Chapter LVI · (continued 2)

'"Balfour would be very willing to express his favourable opinion of our view in debate in the House of Commons, should we raise one next Session, and Lord Salisbury is less inclined to make a strong and distinctly favourable reply to our letter than is Balfour.

'"Balfour would go more willingly, if possible, than he does into the schemes if he could see his way beforehand to the saving of money on the army for the purpose of devoting it to the navy. He says that he himself cannot put his finger on the waste which he knows must exist, that Buller has to some extent his confidence and tells him that there is none, although Balfour is not convinced by this. We discussed our Indian army scheme, to which he sees no objection, and (very fully) the Duke of Cambridge and the extent to which he will be supported by the Queen.

'"Balfour sees immense difficulty in the absence of a sufficiently commanding expert, and in the consequent jealousy between the Admiralty and War Office officials.

'"Will the letter which Sir George Chesney has do as a base, or would it be better to write a shorter and a fresh letter? If the latter, will you try your hand at it, if you approve? And after noting this will you return it to me, that I may send it to Sir George Chesney and then to Arnold-Forster?

'"Balfour had in reading us [Footnote: "Us" refers to the joint work on Imperial Defence. One of the recommendations was to substitute marines for soldiers in the small garrisons, such as Bermuda.] asked questions through George Hamilton, who agrees with us, on the point of further employment of marines, and has been told that they would be sadly costly.

'"Yours very truly, '"Charles W. Dilke."'

APPENDIX II

In reply to the joint letter, Chamberlain wrote to Dilke:

"I have received the interesting paper on the subject of National Defence which you have communicated to me on behalf of yourself and the other signatories. One of the greatest difficulties which any politician must feel in dealing with this question has been the apparent difference of opinion among those best qualified to speak authoritatively on the subject, and it is an important advance to find practical proposals agreed to by some of those who have given special study to the problems involved. Without venturing at the present state of the inquiry to commit myself to any specific proposal, I may say that I am favourably inclined to the main lines laid down in your paper—namely, the closer union between the two great departments of national defence, and the recognition of the responsibility of the professional advisers of the Cabinet on all questions of military and naval provision and administration."

Mr. Balfour wrote:

"I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of February 12th, dealing with certain very important points connected with the problem of National Defence. Though it would be inopportune for me to pass any detailed judgment upon the scheme which you have laid before me in outline, and though it is evident that difficulties of a serious kind must attend any effort to carry out so important a change in our traditional methods of dealing with the Admiralty and the War Office, I may yet be permitted to express my own conviction that the evils that you indicate are real evils, and that the imperfections in our existing system, on which you insist, might under certain not impossible contingencies seriously imperil our most important national interests.

"That four gentlemen of different training, belonging to different parties in the State, approaching this subject from different points of view, and having little, perhaps, in common except a very intimate knowledge of the questions connected with National Defence, should be in entire agreement as to the general lines along which future reformation should proceed, is a fact of which the public will doubtless take note, and which is not likely to be ignored by those responsible for the preservation of the Empire."

'Our letter was in all the papers about February 28th (1894), with replies from Balfour and Chamberlain. Mr. Gladstone's reply, written just before he resigned, was in his own hand, and more than usually legible. Though it was not marked "Private," I did not print it, as it seemed too personal and playful. It meant that he had resigned, but I did not know this till an hour after I had received it:

'"You will forgive my pleading eyesight, which demanded the help of others and thereby retarded operations, as an excuse for my having failed to acknowledge the paper on Naval Defence which you were so good as to send me. You will, I fear, find me a less interesting correspondent than some who have replied at length, for I fear I ought to confine myself to assuring you that I have taken care it should come to the notice of my colleagues."

'On March 9th I sat near to Asquith at a dinner, and he told me that his Defence Committee of the Cabinet, favoured by Balfour and Rosebery, would soon be "a fact." The decision was made known in a debate which I raised on the 16th.'

A note adds: 'When the Tories came in in June, 1895, they adopted the scheme of a Minister (the Duke of Devonshire) over both army and navy, which had been put forward in the Dilke—Chesney—Arnold-Forster— Wilkinson correspondence with Balfour and Chamberlain, and originally invented by me. On the night of the Government (Liberal) defeat Campbell-Bannerman had promised a Commander-in-Chief who should be the Chief Military Adviser, a double triumph for my view.'