led the way." [Footnote: _Potentia_, 1906.]
Writing in the _Financial Review of Reviews_ for April, 1906, he spoke of the "extraordinarily interesting nature of the debates," of which example had already been given, and he foreshadowed no less interesting action. The changes which he had in view, mainly financial, were "not likely to be popular in the City, with solicitors, with the organized representatives of the employing cla.s.s," but none the less they would probably be carried into law. The old a.s.sumption that democratic movements would be carried into legislation "by capitalist members steeped in Radical pledges" had ceased to correspond with the facts. A new type of member of Parliament had appeared, and Sir Charles welcomed the change.
"It is possible that the members are more Radical than the const.i.tuencies. This is an arguable question; but that they are convinced upon such questions, not by pressure, but by training and by thought, is a conclusion which no one who knows the present House of Commons can resist.
"There has probably never sat so interesting a House of Commons in the history of this country. With a good deal of experience of Parliaments and of their inner life and thought, and with the opportunity of frequent discussion with those who, like Mr.
Gladstone, remembered all the Parliaments back to the early thirties, and those, like Mr. Vernon Harcourt, [Footnote: George Granville Vernon Harcourt, elected to the House of Commons as member for Oxford in 1831. He held his seat till 1859.] who remembered much earlier Parliaments, I am certain that there has never met at Westminster an a.s.sembly so able and at the same time so widely different in intellectual composition from its predecessors as that which is now there gathered. The development of opinion, however, is less of a surprise to those who have watched Australia and New Zealand than to those who have confined their studies to the United Kingdom and the Continent." [Footnote: In 1911, when Lord Hugh Cecil described with violent rhetoric the alleged degradation of the House of Commons, Mr. Balfour was moved to protest, and cited in support of his own view "a man whose authority had always been admitted." "I remember," he said, "talking over with Sir Charles Dilke the question of general Parliamentary practice, and he said, and I agree, that there has been no deterioration either in his or in my Parliamentary experience."]
Payment of members he did not live to see, but he always regarded it as "an extraordinary anomaly that payment should have been discontinued in this country."
"Members are paid in every other country in the world, and in every British colony (I believe without exception). Non-payment means deliberate preference for moneyed oligarchy, as only rare exceptions can produce a democratic member under such a system. It excludes all poor men of genius unless they can get themselves paid by parties like the Irish, which makes them slaves. It throws undue power into the hands of the capital as the seat of the legislature, and it leads to poor members selling their souls to rotten compromises."
Despite the advance of age and a growing weakness of the heart, the impression which he produced was always one of commanding vigour. His habit of fencing kept him alert and supple in all his movements.
Notwithstanding his elaborate preparation for the work, no man"s appearances in debate were less premeditated; he spoke when he felt inclined: had he spoken for effect, his interpositions would have been much less frequent. But when tactics required it, no man was more willing to efface himself. Especially was this so in all his relations with Labour; when he could leave to the Labour party the credit of moving an important amendment, he gladly left it to them. Yet when he was more likely than they to secure Liberal support, he was prepared to move against the Government, and in one notable amendment on the Trade Disputes Bill brought down their vast majority to the bare figure of five. [Footnote: For a fuller account of Sir Charles"s work connected with the Taff Vale Decision and the Trade Disputes Act, see "Labour,"
Chapter LII, pp. 345 and 365.]
