Chapter XXXVII: Foreign Affairs in 1884

Mrs. Mark Patterson

I.

During 1884 'I warned Lord Granville, Mr. Gladstone, Fitzmaurice, and Childers, that I should not in future be able to speak on foreign affairs on account of the terrible work of the Redistribution Bill, and of the Royal Commission,' for 'I was now so busy with the preparation for working the Redistribution Bill through the House, and with the Report of the Royal Commission, that I objected to receiving Foreign Office papers not sent to other members of the Cabinet ... but Lord Granville insisted that I should still see them, and circulated a letter to that effect.'

During 1884 and 1885 Foreign Office work was not only exacting, but was connected with acute disagreements in the Ministry itself. It has been seen how closely Sir Charles was occupied with the Egyptian question, and how constantly he found himself opposed to Lord Hartington in his views of policy. Moreover, out of the Egyptian difficulty there sprang a general divergence from France, and this led to action by France in various quarters of the globe calculated to offend British susceptibilities and to injure British prestige. Sir Charles, friend of France as he was, had been strong for resenting and resisting such action, and this attitude had brought him into conflict with those who on the whole had supported him in Egyptian matters. A new factor was now introduced. Bismarck had previously been content to urge on the French in their colonization policy, but in 1884 the German Chancellor, who in 1883 had been working out his schemes of national insurance, found his hand forced by the Colonial party, and, in view of the coming German elections, could no longer afford to ignore them. Bismarck, 'contrary to his conviction and his will,' said Lord Ampthill, accepted a policy of colonization, which had the secondary effect of harassing and humiliating the British Liberal Administration. [Footnote: _Life of Granville_, vol. ii., p. 355.] Sir Charles, who realized that every such annexation meant the exclusion of British trade from an actual or potential market, fought for strong British action, but he fought against the older Liberals of the Cabinet. Again and again the Radical leaders were overborne by Mr. Gladstone.

The German Government had demanded protection for a German firm of traders who had established themselves in the territory of Angra Pequena, on the west coast of Africa, 280 miles south of Walfisch Bay. Lord Granville, after considerable delays, caused chiefly by the necessity of consulting the Colonial Office, which in its turn had to consult the Cape Government, where a change of Ministry was impending, objected to the declaration of a German protectorate.

'June 14th, 1884.--At a Cabinet at Lord Granville's house on
Conference.... Waddington waiting in another room.

'H. Bismarck was also in the house, and had been very rude to Lord
Granville about Angra Pequena, which was mentioned to the Cabinet,
which would do nothing.

'June 2lth--... Angra Pequena was mentioned, and it was decided that
Bismarck, who was greatly irritated with the Government, was to have
all he wanted.

'On September 22nd Chamberlain came to me on his return from abroad.
He told me that H. Bismarck had told him that the German Chancellor
was very angry at having had no answer to a full statement of German
views as to Angra Pequena and other colonial matters, which had been
sent to Lord Granville on August 30th, and he was astonished to
learn that the Cabinet had not seen his letter....

'On the 27th Lord Granville had in the meantime written: "I will
send you my letter and Bismarck's answer, but I do not wish the
correspondence to be mentioned.... My only excuse, but a good one,
for acting merely as a medium between the German Government and the
Colonial Office, was that I had continually the most positive
assurances in London, and still more in Berlin, that Bismarck was
dead against German colonization--as he _was_."' [Footnote: On this
chapter of African history, see _Life of Granville_, vol. ii., chap.
x., _passim_.]

This was the first of a series of instances in which, to Sir Charles's great disgust, the British Foreign and Colonial Offices 'lay down to Germany.'

Since the annexation of part of New Guinea by Queensland had been disavowed in April, 1883, all Australia was vehemently concerned over the ultimate fate of this territory, and pressed the home Government to forestall other Powers by occupying it.

'June 27th we discussed New Guinea, as to which Lord Derby was
getting into serious trouble.

