ART. VI.-Mr. Disraeli as Minister.

The Times,' February to June, 1875.

Ar the risk of being charged with a fondness for paradox, we record our conviction that the great Tory triumph of last year was a greater misfortune to the statesman whom it lifted to a height of power which was not reached even by his illustrious rival in his most palmy days, than to any one else. Mr. Gladstone was defeated, to a certain extent humiliated, by the crushing disaster which drove him from office and converted his party into a number of disorganized atoms, but his true greatness was unaffected by the hasty verdict of the nation, given in a moment of panic and passion. But if the unexpected results of the election proved that the nation, in a fit of foolish irritation, had withdrawn its confidence either from the Liberal leader himself or from some of those with whom he was associated, they did not indicate any decline of the admiration which his great intellectual and moral power has always commanded. His reputation as a leader suffered for the time, but already he is rapidly recovering what he seemed to have lost, and whether he be in or out of office he is felt to be the greatest statesman of his day.

Mr. Disraeli, on the other hand, has lost in prestige more than he has gained in power. He is still the chief of a hundred legions who are ready to follow his standard, but even among them his name has not the talismanic power it possessed eighteen months ago, while outside their circle it is impossible to deny that his reputation has been seriously damaged. Success has only served to prick the bubble which friends and admirers have so long been engaged in blowing. He has had a great opportunity, and he has shown himself unequal to it. The reputation which had been built up by years of skilful strategy and patient waiting in opposition, has been all but destroyed by a year and a half of indolence and vacillation, feeble counsels and unwise words, in power. Slowly but surely a belief in his decline is spreading, and unless there should be some extraordinary revival of energy, the world at large will soon confirm the judgment which astute politicians on both sides of the House have formed

that Mr. Disraeli's premiership is a failure, and we fear we must add that his work is done.

Had it been his misfortune to be a Liberal, instead of a Conservative leader, he would long ere this have found candid friends in abundance ready to give public expression to this conviction. Some superior person' would, in a spirit of refreshing frankness and philosophic impartiality, have undertaken the painful task of exposing the weaknesses and faults of his leader, and not content even to deal with the facts as they are known to the world, would have filled up the lacune in the story out of his own too fertile imagination, so as to make the case wear a darker aspect. His indictment would doubtless have been relieved by sparkling epigrams or carefully prepared witticisms, and enforced by pieces of vehement invective, that the House, moved alternately to pitying scorn or passionate indignation, might realise the immense difference between a high-minded and independent politician and the blundering or intriguing man whom some strange accident has made the chief of a great historic party. Critics of this stamp seem to be bred almost exclusively in the preserves of aristocratic Liberalism. Members of the Extreme Left are sure to differ at times from a leader of more moderate opinions, but it is not among them that we see the reckless outbursts of disappointed ambition and sore personal feeling which do more than the widest diversity of political sentiment to make party organization impossible. It is strange that in this country as well as in France, the task of the Left Centre -from which probably in both countries, and certainly in this, the Liberal chief must be taken-is hindered much more by the selfish littleness of a few trimmers, leaning towards the Right, than by the extravagance or unreasonableness of those of more advanced opinions. We have our Wallon group, and they are the true difficulty of the party, and would be a greater difficulty still if it were possible for them to agree among themselves. A Liberal chief, whether in or out of office, has always to hold himself ready for one of those erratic movements which they are so fond of conducting, and which, though undertaken professedly with a friendly object, tell so powerfully in favour of the enemy.

To do Toryism justice, it does not produce men of this

His Fortunate Position.

177 calibre. The Horsmans and Bouveries do not find their counterparts in the Bentincks, the Beresford Hopes, and others who maintain a show of independence on the Tory benches. Even journals which are noted for the keenness of their criticism, and which, when they claimed to be Liberal, were never weary of exposing and reviling the Liberal ministry, seem to have changed their spirit with that change of party relations which they now hardly attempt to conceal. It is amusing to contrast the severity with which the lightest of Mr. Gladstone's offences was visited with the treatment of the far graver mistakes of his successor. But it does not surprise us. The one point with writers and politicians of this class is to prevent the return to power of Liberalism with 'blazing 'principles,' and they will 'bear all things, suffer all things, 'endure all things,' rather than run the risk of that. They have had a scare, and in the joy of their supposed escape from the danger with which they were threatened, and their eagerness to prevent its recurrence, they are in no mood to be harsh. towards the mistakes of one whom they regard as the author of their deliverance. There is a commendable disposition, too, on all sides, to regard with some indulgence one who has so long been engaged in an uphill fight, and who has only attained power at an age at which he cannot, in the ordinary course of nature, be supposed equal to its vigorous exercise. When to these considerations we add the fact that the Liberal party is without programme, without discipline, without its natural leader, that its truest friends would deprecate its speedy return to office, and that there is, therefore, neither the desire nor the ability to take advantage of any mistake which its opponents commit, it ceases to be matter for surprise that the many signs of feebleness in the ministry have attracted less notice than might have been expected. In a normal state of political opinions and parties, they must have brought about a change of Government before this. How long the spirit of quietism which has paralysed a nation too prosperous to be zealous in the cause of progress, the disorganization which still prevails throughout the Liberal host, and the strange favour with which the remarkable man at the head of the Tory party has always been regarded, will suffice to screen the blunders of incompetence, or the laches