The work which in these last years cost him most labour--in view of his failing health, it would have been well for his friends had he never undertaken it--was that given to the Committee on the Income Tax, of which he became chairman in 1906. Sir Bernard Mallet (now Registrar- General) writes in 1916:
"In the spring of 1906 the Government decided to appoint a strong Committee to inquire into the questions of graduation and differentiation of the income tax, which had for some Sessions been coming into prominence in consequence of the financial difficulties caused by the South African War. Mr. Asquith, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, offered the chairmanship to Sir Charles Dilke, who had never claimed to be an expert in finance, and only accepted it after strong pressure, and the Select Committee set to work accordingly early in May. Having taken up the work, which occupied most of the summer, Sir Charles threw himself into it with immense energy. He familiarized himself with all the literature bearing on the question, and he made a point of calling, as witnesses, not only the usual officials, but also as many outside economists and statisticians as might be able to throw light upon questions which, as he rightly conceived, lay at the root of any proper consideration of the problem before the Committee. He attached special importance to all the evidence bearing upon foreign and colonial methods and principles in the taxation of income and property, and to the endeavour he made to get at statistics bearing on the distribution of income--two vitally important factors introduced by him, for the first time, into any official handling of the subject.
"But the result of all the knowledge, thoroughness, and enthusiasm, which, as his friends could testify, he lavished without stint (and, it is to be feared, to the serious detriment of his health) upon the work, must have somewhat disappointed him. Sir Charles"s attempts to deal with the matter in a comprehensive spirit and produce a report which would rival in interest the famous reports of two previous Select Committees on the subject, those of 1851 and 1861, were hampered by the necessity, under which the Committee lay, of devising a means to increase the yield of the income tax with the least political friction. The two expedients which came most prominently before the Committee were those of differentiating the rate of the income tax in favour of earned or precarious incomes, and of imposing a supertax upon the larger incomes. Both of these were included in the recommendations of the report which was ultimately adopted, [Footnote: Report of the Select Committee on Income Tax, II. of C. 365 of 1906.] and carried into effect in the Budgets of 1907 and 1909 respectively. [Footnote: See _British Budgets_, by Bernard Mallet (1913), pp. 262, 263, 274, 277-281, and 305, where also some comments on the recommendations of the Committee are to be found.] Sir Charles"s own view was opposed to both these methods. He would have preferred to differentiation, even in the limited form (up to 2,000 a year) in which it became law, the method of separate taxation of property, or income from property, as in Prussia and Holland, if death duties were not considered as sufficient taxation upon property.
"He was certainly impressed by the unscientific character of the proposed differentiation; by the difficulty of distinguishing between "earned" and "unearned" incomes, and by the possibilities of abuse which this method of dealing with the question offered.
Supertax he would have reserved for a national emergency, but it should not be supposed that his opposition to it implied opposition to graduation either in principle or in practice. He was, indeed, strongly in favour of a graduated income tax, but, in his judgment, a supertax was a somewhat clumsy way of effecting the purpose aimed at. In his opinion the universal declaration of all taxable incomes was an indispensable preliminary to the full and just graduation of the income tax, and written notes of his are in existence showing how much importance he attached to this point.
"Holding these views, he could not produce a report sufficiently decisive in its acceptance of the methods favoured by the majority of his colleagues.
"The stupendous increases which have taken place in the rates of the income tax owing to the present war, increases far surpa.s.sing anything contemplated by the Committee over which Sir Charles presided ten years ago, have thrown all such controversies as these into the shade; but apart from the practical results of its recommendations, which for good or ill left at the time a very decided mark on fiscal legislation, this investigation succeeded, owing mainly to his influence, in eliciting a quant.i.ty of evidence which will always make it of historical interest to students of taxation."
CHAPTER LVIII
FOREIGN AFFAIRS: 1890 TO 1910
Even before his return, in July, 1892, to Parliament, Sir Charles Dilke was still a powerful critic of the country"s foreign policy. It is a curious commentary on the wisdom of those who believe that, except at moments of special excitement or of public danger, it is impossible to interest the electorate in foreign affairs, that during this period he was constantly able to gather large public audiences in the North of England and in Wales, and induce them to listen to careful criticisms on questions such as the delimitation of the African continent, the Newfoundland fisheries, British policy in the Pacific, and the future of the Congo State. This was achieved, although no party appeal could be made or was attempted, and although there was a deliberate effort by an influential section of the London Press to boycott the speaker. In these speeches Sir Charles pointed out that a perhaps too general acquiescence existed on the part of most Liberals in the foreign policy of the Government, merely because Lord Salisbury had made no attempt to continue or to revive the pro-Turkish and warlike policy which had distinguished the Government of Lord Beaconsfield in 1878. Lord Salisbury was now mainly intent on settling outstanding questions with France and Germany, especially in Africa, dealing with them one by one.