'On July 5th there was a Cabinet called to consider what was called
the "crisis"--our relation with the House of Lords over the
Franchise. But so peculiar is the British Empire that, although the
Cabinet was called upon this question, we immediately proceeded to
consider for the greater portion of the day matters in Sumatra, in
the Malay Archipelago, and the Pacific, and ... the affairs of New
Guinea and so forth. Harcourt, Lord Selborne, and Mr. Gladstone
violently opposed the occupation of New Guinea--Harcourt and Mr.
Gladstone on anti-imperialistic grounds, and Lord Selborne on
grounds connected with the protection of the aborigines against the
rapacity and violence of the Queensland settlers. Hartington, Lord
Granville, Derby, Kimberley, Chamberlain, and I, took the Australian
view. The matter was adjourned, as matters always are adjourned when
the Prime Minister is against the Cabinet.'

'August 6th.--We then attacked New Guinea, most of us wanting
annexation, some protectorate, and decided on the latter to please
the Chancellor and Mr. Gladstone.'

'August 9th.--We first discussed German colonies in the South Seas.
Bismarck had seized North New Guinea, and we decided to stick to the
long peninsula which faces both north and south.'

Bismarck's immediate answer was to annex, not only the north coast, but what is now called the Bismarck Archipelago.

'October 4th.--Next came New Guinea. Were we to insist, as we had
done previously, on keeping the Germans off the north coast of the
long eastern peninsula? The previous decision was reversed. The
Cabinet, however, vetoed a suggestion for the joint commission with
Germany as to land claims in the Pacific Islands being allowed to
meddle in New Guinea. We then decided to annex one quarter, and
several members of the Cabinet expressed a hope that _this time_ the
thing would "really be done."' [Footnote: A useful sketch of these
events has recently appeared in the paper read before the Royal
Geographical Society by Sir Everard Im Thurn, K.C.M.G. See
_Journal_, vol. xlv., No. 5, April, 1915.]

These instances did not stand alone. Two native chiefs in the Cameroons had so far back as 1882 proposed to be taken under British protection, and Sir Charles had pressed acceptance of their offer. The matter had been discussed in the Cabinet, and Lord Derby and Lord Granville were still debating what should be done, when a German expedition seized the territory.

'On September 18th I received from Chamberlain a letter from
Leipsic, in which he said: "The Cameroons! It is enough to make one
sick. As you say, we decided to assume the protectorate eighteen
months ago, and I thought it was all settled. If the Board of Trade
or Local Government Board managed their business after the fashion
of the Foreign Office and Colonial Office, you and I would deserve
to be hung."'

Those who thought with Sir Charles felt considerable anxiety about possibilities on the East Coast of Africa. The Cameroons were lost, but a protectorate over Zanzibar had been offered, and Zanzibar was the outlet for an important trading district, which the forward party thought of securing. The Prime Minister was opposed to all such schemes. 'On December 14th Mr. Gladstone broke out against the proposed annexations in what is now called the Kilimanjaro district.'

He wrote to Sir Charles: 'Terribly have I been puzzled and perplexed on finding a group of the soberest men among us to have concocted a scheme such as that touching the mountain country behind Zanzibar with an unrememberable name. There _must_ somewhere or other be reasons for it which have not come before me. I have asked Granville whether it may not stand over for a while.' [Footnote: The allusion is to the treaties with native chiefs which were negotiated by Mr. (afterwards Sir) Harry Johnston in 1883-84. These treaties were the foundation of what is now known as British East Africa, and related mainly to the Kilimanjaro and Taveita districts. It would appear that Mr. Gladstone himself had at first expressed an interest in the development of British influence 'over this hinterland of snow mountains and elevated plateaux,' to which his attention had been drawn by the report of Mr. Joseph Thomson. Speaking subsequently at the Colonial Institute, Sir Harry Johnston said that 'about twenty years ago he was making preparations for his first expedition to British Africa. He had a very distinguished predecessor, whom he regarded as the real originator of British East Africa: Mr. Joseph Thomson, who died all too young in 1895. His great journey from Mombasa was commenced in 1882 and finished in 1884.... His reports sent home to the Royal Geographical Society had attracted the attention of Mr. Gladstone; and there was another British statesman, Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, who perhaps more than most of his colleagues saw the possibility of a white man's settlement in Equatorial Africa, and who chose to select him (Sir H. Johnston) as one agency by which this work should be commenced.' (_Journal_ of the Royal Colonial Institute, 1903-04, No. 5, p. 317.) The territory covered by the Kilimanjaro Treaties was ceded to Germany under the arrangement made at the end of 1885, but the remainder has continued to be British (see Sir Harry Johnston, _A History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races_, pp. 376-409.]

