Chapter XXVIII: The Phoenix Park Murders

I.

Ireland and Egypt fill the most important places in the history of 1882. That was the year, in Ireland, of the Kilmainham Treaty, the resignation of Mr. Forster, and the Phoenix Park murders; in Egypt, of the riots in Alexandria, followed by the bombardment, which caused Mr. Bright's resignation, and the battle of Tel-el-Kebir.

They had their roots far back in preceding years. But the abrupt development of the trouble in Egypt was due to an accident; that of the Irish question was of no sudden or casual growth. The Parliamentary difficulty as to procedure of the House was only part of Parnell's deliberate design to paralyze legislature and executive alike. [Footnote: Sir Charles notes: 'In 1890, when I wrote out these diaries, I showed them to Chamberlain, and gave him a copy of some part, notably that relating to the Kilmainham Treaty and that relating to Egypt (1882). His remembrance of events agreed with the notes made by me at the time.']

Government, for the moment, was trying to suppress Parnell and his associates. The Irish leader himself had been in gaol since October 12th, 1881; Mr. Dillon, Mr. Sexton, Mr. Davitt, and many hundreds of lesser men, had been imprisoned without sentence or form of trial. Sir Charles Dilke, whom nobody believed to be an adviser of coercion, experienced as a member of the Government manifestations of Irish displeasure.

'On January 31st I addressed my constituents. The Irish attacked the
meeting, and one East-Ender came at my private secretary with a chair,
howling Mr. Bright's phrase: "Force is no remedy!" As a very violent
breach of the peace had been committed, the police came in and cleared
the room, and after that our people came back again, and I was able to
make my speech quietly.... Congratulations upon my speech on all hands
were warm, especially those of Chamberlain and Lord Granville.
Chamberlain had written to me before the meeting to recommend a free
resort to "chuckers-out," and on my informing him of the use made of
Bright's maxim, he amused himself by communicating it to Bright, who
was only grim upon the subject.'

Irish discontent could count on sympathy and support from the rulers of America. On March 31st, 1882, the Memoir notes: 'It was settled to tell the Americans that those suspects who would leave the United Kingdom and engage not to return might go.'

'On April 20th I had to point out to Lord Granville the fact that the
Irish had shown on the previous day that they had got hold of the
condition which we had attempted to make with the Americans as to the
liberation of American suspects, a condition which the Americans had
indignantly refused.'

All these things affected public opinion in Great Britain. At this moment the Radical wing was demanding a change of policy in Ireland, while Mr. Forster was pressing hard for renewal of the Coercion Act, which, having been passed in 1881 for a year only, was now expiring. The Radicals won, and the change of policy was inaugurated by the so-called Kilmainham Treaty.

'At this moment' (April, 1882) 'Parnell was let out of prison, at Mr.
Gladstone's wish, to go to Paris to attend a funeral, but he was away
from prison, also at Mr. Gladstone's wish, unnecessarily long, and,
staying in London with Captain and Mrs. O'Shea, was seen by
Chamberlain at the wish of Mr. Gladstone (expressed on April 20th),
with the view that Chamberlain should offer him leave of absence from
prison with the view of concocting some arrangement (for his release
and for the pacification of Ireland) between him and the Government.
On the 21st Chamberlain and I met and decided that we would resign if
it was proposed to renew the Coercion Act, or the power of arbitrary
arrest in its then naked form.

'On April 22nd, 1882, Chamberlain obtained from the Cabinet, by a
majority, Mr. Gladstone being strongly with him, his own way in the
Irish Question, with full leave to enter into negotiations with
Parnell through O'Shea, but to be disavowed if he failed. Mr.
Gladstone reported the Cabinet of the 22nd to the Queen, stating that
the decision of the Cabinet was to the effect that it was wise "to
strengthen the law in Ireland." This was one way of putting it. What
the Cabinet really decided on April 22nd was to let out Parnell and
his friends, and to drop arbitrary arrest, although they did decide to
have a new Coercion Bill on minor points, to which Coercion Bill
Parnell himself was favourable. The statement that Parnell was
favourable would be denied, but O'Shea showed me a draft Bill, which
was, so he said, in Parnell's writing. I knew the hand, and it seemed
to be so.

