[BENJAMIN DISRAELI, Earl of Beaconsfield; born, London, December
21, 1804; died, London, April 19, 1881; baptized in the Church of
England, 1817; privately educated; studied law in a solicitor's
office, 1821-24; 1825, published his first novel "Vivian Grey";
1830-31, traveled in Europe and the Levant; his novel "Contarini
Fleming" attracts notice 1832; after defeats becomes Member of
Parliament for Maidstone 1837; marries Mrs. Wyndham Lewis 1839;
leads the "Protectionist" attack on Peel 1846; leader of
opposition 1849-52, 1852-58, 1859-66, 1868-74; Chancellor of
Exchequer 1852, 1858-59, 1866-68; Premier 1868, 1874-80.]
The expansion of the English domain by discovery and colonization
or by war and conquest has been one of the distinguishing
features of the nineteenth century. The movement may be said to
have begun with the planting of the North American colonies two
hundred years before. A century later the victories of Lord Clive
and the administration of Warren Hastings, the empire-builder,
laid a broad foundation for British dominion in India. Before the
dawn of the nineteenth century the voyages of Captain James Cook
in the South Pacific had opened new doors to Anglo-Saxon
expansion in Australia, New Zealand, and the neighboring islands.
In 1806 England wrested from the Dutch the sovereignty of Cape
Colony at the southern extremity of Africa, the strategic half-
way station on the main traveled sea-road to India and the East.
Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus in the Mediterranean, Aden,
Singapore, and Hong Kong in the Far Eastern seas were acquired
and fortified in order to protect British commerce. It could be
said with truth that the sun never set upon the flag of England,
and that the morning drum-beat of her garrisons saluted the sun
in his daily journey around the world. At the close of the
century the foreign possessions of Great Britain amounted in area
to ten million square miles, and in population to three hundred
and fifty million souls.
The problems which have sprung from this vast colonial empire
have been among the most serious which English statesmen have
been compelled to face. The colonies in America and Australia
were English in blood, language, and institutions. In South
Africa a large proportion of the inhabitants were Dutch "Boers,"
transferred without their consent and against their will to a
foreign sovereignty. In India and Burma the English established
their authority and maintained it by force of arms over teeming
native populations of another race and religion. How to hold
together an empire so vast and various; how to adapt
administrative methods to its novel and changing needs; how, if
possible, to organize the incongruous multitude of dependencies,
colonies, and protected states into some sort of federal empire--
these are among the newer problems of British statesmanship.
Americans know how imperfectly the ministers of George III. were
prepared to deal with such problems, and how their blundering
resulted in the independence of the United States. The lesson of
1776 has not been forgotten, as the history of England's
conciliatory policy toward Canada and the Australasian
commonwealth abundantly testifies. Lord Tennyson's verses,
written in the year of the Queen's jubilee, give expression to
the altered relation of the mother-country toward her colonial
offspring:
"Britain fought her sons of yore,
Britain failed; and nevermore,
Careless of our growing kin,
Shall we sin our fathers' sin;
Men that in a narrower day -
Unprophetic rulers they-
Drove from out the eagle's nest
That young eagle of the West
To forage for herself alone;
Britons, hold your own!
"Sharers of our glorious past,
Brothers, must we part at last?
Shall we not thro' good and ill
Cleave to one another still?
Britain's myriad voices call,
Sons be welded each and all
Into one imperial whole,
One with Britain, heart, and soul!
One life, one fleet, one flag, one throne!
Britons, hold your own."
Although as yet no statesman has arisen who has been able to
frame a plan of federation which should weld all into "one
imperial whole," the idea is abroad, and has occupied many minds.