Mr. Gladstone could not bring himself to understand that the great States of Europe had, almost without premeditation, moved into a field of policy which involved the apportionment of regions scarcely yet known in any detail to the geographers; nor did he realize the far-reaching consequences of the acquisition or refusal of some of these districts. The question of the Congo, for example, involved, as Sir Robert Morier had foreseen, the settlement of the whole West African coast. In April Sir Charles had recorded how he

'had to read up African papers, and found reason to fear that the
King of the Belgians was contemplating the sale of his Congo
dominions to France. We had a meeting at the Foreign Office in the
afternoon, [Footnote: April 26th, 1884.] at which were present Lord
Granville, Kimberley, Chamberlain, myself, and Fitzmaurice, and,
finding that we could not possibly carry our Congo Treaty with
Portugal, we determined to find a way out by referring it to the
Powers.' [Footnote: The following extract from an article in the
_Quarterly Review_ explains the importance attached by Sir Charles
to this Congo treaty, and the far-reaching results which it would
have had:

'In 1875 the results of Lieutenant Cameron's great journey across
Africa became known.... They revealed ... the material for a Central
African Empire awaiting the enterprise of a European or an Asiatic
power. There is now little doubt that, had the famous treaty
negotiated by Sir Charles Dilke, Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, and Sir
Robert Morier in 1884, been ratified and carried out ... the Congo
Basin would have been added to the British Empire, together with
Delagoa Bay and Nyasaland, before its time; with Dahomey also, and
an all-British West African Coast between Sierra Leone and the
Gaboon.' (_Quarterly Review_, January, 1906.)

It would perhaps have been more accurate had the author spoken of the 'treaty proposed to be negotiated.' The original plan of Sir Robert Morier--part of a large scheme for the settlement of all outstanding questions with Portugal--contemplated _inter alia_ some territorial acquisition on the Congo by Great Britain. But the Cabinet put a veto on this. The Foreign Office had therefore to fall back on the alternative but less ambitious plan contained in the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1884, which was never ratified, owing to the opposition of Germany. (_Life of Granville_, vol. ii., chap. x.; and supra, I. 418. See also on this subject the observations of Sir Harry Johnston in his _History_, quoted above, pp. 277, 278, 343, 405.)]

In October he goes on to relate how

'Lord Granville had been frightened by Plessen, the Prussian, coming
to invite him to a Conference at Berlin, but explained that he had
been much relieved on finding, as he put it, that it was only about
the Congo. It was, however, the famous Africa Conference which
virtually settled the whole future of the Dark Continent.'

Sir Charles notes the result in January, 1885:

'The sittings of the West African Conference, as it was called, were
at this time taking place at Berlin, and the General Act was signed
in the following month--that of February, 1885. [Footnote: He notes
in this month, February 4th, at "a meeting at the Admiralty of all
the Ministers in town, Childers and I stand alone in support of
Portugal as regards the Congo. I stated very freely what I still
believe, that we had behaved shamefully to the Portuguese; but this
neither convinced Lord Granville at the time, nor excused the
subsequent behaviour of the Portuguese." On February 11th Sir
Charles wrote to a diplomatic friend: "I cannot quite follow the
present phase of Congo, but I hope that nothing will be done to back
up the rascally association against Portugal. I believe that
Portugal will seize the disputed territory, and I certainly should
if I were the Portuguese Ministry."] I was very busy with this work,
in which I had long taken a deep interest, and was much relieved
when I found that what I thought the folly of the House of Commons
in upsetting our Congo Treaty, and preventing a general arrangement
with the Portuguese as regarded both West Africa and South-East
Africa, had turned out better than could have been anticipated,
owing to the interposition of the Germans. My joy was short-lived,
for King Leopold has not kept his promises.'

