the Georges--will bear scrutiny. Indeed, he carries the descent of
Whiggism some steps further, and traces its pedigree back to the
Roundhead Independents,[62] and even the favourites of Henry VIII.,
enriched by the spoil of the plundered abbeys. But he never denied,
or wished to gainsay, the special and signal qualities of the Whigs’
conspicuous service. They had reconciled religious liberty to the
consecration of the State, and had constantly proved themselves a
“national” party[63]--that solecism in words but truth in ideas. This
he repeatedly acknowledges. Neither did he ever spare the soulless,
cramped, hollow, and shrivelled Toryism of the period preceding
Bolingbroke’s and Wyndham’s struggle to recall it to its origins; or
again of the period after Pitt’s generous concessions were overwhelmed
by the Jacobin deluge, and neutralised by the impersonalities
of Addington and Perceval; by the Phariseeism of Liverpool’s
puzzle-headedness; by the pigheadedness of Eldon and Wetherell. Nor did
he ever deny that pseudo-Toryism had often nursed the very vices of the
Whig oligarchy.[64] What he did contend, from first to last, was that
any party which by its elements makes for national growth and union,
and favours the free play of custom in institutions, is “national;”
while any party encouraging class warfare, class preponderance, and
cosmopolitan theories repugnant to the genius of those institutions,
will be “anti-national;” that the democratic possibilities of our
constitution must be spread, as opportunities arise to enlarge the
“estate of the Commons;” yet that this must never mean the enthronement
of either Oligarchy or Democracy in place of our mixed government;
further, that in all such expansion influence is more important than
interest; that theorisers must never blind us to the distinction
between the “Rights of Man” and the duties of English citizens, between
private and public equality, between the “Sovereignty of the People”
and a national government; that over-government is a fatal evil, but
that individual leadership is a priceless privilege.
* * * * *
The Reform Act raised the whole question of Representation. Is its
aim monotony or variety? If it is necessarily elective, must it not
logically end in becoming a plebiscite? Will a vote open to all be
prized by any? And is suffrage any panacea for suffering?
Before the Reform Bill of 1832, Disraeli wrote, musing on Athens,
and contrasting the strong simplicity of Greek literature with the
imitative splendour of Rome, “... A mighty era, prepared by the
blunders of long centuries, is at hand. Ardently I hope that the
necessary change in human existence may be effected by the voice of
philosophy alone; but I tremble and am silent. There is no bigotry so
terrible as the bigotry of a country that flatters itself that it is
philosophical.” In introducing the great Act of 1867, he observed:
“... The political rights of the working classes which existed before
the Act of 1832, and which not only existed, but were acknowledged,
were on that occasion disregarded and even abolished, and during
the whole period that has since elapsed in consequence of the great
vigour that has been given to the Government of this country, and of
the multiplicity of subjects commanding interest that have engaged
and engrossed attention, no great inconvenience has been experienced
from that cause. Still, during all that time there has been a feeling,
sometimes a very painful feeling, that questions have arisen which have
been treated in this House without that entire national sympathy which
is desirable.”
The Reform Bill and its sequels transferred the immemorial franchise
of toilers to the middle classes, who were to be further aggrandised
by the repeal of the Corn Laws.[65] They raised the revolutionary
bitterness of Toil in England and Religion in Ireland, both of which
they provoked to physical force. The Act proved rather a measure
for the House of Commons than for the Commons themselves. It was
the makeshift and stop-gap of oligarchy in distress. Its immediate
effects were to wipe out that parliamentary opposition on which the
health of party government depends,[66] to encroach on the independent
influence of the House of Lords, to end, it is true unintentionally,
the “Venetian Constitution” of those who enfeebled their cause in 1837
by resolving to continue as oligarchs when the weapon of oligarchy
had vanished; while none the less it left the monarch a doge, and the
multitude a cipher; a crown still “robbed of its prerogatives, a Church
controlled by a commission, and an aristocracy that does not lead.”
Such were the joint results of the two large and once great parties
that had lost principles in their search after organisation, the one by
thwarting, the other by tricking the popular voice. It sharpened the
warfare between rich and poor, afterwards aggravated by the acceptance
of the principle of unrestricted competition; it precipitated a
plutocracy, it helped to set class against class, and it became a prop
of that calculating materialism which exalted “utility.” On the other
hand, its indirect benefits were many. “It set men a-thinking” (I quote
from _Sybil_); “it enlarged the horizon of political experience; it led
the public mind to ponder somewhat on the circumstances of our national
history; to pry into the beginnings of some social anomalies which,
they found, were not so ancient as they had been led to believe, and
which had their origin in causes very different from what they had been
educated to credit; and insensibly it created and prepared a popular
intelligence to which one can appeal, no longer hopelessly, in an
attempt to dispel the mysteries with which for nearly three centuries
it has been the labour of party writers to involve a national history,
and without the dispersion of which no political position can be
understood and no social evil remedied.” This latter was an especial
province of Disraeli. Carlyle also, as a social regenerator appealing
to higher sanctions than the “useful,” was able to address the newly
awakened “popular intelligence.”
Here again Disraeli is in curious accord with Carlyle, the difference
between them being that Disraeli, a doer as well as a seer, discerned
in the traditional “orders” or “estates” of the realm real curatives
of a sick body politic. Both protested against a state based on
statistics and a progress that was arithmetical. Both were quick to
discriminate, under the surface of parties, between the influences
which made for cementing and those which made for dissolving the
nation. Both saw in the conservatism and liberalism of the ’thirties,
on the one side a pretence of protecting the forms they enfeebled,
on the other a pretext and a sop for the universal suffrage which
their professions logically implied. Disraeli perceived that such
a French democracy was alien to England, and meant eventually some
sort of unenlightened despotism, and the aggravation of a government
by favouritism and through interference. He therefore resolved to
reinspire the three “estates”--and if possible the Crown--with reality;
and thus, in extending franchise, to extend it as the privilege of
an order, earned by thrift, education, and intelligence, while he
sought to found it on a basis so stable that leadership might never
sink into being the sport of a fluid and fickle ignorance. Like
Carlyle, he rejoiced that “opinion is now supreme, and opinion speaks
in print; the representation of the Press is far more complete than
the representation of Parliament;” he hailed the spread of knowledge
among the mass so early as in the _Revolutionary Epick_. But, unlike
Carlyle, he did not deem this increasing power fatal to parliamentary
institutions; indeed, he regarded Parliament as a body privileged to
lead and leaven “opinion,” and one that should never abandon its proper
functions of initiative. Both Parliament and the Press in his eyes were
vents for that free discussion inseparable from political health, but
the one ought to form a school for statesmen, the other an arena for
critics. And Disraeli also held and enforced that parties should never
be particularist, but should rest on some national principle instead
of on incoherent prejudices. Parties should represent broad attitudes
towards working institutions. Only thus can they escape debasement into
sets on the one hand, and shams on the other. If parties are split up
into intriguing factions, they are solvents; if they become merely the
masks of disregarded principles, they grow lifeless and hypocritical.