The ordinary Conservative partisan still said in public that nothing could be worse than the foreign policy and practice of the Liberal party; but he was also saying in private that the policy of his own party was little better, that the army both at home and in India was neglected, and that the fleet was probably insufficient. Dread, however, of Mr. Gladstone and of the possible return of the Liberal party to power, made him with rare exceptions silent in Parliament; while, on the other hand, the ma.s.s of the Liberal party had become supporters of Lord Salisbury"s foreign and colonial policy. "The fact that Lord Salisbury had not been an active Turk or an active Jingo had proved enough to cover everything." [Footnote: "The Conservative Foreign Policy,"
_Fortnightly Review_, January, 1892, by Sir Charles Dilke.] But the absence of any well-sustained criticism in Parliament had evident disadvantages, and Sir Charles"s speeches at this time supplied the deficiency.
The political fortunes of France between 1887 and 1895 were at a low ebb. The financial scandals which led to the resignation of President Grevy in 1887, the serio-comic political career of General Boulanger, dangerous and constant labour disturbances in the great centres of industry, the Panama financial scandals of 1893, the a.s.sa.s.sination of President Carnot in 1894, and the impossibility of forming stable Ministries, caused a general lack of confidence in the future of the Republic both at home and abroad, which the facile glories of the Paris Exhibition of 1889 could not conceal. The foreign policy of the country seemed to consist in a system of "pin-p.r.i.c.ks" directed against Great Britain, and in hostility to Italy, which culminated in anti-Italian riots in the South of France, a tariff war, and the entry of Italy into the alliance of the Central Powers. The letters of Sir Charles during this period are full of expressions of despair at the condition of French politics and at the general lack of statesmanship. The suspicion which he entertained of Russian intentions caused him also to look askance at the newly formed friendship of France with Russia, which, commencing with the visit of a French naval squadron under Admiral Gervais to Cronstadt in August, 1891, was finally sealed by a treaty of alliance signed in March, 1895, though the precise terms were not known.
[Footnote: In a letter to M. Joseph Reinach written after the appearance of _The Present Position of European Politics_, Sir Charles says: "I did _not_ say Gambetta had been a great friend to the Poles. I said he hated the Russians. He told me so over and over again. He held the same view as Napoleon I. as to Russia, and said, "J"irais chercher mes alliances n"importe oui--meme a Berlin," and, "La Russie me tire le pan de l"habit, mais jamais je n"ecouterais ce qu"on me fait dire." But, in searching for my own reasons for this in the first article, I said that as a law student he had been brought up with a generation which had had Polish sympathies, and that perhaps this had caused (unconsciously, I meant) his anti-Russian views. I know he did not believe in setting up a Poland."]
In Germany the position was different. The Dual Alliance devised by Prince Bismarck between Germany and Austria-Hungary had become the Triple Alliance by the accession of Italy, and had been further strengthened by an a.s.surance of naval support given to Italy by Lord Salisbury in the event of the _status quo_ in the Mediterranean being disturbed. The presumable disturber aimed at was evidently France.