'On April 25th Chamberlain reported to the Cabinet the result of his
interviews. Lord Cowper had already resigned the Lord-Lieutenancy, but
Forster's resignation (for some reason which I have never understood)
was kept back for a little. It is a curious fact that the Duchess of
Manchester told me in the middle of March that Lord Spencer was to
succeed Lord Cowper; but the first the Cabinet heard of it was on
April 25th.

'On April 26th, Parnell having returned to gaol, leave was given to
Captain O'Shea to go and see him at Kilmainham with full powers, but
nothing in writing. On the same day a letter, which was sent me by
Chamberlain, after Forster had seen it and sent it on to him, shows
that Forster was still acting, or at all events being treated by Mr.
Gladstone as though he was going forward with his policy. But on the
28th Chamberlain told me that Forster would resign. In my diary I say:
"The Chancellor and Lord Kimberley may go with him. In this case the
Irish Secretaryship would be offered to Shaw" (member for Limerick,
Mr. Butt's successor as leader of the moderate Home Rulers), "but he
would refuse because he could not get his county to return him. Then
it must come either to Chamberlain or to myself. I said I should wish
in this event that he should take it and I succeed him at the Board of
Trade. He said that my appointment would make less row than his. I
admitted this, but said that his would be the best for the public
service. Besides, my opinion in favour of Home Rule would form a grave
difficulty in my way." It will be seen that it never occurred for a
moment to either Chamberlain or myself that the Irish Secretaryship
would be offered without a seat in the Cabinet; but we counted without
remembering Mr. Gladstone's affection for Lord Spencer.... It will
also be seen that I did not count Chamberlain as being a Home Ruler
like myself.

'On the 29th Forster told Harcourt at the banquet of the Royal Academy
that he should resign "if it is decided to let out the men." It is
necessary to be careful about one's history of this moment, for no
authorities are to be trusted. My diary was written at the time from
information chiefly supplied by Chamberlain, and Chamberlain has since
seen and agreed to this record (1906). On Sunday, April 30th, the
_Observer_ gave an account of what had passed at a Cabinet of the
previous day; but no such Cabinet was held, and on May 1st the _Times_
also gave an account of what passed at "Saturday's Cabinet"!

'On May 1st I saw Chamberlain before the Cabinet. Parnell had written
to Justin McCarthy to promise that if let out he was ready to advise
payment of rent and cessation of outrages, but McCarthy would not
allow the letters to be made public. Forster insisted that he should
give a public promise. I suggested to Chamberlain that to call on
Parnell to give a public promise was to recognize Parnell as the
Government of Ireland. Chamberlain agreed to argue that the promise
should be a private one so far as Parnell was concerned, but that the
Government should state that such a promise had been made. After the
Cabinet Chamberlain told me that at the Cabinet of the next day
Forster would resign; but he thought that the Chancellor, who was
restive about the remedial legislation proposed in the shape of an
Arrears Bill, would "go" too. I fancy the Chancellor had promised to
resign, but he didn't.'

This reference to Lord Selborne is supplemented by the Memoir for 1893, where Sir Charles has a detached note:

'Our former Chancellor at eighty-two is "not less" prosy in the Lords
than he used to be, for he was always "slow." When W. E. Forster
resigned in 1882, Lord Granville left the Cabinet room to go down to
tell the Queen. Then, and then only, Lord Selborne said: "But I agree
with him, and must resign also." "It is too late," said Harcourt, "it
would not now be respectful to the Queen as Granville has started." So
the Chancellor did not resign.'

The Memoir continues: 'On May 3rd Chamberlain, who had decided to take
the Irish Secretaryship if offered to him, was astonished at having
received no offer. At 11.30 p.m. on the same day, the 3rd, I found
that the appointment had been offered to and declined by Hartington;
but the offer to, and acceptance by, his brother, Lord Frederick
Cavendish, came as a complete surprise both to me and to Chamberlain.