They are at once “humbug and humdrum.”
In his fine speech of February, 1850, on Agricultural Distress (a
distress greatly due to the unrestricted competition of English land
with foreign acres,[67] and only to be met by what he then proposed and
long afterwards carried--the relief of its peculiar burdens), Disraeli
dwelt on the sad fact that the labourers of the land made no appeal to
Parliament. “Why, what is that,” he urged, “but a want of confidence
in the institutions of the country?” Cobden, who definitely and
avowedly sought the predominance of one portion alone, of middle-class
individual interest, gave an ironical cheer. Carlyle had already
published his philippic against Parliament. But Disraeli--and with
justice--continued--
“... The honourable gentleman cheers as if I sanctioned such doctrines:
I have never sanctioned the expression of such feelings; I never used
language elsewhere which I have not been ready to repeat in this House.
I never said one thing in one place, and another in another. I have
confidence in the justice and wisdom of the House of Commons, although
I sit with the minority; I have expressed that confidence in other
places.... I have expressed the conviction that I earnestly entertain,
that this House, instead of being an assembly with a deaf ear and a
callous heart to the sufferings of the agricultural body, would, on the
contrary, be found to be an assembly prompt to express sympathy, prompt
to repair, if it might be, even the injury, necessary in the main as
they might think it, which they had entailed on the agricultural
classes of the country.... I have that confidence in the good sense of
the English people that ... they will deem we are only doing our duty,
we are only consulting their interests in taking every opportunity
to alleviate their burdens, in trying to devise remedies for their
burdens; and, if we cannot accomplish immediately any great financial
result, at least achieving this great political purpose--that we may
teach them not to despair of the institutions of their country.”
This purpose he had sought to accomplish two years before, when, in
1848, he proved by a speech which, it is said, won him the eventual
leadership of his party, that the breakdown which Carlyle was at that
time preparing to denounce, was due to an incapable ministry, and not
to an effete Parliament. He always held Parliament to be neither a
municipal vestry nor a chamber of commerce, but a national temple of
embodied opinion; nor can the wisdom of his view in those dark and
despondent times be better tested than by comparing, in the light of
what has since occurred, than by contrasting Carlyle’s fulminations in
this regard with Disraeli’s discernment.
“... There is a phenomenon,” says Carlyle, in his “Chartism,” “which
one might call Paralytic Radicalism in these days, which gauges with
statistic measuring-reed, sounds with Philosophic Politico-Economic
plummet, the deep, dark sea of trouble, and, having taught us rightly
what an infinite sea of trouble it is, sums up with the practical
inference and use of consolation, That nothing whatever in it can be
done by man, who has simply to sit still and look wistfully to ‘Time
and General Laws;’ and thereupon, without so much as recommending
suicide, coldly takes its leave of us....”
Disraeli, on the other hand--
“... ‘In this country,’ said ‘Sidonia,’ ‘since the peace, there has
been an attempt to advocate a reconstruction of society on a purely
rational basis. The principle of Utility has been powerfully developed.
I speak not with lightness of the labours of the disciples of that
school. I bow to intellect in every form; and we should be grateful to
any school of philosophers, even if we disagree with them.... There
has been an attempt to reconstruct society on a basis of material
motives and calculations. It has failed. It must ultimately have failed
under any circumstances; its failure in an ancient and densely peopled
kingdom was inevitable. How limited is human reason, the profoundest
inquirers are most conscious. We are not indebted to the reason of man
for any of the great achievements which are the landmarks of human
action and human progress. It was not Reason that besieged Troy; it was
not Reason that sent forth the Saracen from the desert to conquer the
world, that inspired the crusades, that instituted the monastic order;
it was not Reason that produced the Jesuits; above all, it was not
Reason that created the French Revolution....”
I may compare with this the light episode of the travelling Utilitarian
in the much earlier _Young Duke_--
“... ‘I think it is not very difficult to demonstrate the _use_ of an
aristocracy,’[68] mildly observed the Duke.
“‘Pooh! nonsense, sir! I know what you are going to say, but we have
got beyond all that. Have you read this, sir? This article on the
aristocracy in _The Screw and Lever Review_?’
“‘I have not, sir.’
“‘Then I advise you to make yourself master of it, and you will talk no
more of the aristocracy. A few more articles like this, and a few more
noblemen like the man who has got this park, and people will open their
eyes at last.’
“‘I should think,’ said his Grace, ‘that the follies of the man who has
got this park have been productive of evil only to himself. In fact,
sir, according to your own system, a prodigal nobleman seems to be a
very desirable member of the commonwealth, and a complete leveller.’
“‘We shall get rid of them all soon, sir....’
“‘I have heard that he is very young, sir,’ remarked the widow.
“‘Ah, youth is a very trying time! Let us hope the best. He may turn
out well yet, poor soul!’
“‘I hope not. Don’t talk to me of poor souls. There is a poor soul,’
said the Utilitarian, pointing to an old man breaking stones on the
highway. ‘That is what I call a poor soul, not a young prodigal....’”
No one who has followed the labour movement in England, or the
social-democrat organisations in Germany and France, can fail to
recognise the immense part that personality, imagination, and desire
of power plays in them, and how completely, in their instance,
utilitarianism has broken down. Utilitarianism, of course, ignores the
moral and imaginative aspects. It mistakes the moon for a cream-cheese.
It ignores personal influence. Above all, it confounds happiness with
prosperity. “Charcoal,” exclaims Ruskin (here in complete accord with
Disraeli), “may be cheap among your roof-timbers after a fire, and
bricks may be cheap in your streets after an earthquake; but fire and
earthquake may not therefore be national benefits.” Even in a concern
purely commercial, reserve must be weighed against dividends.