[Footnote: "In 1903 Lord Lansdowne explained that in February, 1887, there had been that exchange of notes between Italy and ourselves of which I had written in that year. In _The Present Position of European Politics_ I made allusion to Disraeli"s proposal, before his defeat in 1880, of a league of the Powers for the defence of the _status quo_ in the Mediterranean. The notes of February, 1887, nominally dealt only with the Mediterranean _status quo_ desired in common, it was said, by Italy and Great Britain. Cynics might be tempted to ask whether all Italian Ministers desired the maintenance of a _status quo_ in a "Mediterranean" which included the coast of Tunis, the coast of Tripoli, and even, Lord Lansdowne added, the Adriatic." (Sir Charles Dilke in the _English Review_, October, 1909: "On the Relations of the Powers.") On this subject see _Crispi Memoirs_, vol. ii., chap. v.] The meddlesome intrigues of Russian partisans, and a long series of political outrages culminating in the murder of M. Stambouloff, were gradually forming an Austro-German party in Bulgaria; while the wise and progressive administration of Bosnia and the Herzegovina by Herr von Kallay had encouraged a belief that some good thing might even yet come out of Austria, notwithstanding the famous expression of a belief to the contrary by Mr. Gladstone.
In the circ.u.mstances Lord Salisbury determined to base his policy on a good understanding with Germany, and he had his reward. The African settlement of 1890 was a comprehensive scheme which undoubtedly made great concessions to German wishes, but, taken in connection with subsequent enlargements and additions, it was hoped that it had at least removed any real danger of collision between the two Powers princ.i.p.ally concerned. A treaty with France, recognizing a French protectorate over Madagascar, was defended by its authors as the complement of the arrangements of 1890, as to Zanzibar, with Germany. Subsequent treaties with Portugal and Italy made the period decisive as to the future division of the African continent. Both in Great Britain and Germany the arrangements of 1890 were attacked as having yielded too much to the other side. But looking at the treaty from an English point of view, Sir Charles said there had been too many graceful "concessions" all round, and of these he made himself the critic. He did not, however, identify himself with the extreme school of so-called "Imperial" thought, which seemed to consider that in some unexplained manner Great Britain had acquired a prior lien on the whole unoccupied portion of the vast African continent.
But in the treaty of 1890 there was one clause--the last--which stood out by itself in conspicuous isolation, and this Sir Charles never ceased to attack and denounce. It decreed the transfer of Heligoland to Germany. The importance of the acquisition was not fully appreciated at the time even in Germany. What the surrender might some day mean was not understood in Great Britain. On both sides the tendency was to belittle the transaction. [Footnote: Reventlow, 38-51. _Hohenlohe Memoirs_, ii.
470-471.] Apart from some minor interests possessed by British fishermen, Lord Salisbury described the value of the island as mainly "sentimental," in the speech in which on July 10th he defended the transaction in the House of Lords.
He supported the proposal by arguing that the island was unfortified, that it was within a few hours" steam of the greatest a.r.s.enal of Germany, that if the island remained in our possession an expedition would be despatched to capture it on "the day of the declaration of war, and would arrive considerably before any relieving force could arrive from our side." "It would expose us to a blow which would be a considerable humiliation." "If we were at war with any other Power it would be necessary for us to lock up a naval force for the purpose of defending this island, unless we intended to expose ourselves to the humiliation of having it taken." This argument, Sir Charles Dilke showed by a powerful criticism of the whole treaty in the columns of the _Melbourne Argus_, went a great deal too far. It could be used for the purpose of defending the cession of the Channel Islands to France. "The Channel Islands lie close to a French stronghold, Cherbourg, and not very far from the greatest of French a.r.s.enals, at Brest. They are fortified and garrisoned, but they are feebly garrisoned, and they have not been refortified in recent times, and could not be held without naval a.s.sistance, and the argument about locking up our fleet applies in the case of the Channel Islands, and in the case of many other of our stations abroad, as it was said to apply in the case of Heligoland."
[Footnote: _Melbourne Argus_, September 10th, 1890. As to Heligoland, see _Life of Granville_, ii, 362, 363, 425; Holland Rose, _Origins of the War_, p. 18.]