'In the night between May 4th and 5th the Queen telegraphed to
Harcourt: "I can scarcely believe that Davitt, one of the most
dangerous traitors, has been released without my having been
consulted, as I was in the case of the three members." The fact was
that Harcourt had so impressed upon the Queen the wickedness of
Davitt, at the time when he withdrew Davitt's ticket-of-leave, that it
was rather difficult for him to explain to the Queen his very sudden
change of front.

'On the 5th I had an interview with Mr. Gladstone as to royal grants.
I carefully abstained from giving any pledge as to future action, and
at the Cabinet of the 8th' (after Lord Frederick Cavendish's murder),
'when the question of my being offered the Chief Secretaryship with
the Cabinet came up, Mr. Gladstone stated to the Cabinet that I
remained unpledged.

'On May 6th I heard from Brett and from the Duchess of Manchester that
Hartington had proposed me in the Cabinet for Chief Secretary, with a
seat in the Cabinet, and that both Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville
had said: "Dilke won't do." The Duchess asked me what this meant, and
I said that it was the Queen's objection on account of the Leopold
grant, which it was; but Mr. Gladstone was glad to give Spencer his
own way without a Chief Secretary in the Cabinet.'

At half-past six that afternoon, May 6th, Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke, the permanent Under-Secretary, were murdered in the Phoenix Park, within sight of the Viceregal Lodge.

'On the night of May 6th the scene at the party at the Admiralty was
most dramatic. Mrs. Gladstone had come there from a dinner party at
the Austrian Embassy, not knowing of the murder, while everybody else
in the room knew. At last she was sent for suddenly to Downing Street
to be told, and went away under the impression that the Queen had been
shot, for she was assured that it was very dreadful, but "nothing
about Mr. Gladstone."

'Early on Sunday morning, the 7th, Parnell came to see me with Justin
McCarthy. He was white and apparently terror-stricken. He thought the
blow was aimed at him, and that if people kept their heads, and the
new policy prevailed, he himself would be the next victim of the
secret societies. [Footnote: In the letters of Justin McCarthy to Mrs.
Campbell Praed (_Our Book of Memoirs_, p. 97) there is an account of
what happened in London on that Sunday. There was a gathering of Irish
leaders at Parnell's rooms.

"Then Parnell and I talked together, and we thought the best thing for
us--we two--was to go and consult some of our English friends. We
started out, and went first to see Sir Charles Dilke. Our impression
was that either Dilke or Chamberlain would be asked to take the post
of Irish Secretary. Indeed, the general impression was that either one
man or the other would have been asked at the time when Lord Frederick
Cavendish was appointed.... We saw Dilke. He was perfectly composed
and cool. He said that if Gladstone offered him the post of Irish
Secretary, nothing that had happened lately would in the least deter
him from accepting it....

"He went on to say that he was a Home Ruler _quand même_; that he
would be inclined to press Home Rule on the Irish people, even if they
were not wholly inclined for it, because he so fully believed in the
principle, whereas Chamberlain would only give Home Rule if the Irish
people refused to accept anything less. But on the other hand,
Chamberlain was an optimist in the matter, and thought he could do
great good as Irish Secretary; and he (Dilke) was not so certain,
seeing the difficulty of dealing with the Castle and the permanent
officials, and therefore they agreed that as far as they were
concerned it was better Chamberlain should go.

"He said, 'If Chamberlain goes, he'll go to smash things'--meaning the
Dublin Castle system.

"Then we went to Chamberlain and had a long talk with him. We found
him perfectly willing to go to Ireland, but he said he must have his
own way there and he would either make or mar--by which we understood
the Castle system...."]