Again, as regards this very Reform Bill of 1832, and the stagnant
formulæ of its pioneer, I will again invoke Carlyle--
“... An ultra-radical, not seemingly of the Benthamee species, is
forced to exclaim, ‘The people are at last wearied! They say, “Why
should we be ruined in our shops, thrown out of our farms, voting for
these men?” Ministerial majorities decline; this Ministry has become
impotent, had it even the will to do good. They have long called to us,
“We are a Reform Ministry; will ye not support _us_?” We have supported
them, borne them forward indignantly on our shoulders time after time,
fall after fall, when they had been hurled out into the street, and
lay prostrate, helpless, like dead luggage. It is the fact of a Reform
Ministry, not the name of one, that we would support.... The public
mind says at last, Why all this struggle for the _name_ of a Reform
Ministry? Let the Tories be a ministry, if they will; let, at least,
some living reality be a ministry!’...”
Let me illustrate Carlyle by two further passages from Disraeli. The
first concerns parties in 1837, the second concerns the withered and
withering Toryism left to confront the hollow conventions of the Reform
Ministry. He is arguing that “the man who enters public life at this
epoch has to choose between political infidelity and a destructive
creed.”
“... The principle of the _exclusive_ constitution of England having
been conceded by the Acts of 1827-28-32, ... a party has arisen in
the State who demand that the principle of political liberalism shall
consequently be carried to its extent, which it appears to them is
impossible without getting rid of the fragments of the old constitution
that remain. This is the destructive party--a party with distinct and
intelligible principles. They seek a specific for the evils of our
social system in the general suffrage of the population. They are
resisted by another party who, having given up exclusion, would only
embrace as much liberalism as is necessary for the moment; who, without
any embarrassing promulgation of principles, wish to keep things as
they find them as well as they can; but, as a party must have the
semblance of principles, they take the names of the things that they
have destroyed. Thus they are devoted to the prerogatives of the Crown,
although in truth the Crown has been stripped of every one of its
prerogatives; they affect a great veneration for the constitution in
Church and State, although every one knows that it no longer exists;
they are ready to stand or fall with the independence of the Upper
House of Parliament, although in practice they are perfectly well
aware that, with their sanction, the ‘Upper House’ has abdicated its
initiatory functions, and now serves only as a court of review of the
legislation of the House of Commons. Whenever public opinion, which
this party never attempts to form, to educate, or to lead, falls into
some violent perplexity, passion, or caprice, this party yields without
a struggle to the impulse, and, when the storm has passed, attempts
to obstruct and obviate the logical, and ultimately the inevitable
results of the very measures they have themselves originated, or to
which they have consented. This is the Conservative party. I care not
whether men are called Whigs or Tories, Radicals or Chartists, ... but
these two divisions comprehend at present the English nation.... With
regard to the first school, I for one have no faith in the remedial
qualities of a Government carried on by a neglected democracy, who
for three centuries have received no education. What prospect does it
offer us of those high principles of conduct with which we have fed our
imagination and strengthened our will? I perceive none of the elements
of government that should secure the happiness of a people and the
greatness of a realm.... Many men in this country ... are reconciled to
the contemplation of democracy, because they have accustomed themselves
to believe that it is the only power by which we can sweep away _those
sectional privileges and interests that impede the intelligence and
industry of the community_, ... and yet the only way ... to terminate
what, in the language of the present day, is called class legislation,
_is not to entrust power to classes_. You would find a ‘locofoco’[69]
majority as much addicted to class legislation as a factitious
aristocracy.... In a word, _true wisdom lies in a policy that would
effect its ends by the influence of opinion, and yet by the means of
existing forms_.”
And the other--
“Mr. Rigby began by ascribing everything to the Reform Bill, and then
referred to several of his own speeches on Schedule A. Then he told
Coningsby that want of ‘religious faith’ was solely occasioned by want
of churches, and want of loyalty by George IV. having shut up himself
too much at the cottage in Windsor Park, entirely against the advice
of Mr. Rigby. He assured Coningsby that the Church Commission was
operating wonders.... The great question now was their architecture.
Had George IV. lived, all would have been right. They would have
been built on the model of the Buddhist pagoda. As for loyalty, if
the present king went regularly to Ascot races, he had no doubt all
would go right. Finally, Mr. Rigby impressed on Coningsby to read the
_Quarterly Review_ with great attention, and to make himself master of
Mr. Wordy’s “History of the Late War,” in twenty volumes--a capital
work which proves that Providence was on the side of the Tories.’...”
As regards the principles and conduct of the Reform Ministers
themselves, years before he entered Parliament, in that brilliant
series of speeches on the hustings of High Wycombe and Taunton, which
preluded so many of his ideas, he denounced the incompleteness of the
measure and the inadequacy of the men. In 1832 he said--
“... If, instead of filling the humble position of a private
individual, I held a post near the person of my King, I should have
said to my sovereign, ‘Oppose all change, or allow that change which
will be full, satisfactory, and final.’ In the change produced by
the professing party now in power, there are omissions of immense
importance. These points they promised; these points they have not
given you; and now, after all their protestations, they turn round and
ask how the people can have the audacity to demand them.”[70]
In 1834 he denounced “the Whig system of centralisation,” and their
organised attempt to “overpower” the House of Lords and to despotise
the House of Commons, while of their subsequent disorganisation from
within, because of the failure of concerted opposition from without, he
gave that surpassing simile of Ducrow’s Circus. In 1835 he pursued the
subject of constitutional opposition, and he expressed his dread, as
he did in 1881, that if the Whigs remained “our masters for life, the
dismemberment of the Empire” might follow. And all this in the teeth of
what was then considered a system installed for fifty years, and which
would have promised him a personal triumph had he appeared then to
have chosen to have endorsed it.
But the views he always retained as to the first principles of
representation are best heard in a passage from _Coningsby_.
“... In the protracted discussions to which this celebrated measure
gave rise, nothing is more remarkable than the perplexities into which
the speakers on both sides are thrown when they touch upon the nature
of the representative principle. On the one hand, it was maintained
that under the old system the people were virtually represented, while,
on the other, it was triumphantly urged that, if the principle was
conceded, the people should not be virtually, but actually represented.