Perhaps the man whose powerful imagination first grasped the
"imperial" idea and began to look upon Greater Britain as having
common interests, and being capable of assuming common
responsibilities, was Lord Beaconsfield, or Benjamin Disraeli--to
use the name by which he first came into public notice. Death
hushed his active mind before he could give form and substance to
his great concept, and it was left to others trained in his
school to propagate the idea, and just at the century's close to
demonstrate its significance and worth. Yet what he did for
England through a long life spent in conspicuous public service
renders it impossible to exclude him from any list of Ten Great
Englishmen of the nineteenth century. Nor is there in the entire
group a personality more interesting than that of the ambitious,
determined, witty, eloquent, and amazingly clever Israelite who
raised himself by sheer force of intellect from an object of
ridicule and contempt to the leadership of the hereditary
aristocracy, membership in the House of Lords, chief minister of
England, friend of the sovereign, and arbiter of the destinies of
nations. On that January night in 1846, when Sir Robert Peel, as
Prime Minister, confessed to the House of Commons his conversion
to the theory of free trade, and his purpose to repeal the Corn
Laws, he was answered by Benjamin Disraeli in a speech which for
bitterness of sarcasm, brilliancy of wit, and savagery of
denunciation, has seldom been equaled in parliamentary history.
(See Appendix.) He denounced Peel as "a man who never originates
an idea; a watcher of the atmosphere; a man who takes his
observations, and when he finds the wind in a particular quarter
turns his sails to suit it.....Such a man may be a powerful
minister, but he is no more a great statesman than the man who
gets up behind a carriage is a great whip!" Such an attack,
voicing the feelings of the Tory protectionists, and coming from
Peel's own side of the House, at that critical moment, made the
political fortune of the speaker. From that hour Benjamin
Disraeli was looked upon as the hope of the remnant of the Tory
party, which could no longer follow Peel.
Disraeli was in his tenth year of membership in the House of
Commons. He was a descendant of a line of Spanish and Venetian
Jews who had sought refuge in England and prospered there. His
father, Isaac Disraeli, had broken with the family traditions,
devoting himself to literature instead of getting gain, and had
renounced the faith of his fathers. The son, Benjamin, was
baptized into the Church of England at the age of thirteen,
educated among his father's books and in private schools, and at
seventeen articled to a firm of London solicitors. Instead of
practicing law the young clerk practiced authorship so cleverly
as to make a sensation in his twenty-first year with a novel
"Vivian Grey" (1826), the first of eleven ("Young Duke," 1831;
"Contarini Fleming," 1832; "Alroy," 1833; "Henrietta Temple,"
1836; "Venetia," 1837; "Coningsby," 1844; "Sybil," 1845;
"Tancred," 1847; "Lothair," 1870; "Endymion," 1880), besides
several long poems, burlesques, and political pamphlets, and "The
Life of Lord George Bentinck." "Vivian Grey" was very smartly
done, and fashionable London was captivated by its clever satire
and witty dialogue. On the profits of his earlier books he
traveled extensively in Europe and the Levant, where his Oriental
imagination was strongly stimulated. Before he was thirty he had
won his way into the most exclusive circles of London society,
the vogue of his novels and the brilliancy of his conversational
powers commending him to the "smart set" of the metropolis. His
determination "to be somebody" in spite of the disadvantages of
blood, birth, and lack of money led him to ridiculous
affectations--yet, however ridiculed at the time, they served his
turn, and brought him the notice that he craved. N. P. Willis,
who saw the much-talked-about young Israelitish novelist at Lady
Blessington's, wrote of the strange vision: "He was sitting in a
window looking on Hyde Park, the last rays of sunlight reflected
from the gorgeous gold flowers of a splendidly embroidered
waistcoat. Patent leather pumps, a white stick with a black cord
and tassel, and a quantity of chains about his neck and pockets
served to make him a conspicuous object. He has one of the most
remarkable faces I ever saw. He is lividly pale, and but for the
energy of his actions and the strength of his lungs, would seem
to be a victim of consumption. His eye is black as Erebus, and
has the most mocking, lying-in-wait sort of expression
conceivable. His mouth is alive with a kind of working and
impatient nervousness; and when he has burst forth as he does
constantly with a particularly successful cataract of expression,
it assumes a curl of triumphant scorn that would be worthy of
Mephistopheles. His hair is as extraordinary as his taste in
waistcoats. A thick, heavy mass of jet-black ringlets falls on
his left cheek almost to his collarless stock, which on the right
temple is parted and put away with the smooth carefulness of a
girl." A lady who met him at dinner described him as appareled in
a black velvet coat lined with satin, purple trousers with a gold
stripe on the outside seam, a scarlet waistcoat, lace wristbands
to his finger tips, white gloves with flashy rings worn outside.