'On this day, May 8th, I noted that I thought it most unlikely that
Mr. Gladstone would send Chamberlain to Ireland, inasmuch as to do so
would be to admit that he had been wrong in not sending him in the
previous week. To Grant Duff I sent the reason for Mr. G.'s decision:
"Spencer wishes the policy to be _his_ policy, and does not want his
Chief Secretary in the Cabinet." At three o'clock Chamberlain sent a
note across to me from the Cabinet: "Prepare for an offer." I was
somewhat surprised at this, because Chamberlain knew that I would not
take it without the Cabinet, and that I would take it with the
Cabinet, whereas his note seemed to imply a doubt. At four he came
across himself, and the first difference that had ever occurred
between us took place, because although he knew that I would not
accept, he urged acceptance of the post without the Cabinet. He argued
that it carried with it the Privy Council, that it established great
personal claims upon the party, and that it afforded a means of
getting over the difficulty with the Queen. I declined, however,
without hesitation and with some anger. It was obvious that I could
not consent to be "a mere mouthpiece." Mr. Gladstone and Lord
Carlingford then sent back to say, personally from each of them, that
I was to be present at the Cabinet at every discussion of Irish
affairs; and I then asked: "Why, then, should I not be in the
Cabinet?" Carlingford came back to the Foreign Office again and again,
and cried over it to me; and Lord Granville came in twice, and
threatened me with loss of prestige by my refusal, by which I
certainly felt that I had lost Mr. Gladstone's confidence. I was angry
with Chamberlain at having placed me in this position.... Had he acted
on this occasion with the steadiness with which he acted on every
other, he would have told the Cabinet that the offer would be an
insult, because he knew that this was my view. The ground on which the
refusal of the Cabinet was put to me was the impossibility of having
both myself and Spencer in the Cabinet. Lord Granville came in
finally, and said in his sweetest manner (which is a very disagreeable
one) that he had vast experience, and had "never known a man stand on
his extreme rights and gain by it." This I felt to be a monstrous
perversion of the case, and I was glad on the morning of the 9th to
find that my reasons were very fairly stated in the _Standard_, the
_Telegraph_, and the _Daily News_. Chamberlain had seen Escott of the
_Standard_, and Lawson of the _Telegraph_, and I had seen Hill of the
_Daily News_.

'That the Cabinet position towards me was dishonest is shown by the
fact that they had given Lord Spencer Cowper's place when they had
still reason to suppose that Forster was going to continue in the
Irish Secretaryship and in the Cabinet, and had afterwards asked
Hartington to take the Chief Secretaryship.

'An honourable (I trust) defence of myself is in a letter in the
possession of Grant Duff under date "May 5th, closed on 11th."

The letter to Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, which has separate brief jottings on May 5th, 6th, and 7th, has so far been reproduced almost textually from Sir Charles's Memoir. The rest runs as follows:

"_8th_.--Mr. Gladstone is determined not to send Chamberlain to
Ireland, and does not want a Chief Secretary in the Cabinet, and to
send Chamberlain and so have a Chief Secretary in the Cabinet would be
to admit that the decision of last week was wrong. I, of course,
refused to go. I should have had to defend any policy that Spencer
chose to adopt without having a voice in it. Acceptance would not have
been only a personal mistake; it would have been a political blunder.
Outside the Cabinet I should not have had the public confidence, and
rightly so, because I could not have had a strong hand. I should have
inherited accumulated blunders, and I was under no kind of obligation
to do so, for I have never touched the Irish Question. Never have I
spoken of it from first to last. Many of the measures rendered
necessary by the situation are condemned by my whole past attitude;
but they have really been made inevitable by blunders for which I had
no responsibility and which I should not have been allowed to condemn.

"Yours ever,"

"CHS. W. D."

"Closed on 11th."

He wrote also this month in a letter to Mrs. Pattison:

"In a matter of this sort it is essential to have the look of the
thing in view, when a question of personal courage is involved. Of
course, I know that I have personal courage, but the public can only
judge from the look of things. The reason why Chamberlain even doubted
if I ought not after the murder to go--though I was not to have gone
before it--lay in the doubt as to how the public would take the look
of it. It has turned out right, but it might have turned out wrong. If
the public had gone the other way, I should have said I ought to have
taken it, and resigned."