But who are the people? And where are you to draw a line? And why
should there be any? It was urged that a contribution to the taxes was
the constitutional qualification for the suffrage.” Here is repeated
what he had urged in the ’thirties, and was to reiterate in the
’fifties, that indirect taxation is as much taxation as direct; that
“the beggar who chews his quid as he sweeps a crossing is contributing
to the imposts; ... he is one of the people, and he yields his quota
to the public burthens.” The logical inference of such a qualification
must be to convert the suffrage from being a privilege into being a
right. Manhood suffrage, in common with all privilege unearned, is
usually prized by none, and even disregarded by most.
“Amid these conflicting statements,” he continues, “it is singular
that no member of either House should have recurred to the original
character of these popular assemblies which have always prevailed among
the northern nations.... When the crowned northman consulted on the
welfare of his kingdom, he assembled the estates of his realm. Now, an
estate is a class of the nation invested with political rights. Then
appeared the estate of the clergy, of the barons, of other classes.
In the Scandinavian kingdoms to this day the estate of the peasants
sends its representatives to the Diet. In England, under the Normans,
the Church and the Baronage were convoked together with the estate
of the Community, a term which then probably described the inferior
holders of land whose tenure was not immediate of the Crown. The Third
Estate was so numerous that convenience suggested its appearance by
representation, while the others, more limited, appeared, and still
appear, personally. The Third Estate was reconstructed as circumstances
developed themselves. It was a reform of Parliament when the towns were
summoned. In treating the House of the Third Estate as the House of
the People, and not as the House of a privileged class, the Ministry
and Parliament of 1831 virtually conceded the principle of universal
suffrage. In this point of view, the ten-pound franchise was an
arbitrary, irrational, impolitic qualification. It had indeed the merit
of simplicity, and so had the constitution of Abbé Sièyes. But its
immediate and inevitable result was Chartism.
“But if the Ministry and Parliament of 1831 had announced that the time
had arrived when the Third Estate should be enlarged and reconstructed,
they would have occupied an intelligible position; and if, instead of
simplicity of elements in its reconstruction, they had sought, on the
contrary, varying and various materials which would have neutralised
the painful predominance of any particular interest in the new scheme,
and prevented those banded jealousies which have been its consequence,
the nation would have found itself in a secure position. Another class,
not less numerous than the existing one, and invested with privileges
not less important, would have been added to the public estates of the
realm, and the bewildering phrase, ‘the People,’ would have remained
what it really is, a term of natural philosophy, and not of political
science.”
* * * * *
The quality, then, of excellence, instead of the majorities of
multitude, the variety of every approved influence, and not the undue
weight of any overwhelming interest--these formed for him the true
bases of representation. He was ever for levelling up instead of down;
and, as we shall see, he was directly opposed to Mr. Hume’s fallacy
(still rampant) that by our traditions representation depends only on
taxation.
These ideas animated him throughout, and he achieved them in 1867,
not, though it has been insinuated, by filching the proposals of
his predecessors, but on the opposed principles which he continued
to advocate from the ’thirties to the ’sixties. In 1835, two years
before he entered Parliament, he expressed the same convictions in his
_Spirit of Whiggism_. He showed that the two Houses were the “House
of the Nation,” not the “House of the People,” but that both alike
represent the “Nation.” He proceeded to prove by powerful illustration
that, under whatever assumed form, political power will follow the
distribution of property. He emphasised the “passion for industry” as
an instrument of wealth as an English characteristic hostile to any
future revolution in the distribution of property. He proved that in
England revolution is ever a struggle for privilege, in Europe one
against it; and he concluded, therefore, that “... If a new class
rises in the State, it becomes uneasy to take its place in the natural
aristocracy of the land.... _The Whigs in the present day have risen on
the power of the manufacturing interest. To secure themselves in their
posts, the Whigs have given the new interest an undue preponderance._
But the new interest has obtained its object and is content.... The
manufacturer begins to lack in movement. Under Walpole the Whigs played
the same game with the commercial interest. A century has passed, and
the commercial interests are all as devoted to the Constitution as the
manufacturers soon will be.... The consequence of our wealth is an
aristocratic constitution, _founded on an equality of civil rights_.
And who can deny that an aristocratic constitution resting on such
a basis, where the legislative and even the executive office may be
obtained by every subject of the realm, _is in fact a noble democracy_?”
These are no dry theories, but surely a true version of growing facts.
Our Constitution _is_ that of a natural aristocracy founded on popular
privilege depending on the mutual exercise of duties. This free
aristocracy distributes its power through the estates of the realm,
and these orders should accord with the institutions to which they
have given rise; for, as Disraeli said in 1852, they are “popular”
without being absolutely “democratic.” When any one of them degenerates
into undue monopoly, the whole body must suffer; and should such a
catastrophe attain any permanence, one of the great institutions
through which English nationality thrives would be shattered by the
very order to which it corresponds. What Disraeli observes of the
eventual reduction of each new ascendant interest to aristocratic
influence, is beyond question. But that influence must rest on the
due performance of civil and social responsibilities which empower
it. Stripped of historical verbiage, the “constitution” harmonises
classes through special privileges and reciprocal duties. Of the
“middle-middles” he always spoke with respect, of the “lower-middles”
with much sympathy, not least as victims of the income-tax;[71] but he
ever doubted their governing capacity as a class; and when Sir Robert
Peel’s “monarchy of the middle classes” came into swing, Disraeli
feared the plutocracy which has happened, and which, when financial,
is more easily freed from political responsibility. The choice offered
between wealth omnipotent and mob-despotism, is a choice between
Scylla and Charybdis. To obviate it, Disraeli created in 1867 an
artisan franchise, accorded as a boon at length earned by character
and intelligence, and based on the _rating_ principle, which affords
a pledge of permanence; at the same time, he strove to countervail
the growing irresponsibility of wealth by relieving unprotected land
of its burdens and unrepresented labour of its degradation. By the
first, he strove to retain that sap of the soil which underlies the
English character, the English health, the English order, through
local government, the English freedom, and the English steadiness;
for (and this was said in 1852), “... Laws which, by imposing unequal
taxes, discourage that investment (_i.e._ capital invested in land, the
return for which is rent) are, irrespective of their injustice, highly
impolitic; for nothing contributes more to the enduring prosperity
of a country than the natural deposit of its surplus capital in the
improvement of its soil....” By the last, he tried to redress that
social misery which the measures of 1846 had not removed and had even
increased: the overcrowding of the towns, the displacement of labour,
the subsidising of foreign agriculture to the decultivation of English
land, the enthronement of Mammon and materialism--all denounced
and foreseen by him with wonderful prescience. Very soon after the
repeal of the Corn Laws, discerning, as Disraeli did, its drift of
denationalising tendencies, its certainty of some social and physical
demoralisation, as well as the possible changes in European competition
which might necessitate another “commercial and social revolution,” he
inveighed against the inference that “we are to be rescued from the
alleged power of one class, only to fall under the avowed dominion of
another;” he believed that “the monarchy of England, its sovereign
power mitigated by the acknowledged authority of the estates of the
realm, has its root in the hearts of the people, and is capable of
securing the happiness of the nation and the power of the State.” His
peroration--some of which I shall give in the next chapter--is a noble
flight of hope. He discerned at once that the transformation scene
of 1846 would affect society more than politics, and that the next
extension of the franchise must consequently prove a social antidote as
well as a social sedative.
