Dilke (52 page)

More fruitful was Dilke's co-operation with the Trades Union Congress. When he had been in office, in the early 'eighties, he had begun the practice of starting each session with a luncheon for the Parliamentary Committee (the forerunner of the General Council) of the T.U.C. At this gathering they discussed the strategy for dealing with labour questions in the House of Commons during the coming year. Dilke revived the practice in 1898, and within a few years the luncheons began to be followed by a conference of the Parliamentary Committee and the radical and Labour members in the House. The conferences continued until 1906, when the great inflow of new Labour members made them inappropriate. The luncheons went on until Dilke's death, and in the last year were supplemented by a dinner at which the T.U.C. and not Dilke was the host, and at which a presentation was made.

One of the fruits of this consultation was the Trades Disputes Act of 1906. Immediately after the Taff Vale judgment of 1901, which made it possible for employers to compensate themselves for the effects of the strike by suing for damages the union concerned, Dilke was called in by the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. He secured the support of Asquith for the calling of a conference which led to a Liberal commitment to legislate in the union's interest. He also led a deputation which was received on behalf of the Cabinet by his old lawyer who had become Lord James of Hereford. They made some impression on him, but not enough. D. J. Shackle-ton, the Labour member for Clitheroe, introduced a private members' bill in 1903, and again in 1904 and 1905. It was defeated on second reading on the first occasion, and perished in committee on the latter two. A Liberal Parliament had to be awaited before further progress could be made. When
this came, in 1906, it still remained to be decided how strong a bill was to be, pushed through. Most of the lawyers in the Government were in favour of one which would give only a qualified exemption to union funds. Dilke's influence was thrown strongly the other way. He urged the Labour M.P.s, who showed some sign of weakening, to stand out for the measure they wanted; he exerted great pressure on the Government, and he did something to neutralise Tory opposition. He was successful, and the bill which passed was one involving the complete reversal of Taff Vale. “In so far as (trades unionists) have now a charter invulnerable alike to the prejudice and the caprice of those who administer the law,” Miss Mary MacArthur wrote in 1917, “it is largely due to the clear vision of Sir Charles Dilke, and to the skill and invincible courage with which he followed his aims.”
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Dilke's main labour interest, however, was with those in the dangerous and sweated trades. In part this was due to the influence of his wife. Lady Dilke was long associated with the Women's Trade Union League and took her association sufficiently seriously to attend every Trades Union Congress from 1889 until her death. In trades like match-making and white lead the majority of the employees were women, and the statistics of industrial disease were appalling. The Dilkes between them succeeded in effecting a substantial improvement. In the china and earthenware trade, too (although this was not primarily a woman's trade), the industrial processes in the 'nineties involved a ten per cent casualty rate, with the victims suffering blindness, paralysis or death. Dilke kept up a constant pressure on the Home Office, raising the matter in the House year after year, securing the appointment of several committees, and eventually having the satisfaction of seeing the number of cases reduced to a fifth of those which had existed when he first took up the issue.

Many of the trades in which women were employed had practically no trade union organisation and a level of wages far below the average even for those days. Nor was there much prospect of building up a level of union membership which would make collective bargaining a possibility. Many of
the employees were home workers; the rest were grouped in small scattered workshops. Dilke believed that the only possibility of attacking this problem of sweated labour was by legislation. He was himself attracted by the idea of a statutory national minimum wage, but he recognised that in practice he could hope to do no more than secure action to deal with the problem in specified trades. With this object he introduced his Wages Boards Bill in 1898. Boards comprising representatives of both sides should be set up for a limited number of trades and should have power to fix differing minimum wages in each case. It was a modest proposal, but it made no progress for a number of years, even though he continued to lay it before Parliament at the beginning of each session. In 1906 the climate of opinion changed and the outlook became far more favourable. In 1908 Dilke and the Archbishop of Canterbury jointly introduced a deputation to the Prime Minister, which led on directly to the Trade Boards Act of 1909. At first only four trades were covered by the act, but a considerable improvement was effected in these, and it was later given a wider application.

