SIR CHARLES DILKE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 227, 31 January 1911, Page 5

SIR CHARLES DILKE

TRIBUTE FROM ALL PARTS. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. London, January 29. i Tributes to the late Sir Charles Dilke have been received from all parts, including one from the King of Greece. The Greek Government will send a wreath to the funeral to-morrow.

A POLITICAL TRAGEDY. A CABINET MINISTER'S WRECKED CAREER.

The Right Hon. Sir Charles Wentwortli Dilke, Bart., was horn at Chelsea on September 4, 1843, being the eldest son of Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, who received his title for his services in connection with the Exhibition in 1851. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, of which he was a mathematical scholar, and where he graduated as senior legalist (head of the Law Tripos) in 1860. In the same year he was called to the Bar at the .Middle Temple. At Cambridge he rowed ''head of the River" and stroke of his college eight, and was twice vice-president and then twice president of the Union, a tenure of office without precedent before or since. In 1866 he commenced a series of extensive travels, visiting Canada and the United States, Panama, New Zealand, and all oE the Australian Colonies, Ceylon, India, and Egypt, The book in which he embodied the results of the.se travels, entitled "Greater Britain: A Record of Travel in English-speaking Colonies during 1860-67," was in scheme an original study of the influence of race on government and of climatic conditions upon race. For an author's first book its success was nothing less than phenomenal. It passed through four editions in a single year in England, and had a still larger vogue in America. One of its first results was the election of its author in 1808 by a two-to-one majority as member for Chelsea in the House of Commons.

TILTS AT ROYALTY. Sir Charles, who was a Radical in politics, was at that time the youngest man who had over represented a metropolitan constituency. In Parliament he chiefly spoke upon foreign. Indian, and colonial affairs. Having in IS7I been attacked for holding Republican principles, he admitted publicly that lie had always preferred a republican- form of government to a constitutional monarchy. The length* to which he carried his sentiment.-; on this cpiestion threatened at one time to he the ruin of his political career. For a time it might have been tlioiigiit that a new political party wvs on the point of being formed, and that a real Republican, seated in the House of Commons as member for a metropolitan constituency, was to be its leader. But one day an unfortunate event happened, which blighted all the hopes of the anti-Monarchical party, as if by an untimely frost. The Prince of Wales fell ill, and from the hour when his illness became serious down to the present moment nothing further has been heard of the movement which it was once supposed Sir Charles Dilke was ready to lead against the Throne."

A SOLID POLITICIAN. It was a false start in political life which would have wrecked the prospects of a less able man, but the career of Sir Charles Dilke was not ruined. lie kept quietly hi the background for a while, engaging himself in the steady and solid preparation for the work and life of a statesman. Soon he bad studied politics with such thoroughness that few men of liis age in England could compare with him in depth of knowledge or breadth nf judgment. In spite of violent opposition, Sir Charles Dilke was again returned at the head of the poll for Chelsea at the elections of 1874. Among his early legislative achievements were the creation of school boards directly elected by the ratepayers, the conferring of the municipal franchise on women, and the abolition of tlie barbarous penalty of drawing and quartering. In Mr. Gladstone's Administration of 1880 he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In December, 1882, he was made President of the Local Government Board, with a seat in the Cabinet.

The extreme wing of the (jladstonian party looked to the young and brilliant baronet as their leader, and among the working men of the country he had nn influence that was not eclipsed even by Mr. Chamberlain's rising star. The two men were fast friends, anil worked together. They were the first to organise Radicalism as a political force, and their support became a matter of snth moment to Mr. (Iladstone that he was obliged to lind room for both of them in his Ministry of ISSO. At that time it was a toss-up which was the abler, which the more promising, which the more certain to rise to a commanding, if not the highest position—Chamberlain or Dilke.

Tin'] WRECK OF A CAREER. Then came that unsavoury Divorce Court scandal that wrecked a career of so much real hopefulness. Were it not for disclosures then made as to his private life he would have been, in tue opinion of many, one of the foremost statesmen of the country, and quite the foremost of the Liberal party. As it was, the strong insistence of English puritanism upon a high standard of private conduct in their public men virtually ostracised and nullified him. tie retained his seat in Parliament, hut he was passed over in the appointments to the Liberal Cabinets since 1510(1, atiu has been condemned to impotence in public life.