In 1839, refuting Mr. Hume’s hobby already alluded to, he showed
that the theory is nowhere inherent in our Constitution, but is a
doctrinaire supplement of alien origin; that the “Commons” are a
political order invested with power for the performance of duties,
just as the Peers are a similar order, but needing no representation;
he re-urged that the House of Commons was the representative of
the “nation”--an organic whole, and not of the “people”--a vague
abstraction. He had even then already pointed out that, historically,
the delegates before the Restoration had perverted the national
traditions by announcing, more than a century before the French
Revolution, the sovereignty of the “people.” He once more stoutly
denied that “taxation and representation went hand-in-hand” according
to our constitution. There was representation without election, as
in the case of the Church in the Lords, for the Crown appointed the
bishops, not the clergy. And as regards taxation, it was indirect, as
well as, unfortunately, direct. In the same year, protesting against
Lord John Russell’s assumption of a “monarchy of the middle classes,”
Disraeli repeated that in this country “the exercise of political
power must be associated with great public duties,” just as in 1846,
when justifying the burdens on land so long as protection was accorded
it, he asserted that great honours demand great burdens. Again, in
1848, Disraeli, opposing Mr. Hume once more, and protesting against the
finality of the reconstruction of 1832, even before Lord John Russell
declared the question free for both parties in 1853 and 1856--strongly
condemned the radical scheme just because it did not “... enable the
labouring classes to take their place in the Constitution of the
country.” “If there be any mistake,” he said, “more striking than
another in the settlement of 1832, ... it is, in my opinion, that the
bill of 1832 took the qualification of _property_ in too hard and rigid
a sense, as the only qualification which should exist in this country
for the exercise of political rights.” In 1852, he again dinned into
unappreciative ears the necessity for a genuinely industrial franchise,
though he was not satisfied that Lord John Russell’s £5 franchise would
so operate. In 1859 and 1867, Disraeli tried hard to confer franchises
on education and thrift, but Mr. Bright sneered at them as “fancy
franchises,” Mr. Gladstone scoffed at them, and in forwarding the great
measure of labour suffrage by the compelled co-operation of both sides
of the House, Disraeli had to surrender safeguards he never ceased to
desire and to regret, for they are founded on the State recognition of
individual excellence, instead of on the State manipulation of mere
party mechanism.
“Is the possession of the franchise,” demanded Disraeli in 1851, “to
be a privilege, the privilege of industry and public virtue, or is
it to be a right--the right of every one, however degraded, however
indolent, however unworthy?... I am for the system which maintains in
this country _a large and free Government, having confidence in the
energies and faculties of man_. Therefore I say, make the franchise
a privilege, but let it be the privilege of _the civic virtues_.
Honourable gentlemen opposite would degrade the franchise to the man,
instead of raising the man to the franchise. If you want to have a
free aristocratic country, free because aristocratic (I use the word
‘aristocratic’ in its noblest sense--_I mean that aristocratic freedom
which enables every man to achieve the best position in the State to
which his qualities entitle him_), I know not what we can do better
than adhere to the _mitigated monarchy of England, with power in the
Crown, order in one estate of the realm, and liberty in the other_. It
is from that happy combination that we have produced a state of society
that all other nations look upon with admiration and envy.”
In all these considerations, the social results of measures and formulæ
were ever uppermost in his mind. What he had ever been resolute to
secure was, as he avowed even in 1850, “the industrial franchise,”
which the resettlement of 1832 had thrown to the winds.
Again, in 1865, “... It appears to me,” urged Disraeli, “that the
primary plan of our ancient constitution, so rich in various wisdom,
indicates the course that we ought to pursue in this matter. It secured
our popular rights by entrusting power, not to an indiscriminate
multitude, but to the estate, or order, of the Commons. And a wise
government should be careful that the elements of that estate _should
bear a close relation to the moral and material development of the
country_. Public opinion may not yet, perhaps, be ripe enough to
legislate as to the subject, but it is sufficiently interested in
the question to ponder over it with advantage; so that, _when the
time comes for action_, we may legislate in the spirit of the English
Constitution, _which would absorb the best of every class_, and not
fall into a ‘democracy’ which is the tyranny of one class, and that
_one the least enlightened_.”
Long before 1867, these continuous utterances culminated that typical
speech of 1859, which mooted a comprehensive plan of enlarged
representation of political power, yet undisturbed balance, and which
would have made “a representative assembly that is a mirror of the mind
as well as of the material interests of England.”
