Mr. Disraeli, who was warmly cheered by his supporters, next gave his
account of what had passed between him and the Queen after receiving
the letter which first summoned him to Buckingham Palace. In his
audience, in reply to an inquiry from the Queen, he informed Her
Majesty that he should be ready to form a Government which would carry
on the affairs of the country efficiently and in a manner entitled to
her confidence, but that he would not undertake it with the present
House of Commons. In giving his reasons for this decision, Mr. Disraeli
said he had represented to the Queen that, though recent elections
had been favourable to the Conservative party, Mr. Gladstone had
still a majority of close upon ninety, and that the division which
overthrew the Government offered no elements which could lead to
an expectation that this numerical position would be modified. He
pointed out, also, that the majority against the Government the other
night was created by a considerable section of the Liberal party--the
Irish Roman Catholic members--with whom he had no bond of union. If
he had appealed to them for support, they would have repeated their
demands for a Roman Catholic University--a demand which he believed
was decisively condemned at the last election, and by the subsequent
disendowment of the Irish Church. Of office under such circumstances
Mr. Disraeli said he had some personal experience, and it had convinced
him that such an experiment weakened authority and destroyed public
confidence. Consequently, he had prayed Her Majesty to relieve him of
the task. Replying to the question why he had not advised the Queen to
dissolve, he remarked that there was much misconception about the act
of dissolving.
“It is supposed [said Mr. Disraeli] to be an act which can be performed
with very great promptitude, and that it is a resource to which any
Minister may recur with the utmost facility. That is a grave mistake.
Dissolution of Parliament is a different instrument in different
hands. It is an instrument of which a Minister who is in office, with
his Government established, can avail himself with a facility which a
Minister who is only going to accede to office is deprived of. There
may be circumstances which may render it imperative on a Minister
in office to advise the Sovereign to exercise the prerogative of
dissolving Parliament; but he always has the opportunity of disposing
of the public business before that dissolution takes place. The
position of the Minister who is about to accede to office is very
different. In the first place he has to form his Administration.
This is a work of great time and of heavy responsibility. It is not
confined merely to the construction of a Cabinet. Before a Ministry
can be formed, whoever undertakes the task of its construction must
see some fifty individuals whom he has to appoint to offices of trust
and consideration. It is a duty which he can delegate to no one. He
must see each of those individuals personally, and must communicate
with them by himself. And this is a matter which--irrespective of the
knowledge of human nature, which whoever undertakes to form a Cabinet
ought to possess--requires time, and materially affects the business
of the country. In the present case it would not have been possible
to form a Government before Easter. Then the holidays would have
intervened. After the holidays we might, by having recourse to measures
of which I greatly disapprove--namely, provisional finance, the taking
votes on credit and votes on account, and by accepting the estimates
of my predecessors--have been able to dissolve Parliament in the early
part of May. But when the month of May arrived, this question would
have occurred: What are you going to dissolve Parliament about? There
was no issue before the country. At least, it cannot be pretended for
a moment that there was one of those issues before the country which
would justify an extraordinary dissolution of Parliament--that is, some
question upon which the country would passionately wish to decide. I
ask the House to consider impartially what was the real condition of
affairs. Her Majesty’s Ministers had resigned; the Queen had called
upon a member of this House to form a Ministry in a house in which he
had nearly ninety majority arrayed against him. Suppose it was in his
opinion necessary to appeal to the country, by which the majority might
be returned--probably of ninety--in his favour.
“Well, the Irish University Bill was not a Bill on which any Ministry
could resign. But we could not carry on affairs without appealing
to the country; and is it not clear that we could not appeal to the
country without having a policy? (Laughter.) Hon. gentleman may laugh
at the word ‘policy,’ but I maintain that it is totally impossible for
gentlemen sitting on the Opposition bench suddenly to have a matured
policy to present to the people of this country in case Parliament
dissolves. The position of any party in opposition is essentially a
critical position. On all great questions of the day gentlemen on this
side of the House have certain principles which guide them on the
subjects before Parliament; but on these questions we cannot rival in
the possession of information those who hold the seals of Government.”
This point Mr. Disraeli elaborated at some length, mentioning Central
Asia, the Three New Rules, and the French Treaty of Commerce as matters
on which no body of men, suddenly created a Government, could have any
policy until they had studied the official information. Local taxation,
too, was a question which they must have fully considered before going
to the country; but the strongest obstacle to an immediate dissolution
would have been the necessity of carefully scrutinising the estimates,
which, he maintained, were just as large as his own which were so
vehemently denounced in 1868. The upshot was that the session would
have been one of ordinary length, and he knew, from experience, the
consequences to a party and to the public interests of endeavouring to
carry on the Government in the face of a hostile majority.
“I know well (added Mr. Disraeli), and those around me know well,
what will occur when a Ministry takes office and attempts to carry
on Government with a minority during the session, with a view of
ultimately appealing to the people. A right hon. gentleman will come
down here, he will arrange his thumb-screws and other instruments of
torture, and we shall never ask for a vote without a lecture; we shall
never perform the most ordinary routine office of Government without
there being annexed to it some pedantic and ignominious condition. (No,
no.) I wish to express nothing but what I know from painful personal
experience. No observation of the kind I have encountered could divest
me of the painful memory; I wish it could. I wish it was not my duty
to take this view of the case. For a certain time we should enter
into the paradise of abstract motions. One day hon. gentlemen cannot
withstand the golden opportunity of asking the House to assert that
the income-tax should no longer form one of the features of Ways and
Means. Of course, a proposition of that kind would be scouted by the
right hon. gentleman and all his colleagues; but they might dine out
on that day, and the resolution might be carried, as resolutions of
that kind have been. Perhaps another gentleman, distinguished for his
knowledge of ‘men and things’ (Mr. Rylands), moves that the Diplomatic
Service should be abolished. While hon. gentlemen opposite may laugh
in their sleeves at the mover, they vote for the motion in order to
put the Government into a minority. So it would go very hard with
us if on some sultry afternoon some member should ‘rush in where
angels fear to tread’ (Mr. Trevelyan) and successfully assimilate the
borough and the county franchise. And so things would go on until the
bitter end--until at last even the Appropriation Bill has passed,
Parliament is dissolved, and we appeal to those millions who, perhaps,
six months before might have looked upon us as the vindicators of
their intolerable grievances, but who now receive us as a defeated,
discredited, and a degraded Ministry, whose services can no longer be
of value to the Crown or a credit to the nation.”
Under these circumstances, with the concurrence of all his friends, he
had represented to the Queen that it was not for the public interest
that he should attempt to form a Government.