Joseph Chamberlain and Foreign Policy, 1895-1903. Dominic Michel Bray This thesis is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Phd) at The University of East Anglia. School of History. September 2015 ©”This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived there from must be in accordance with current UK Copyright Law. In addition, any quotation or extract must include full attribution.” Abstract This thesis investigates Joseph Chamberlain’s conceptualisations of foreign policy while colonial secretary, 1895 to 1903. While Chamberlain’s influential position has been noted in the historiography it has not been central to any study. Therefore Chamberlain’s motivation and aims are not clearly understood. Most often his ideas are contrasted with Salisbury’s, who currently enjoys a very high reputation as a realpolitck Foreign Secretary, with a clear sense of perspective and direction. This study will therefore reconsider how Chamberlain’s opinions interacted with Salisbury’s. The current debate also under-represents Balfour’s own dissention from Salisbury and his own bid to control or influence British foreign policy. Therefore, this study sits firmly within the debate on British Isolation while acknowledging the Decline debate. Chamberlain was motivated to solve the problem of defending British interests, formal and informal, while Britain suffered from over-extension. His interest in a German alliance was heightened by events in China but was not limited to them; hence he was not content with the security afforded by the Anglo-Japanese alliance. An Anglo-German Alliance was to be the beginning of a new global Power bloc which would then order the world mainly for the benefit of its members. However, Chamberlain’s enthusiasm for an Anglo-German alliance began to decline much earlier than historians normally allow. Likewise, although tense, Chamberlain’s working relationship with Salisbury was stronger than has been previously allowed. Chamberlain’s Cabinet colleagues also made use of his assertive nature in order to ensure opposition to Salisbury’s policy was not dismissed without having to compromise their own relationships with the Prime Minister. Chamberlain was unsuccessful in negotiating an Anglo-German alliance and so turned to Imperial Preference in order to strengthen the Empire as a solution to Britain’s stretched resources. 2 Contents Acknowledgements 4 Introduction: Chamberlain and the Historians 5 1: Making a Stand: Chamberlain and West Africa. 19 2: The Storm Clouds: Chamberlain and the Climate of Foreign Affairs. 50 3: Seeking a Safe Harbour: Chamberlain and the Port Arthur Crisis. 76 4: He who dares: Chamberlain and Alliance talks. 122 5: The Triumvirate Dance: Salisbury, Chamberlain, Balfour and Anglo-German negotiations. 173 6: When dreaming ends: Chamberlain and the turn to Empire. 212 Conclusion 265 Abbreviations 276 Select Bibliography 277 3 Acknowledgements There are many people to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude. This thesis would not have been possible without their support, assistance and guidance. Firstly I would like to thank my supervisory team, Dr Geoff Hicks, the sadly missed Dr Larry Buttler, Professor Anthony Howe, and my primary supervisor, Professor John Charmley. His guidance, encouragement and belief have all contributed to my seeing this project to its completion. Without him and his encouragement, to think and question freely, I doubt I would have been able to push very far at all. I would also like to thank all the staff of the University of East Anglia, School of History, for their support and encouragement. I would also like to thank the staff of the University of Birmingham’s Special Collections now housed in the Cadbury research rooms. Their professional advice and assistance was invaluable, likewise the staff of both the Bodleian and British Libraries. The staff at The National Archive are almost as valuable as the records in their care. There can be no more approachable and sympathetic guides to the labyrinth of British official records. I would like to thank Lord Robert Michael James Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury for his gracious permission to consult his family’s records. I would also like to thank the staff at Hatfield House, especially Vicki, who manages the archives. I would also like to thank Izzy and Howard Rider, my parents, for their continued support, both moral and financial, literally without their contribution I would not know where I would be. I would also like to thank Alexander and Faye Abbot for their generous hospitality in providing a home closer to the fronts in the archives. And, finally I’d like to thank Tiffany, my wife, for her unfailing support, encouragement and belief and to our two young daughters, Alaina and Elodie, I hope they can forgive me for having been absent so often. This