I shall quote largely from this unfamiliar speech. It illustrates
how far his lifelong principles applied to a juncture before the
artisans were wholly free from agitation against monarchy, and those
institutions which fence it round. All Radical schemes, compassing
“manhood suffrage,” all Whig schemes, merely delaying its day by
seeking to reduce rental or property qualifications to an arbitrary
minimum, were his aversion. Set, as he always was, against including
whatever at the moment formed the dregs of ignorance, or the sediment
of an unentitled populace, he already favoured that “rating” basis
which Lord John Russell, always constitutional, had himself propounded
in his abortive plan of 1854, and which Disraeli was to carry out
in 1867 as a safeguard of stability in the boroughs. But in 1859
Lord Derby did not consider its application feasible. Disraeli
had, therefore, now to forego it. Refusing to make any reductions
in the franchise, or yield an inch to “detached” democracy, he now
proposed to attain steadiness, to vary the vote, and to represent
enlightenment contrasted with mere property by recommending the
creation of the “compound householder” (“dwellers in a portion of
any house rented in the aggregate at £20”)[72]; by a new suffrage
for several small ownerships of property in the funds and savings
banks; and for education, by enfranchising graduates, ministers of
religion, physicians, barristers, and certain school-masters. He thus
both forecasted, so far as was then practicable, household suffrage
as against household democracy; and at the same time sought to
represent education and ensure variety. By his attendant scheme of
redistribution, he tried to prevent the counties from being “swamped”
by the towns, while at the same time he jealously guarded the local
independence of the boroughs. His purpose was to protect the country
districts against that invasion from the cities of agrarian demagogues
which, after his death, the stride forward of 1884 was to impel.[73]
But “finality is not the word of politics.” Progress changes
possibilities. He had to wait till the pear was ripe; till the working
man had been really reconciled to monarchy and its institutions; till
the ground had been laid for a generous scheme of national education,
and cleared by the sharply defined position of parties, which at last
brought into relief the issues between democracy as a due element and
as a domineering class. Nor, if he were now alive, would he fail to
discern that the appeal of present imperialism to present democracy
will be dangerous if made to it as a deciding class before it has
acquired the governing faculty by long apprenticeship. Democracy as
a leaven, democracy as the lump, are obviously distinct. The one
is “popular and national,” the other despotic or cosmopolitan. Our
artisans are now intensely national and patriotic; but the “submerged
tenth” would soon show themselves tyrants over the community.
* * * * *
The pith of his argument is that mere numbers can never form the ground
of representation, which should rest on influence even more than
interest.
“... It appears to me that those who are called parliamentary reformers
may be divided into two classes. The first are those ... who would
adapt the settlement of 1832 to the England of 1859, and would act in
the spirit and according to the genius of the existing constitution....
But, sir, it would not be candid, and it would be impolitic not to
acknowledge that there is another school of reformers having objects
very different from those which I have named. The new school, if I
may so describe them, would avowedly effect a parliamentary reform on
principles different from those which have hitherto been acknowledged
as forming the proper foundations for this House. The new school of
reformers are of opinion that the chief, if not the sole, object of
representation is to realise the opinion of the numerical majority of
the country. Their standard is _population_, and I admit that their
views have been clearly and efficiently placed before the country.
Now, sir, there is no doubt that population is, and must always be,
one of the elements of our representative system. There is also such
a thing as property, and that too must be considered. I am ready to
admit that the new school have not on any occasion limited the elements
of their representative system solely to population. They have, with
a murmur, admitted that property has an equal claim to consideration;
but then, they have said that _property and population go together_.
Well, sir, population and property do go together--in statistics, but
in nothing else. Population and property do not go together in politics
and practice. I cannot agree with the principles of the new school,
either if population or property is their sole, or if both together
constitute their double, standard. I think the function of this House
is something more than merely to represent the population and property
of this country. _This House ought, in my opinion, to represent all
the interests of the country._ Now, those interests are sometimes
antagonistic, often competing, always independent and jealous; yet they
all demand a distinctive representation in this House, and how can that
be effected, under such circumstances, _by the simple representation
of the voice of the majority, or even by the mere preponderance of
property_? If the function of this House is to represent all the
interests of the country, you must, of course, have a representation
scattered over the country, because interests are necessarily local. An
illustration is always worth two arguments; permit me, therefore, so
to explain my meaning, if it requires explanation. Let me take the two
cases of the metropolis and that of the kingdom of Scotland.... Their
populations are at this time about equal. Their respective wealth is
very unequal.... There is between them the annual difference in the
amounts of income upon which the schedules are levied of that between
£44,000,000 and £30,000,000. Yet who would for a moment pretend that
the various classes and interests of Scotland could be adequately
represented by the same number of members as represent the metropolis?
So much for the population test. Let us now take the property test....
The wealth of the city of London is more than equivalent to that of
twenty-five English and Welsh counties returning forty members, and
of 140 boroughs returning 232 members. The city of London, the city
proper, is richer than Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham put
together.... It is richer than Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield,
Hull, Wolverhampton, Bradford, Brighton, Stoke-upon-Trent, Nottingham,
Greenwich, Preston, East Retford, Sunderland, York, and Salford
combined--towns which return among them no less than thirty-one
members. Yet the city of London has not asked me to insert it in the
bill, which I am asking leave to introduce, for thirty-one members....
So much ... for the property test.... But the truth is, that _men are
sent to this House to represent the opinions of a place; and not its
power_....
“Why, sir, the power of the city of London or that of the city of
Manchester in this House is not to be measured by the honourable
and respectable individuals whom they send here to represent their
opinions. I will be bound to say that there is a score--nay, that
there are threescore--members in this House who are as much and more
interested, perhaps, in the city of Manchester than those who are in
this House its authoritative and authentic representatives.... Look at
the metropolis itself, not speaking merely of the city of London. Is
the influence of the metropolis in this House to be measured by the
sixteen honourable members who represent it?... ... So much for that
principle of population, or that principle of property, which has been
adopted by some; or that principle of population and property combined,
which seems to be the more favourite form.... There is one remarkable
circumstance connected with the new school, who would build up our
representation on the basis of a numerical majority, and who take
population as their standard. It is this--that none of their principles
apply _except in cases where population is concentrated_. The principle
of population is ... a very notorious doctrine at the present moment,
but it is not novel.... It was the favourite argument of the late Mr.
Hume.... The principle, in my opinion, is false, and would produce
results dangerous to the country and fatal to the House of Commons. But
if it be true, ... then I say you must arrive at conclusions entirely
different from those which the new school has adopted. If population is
to be the standard, and you choose to disfranchise small boroughs and
small constituencies, it is not to the great towns you can, according
to your own principles, transfer their members....
“Let us now see what will be the consequence if the population
principle is adopted. You would have a House, generally speaking,
formed partly of great landowners and partly of great manufacturers.
I have no doubt that, whether we look to their property or to their
character, there would be no country in the world which could rival in
respectability such an assembly. But would it be a House of Commons;
would it represent the country; would it represent the various
interests of England? Why, sir, after all, the suffrage and the seat
respecting which there is so much controversy and contest, _are only
means to an end.... You want in this House every element that obtains
the respect and engages the interest of the country.... You want a
body of men representing the vast variety of the English character;
men who would arbitrate between the claims of those great predominant
interests; who would temper the acerbity of their controversies. You
want a body of men to represent that considerable portion of the
community who cannot be ranked under any of those striking and powerful
heads to which I have referred, but who are in their aggregate equally
important and valuable, and perhaps as numerous._”
He then adverted to the borough system as an indirect machinery for
this purpose, and contended that those who would sweep it away must
substitute “machinery as effective.” “... Now,” he continued, “there
is one remarkable feature in the agitation of the new school.... They
offer no substitute whatever.... I will tell you what must be the
natural consequence of such a state of things. The House will lose, as
a matter of course, its hold on the Executive. The House will assemble.