Lord Salisbury went on to point out that we had obtained a consideration for the transfer of Heligoland to Germany "on the east coast of Africa,"
a consideration which consisted mainly in an undertaking from Germany that she would not oppose our a.s.sumption of the protectorate of Zanzibar. But, said Sir Charles, the protectorate, when it included not only the island of Zanzibar, but the strip of coast now forming the maritime fringe both of British and of German East Africa, had been over and over again refused by us. "I was one of those," Sir Charles continued, referring to a still earlier chapter of Lord Salisbury"s policy during the short-lived Government of 1885-86, "who thought that the policy of 1885 with regard to Zanzibar was a mistaken policy, and that we should have insisted on supporting our East Indian subjects, who had and have the trade on that coast and island in their hands. We had joined with France in arrangements with regard to the whole Zanzibar coast, and when we concluded an agreement with Germany about that coast it became necessary for us to force that agreement upon the French on behalf of Germany. A most mistaken policy, in my opinion, as we should otherwise have had the support of France in resisting a German occupation of any portion of the coast, an occupation which it is safe to say would not have been attempted in face of a distinct statement on our part."
Lord Salisbury expressed his inability to understand on what ground those interested in South Africa objected to our recognizing an imaginary German right over a strip of territory giving the Germans access to the upper waters of the Zambesi. He said that our chief difficulty about this territory was that we knew nothing about it; but this consideration, Sir Charles said, "told against the agreement, inasmuch as we had given up a territory which seemed naturally to go with those which have been a.s.signed to the South Africa Company, and which might, for anything we knew to the contrary, be of high value in the future." It was amazing to note how obediently the great majority of the Conservative party followed Lord Salisbury"s lead in accepting the cession of Heligoland for no consideration at all, as Sir Charles thought--in any case, for a consideration which must seem inadequate.
Contrast, he said, the grounds upon which the cession of Heligoland was defended with those, welcomed by shouts of triumph from the Conservatives, upon which the occupation of Cyprus was justified. It was inconceivable that any man possessed of reasoning powers could support holding Cyprus (which must be a weakness in time of war), and yet argue that Heligoland must be a weakness of a similar kind, and therefore had better be ceded. In the case of Heligoland the vast majority of the islanders were opposed to union with Germany. In the case of Cyprus the vast majority of the islanders were hostile to our rule, while the majority of Heligolanders were favourable to our rule. To cede it against the wish of the population was a step which should not be taken, except for overwhelming national advantage, and that advantage most certainly could not be shown.
"I am one of those," Dilke wrote, summarizing the argument of his speeches, "who are sometimes thought by my own party to be somewhat unduly friendly to the foreign policy of our opponents, a fact which I mention only to show that I do not come to the present matter with strong prejudice. I had heard during the negotiations in Berlin, and some weeks before the publication of the agreement, the whole of its contents with the exception of the cession of Heligoland, and I had formed a strong opinion upon the facts then known to me--that it was a thoroughly bad agreement, most unfavourable to British interests. The only change since that time has been that Heligoland has been thrown in, so that to my mind we are ceding that British possession, for which a very high value might have been obtained, against the wish of the inhabitants, and ceding it for less than no consideration. Lord Salisbury seems to be subject to strange dimness of vision when Africa is concerned. He positively claimed it as a merit, in the course of his speech to the South African deputation, that while the Germans demanded an enormous slice of our Bechua.n.a.land sphere of influence, he had induced them to put back their frontier; but I need hardly point out that no German traveller had ever entered the country in dispute, that we had for years acted on the a.s.sumption that it was within our sphere, and that the Germans might as reasonably have set up a claim to the whole sphere of influence and to all the territories previously a.s.signed by us to the British South Africa Company...."
In South-East Africa, too, it was to be remembered that we were dealing with a country which is far less populated by natives and more open to European settlement than was the case with Central Africa. [Footnote: See supra, p. 84, as to the differences which had arisen in Mr.
Gladstone"s Cabinet on this subject in 1884-85.]