Add to these the flowing black ringlets, and do not wonder that
his hostess told the young man that he was making a fool of
himself. Froude says he dressed in this fantastic guise to give
the impression of folly so that his sudden displays of brilliancy
might have the more striking effect coming from such an unlikely
source.
Self-esteem was abounding in the young Hebrew, and he did not
hesitate to compare himself with others to his own advantage. At
twenty-nine he wrote his sister after an evening in the gallery
of the House of Commons, "Heard Macaulay's best speech.....but
between ourselves I could floor them all!" Egotism it doubtless
was, but it sprang from no empty confidence in himself. The time
was not distant when he was the acknowledged master of the House
which looked so tempting from the galleries. He had offered
himself as a Tory with Radical ideas--a combination as unusual as
his style of apparel--to the electors of High Wycombe in June,
1832, but was beaten, as he was again in the autumn. It was said
that in one of his early candidacies he replied to an elector,
who had asked him on what he intended to stand, in the
sententious phrase "on my head!" In 1834 he stood for Taunton,
only to be defeated a third time. O'Connell, who had helped him
in his first campaign, was mortally offended by Disraeli's
allusion to his "bloody hand" in the Taunton canvass. The Irish
orator, in a bitter rejoinder at Dublin, denounced Disraeli as a
Jewish traitor, "the heir at law of the blasphemous thief that
died upon the cross."
After many fruitless struggles the coveted seat was won, and in
1837 Benjamin Disraeli entered the House of Commons for
Maidstone, his colleague being Wyndham Lewis, the friend whose
good offices had gained him the nomination. Not long after the
death of Mr. Lewis, in 1838, Mr. Disraeli married his lively
widow, a woman to whose devotion not less than to her ample
fortune he owed a debt of gratitude which he never failed to
acknowledge.
Welcomed to the ranks of the Tory opposition by Sir Robert Peel,
the ambitious recruit plunged at once into oratory--only to have
his maiden effort drowned by the jeers of his hostile hearers,
led by O'Connell's "tail" of Irish members. They mocked at his
appeals for a hearing, and though the Tories cheered his pluck,
he could not make it go. "At last, losing his temper, which until
now he had preserved in a wonderful manner, he paused in the
midst of a sentence, and looking the Liberals indignantly in the
face, raised his hands and opening his mouth as widely as its
dimensions would admit, said, in a remarkably loud and almost
terrific tone, 'I have begun, several times, many things, and I
have often succeeded at last; aye, sir, and though I sit down
now, the time will come when you will hear me.'"
Nor did he ever again fail to get a hearing. He spoke often and
to the point, enlivening his solid argument with touches of wit
and gleams of imagination which light up the dreary pages of the
parliamentary journals. At the first he was the steady supporter
of Peel, but this clever man of ideals, imagination, and insight,
could have little in common with that prosy, plodding man of
business, whose stronghold was in the esteem of the plodding
middle classes. When the Tories came into power in 1841, with
Peel as Prime Minister, he found no place in his government for
the supporter whose talent all parties had now begun to
recognize. The slight bred coolness, and as Peel began to veer
towards free trade principles, Disraeli, gathering a few ardent
Tory protectionists about him, made himself a thorn in the
premier's side. His caustic sayings about Peel's acceptance of
the principles of the opposition were the talk of the clubs. "The
right honorable gentleman," he said, "caught the Whigs bathing
and he walked away with their clothes." He characterized the
premier's genius as "sublime mediocrity," amid shouts of
applause, and his government, raised to office by protectionist
votes, yet steadily promoting free trade measures, he branded as
"organized hypocrisy." His hostility to the repeal of the Corn
Laws was based not so much upon economic argument superior to
that of Cobden, as upon his fundamental belief that the greatness
of the English nation in all past centuries had been derived from
the wise rule of the aristocratic, land-owning class, and a fond
belief that the retention of the tariff upon imported
agricultural produce would support this ancient pillar of the
constitution. Furthermore, his contention that England's adoption
of free trade would be met by rival nations with high tariffs
against imports of English goods has been borne out by the facts
of subsequent history, against the confident assertion of Cobden
and the Manchester school of economists that the world would soon
follow the lead of England in throwing down all artificial
barriers to the exchange of commodities. Peel carried his bill,
as we have seen, but the protectionists wreaked their vengeance
by overthrowing his government in the moment of victory.