It will have men sent to it, no doubt, of character and wealth; and
having met here, they will be unable to carry on the Executive of the
country. Why? Because the experiment has been tried in every country,
and the same result has occurred; _because it is not in the power of
one or two classes to give that variety of character and acquirement
by which the administration of a country can be carried on_. Well,
then, what happens? _We fall back on a bureaucratic system_,[74] and
we should find ourselves, after all our struggles, in the very same
position from which, in 1640, we had to extricate ourselves. Your
administration would be carried on by a court minister, perhaps by a
court minion. It might not be in these times, but in some future time.
The result of such a system would be to create an assembly where the
members of Parliament, though chosen by great constituencies, would
be chosen from limited classes, and perhaps only from one class of
the community....” His own prescription for breaking monotony, he
described as “lateral,” not “vertical” extension.
Disraeli determined to settle this question himself, and to settle
it by the admission to the franchise of the “working” classes of the
country, and not by lowering it to the “man in the street,” or the
submerged tenth. In these views he followed the Toryism of Cobbett
rather than the Radicalism of Hume. Discussing Lord John Russell’s
proposals of 1860 “for the representation of the people” (which,
though it adopted the principle of rateability, was, in fact, merely a
reduction of the borough franchise to £6, and of the county occupation
to £10), Disraeli labelled its “simplicity” as “of a mediæval
character, but without any of the inspiration of the feudal system, or
any of the genius of the middle ages.” It sought only to scale down
a property qualification. The “claims of intelligence, acquirement,
and education” were ignored. As regarded the borough franchise, not
fitness, but number was the principle; and the numerical addition
accrued to one class only.
“... Let us now consider,” Disraeli continued, “whether the particular
class upon whom the noble lord is about to confer this great political
power, are a class who are incapable, or who are unlikely to exercise
it. Are they a class who have shown no inclination to combine? Are
they a class incapable of organisation? Quite the reverse. If we look
to the history of this country during the present century, we shall
find that the aristocracy, or upper classes, have on several very
startling occasions shown a great power of organisation. _I think
it cannot be denied that the working classes, especially since the
peace of 1815, have shown a remarkable talent for organisation, and
a power of discipline and combination inferior to none._ The same, I
believe, cannot be said of the middle classes. With the exception of
the Anti-Corn Law League, I cannot recall at this moment any great
successful political organisation of the middle classes; and living
in an age when everything is known, we now know that that great
confederation ... owed its success to a great and unforeseen calamity,
and was on the eve of dispersion and dissolution only a short time
before that terrible event occurred.” The upper and lower classes, he
argued, were capable of organisation and ideas, and the organisation of
the latter had been secret as well as disciplined. Their intelligence
and their discipline, then, were reasons for conferring the franchise,
but their traditional organisation was also a reason for care in
its bestowal, and such discrimination as would not give them a
_predominance_. “... What has been ... the object of our legislative
labours for many years, but to put an end to a class-legislation which
was much complained of? But you are now proposing to establish a class
legislation of a kind which may well be viewed with apprehension....”
Disraeli discerned that what in England is discontent, on the Continent
is disaffection; and that revolution abroad corresponds to reform
at home. Chartism verged perilously on the uprisings which endanger
countries where government is out of touch with the governed. It was
a sign that institutions might be on their trial, and it demanded
that those institutions should resume reality, and win once more the
affections of the people.
In his resolve to spread the franchise in his own manner, and to
neutralise the revolutionary bias of agitators and secret societies,
he never lost sight of the growing force of public opinion. He himself
was “a gentleman of the press;” in the improved and multiplied
newspapers he hailed the great safety-valve afforded to England by
that “publicity” on which “the great fabric of political freedom” has
been reared. “Free intercourse,” he exclaimed in the ’thirties, “is
the spirit of the age!” So late as 1872, he observed, “... That has
been the principle of the whole of our policy. First of all, we made
our courts of law public, and during the last forty years we have
completely emancipated the periodical press of England, which was
not literally free before, giving it such power that it throws light
upon the life of almost every class in this country, and I might say
upon the life of almost every individual.” In the press (the light of
which he perhaps valued more than the warmth), he welcomed an antidote
against hidden and perilous associations; and believed that if the
self-respecting hand-labourer received the vote (as he was entitled to
do), he would exercise it in the cause of freedom, of loyalty, and of
order. In 1862, he declared “parliamentary discipline founded on its
only sure basis, sympathising public opinion,” to be the watchword of
his propaganda. The passage summarises much that I have discussed.
“... To build up a community, not upon Liberal opinions, which any man
may fashion to his fancy, but upon popular principles which assert
equal rights, civil and religious; to uphold the institutions of the
country because they are the embodiment of the wants and wishes of
the nation, and protect us alike from individual tyranny and popular
outrage; equally to resist democracy” (as a form of government) “and
oligarchy, and to favour that principle of _free aristocracy_ which
is the only basis and security for constitutional government; ...
to favour popular education, because it is the best guarantee of
public order; to defend local government, and to be as jealous of
the rights of the working man as of the prerogative of the Crown and
the privileges of the senate;--these were once the principles which
regulated Tory statesmen (_i.e._ Bolingbroke and Wyndham), and I for
one have no wish that the Tory party should ever be in power unless
they practise them.”
In his great speech during the summer of the following year on “popular
principles” and “liberal opinions,” as well as on the introduction of
his actual Reform Bill, he gave expression once more to his distinction
between “popular privileges” and “democratic rights”--
“... If the measure bears some reference to the existing classes in
this country, why should we conceal from ourselves that _this country
is a country of classes, and a country of classes it will ever remain_?
What we desire to do is to give every one who is worthy of it a fair
share in the government of the country by means of the elective
franchise; but at the same time we have been equally anxious to
maintain the character of the House....”