The interests thus claimed or created beyond the seas had to be defended upon the seas. Either Great Britain must be prepared to abate her pretensions, or she must strengthen her power to enforce them. Dilke and Chamberlain were strongly against giving way to anything which could be regarded as usurpation. Mr. Gladstone, on the other hand, pointed out that to maintain a control, or veto, over the allocation of unappropriated portions of the globe meant large increase of naval expenditure, and he set his face against both. On December 2nd

'Naval expenditure was mentioned. The Cabinet had been about to
agree both to Northbrook's proposals (for Egypt) and to the sums
suggested for the defence of coaling-stations, when Mr. Gladstone
suddenly broke out, told us that he did not much care for himself,
as he now intended to retire, but that had he been twenty-five years
younger nothing could have induced him to consent. A loan he would
not tolerate. Then there was a general veer round, and all went
against the fortifications. Mr. Gladstone, however, said that he
should retire as soon as the Redistribution Bill was carried.'

The affairs of South Africa, where Great Britain was consolidating her position, are also touched on in 1884.

'On March 22nd we had another Cabinet without Mr. Gladstone. The
first matter discussed was Zululand, Chamberlain opposing Kimberley
and Derby, who wished to increase the British Protectorate. At last
Kimberley said: "I see the Cabinet do not want more niggers," and
dropped the scheme.

'On May 17th ... we decided to defend the Zululand reserve against
all comers.'

Later in the year there are entries as to the annexation of Bechuanaland:

October 4th, 'Bechuanaland was discussed, as to which Chamberlain wanted to go to war with the Boers, and had written to me.'

And on November 11th 'there was a Cabinet called on the Bechuanaland trouble, and we discussed votes of money for the Gordon and Bechuanaland expeditions.'

II.

During this year the Central Asian question, always of first-rate interest to Sir Charles, constantly claimed his attention.

'On February 22nd there was a meeting at the Foreign Office which
was intended to be a meeting about my Central Asian scheme, but
which developed into a virtual Cabinet. There were present Mr.
Gladstone, Hartington, Kimberley, Northbrook, myself, Fitzmaurice,
and J. K. Cross, Undersecretary of State for India. The delimitation
of the Afghan frontier was further considered and pretty much
decided.

'Pleasures of Office. I dined with the Dean of Westminster, and was
called away in the middle of dinner to make a speech about Central
Asia, and got back again for coffee.'

'On March 5th Hartington suggested that we should recommence the
Quetta railroad, and it was decided to give a hint to Lord Ripon to
ask for it.'

'August 5th.--Lord Granville informed us that the Shah was alarmed
at the Russian advance upon the Persian frontier, and asked us for
promises.

'August 7th.--There was a meeting of the Central Asian Committee....
Lord Granville, Hartington, Kimberley, I, and Fitzmaurice were
present, with Philip Currie. As to the amount of support to be given
to Persia Lord Granville wrote an excellent despatch, while we were
talking. It was settled that we were to repeat our statements at St.
Petersburg at a convenient opportunity, but to ask the Shah that, as
an earnest of his good intentions towards us, the Persian rivers
should be thrown open to our trade--not a bad touchstone. We
discussed the Afghan boundary, and decided that, if the Russians
would not agree to our proposed starting-point for the delimitation,
we would send an Afghan British Commission without them to make our
own, delimitation.'

'November 18th.--Edmond Fitzmaurice consulted me as to Central Asia.
The Russians had agreed in principle to the delimitation, but ...
had made much delay in questions of detail.'

On the Committee Sir Charles and Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice were unequally yoked with the lethargic Secretary of State for War. Lord Fitzmaurice has vivid recollection of Lord Hartington's entry at one sitting half an hour late, after his fashion. The question turned on the probable action of some Afghan chiefs, whereupon Lord Hartington broke silence by observing reflectively: "I wonder what an Afghan chief is like." Sir Charles, with a glance at the high-nosed, bearded, deliberate face of his colleague, pushed a scribbled note to Lord Edmond: "I expect an Afghan chief is very like the Right Honourable the Marquis of Hartington."'