of sheer indifference, or the assumptions of official arrogance, from the condemnation they so richly merit, we do not pretend to say. We are historians, not prophets. Our work is to indicate the signs of the failure of the Disraeli ministry. How long it will be before its decline issues in its fall, it is beyond our province to determine. But certain we are that there must be a limit to the forbearance imposed by the present exceptional circumstances, and that England cannot long be ruled by a Government which has all but renounced the attempt to govern, and whose hopes and aims might be summed up in the selfish desire of Hezekiah, that there might be peace in his time.

We have no special pleasure in recording this fact, beyond that arising from the proof which it furnishes of the essential weakness of Toryism in dealing with the great social and political problems of the day. It has had no opportunity for the display of its genius since the passing of the Reform Bill, except during the brief period when Sir Robert Peel was supreme, and he, with the sound instinct of a true politician, cast aside its most cherished maxims, and used a great Tory majority to enforce Liberal ideas. At last, however, we seemed to have got a Tory ministry able to work its own will, for if there was but little genuine Toryism in the Prime Minister, there were others in the Cabinet prepared to supply what was lacking in him; and as circumstances of which we shall have to speak presently abundantly prove, they have had the power to assert their will, even where it has come across that of their chief. The Marquis of Salisbury has learned from experience. He did not enter the ministry with the memories of 1867 still rankling in his breast, and he has not continued in it under the provocation of the biting words used by the Premier in relation to him in the last session, without some sufficient reason. Office could have no temptation for him if it did not give him power, and power is valuable only as it enables him to maintain those exalted ideas of class privilege of which he has made himself the champion. He would not be in the Cabinet if he could not be one of its ruling spirits, and where he rules we must have Toryism of the most pronounced type-sensible and practical, as far as these qualties are compatible with the preservation of

Weakness of Toryism.

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the rights and privileges of favoured orders, but high-handed, resolute, and uncompromising, with a haughty scorn for modern ideas, and an unconcealed pleasure in braving popular prejudice. The Cabinet, so far as its action has been inspired by him, has attempted to conduct our affairs on pure Tory principles, and we cannot affect to regret the proof which has thus been given of its unfitness for the work of the age. We hear and read a wonderful amount of Tory cant. It is supposed to be fashionable, and the whole generation of snobs, never more numerous than at present, adopt it, and fancy that it savours of society, of culture, and of good breeding, we know not how many fine and beautiful things beside. The special organ of gentlemen' has recently undertaken to prove that England has always been Conservative at heart, that the long series of successes won by the Liberal party have only been a number of 'flukes,' and were due as much to the weakness or cowardice of their opponents as to the power of their friends, and that the lesson to be drawn from them is the necessity for taking a firm stand, and avoiding like errors in the future. Yet, in the midst of all this, Toryism can do little. It has tried its 'prentice hand at legislation, but the result has only been disappointment. It has able men, capable of striking out bold thoughts, and putting them into form; but they are so fettered by the conditions under which they act, and the claims of the vested interests they are bound to consult, that they are powerless. The hands of Samson were not more effectually tied than are the energies of the men who have yielded themselves to the seductions of this Delilah of aristocratic exclusiveness, and suffered her to rob them of intellectual strength and political freedom. It might have been thought that sanitary reform, at all events, was a point on which decided action might be taken, which would be welcomed by all classes. But there are vested interests even in dirt, with its invariable attendants, and a Government which has undertaken the defence of established privileges cannot allow even these to be needlessly harassed by an aggressive and meddling Liberalism.

The attitude of Toryism, as has now been demonstrated, is that of absolute rest. Its advocates always profess their readiness for safe and necessary reforms, but the difficulty is