"There has been in the whole matter," he declared, "a deplorable absence of decision. If, when Lord Salisbury came into power in 1885, immediately after the occupation by Germany of a slice of South Africa and of the Cameroons, and at the moment of German activity at Zanzibar, he had let it be clearly understood that we should support the policy of Sir John Kirk, our Consul, and the Zanzibar Sultan"s rule, and had at the same time abstained from taking steps to facilitate the operations of the Germans in Damaraland, we certainly should have occupied at the present moment a stronger position than we do. But, instead of this, Lord Salisbury allowed our Indian subjects established along the coast to be ruined by German bombardments to which the British fleet was sent to give some sort of moral support. Our explorers have carried the British flag throughout what is now German East Africa and the Congo State. They had made treaties by which the leading native sovereigns of these countries had submitted to our rule, and the Germans are too anxious for our countenance in Europe to have been willing to have risked the loss of Lord Salisbury"s friendship had he taken a very different line." [Footnote: _Melbourne Argus_, September 6th, 1890.]
Though not professing to be himself an "African," Sir Charles also asked how those who professed to come within that description, and speak as advocates of an Imperial policy in the vast and undeveloped regions of the Dark Continent, could quietly accept, as they seemed prepared to do, the break in the so-called Cape to Cairo route which had been allowed to form part of the great agreement of 1890.
"What, then," he asked in 1902, "have the Tories done with the free hand that has been given them? Above all, they have "made up to" Germany, and this apparently for no definite object and with no definite result. They have given to Germany as far as they could give; they have certainly helped her to procure the renewal of the Triple Alliance, by inducing sanguine Italians to believe that the British fleet will protect them against France, though as a fact we all know that the House of Commons will not allow a British fleet to do anything of the kind. France has wholly given up the Temporal Power, and would not have threatened Italy had Italy held aloof from the Triple Alliance; and, in spite of a recent speech by the Minister of Austria-Hungary which was intended to "pay out" Italy for her talks with Russia, it is not Austria that would have raised the question. Our Government have given Germany, so far as they could give, a vast tract in Africa in which British subjects had traded, but in most of which no German had ever been. They have also given Germany Heligoland, which they might have sold dear, and which, if Mr.
Gladstone had given, they would have destroyed him for giving.... All this for what? What have we gained by it?" [Footnote: _Fortnightly Review_, January, 1902.]
The policy of Lord Rosebery and Lord Kimberley from 1892 to 1895 resembled that of Lord Salisbury in so far as it aimed at the settlement of outstanding questions with Germany and France. The apprehensions of trouble with France were still serious, because a constant succession of short Ministries at Paris made any permanent agreement difficult if not impossible. The few Foreign Ministers who were occasionally able to keep their place for any length of time at the Quai d"Orsay were also generally those who as a rule were indifferent, if not actually hostile, to friendship with this country, such as the Duc Decazes in the early days of the Republic, and M. Hanotaux at a later period, who, however, was quite ready to invite Great Britain to join in reckless adventures.
[Footnote: Sir Charles notes in November, 1896, that Mr. Morley reported that "Hanotaux had told him that he could not understand why England had refused to join in a France, Russia, and England part.i.tion of China.
"China is a dead man in the house who stinks.""] Towards France Lord Rosebery"s Government twice took up a firm stand: first in regard to her aggressive action in Siam; and secondly by the clear warning, given through Sir Edward Grey in the House of Commons, that if the expedition of Major Marchand, which was known to be crossing Africa from west to east, reached the Nile Valley, as it eventually did at Fashoda, British interests would be held to be affected. The gravity of this warning was at the moment very inadequately comprehended by the House and by the country, notwithstanding the repeated attempts of Sir Charles to reinforce it before rather unconvinced audiences.