Sir Charles's interest in this Central Asian question, where political and military interests lay so close together, led to a correspondence, and the correspondence to a friendship, with Lord Roberts.

'In March I received a letter from Sir Frederick Roberts, not yet
personally known to me, in which he enclosed a memorandum by him
called "Is an Invasion of India by Russia Possible?" In his letter
he said that he had given up the idea of returning to Kandahar, and
only desired that we should make ourselves secure upon our new
frontier, improve our relations with the Afghans, and clearly show
that we could not allow the Russians to establish themselves in
Northern Afghanistan. In his printed paper he showed that Persia
might be looked upon as virtually Russian, and that what we had to
do was to prevent Afghanistan falling into the same position. He
incidentally admitted the strength of the view of those of us who
had advocated the evacuation of Kandahar by saying that the Afghans
"must be assured that we have no designs upon their country, and
that even should circumstances require a British occupation of
Kandahar, the direction of all internal affairs would be left in
their hands; we must guarantee them the integrity of their kingdom."
He strongly supported my view that no time should be lost in
defining the northern boundary of Afghanistan.

'Roberts went on to lay down the principle that the main body of a
Russian army destined for the invasion of India must advance by
Herat and Girishk on Kandahar, whence, if not defeated, the Russians
must move by Ghazni, Kabul, and the Khyber. Sir Frederick Roberts
pointed out that India could not place in the field, under the then
conditions, more than 40,000 men, with from 130 to 140 guns. Part of
the native army could be relied on, but, writing as Commander-in-
Chief in Madras, he pointed out that the Southern Indian Sepoys had
not the courage and physique to fight against Russian troops, or
even against natives from the north. On the other hand, many of our
northern native troops would be of doubtful loyalty in the event of
Russia becoming predominant in Afghanistan. "Sir Fred" laid down
the principle of completing railway communication to a point near
Kandahar, with a bridge across the Indus near Sukkur, and generally
described the plan of a vigorous offensive on the Kandahar side and
a defensive on the Khyber line, which has since been adopted.'

'At the end of May I received from Sir Frederick Roberts a letter in
reply to mine, acknowledging the receipt of the Defence of India
papers which I have named. I had told him that the real danger was
that Russia would detach Herat by local intrigue without appearing,
and that I did not see how we could prevent this alarming danger.
Sir Frederick admitted the truth of my view, and again pointed out
the importance of trying to win the friendship of the Afghans. He
favoured my proposals for the delimitation of the northern frontier
of Afghanistan. "But I much doubt Russia's now agreeing to any
proposal of the sort." He ended by expressing his gratification at
our issue of the order for the completion of the railway to Quetta
and Pishin.'

Discussions preliminary to the Budget occupied the Cabinet in January, 1884, and Mr. Childers announced that the Army and Navy Estimates would leave him with a deficit, chiefly because the newly introduced parcel post had been 'a disastrous failure.'

'In the course of this Cabinet of January 24th, I for the first time
stated my views on the subject of army reform. I have a slip of
paper which passed backwards and forwards between Chamberlain and
myself, headed "The condition of the army." I wrote: "Do you
remember my saying one night in our cab to you that I could not go
to the W.O. because of my views upon this very point?" Chamberlain
wrote back: "But that really is the reason why you should go. I have
the lowest opinion of army administration wherever I can test it--
contracts, for instance. It is most ludicrously inefficient." To
which I replied: "The Duke of Cambridge and the old soldiers and the
Queen would make it very nearly hopeless."'

The War Office never tempted Sir Charles as did the Admiralty, where, he wrote to Lord Granville in 1885, 'I fear I should be extravagant.'

III.

A holiday home in the South of France had ceased to be easily accessible to the 'most hard-worked member of the Government.' Though for many years he retained his little villa of 'La Sainte Campagne' near Toulon, nestling in its olive groves with, from windows and cliff, the view of the red porphyry rocks across the deep blue of the bay, he had for some time been negotiating for the purchase of strips of land by the riverside near Shepperton, and among the pines at Pyrford.