thesis, is therefore dedicated to them as my interest in the past, will hopefully, build a future for them. 4 Introduction: Chamberlain and the Historians. Joseph Chamberlain remains a controversial figure; there appear to be almost as many opinions about him and his policies as there are authors writing on them. This is perhaps perfectly natural; he was, after all, a man who failed to find home within the party political system of the late nineteenth century. Contemporaries found it just as difficult to understand him as those who have tried to interpret him from the distance of years. Perhaps because of this, Chamberlain remains a perplexing figure of interest and one where the puzzle remains unsolved. The overall aim of this current study is to contribute to a better understanding of how Chamberlain approached power and international relations. For a man whose name is and was synonymous with the word ‘Imperialism’ it is curious that a search of the British Library’s catalogue does not return a single work with his name in the title and foreign relations as a subject. This is surprising considering that he was Colonial Secretary during the high tide of Imperialism, with all the Great Power rivalry that came with it. This surely falls into the subject of foreign relations, yet no work currently exists which directly examines Chamberlain’s role in the formation of, or opinions on, foreign policy. This is the deficiency that the current study primarily intends fill, at least with regards to his time served in the Unionist governments of 1895-1903. Even in the realm of biography, foreign affairs is often ignored or reduced to a case study.1 Biographers of Chamberlain have a particularly difficult task. There are many controversies, twists and turns to the story of Chamberlain’s life which leaves the seemingly small role played by foreign relations as unimportant. Next to South Africa, Irish Home rule, Tariff Reform, Imperial Federation and the ‘unauthorised Radical Programmes’; the alliance talks with Germany, relations with France and friendly overtures to the United States all seem small and uninteresting. This task was not 1 Fraser P., Joseph Chamberlain. Radicalism and Empire, 1868-1914, (London, 1966) 5 helped by the authorised biography of Garvin and Amery.2 The six volume work was authored by one of Chamberlain’s contemporaries and admirers, Garvin, and completed by the son of a Tariff Reformer, Amery. Therefore, its claim to objectivity is subject to some scepticism. This work embarked upon the unenviable task of portraying Chamberlain to posterity as a giant of the Victorian era, a man of vision, ahead of his time and as an archetype of the unheeded 'voice in the wilderness'. To do this it had to attempt to dispel the most unsavoury accusations made against Chamberlain, namely the alleged betrayal of Dilke, the odium which stuck with him after the Jameson Raid, made worse by the final outbreak of war in South Africa and Lloyd George’s accusations that the Chamberlain family were profiteering from that war. This would have been difficult enough even if it were a simple matter to interpret Chamberlain as a success and the very model of a statesman, which of course it is not: The fact that Chamberlain failed to turn more than a handful of his ideas into either social legislation, alliances, tariffs, railways or even closer imperial ties, made Garvin’s task an unenviable one. Very few of Chamberlain’s contemporaries can boast such a large biography, Salisbury certainly cannot compete but then neither can Gladstone. Only Disraeli comes close. This is perhaps a clue; the length of Chamberlain’s biography, and perhaps Disraeli’s, is proportional to the difficulty of understanding its subject. It is remarkable that a man, who never held the office of Prime Minister, or even one of the senior cabinet posts, has a six volume biography. Winston Churchill famously commented that “’Joe’ was the one who made the weather” and this is another clue.3 Despite all of Chamberlain’s apparent failures, he was still, somehow, a man of extraordinary influence and force of personality. Garvin’s hagiography essentially set up the framework for the historical debate on Chamberlain but failed to reconcile his influence with his failures. The debate has ever since revolved around whether Chamberlain was a successful politician - a great statesman - or a tragic failure: whether he was motivated by deep 2 Garvin, J.L. The Life of Joseph Chamberlain, I, (London, 1932); Garvin, J.L. The Life of Joseph Chamberlain, II, (London, 1933); Garvin, J.L. The Life of Joseph Chamberlain, III, (London, 1934); Amery, J. The Life of Joseph Chamberlain, IV, (London, 1951); Amery, J. The Life of Joseph Chamberlain, V, (London, 1969); Amery, J. The Life of Joseph Chamberlain, VI, (London, 1969) 3 Churchill W.S., Great Contemporaries, (London, 1937) p.