But, as Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff pointed out when replying to the letter of May 11th, in the state of things then existing in Ireland a Minister could hardly have resigned without the gravest embarrassment to the Government, and he cordially approved Sir Charles's refusal: "You could not have accepted the Secretaryship without a seat in the Cabinet." That refusal was also approved and understood by the heir to the Throne:

'On the 8th the Prince of Wales wrote to me through Knollys to ask me
as to the Chief Secretaryship, and on my informing him how matters
stood, replied: "If you had accepted the post without a seat in the
Cabinet, your position, especially at the present moment, would be a
very unsatisfactory one. If the policy, whatever it is, prove a
success, I doubt whether _you_ would have obtained much credit for it;
and if it turned out a failure, you may be quite sure that a great
deal of the blame would fall upon you without your having been
responsible for the initiation of the steps that were adopted."'

The Phoenix Park murders having immediately followed the appointment of Lord Frederick Cavendish, those who had always pressed for further powers of police now asserted themselves with vehemence. Sir William Harcourt spoke strongly on Ireland and the necessity for coercion in the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone, in whom the Radicals had always found a mainstay against these tendencies, was broken in spirit and suddenly aged. All relations in the Cabinet were jarred and embittered, as the successive entries in this Memoir show:

'In the night between May 11th and 12th the Irish, although angry at
Harcourt's coercion speech, sent O'Shea to Chamberlain at 3 a.m. with
the olive-branch again.

'On May 13th Mr. Gladstone again stated privately that he intended to
give up the Exchequer on account of his advancing years.

'On this day the Cabinet unanimously decided to give an extradition
treaty to Russia--to my mind a most foolish proposal.

'On Monday, May 15th, Mr. Gladstone sent Chamberlain to O'Shea to see
if Parnell could be got to support the new Coercion Bill with some
changes. When Harcourt heard of this, which was done behind his back,
he was furious, and went so far as to tell me: "When I resign I shall
not become a discontented Right Honourable on a back bench, but shall
go abroad for some months, and when I come back rat boldly to the
other side." This reminds me of Randolph Churchill on Lord Derby, "A
man may rat once, but not rat and re-rat."

'On Tuesday, May 16th, Mr. Gladstone wrote, on Chamberlain's
suggestion, to Harcourt to try to smooth him over, and proposed a
Cabinet on the matter for the next day, Wednesday, May 17th, at which
Harcourt declared that if any change was made in the principle of his
Coercion Bill he would resign; but then nobody knew what was the
principle of the Bill. At this Cabinet Harcourt ... told the Cabinet
that the Kilmainham Treaty would not be popular when the public
discovered that it had been negotiated by Captain O'Shea, "the husband
of Parnell's mistress." He informed the Cabinet that ... after this it
would hardly "do for the public" "for us to use O'Shea as a
negotiator." I wrote to Grant Duff on this day (closed 18th) as to
Parnell's relations to Mrs. O'Shea as disclosed in Cabinet.

'On Friday, May 19th, Lord Derby said to me: "You were right to refuse
the Chief Secretaryship; still Mr. Gladstone must say to himself:
'Surely I am about to die, for I am not obeyed.'" On Monday, the 22nd,
Mr. Gladstone was very strongly in favour of accepting Parnell's
privately suggested amendments to the new Coercion Bill, obtained
through O'Shea, but Hartington going with Harcourt against touching
the Bill, Mr. Gladstone got no support except from Chamberlain.

'On May 25th Chamberlain was anxious to resign on account of
Harcourt's position as to coercion; but the fit passed off again.

'On June 5th I noted in my diary that I heard that Goschen was soon to
be asked to become Chancellor of the Exchequer.

'On the 9th Lord Granville told me that the hatred of Mr. Gladstone
for Goschen was such that he had point blank refused to make him
Chancellor of the Exchequer; but this proved to be untrue, for an
offer was as a fact made to him, although perhaps very privately.