In 1883 the building of the cottage at Dockett Eddy was begun, over the door of which he set this inscription:

"Parva sed apta mihi, sed nulli obnoxia, sed non Sordida, parta meo sed tamen aere, domus."

[Footnote: Thus rendered in English by the Rev. W. Tuckwell:

''Tis tiny, but it suits me quite,
Invades no jealous neighbour's right;
'Tis neat and clean, and--pleasant thought--
I earned the cash with which 'twas bought.'

(It was bought out of his official salary.)]

This was to be always his riverside home, and in it he always slept, even after the larger house had been built near by. There he was one of the river's most jealous guardians, and in this year notes that he

'gave evidence before the Select Committee on the River Thames, and
was instrumental in securing the insertion of a clause in the Bill,
afterwards produced by the Committee, which put an end to shooting
on the Thames, and did a great deal to protect the quiet of the
river.'

The Dockett cottage was not finished till 1885, and:

'On Saturday, March 21st, I took a holiday on the river, starting
down with my punt from Taplow Court, and bringing her down to
Dockett Eddy, of which I now took possession, the little house being
now finished.'

On May 22nd, 1884,

'I settled to go on Whitsun Tuesday to look at Lord Onslow's land at
Pyrford, for a winter house. I had forgotten that my ancestor Sir R.
Parkhurst had been Lord of the Manor of Pyrford, and that my
ancestor Sir Edward Zouche had lived even nearer to my new purchase,
at old Woking St. Peter, whence I hear his bells.'

Late in the year

'I settled on my motto for my cottage at Pyrford--a line of Ruskin,
"This is the true nature of Home,--it is the place of Peace."

'The selection meant in my mind that home was about to exist once
more for me.'

'In July, 1884, Mrs. Mark Pattison had been left a widow by the
death of the Rector of Lincoln College. She went to live at The
Lodge, Headington, near Oxford.

'Later in the year we became privately engaged, and told Mr. and
Mrs. Frank Pattison, Mrs. Westlake, Mrs. Earle, and Mrs. Grant Duff,
as well as Chamberlain, but no one else. It was decided that others
should not be told until much later, and to Lord Granville, who
(without mentioning a name) congratulated me, I had to feign
ignorance of what he meant. Mrs. Pattison settled to go to India in
February, March, or April, 1885, to stay with the Governor of Madras
and Mrs. Grant Duff in the hills, and to return in September or
October for our wedding, which before her departure was fixed for
October. Before the return there happened Emilia's typhoid fever at
Ootacamund, and our terrible misfortunes; but the date of October,
1885, was fated to remain the date, and Chamberlain, who had, before
Emilia left, consented to be best man, was best man still. The place
of the wedding alone was changed--from Christ Church Cathedral,
Oxford, to the parish church of Chelsea. Mrs. Grant Duff wrote to us
on being told a most pleasant letter.

'Chamberlain wrote the best letter of his life to her.'

This was the letter:

'40, Prince's Gardens, S.W.,

'November 5th, 1884.

'My Dear Mrs. Pattison,

'Dilke has told me his great secret, and I sympathize with him so
warmly in the new prospects of happiness which are opening for him
that I have asked leave to write to you and to offer my hearty
congratulations.

'I venture to think that we are already friends, and this adds
greatly to the pleasure which this intelligence has given me.

'For many years I have been on the most intimate terms with your
future husband; and while I share the general opinion of the world
as to his talents and force of character, I have better reason than
any other man to appreciate his generosity and goodness, and the
chivalrous delicacy which a natural reserve conceals from casual
acquaintance.

'I prize his friendship as the best gift of my public life, and I
rejoice unfeignedly that he will have a companion so well able to
share his noblest ambitions and to brighten his life.

'I know that you will forgive me this intrusion, which is justified
by the fact that next to yourself I am more interested than anyone
in the change which will bring so much happiness to my dear friend.

'Believe me always,

'Yours most sincerely,

'J. Chamberlain.'