From the hour of his defeat, in 1846, Sir Robert Peel was no
longer a party chief. The Tory aristocracy who had lent their aid
to the fatal coalition against him were led at first by Lord
George Bentinck, but the real director of the organization was
Disraeli. In 1849 he succeeded to the formal leadership of the
Conservative opposition in the House of Commons, and in 1852,
when the Russell ministry went out, he took office under Lord
Derby as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and leader of the House of
Commons. The Free Trade League bristled up at this resurgence of
the protectionist champions, but Disraeli was too wise to invite
a renewal of that contest which the voice of the nation had
settled, and the subject was left to lapse into innocuous
desuetude for half a century. Representing but a minority in
Parliament, the ministry could maintain itself but a few months.
December, 1852, found the Whigs again in power, where they
remained until 1859, Disraeli using his talents the while to
build up and consolidate the Tory opposition and to disintegrate
the discordant elements, Free Trade, Liberal, Peelite, and
Radical, who rallied under the government banner.
In 1858-59 the Derby-Disraeli ministry enjoyed a second brief
lease of office, and after the long Whig administration of
Palmerston and Russell (1859-66), they succeeded to the direction
of affairs for the third time.
Out of office Disraeli continued to entertain Parliament with the
audacious, brilliant, and often masterly speeches which he alone
of his generation could deliver, and his short-lived experiences
as the director and spokesman of the government policy equally
evidenced his administrative ability, his control of his
followers, and his knowledge of the spirit and temper of the
Commons and the nation.
When Benjamin Disraeli, the young novelist, was presented to Lord
Melbourne at a social gathering in the early '3O's his lordship
had graciously asked how he could serve him. To which the
flippant young man had replied that he would like to be Prime
Minister. In February, 1868, the resignation of Lord Derby raised
Mr. Disraeli to the height of his youthful ambition. He was
premier until December, 1868, when his great rival and former
party-associate, Gladstone, wrested the honor from his grasp.
During the third Derby-Disraeli ministry, the Reform Bill of 1867
was passed. Thirty-five years before the Grey-Russell Whigs had
disfranchised the rotten boroughs and admitted the middle class
people of the towns to citizenship and parliamentary
representation. As years passed the demand increased for a
further extension of the electoral franchise. The Chartists of
1848 demanded universal suffrage and were sternly repressed.
After nearly a score of years the Gladstonian Liberals were
prepared to gratify this demand in considerable measure, but
before they could fully develop their policy, they were out and
the Conservatives were in. It was at this juncture that Disraeli
took "the leap in the dark," carrying, in 1867, an act "which, in
its inevitable developments must give the franchise to every
householder in the United Kingdom; and he gained for his party
the credit, if credit it was, of having passed a more completely
democratic measure than the most radical responsible statesman
had yet dared to propose." His accession to the premiership
evoked fresh testimony to his popularity. Mr. Froude makes no
concealment of the attacks which were made upon him by open foes,
or the disguised contempt of members of the aristocracy whose
pride of birth had nevertheless allowed them to avail themselves
of his talent for leadership. "Yet," says the same biographer,
"when he went down to Parliament for the first time in his new
capacity, he was wildly cheered by the crowds in Palace Yard. The
shouts were echoed along Westminster Hall and through the
lobbies, and were taken up again warmly and heartily in the House
itself, which had been the scene of so many conflicts-the same
House in which he had been hooted down when he first arose to
speak."
When Gladstone's first administration (1868-74) had exhausted its
volcanic energies, Disraeli for a second time became the chief
minister of the Queen, this time not to finish out a weakened
term, but with a clear majority at his back, and with the
confidence of the Crown and the nation. Internal reforms had gone
far enough for the time, and foreign affairs for which Mr.
Gladstone had shown less aptitude needed attention from some one
who could reproduce the spirit of a Canning, a Palmerston, or a
John Bull.
The statesmen who had directed the affairs of the nation for the
past thirty years, had seen little to be thankful for in the
extensive colonial possessions of England. They had for the most
part been "Little Englanders," to use a term of recent coinage,
and while using the military power of the government to put down
armed resistance to English sovereignty and to defend the
integrity of the boundaries of the distant colonies, had done
little else to hold the fabric together. Some of the most eminent
among them were of the opinion that the possession of the
colonies was an element of weakness. In the pursuance of such
theories the English commonwealths of British America, Australia,
and New Zealand were allowed to develop forms of local government
but slightly removed from independence. Their constitutions,
approved by English Liberal cabinets, allowed them to impose
duties against the mother country, and exempted them from most of
the burdens of taxation and military service which are the
natural incidents of dependence.