A firm att.i.tude towards France was greatly facilitated through the friendly position adopted towards Great Britain by Count Caprivi (the successor in 1890 of Prince Bismarck in the Chancellorship of the German Empire) and his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Baron Marschall. This period indicates the high-water mark of friendly relations between Germany and Great Britain; and though Count Caprivi retired in 1894, when he was succeeded by Prince Hohenlohe, who had special ties with Russia, these friendly relations may be said to have been prolonged, so far as the official relations of the two Governments were concerned, though with ever-diminishing vitality, up to the retirement of Baron Marschall from the Foreign Office in 1897. [Footnote: See the observations of Reventlow, 115-118, and Bullow, _Imperial Germany_, 31, 34.] In this period German commercial policy took a strong turn towards freer trade, to the great wrath of the feudal and military parties in Prussia, who were the centre of the forces hostile to a good understanding with Great Britain. The secret treaty also which Bismarck had negotiated with Russia, behind the back of his allies, was allowed to lapse, and a more conciliatory att.i.tude was adopted towards the Poles, which gratified Liberal opinion, especially in this country. But even in the time of Baron Marschall there were evidences of the existence in Germany of currents of opinion of a less friendly character, which were able from time to time to a.s.sert themselves in African affairs. As Sir Charles Dilke pointed out, Germany had joined with France in 1894 in objecting to, and thereby nullifying, the Congo Treaty of that year with Belgium; and some of the territories which had been handed over to Germany in the neighbourhood of the Cameroons in 1893, with the express object, apparently, of barring a French advance in that region, had been handed over by Germany to France by another treaty in 1895. [Footnote: Reventlow, pp. 52, 53, admits this. For the treaties themselves, see Hertslet, _The Map of Africa by Treaty_, ii.
658, in. 999, 1008.]
Throughout the period from 1892 to 1895 a Liberal Ministry was in office, but hardly in power. For the next ten years a strong Tory Administration possessing unfettered freedom of action was in real power, with an Opposition weakened by internal dissension. It was not unnatural that, under such discouraging conditions as to home affairs, Sir Charles should have again devoted most of his time to foreign questions and army reform.
"I recognize," Mr. Balfour wrote to him, in regard to some arrangements as to the business of the House, "that no man in the House speaks with greater authority or knowledge on foreign affairs than yourself, and that no man has a better right to ask for opportunities for criticizing the course in respect of foreign affairs adopted by this or any other Government." [Footnote: March 31st, 1897.]
This recognition was general, so much so that what he spoke or wrote on foreign affairs was constantly translated, reproduced verbatim and commented upon in foreign newspapers--a distinction enjoyed as a rule only by official speakers, and not always by them; while original contributions from his pen were eagerly sought for not only at home, but abroad, especially in France and in the colonies, "Il a pese constamment sur l"opinion francaise," the _Figaro_ wrote at the time of his death; and his known friendship for France and everything French made plain- speaking at times possible without exciting resentment. Even those--and there were many in England--who disagreed with his criticisms of the details of Lord Salisbury"s policy, felt the comprehensive grasp of his facts, and the vast store of knowledge on which he drew; and the members of his own party, many of whom did not altogether go with him, or sometimes, perhaps, quite grasp his standpoint, nevertheless enjoyed, especially while their own oracles were dumb, the sound of the heavy guns which, after his return to Parliament, from time to time poured political shot and sh.e.l.l into the ranks of the self-complacent representatives of the party opposite. In those ranks, too, there were men who at heart agreed very largely with the speaker, while compelled by party discipline to maintain silence. On the other hand, there nearly always came a moment when Conservative approval pa.s.sed into the opposite, for Sir Charles had no sympathy with the vast if rather confused ideas of general annexation which prevailed in Conservative circles: the policy of mere earth-hunger which Mr. Gladstone had denounced in 1893.
[Footnote: See above, p. 256.]