'At this time I received a letter from Lord Ripon in India as to the
Kilmainham Treaty, in which he said that he was convinced that
Forster's policy had completely broken down, and went on: "But between
ourselves is not the Government still ... on a wrong track in its
coercive measures? I do not like the suspension of trial by jury....
Again, if Reuter is right, it is proposed to take a power to expel
dangerous foreigners. I am too much of a Foxite to like an Alien Bill,
and, besides, if you are not very careful, the expulsion of foreigners
will land you in a very disagreeable state of relations with the
United States." These, I noted, were exactly the arguments which
Chamberlain was using against Harcourt without avail.'

II.

On June 11th Mr. Chamberlain wrote that the Cabinet had decided on some important changes in the Prevention of Crimes Bill, and that things looked better.

But on that day the Alexandria riots took place, and opinion was sharply divided as to the measures which should be taken. Here Sir Charles Dilke, and with him Mr. Chamberlain, were strongly for forcible action, while Mr. Bright, who in the matter of Ireland had come round towards the side of coercion, opposed the use of force in Egypt. On July 5th there was a stormy meeting of the Cabinet, which two days later had its echo in public.

'Mr. Gladstone, mixing Ireland and Egypt together, broke out in the
House of Commons on July 7th, and afterwards privately told his
colleagues that he intended to resign!'

The occasion of this outbreak was a debate on the Prevention of Crimes Bill, which the Tories were seeking to render more drastic. The Prime Minister declared with emphasis that if coercive powers which he did not seek were to be thrust upon him, he must "consider his personal position." The words were at once in debate construed as a threat of retirement, and there was a critical position in the Cabinet.

'Bright would follow Mr. Gladstone; and Chamberlain and I decided that
if this were so, although we were against him about Egypt, which would
be one of the causes of his resignation, we must go with him all the
same and refuse to join the new administration. Although I concurred
in this view, after discussion, it was not mine. On this occasion I
thought it was our duty to stay. But after discussion, as I have
stated, I came round to Chamberlain's view so far as this--that we
decided that we would not join the new Government if Mr. Gladstone
were outside it in the House of Commons; although the case might be
different if he quitted political life or went to the Lords, and if we
were satisfied with the new bill of fare.

'At this moment Chamberlain and I were anxious to get Courtney into
the Cabinet, and Mr. Gladstone having asked us, after Playfair's worst
mess, if we thought Courtney would take the place of Chairman of Ways
and Means, we told him that we thought he would only if it was
understood that it was not to lessen his chances of obtaining Cabinet
office. [Footnote: Sir Lyon Playfair, Chairman of Committees, had
suspended eighteen Irish members on July 1st.]

'When the House met at nine o'clock [Footnote: This means after the
dinner interval, for which at this time the House used to adjourn.] on
Friday, July 7th, I sounded Trevelyan' (then Chief Secretary for
Ireland) 'as to his course, and found him most anxious to stop in at
all hazards. I then saw Childers, who had walked home with Hartington
at seven. He said that he had urged Hartington not to form a weak Whig
Administration, and had told him that if Chamberlain would stay he,
Childers, would go on, but that he thought that to go on without
Chamberlain would be fatal, and that it would be far better to let the
Tories come in, and help them through with Egypt, and then make them
go to their constituents. At ten o'clock Grosvenor came and told me
that he thought that Mr. Gladstone would stay on. Chamberlain, who
still thought that Mr. Gladstone would resign, told Hartington that in
the event of the formation of a new Liberal Ministry he should insist
that Goschen should not be put in, and that the vacancies should be
filled up by myself, Courtney, and Trevelyan. At midnight the storm
had blown over.'

A Bill to prevent eviction for arrears of excessive rents had been demanded by the Nationalist party as a necessary amendment to the Land Act of 1881, and it had been introduced by the Government, and was carried through _pari passu_ with the new measure of coercion. It was furiously opposed by the high Tories, and a new crisis seemed imminent.