Disraeli's view of all this was vigorously expressed in 1872.
"Gentlemen, if you look to the history of this country since the
advent of Liberalism, forty years ago, you will find that there
has been no effort so continuous, so subtle, supported by so much
energy, and carried on with so much ability and acumen, as the
attempts of Liberalism to effect the disintegration of the empire
of England. And, gentlemen, of all its efforts, this is the one
which has been the nearest to success.....Not that I, for one,
object to self-government.....But self-government when it was
conceded ought to have been conceded as part of a great policy of
imperial consolidation. It ought to have been accompanied with an
imperial tariff, by securities for the people of England for the
enjoyment of the unappropriated lands which belonged to the
sovereign as their trustee, and by a military code which should
have precisely defined the means and the responsibilities by
which the colonies should be defended, and by which, if
necessary, this country should call for aid from the colonies
themselves. It ought further to have been accompanied by some
representative council in the metropolis, which would have
brought the colonies into constant and continuous relations with
the home government. All this, however, was omitted because those
who advised that policy looked upon the colonies of England,
looked even upon our connection with India as a burden on this
country, viewing everything in a financial aspect, and totally
passing by those moral and political considerations which make
nations great." Further on in the same speech he had declared,
"in my opinion no minister in this country will do his duty who
neglects any opportunity of reconstructing as much as possible
our colonial empire, and of responding to those distant
sympathies which may become the source of incalculable strength
and happiness to this land." Yet his own ministry either had no
such opportunity, or neglected it, and this far-seeing view of
imperial relations was bequeathed unfulfilled for the guidance of
those who were to come after.
Disraeli's six years of government were, however, signalized by a
series of exploits which restored the tarnished prestige of
England in the councils of Europe and doubtless served, however
indirectly, to increase the pride of the colonies in the mother
country.
When the ship canal was constructed by de Lesseps, connecting the
Mediterranean with the Red Sea and shortening by one-half the
route to India, the project had been frowned on by England. In
1875 the Khedive of Egypt, the largest stockholder in the canal,
became hard-pressed for funds, and a telegram from Disraeli
bought the entire block of shares for the English government for
four million pounds. This stroke secured English control of the
waterway, and was immensely popular with the nation. The Prince
of Wales was sent with great pomp on a tour of India, and in 1876
the Queen's title was made more imposing by the addition of the
words "Empress of India." The latter move may be viewed as a
counter-stroke against recent advances of the Russians, whose
disposition to raise the Eastern Question was irrepressible. The
revolt of certain Christian states of Turkey in Europe had
revived the animosities which had smouldered since the Crimean
War, and while Russia prepared to support the claims of the
Christians, Disraeli again ranged England on the side of the
Turk. The Queen-Empress, as if to give personal support to the
policy of her Prime Minister, raised him to the peerage with the
title of Earl of Beaconsfield (1876).
The hatreds and intrigues in the Balkan peninsula led to a bloody
war between Russia and Turkey. It soon became evident that unless
saved by English intervention, Constantinople must fall into the
hands of the Czar. Beaconsfield's spirited language at this
crisis was paraphrased in the London music-halls in the famous
couplet:
"We don't want to fight, but, by Jingo, if we do,
We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money,
too,"
a song which gave the name of "Jingo" to the war policy of the
Conservatives. An English fleet was sent to Constantinople, and
England refused to recognize the terms of the treaty of San
Stephano, which Russia had extorted from her conquered foe, and
demanded that the Eastern Question should be submitted to a
congress of the powers. That congress was held at Berlin in the
summer of 1878. Prince Bismarck presided, and Lord Beaconsfield
attended in person, accompanied by the Foreign Secretary, Lord
Salisbury (since premier). The provisions of the Berlin treaty
are too complex to be explained here, but they removed the grip
of Russia from the throat of the Sultan, and established a group
of Balkan principalities of varying degrees of autonomy. "Peace
with honor" Beaconsfield announced as the outcome of his mission
to Berlin, while the majority of the nation applauded.