When Lord Salisbury returned to the Foreign Office in 1895, the policy of "graceful concessions" to France seemed to Sir Charles to have begun again--concessions in Tunis, concessions in Siam, concessions all round--and he returned to the attack. Tunis, he again pointed out, dated back to 1878, when M. Waddington received, in his own words as given in his own statement, a spontaneous offer of that country in the words "Take Tunis. England will offer no opposition." But at least certain commercial rights and privileges were then reserved. Now they were gone.
Even the nominal independence of Madagascar had finally disappeared.
Sir Charles also drew attention to the one subject of foreign affairs upon which, during the last Parliament, Mr. Curzon never tired of attacking, first Mr. Gladstone"s and then Lord Rosebery"s Government: this was the advance of the French in Siam. Lord Rosebery had gone to the verge of war with France in checking the French proceedings, and when he left office France was under a promise to evacuate Chantaboon and the provinces of Batambong and Siamrep, and to set up a buffer State on the Mekong. We were then in military occupation of British Trans- Mekong Keng-Cheng. Lord Salisbury came to an arrangement which left France in Chantaboon and these provinces, thus giving away, against our interests, what was not ours to give--as he had done in Tunis--and he evacuated and left to France British Trans-Mekong Keng-Cheng, in which a 50 per cent, _ad valorem_ duty had just been put on British goods (from Burmah), a duty from which French goods were free. Not only did Lord Salisbury himself make this arrangement, but he had to submit when France, in alliance with Russia, forced the Government of China to yield territory to France, in direct derogation of China"s treaty engagements.
Lord Salisbury had since made what was known as the Kiang-Hung Convention with China; and it commenced by setting forth the cession by China to France of territory which had been ceded to China on the express condition that it should not be so ceded to France. This action on the part of China was brought about by the violent pressure of France and Russia at Pekin, which Lord Salisbury pa.s.sed over. "The defence of his Siam arrangements in the House of Commons consisted in Mr. Curzon, who had become the representative of the Foreign Office, informing the House that the provinces (which he had formerly declared most valuable) were unimportant to British trade, and in pacifying a.s.surances that the Upper Mekong was not navigable, although a French steamer was actually working on it where Mr. Curzon said no ship could go." [Footnote: Letter to the _Liverpool Daily Post_, December 2nd and 5th, 1898.]
In the days of these petty collisions in West Africa and all the world over--the "policy of pin-p.r.i.c.ks" to which at this time Mr. Chamberlain made fierce allusion in a public speech--Sir Charles arranged to publish a dialogue between himself and M. Lavisse of the French Academy discussing the international situation. "I shall be answering the _Temps_ article which replies to you," he wrote to Chamberlain on December 26th, 1898. "Lavisse, being of the Academy, wants a month to polish his style. The dialogue will not appear till February 1st or 15th. There will be nothing in it new to you. What is new and important is that the French, impressed by the fleet, and pressed by their men of business, such as Henri Germain, the Director of the Credit Lyonnais, and Pallain, now Governor of the Bank of France, want to be friends.
I"ve told these two and others that it is useless to try and settle things unless they will settle Newfoundland. These two came back after seeing Ministers, including the Foreign Minister and the Minister for War, Freycinet, and independently said that they want to settle Newfoundland. They"ve quite made up their minds that Germany does not want them and will not buy their friendship. I have not seen Monson (the British Amba.s.sador) since my second interview with them, but I told Austin Lee last night to tell him the terms on which I thought that Newfoundland could be settled if you want to settle it. I do not put them on paper as I am sending this by post."
The Newfoundland dispute as to rights of fishing under the Treaties of Utrecht and Paris was one to which Dilke always attached special importance, and immediately after this letter to Chamberlain he wrote upon it in the _Pall Mall Magazine_ (February, 1899), describing it as "the most dangerous of all international questions, as it is also one of the most difficult." [Footnote: This dispute was mainly concerned with the question whether the French fishermen possessed an "exclusive" or only a concurrent right in the so-called French sh.o.r.e, under the above- mentioned treaties (see Fitzmaurice, _Life of Shelburne_, 2nd ed., ii.