OBITUARY. A PROMINENT LIBERAL STATESMAN.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 22, 27 January 1911, Page 7

OBITUARY. A PROMINENT LIBERAL STATESMAN.

SIR CHARLES DUKE. By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright. (Received January 27, 9.20 a.m.) LONDON, 26th January. The death is announced of Sir Charles Dilke, Liberal member for the Forest of Dean. Sir Charles returned from Hyeres, in the South of France, on Saturday last, and has since been confined to his bed. THE LATE STATESMAN'S CAREER. The Right Hon. Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, Bart., L.L.M.J.P., M.P., wasv born at Cheteea, 4th September, 1843, and was the son of the late Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, one of the commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851, and grandson of Charles Wentworth Dilke, the critic. He received his academical education at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, of which he waß a mathematical scholar, and where he graduated as senior legalist (head of Law Tripos) in January, 1866. In the same year he was called to the Bar at the middle Temple. At Cambridge he row«d "head of the river," and stroke of his college eight, and was twice vice-president, and then president of the Union, a tenure of office without precedent before or since. In 1866 Sir Charles visited America, and, after a considerable stay at San Francisco, sailed for Panama, and thence to New Zealand, Tasmania, and Australia, where he visited all the colonies, and gathered much information as to their political present and their prospects of a commercial future. After visiting Ceylon, Sir Charles returned to England by way of the Indus, Bombay, and Egypt. The result of these journeyings was the publication of "Greater Britain," a work which, treating tho new subject of the influence of race on government and of climatic conditions upon race, had perhaps the greatest success that ever attended the publication of an author's first work. One of its results was the election, in 1868, of Its author to represent the newly-formed borough of Chelsea. Sir Charles Dilke succeeded his father and grandfather in the proprietorship of the AthensEum, and is understood at one time to have followed his grandfather's example, in assuming the editorship himself. He was also tho proprietor of Notes and Queries, and one of the proprietors of The Gardener's Chronicle. In 1875 he published the works of his grandfather, with a memoir, under the title of "Papers of a Critic." IN PARLIAMENT. The chief legislative achievements of Sir Charles beiore 1880 were the creation of school boards directly elected by the ratepayers; the conferring of the municipal franchise on women, the abolition of the barbarous penalty of drawing and quartering; and, in 1878, the extension of the hours of polling at Parliamentary elections in the metropolis by the meaHure known as "Dilke's Act. On the formation of Mr. Gladstone's Administration, in May, 1880, Sir Charles Dilke was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In 1881-82 he was Chairman of the Royal Commission for the negotiation of a commercial treaty with France. In December, 1882, he was made President of the Local Government Board (with a seat in the Cabinet). At the general election of 1885 he was again returned for Chelsea, but in 1836 was defeated by Mr. Whitinore. HIS REPUBLICAN VIEWS. In his early days Sir Charles Dilke was the head of the fighting Radicals, and preached Republicanism both inside and outside the House. It was a matter of some surprise when he accepted an invitation to join Mr. Gladstone's Government of 1880, and he only consented to do so on condition that Mr. Chamberlain was included. Though weft versed in all Imperial topics, he never pulled well with tho fiosebery section, and was the means of subjecting the Liberal Government to a damaging defeat on the Address only a few days after Mr. Gladstone's successor had taken office. In 1892 he was elected M.P. for tho Forest of Dean division of Gloucestershire, which he continued to represent up lo the time of his death. Sir Charles married, first, Catherine, daughter of the late Captain A. G. Shiel. She died in 1874. Eleven years later Sir Charles Dilke married Mrs. Mark Pattison, widow of the late Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford. Some revelations in the Divorce Court were the cause of Sir Charles's retirement from office in tho Liberal Government, in which he might otherwise have attained high rank, since his knowledge of European politics was unsurpassed among his contemporaries, if equalled. After a temporary absence from Parliament, however, he returned to Westminster as member for the Forest of Dean, and with tongue and pen has rendered good service to the Liberal cause. Among the more important political works published by the late statesman were "The Present Position of European Politics," which was translated into French under the title of "L'Europe en 1867," "Problems of Greater Britain," which has passed through several editions in England, the United States, and the colonies, and others. In conjunction with Mr. Spencer Wilkinson, he ako wrote a volume entitled "Imperial, Defence" in 1891. The death creates a vacancy for the Forest of Dean Division, for which Sir Charles was re-elected last month by a majority of 2724.