Beaconsfield's star culminated at the Congress of Berlin. The
efforts of his administration to defend India on the side of
Russia by strengthening English hold on Afghanistan, led to the
second Afghan War with its bloody massacres and humiliating
episodes. In South Africa the imperial policy gave offense to
blacks as well as whites, and led to wars which reflected little
honor upon British arms. Hard times and consequent hardship among
the agricultural classes at home combined with the petty but
distressing occurrences in Asia and Africa to bring about a
Liberal victory at the general election of 1880, and in April of
that year Beaconsfield resigned his portfolio and seals to his
great rival, Mr. Gladstone.
It was characteristic of the man's indomitable energy to
signalize the year of his fall by writing another novel,
"Endymion," a remarkable feat for a man of seventy-six years. He
continued to appear in Parliament until near the day of his
death, which took place in London, April 19, 1881, on the night
following Easter Day.
Among the eulogies pronounced in Parliament upon the fallen
leader none was more satisfactory in its explanation of
Disraeli's remarkable career than that of the Marquis of
Salisbury, who, at his death, succeeded to the chieftancy in the
Conservative party. "To me," he said, "as I believe to all others
who have worked with him, his patience, his gentleness, his
unswerving and unselfish loyalty to his colleagues and fellow-
laborers, have made an impression that will never leave me so
long as life endures. But these feelings could only affect a
limited circle of his immediate adherents. The impression which
his career and character have made on the vast mass of his
countrymen must be sought elsewhere. To a great extent, no doubt,
it is due to the peculiar character of his genius, to its varied
nature, to the wonderful combination of qualities he possessed,
and which rarely reside in the same brain. To some extent also
there is no doubt that circumstances--that is, the social
difficulties which opposed themselves to his early rise and the
splendid perseverance by which they were overcome--impressed his
countrymen who love to see exemplified that career open to all
persons, whatever their initial difficulties may be, which is one
of the characteristics of the institutions of which they are most
proud.
"Zeal for the greatness of England was the passion of his mind.
Opinions might, and did, differ deeply as to the measures and
steps by which expression was given to the dominant feelings, and
more and more, as life drew near its close, as the heat and
turmoil of controversy were left behind, as the gratification of
every possible ambition negatived the suggestion of any inferior
motives and brought out into greater prominence the purity and
strength of this one intense feeling the people of this country
recognized the force with which this desire dominated his
actions. In the questions of interior policy which divided
classes, he had to consider them, he had to judge them, and to
take his course accordingly. It seemed to me that he treated them
always as of secondary interest compared to the one great
question--how the country to which he belonged might be made
united and strong!"
The party to which Disraeli's genius gave direction and victory
came again to power after the defeat of the Gladstonian schemes
for the relief of Ireland, and reinforced by the Liberal-Unionist
contingent under Joseph Chamberlain it has governed England for
nearly twenty years. Its head, Lord Salisbury, one of
Beaconsfield's most trusted lieutenants, has been true to the
ruling ideas of his brilliant chief. The idea of an English
empire, its parts inspired with a common purpose, has been
zealously nourished. The jubilee (1887) and diamond jubilee
(1897), of Queen Victoria's reign, were seized upon to give
prominence and honor to the colonial representatives. The
premiers of the colonies have met in conference at London and the
whole vast and complex problem of federal empire has come under
discussion. The problem is still far from solution, but that the
relation has passed beyond the stage of mere sentiment is shown
in many ways. The joy of the colonies over the diamond jubilee
(1897), their united grief at Victoria's passing (1901), their
welcome to the son of Edward VII., upon his progress around the
world, and the unanimity with which volunteers sprang to the aid
of England in the South African War--this response of English
hearts in Canada, Australia, and elsewhere to the drum-beat of
the empire was the fulfillment of one of Beaconsfield's
imaginative dreams. A writer in the "Spectator" two years earlier
had made the prophecy which in the century's end came to be
realized:
"The night is full of darkness and doubt,
The stars are dim and the Hunter's out:
The waves begin to wrestle and moan;
The Lion stands by his shore alone,
And sends to the bounds of Earth and Sea
First low notes of the thunder to be.
Then East and West through the vastness grim,
The whelps of the Lion answer him."