Another group with whom Dilke was particularly concerned were the shop assistants. They were a depressed and comparatively unorganised group, afflicted even more by long hours than by low wages. Dilke's association with this movement began in 1896. Thereafter he frequently addressed meetings on their behalf; he introduced into the House of Commons a bill limiting their hours of work; he inspired its introduction into the Lords; and he helped to persuade the Liberal Government of 1905 to take action in this respect which led on to an act reaching the statute book a few months after his death. When the National Union of Shop Assistants built a new London office in 1914 they called it Dilke House.

A feature characteristic of Dilke's advocacy of labour legislation, but one unusual amongst other advocates of the same cause, was the extent to which he drew for both his knowledge and his inspiration upon what was happening in other parts of the Empire, notably the white colonies. Some of these—and particularly the Australian states—were far ahead of
England in the legislative protection which they gave to the working class. Dilke's habit of amassing information gave him an unsurpassed familiarity with the provisions which existed. Alfred Deakin, Prime Minister of Australia on several occasions after 1903, was one of his most fervent admirers and frequent correspondents.
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Dilke believed firmly that the Anglo-Saxon race was superior to any other, and that white men in general had a capacity for effective social and economic organisation which the other races were unlikely ever to equal. But he did not consider that this entitled them to exploit those whose qualities were inferior to their own. He believed in the protection of those who could not protect themselves. Indeed, J. E. B. Seely,
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who worked closely with him on a number of issues during these later years, reached the conclusion that “the master-key to Dilke's actions “in the post-1892 period was his determination to protect “the under-dog.”
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In Seely's view this alone kept Dilke going when it had become obvious that his career could never again prosper.

A large part of Dilke's colonial activities was therefore concerned with the protection of native rights. Vestiges of slavery roused him deeply, for he regarded the institution in any form as equally damaging to the white exploiters and to the coloured victims. In 1907 a long period of agitation, in which Dilke had played a central part, culminated in a Colonial Office decision against the Zanzibar practice of restoring runaway slaves to their owners. The Bishop of Uganda wrote that this result would not have been secured until many years later had it not been for the participation of Dilke.
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A similar but still longer extended activity of Dilke's was his work for the Congo Reform Association. The Congo Free
State, under the personal suzerainty of the King of the Belgians, had been created at the Berlin Conference of 1884. England had been a party to the agreement and shared some international responsibility for what went on in the new territory, the government of which was intended to be a spearhead of civilisation in Central Africa. By the middle of the 'nineties, however, the spear looked somewhat blunted. Slave dealing persisted and the army of the Free State, it was revealed, although commanded by European officers, had been fed for long periods by means of a system of organised cannibalism. Dilke first raised these matters in the House of Commons in April, 1897. He called for the reassembly of the Berlin Conference, but the Government view, as expressed by Curzon, was hostile to this proposal and cool towards the subject as a whole. This coolness did not infect Dilke. Thereafter he pursued the issue for the remainder of his life. He initiated parliamentary debates in session after session. In 1903 these efforts mobilised House of Commons opinion to such an extent that Balfour was forced to accept a motion committing the Government to a diplomatic re-opening of the case. In 1908, when a new constitution and more direct Belgian responsibility were being evolved, the issue was forced sufficiently to the forefront of British politics that it achieved a mention in the King's Speech; and a strong memorandum was despatched to Brussels by the Foreign Office. In the spring of 1910, in one of his last House of Commons interventions, Dilke was still speaking on the issue. But great progress had been made, and in 1913, with Dilke no longer amongst them, the sponsors of the Congo Reform Association felt able to wind up the organisation. His work appeared to have been completed.