'On Monday, July 10th, it again seemed probable that Mr. Gladstone
would resign. The intention of the Lords to throw out the Arrears
Bill, at Lord Salisbury's dictation, was loudly proclaimed, and it was
said by Mr. Gladstone's friends that Mr. Gladstone would at once
resign, and that if Lord Salisbury refused to form a Government, Mr.
Gladstone would retire from public life. Chamberlain was determined
then to insist with either Lord Granville or Lord Hartington for
myself, Courtney, and Trevelyan, on the ground that a Liberal
Government with a Whig Prime Minister must be Radical.'

It was the apprehension of such an increase of power to the Radicals that made the threat of Mr. Gladstone's resignation formidable both to Whigs and Tories.

Mr. Gladstone, however, did not resign, though Mr. Bright did, after the bombardment of Alexandria had taken place. On the contrary, by July 12th,

'so belligerent was the Prime Minister that he had now decided, in
face of the prospect of Lord Salisbury throwing out the Arrears Bill,
unless Lord Waterford on behalf of the Irish landlords begged him not
to do so, to prorogue, have another Session a week after, and pass the
Bill again.'

This quarrel between the Houses remained open till August 8th, when Lord Salisbury, under pressure from the Irish landlords, was forced to content himself with acquiescence under angry protest. But in the meanwhile the Government were in other difficulties. After the bombardment of Alexandria it was still necessary to deal with the rebellion against the Khedive, whose authority England was seeking to support; and the Tories, allied with a section of the peace party, offered strong resistance to any military expedition.

'On Wednesday, August 2nd, I had a conversation with Mr. Gladstone,
who agreed in my view that if beaten we should force the county
franchise, and dissolve only if the Lords would carry that. It began
to look as if we should sit till Christmas.

'On Monday, August 7th, I had an interesting talk with Brett. Knowing
his great influence with Hartington, I complained to him of his
chief's folly in always acting as the leader of a Whig section instead
of as deputy-leader of the whole party. Brett agreed that it was
foolish in the particular case of franchise, "as he must give in at
last." I replied: "But he has given in already, and gone back again."
Brett answered: "He declares he never voted for it." This is a curious
example of Hartington's complete detachment from politics and want of
interest in them, for he had not only voted, but had made a long,
strong, and elaborate speech, explaining his reasons for so doing, and
then absolutely forgotten the whole thing, and thought that he was
still committed to opposition. At the Cabinet of the 5th he had
declared against a Franchise Bill.'

When the Session ended on August 27th the question of Sir Charles Dilke's personal position came up. Neither his refusal of the Chief Secretaryship nor his attitude of opposition to Mr. Gladstone's own wishes as to Egypt had in the least impaired his standing, and promotion was felt to be his due. The old difficulties, however, were still in the way, and Sir Charles refused to buy his way into the Cabinet by a sham recantation. The matter accordingly stood over, as appears from this entry:

'At this moment there were fresh discussions as to my saying something
to the Queen to get over her difficulty about receiving me into the
Cabinet. Lord Granville, in congratulating me upon the way in which I
had done the Foreign Office work, said that Mr. Gladstone had been
unable to say anything to the Queen because I had hot given him enough
upon which to go. Mr. Gladstone then wrote to me a long letter in
favour of my making some statement to my constituents, but he went on
to admit in writing what he had previously admitted in conversation--
namely, that a Committee' (to inquire into the Civil List) 'would be
wise. Therefore I at once insisted that I should have the distinct
promise of this Committee before I said anything. Mr. Gladstone's
letter came very near a promise, as he said that when any new set of
cases came forward the question of a Committee would naturally come
up, and would, he hoped, be favourably entertained. I again called in
Chamberlain, and acting with him, declined to make any statement, as I
had in no way changed my opinion, but I pressed the appointment of the
Committee, or at least the promise of one. Mr. Gladstone again
promised to communicate with the Queen.'