This work brought Dilke into contact with E. D. Morel, a reforming journalist of distinction and an outstanding example of the English liberal conscience in action. Thereafter Dilke co-operated freely with him on all questions touching Africa and the rights of native peoples. In 1902 Morel published his book
Affairs of West Africa
, and asked Dilke to write a preface. Dilke declined this suggestion on the characteristically precise ground that he could not agree with a
statement made by Morel on page 286, but he offered to write a friendly review and to arrange for others in papers which he could influence. This refusal did not impair their good relations, and they each remained a considerable influence upon the other until the date of Dilke's death.

Dilke's interest in native rights, combined with his jingo streak, made him reserved about the South African war. It is possible that he was also influenced towards silence by the remaining traces of his friendship with Chamberlain, although by 1899 the effect of this was probably not very strong. Whatever the reasons, South Africa, like Ireland, became for Dilke a subject on which he did not see his way clearly. And just as, when the second Home Rule Bill had been before the House, he had confined his speeches to the peripheral subject of the electoral arrangements, so, in the case of the war in South Africa, he directed himself not to the merits of the struggle but to the appalling British military inefficiency which it demonstrated. He was more stirred by the damage that had been done to the reputation of the British Army than by the wrongs of the Boers. “But can any member of this House deny that the net result of these proceedings has been disastrous to the belief of the world in our ability to conduct a war?”
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he demanded on February 1st, 1900, after the early setbacks. It was a pertinent question, but it was not one which most left-wing Liberal members would have chosen to ask.

The debate in which Dilke asked this question was on an amendment to the Address moved by Lord Edmond Fitz-maurice. It was sufficiently loose for the whole Liberal party to be able to unite behind it. This was an unusual event at the time. A more common end to a debate on the South African situation was for the party to split into two if not three factions. This occurred most signally six months later, on July 25th, when an amendment moved by Sir Wilfred Lawson led to violent “pro-Boer” speeches from Labouchere, Sir Robert Reid and Lloyd George; to an announcement from the leader of the party that he would abstain; and to a counter-announcement from Sir Edward Grey that he would vote with the Governmerit.
When the division came 40 Liberals voted with the Unionists, 35 abstained with Campbell-Bannerman, and 31, including Morley and Bryce, voted for the amendment. Dilke abstained, and as his action cannot possibly be attributed to loyalty to Bannerman,
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it gives a clear indication of where he stood. He was not a natural compromiser, particularly when without responsibility, but he could go neither with the right of the party nor, on this issue, with the left.

Later, when the issue became one not of conquest but of reconciliation, Dilke remained cautious of giving too free a hand to the Boers in their dealings with the native population. “South Africa,” he gloomily prognosticated, “is to become the home of a great proletariat, forbidden by law to rise above the present situation.”
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He fought hard against any constitutional recognition of the colour bar, against discriminatory franchise proposals, and against infringement of native rights in Basutoland, Bechuanaland and other tribal territories. In 1906 he drafted a motion incorporating these points which was accepted by the House of Commons; and in 1909 he worked in close association with W. P. Schreiner for suitable amendments to the South Africa Bill.

Dilke's other major political interest during; his second period in the House of Commons was imperial defence. His little book on
The British Army
had appeared as early as 1888. The message of this was that England was less prepared for war than any other major power. This conviction dominated an important part of Dilke's mind for the remainder of his life. He saw this military weakness as a drag on our diplomacy as well as a threat to our national security. He saw it, too, as an issue which transcended party difference, and he set himself to collaborate with any who would collaborate with him and to exercise the strongest possible pressure upon whichever
government was in at the time. “I am one of those,” he declared in 1898, “who are in favour of large armaments for this country, and believe in increasing the strength of our defences for the sake of peace; and one of the very reasons why I desire that is because I repudiate the idea of making our policy depend upon the policy of others.”
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Holding these views he was naturally often in conflict with the instinctive reactions of many Liberals, and sometimes expressed with some acerbity his impatience with these reactions. “Liberals should give up thinking of this question of national defence as a hateful one,” he said in 1893, “and as one against which they should close their eyes and ears.”
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