As a matter of tactics, Disraeli had of design framed the bill on
lines stricter than he was prepared to concede. He desired that the
re-settlement should be enduring, and he deliberately appealed to the
co-operation of both parties for this purpose. He had “leaped in the
dark,” he had “shot Niagara.” The storm of obloquy, desertion, and
censure broke over his head, but he was unmoved, because his proposals
were based on principles long held and patiently matured. Of the lodger
franchise he had long ago been the “father.” An unmitigated household
franchise he refused as too “democratic.” The “direct taxation”
franchise and the “dual vote,” which were intended as barriers for the
middle classes, he surrendered. That educational franchise which was
bound up with a cause that from boyhood had been dear to him; that
“savings-bank” franchise which established the right of industrial
thrift to representation, he was forced to abandon, by the clamour of
the very party that desired education without religion, and labour
as the mere instrument of capital. Looking back impartially, these
derided “fancy franchises” seem to me a deplorable loss, and even now
it would be well to recognise that the mind and the character should
have representative faculties wholly apart from the power of property.
Disraeli was forced to cast them overboard that he might preserve
the vessel itself during the party hurricane. But the essential
qualifications of residence and rateability he maintained in the teeth
of Mr. Gladstone, and under all the modifications of the principle
which ensued. His mind was fixed to steer between the extremes alike of
those who, under the mask of emancipation, purposed the despotism of a
single class, and of those who desired to form the government of this
country by the caprice of an irresponsible, an unintelligent, and an
indiscriminate multitude. And he proved his earnest sincerity by the
appeal which closed his speech on the second reading: “_Pass the bill,
and then change the ministry if you like_.”
It is not within my province to track the maze of altercations which
attended every step of a bill on which Disraeli, contrary to his
wont, spoke more than three hundred times, or to raise the dust of
controversy this year revived. But, were it so, I could prove how
faithful Disraeli remained to the central ideas which had animated
him from his youth. So far from having passed a “liberal” measure, he
had passed under colossal difficulties, that for which he had long
striven, and in a manner which remedied the defects of 1832 without
endangering the repose of the State. Indeed, for the second time he
actually re-created the Conservative party, and, to the surprise of
some of his friends and all his enemies, discovered in the unknown
region of the toilers, with whom he had ever sympathised, whom he
had always trusted, but whom the Whigs had driven to revolt, and to
whom the “cheapest market” Radicals perpetually begrudged protection,
health, and alleviation--discovered, I say, in these elements--the
pawns of ignoble partisanship--his truest props of order and of
allegiance. The measure and the events of 1884 were to prove the
rightness alike of his confidence and of his caution. The counties with
a lowered franchise became a prey to agitators. The towns remained
staunch and steadfast. And this, though in 1867 Mr. Bright had sneered
at Disraeli for having “lugged” his “omnibus” of stupid squires up the
hill of democracy.
In his speech of 1859, Disraeli protested against any “predominance of
household democracy.” He kept his word. Speaking at Edinburgh in the
autumn of 1867, he remarked on this very topic--
“... It may be said you have established a democratic government in
England, because you have established household suffrage, and you have
gone much further than the measures which you previously opposed....
Now, I am not at all prepared to admit that household suffrage with the
constitutional conditions upon which we have established it--namely,
residence and rating--has established a democratic government. But it
is unnecessary to enter into that consideration, because we have not
established household suffrage in England. There are, I think I may
say, probably four million houses in England. Under our ancient laws,
and under the Act of Lord Grey, about one million of those householders
possessed the franchise. Under the Act of 1867, something more than
half a million will be added to that million. Well, then, I want to
know if there are four million householders, and one and a half million
in round numbers possess the suffrage, how can ‘household suffrage’ be
said to be established in England?”
Thus the proper balance of power, which the bill of 1832 impaired
by the exclusion of labour and the enfeeblement of aristocracy, was
restored. The people were at last reconciled to their leaders. It
had been by accident that the Whigs found themselves arbiters of
the national fate in 1832, and it may be conceded that, according
to their lights, they honestly did their best. To Lord Grey and
his colleagues Disraeli was always just and respectful. But the
breach then made demanded the amends which Disraeli had meditated
for years. By cancelling qualifications arbitrary and irrational,
by conferring political power only in conjunction with social and
political responsibility, by regarding society more than the state, and
influence than interest, by persistent courage and purpose, this great
project succeeded and has endured. The day may come in the process
of generations when, as Disraeli has imagined elsewhere, industry
may cease to repose upon industrialism alone, and representation may
also cease to seem the sole machinery of politics; when enlightenment
and public opinion may form a real national conscience; and when
leadership may prove itself independent of artificial forms. But till
that day arrives, it will be madness in England to give each citizen,
irrespective of any qualification but existence, a voice in the
Legislature, or entrust them with the sway of an empire. His avowed aim
and his accomplished triumph were “to restore those rights which were
lost in 1832 to the labouring class of the country,” and to “bring back
again that fair partition of political power which the old Constitution
of the country recognised.” A year after its enactment, in his great
Irish speech he spoke of it as “a most beneficent and noble Act,” and
he added that he looked “with no apprehension whatever to the appeal
that will be made to the people under the provisions of the Act. I
believe you will have a Parliament full of patriotic and national
sentiment, whose decisions will add spirit to the community and
strength to the State.” “Time,” which was “Contarini Fleming’s” record
in the book of “Adam Besso,” has proved the fulness of his foresight
and the skill of the adjustment.
The mistrust of this great measure at the time, even by men of
intelligence, may be justified by the objection that in the distant
future Labour may resume its war against authority in its coming
conflict with Capital; and that a rigid conservatism of defiance is
preferable to an adaptive conservatism of development. But whenever
that hour strikes, it will be seen that Disraeli’s statesmanship
has prevented the revolution which a conservatism of defiance must
have prepared and entailed. Disraeli will have helped to preserve
the English immunity from the violences which mark such upheavals
elsewhere. He sought with all his might to quicken Capital into duty,
and to hearten Labour by conferring privilege, not as a sop, but as a
reward, while, by alleviating misery through creative enactments, he
has conservatised Labour and kept it in touch with the national scheme.
It may not, perhaps, have been wholly realised how harmonious
Disraeli’s utterances respecting the progressive principles of
representation in England have been. That is my excuse for treating
the subject with insistence, though by no means with completeness. To
have done so would risk the exhaustion of the reader as well as of the
subject. Disraeli prevented the raid of alien and disruptive democracy
from making England a home. Out of the common he extracted the choice.
He revived the democracy long inherent in the English Constitution; he
naturalised the democratic idea on the soil of tradition and order; and
thereby he cemented the solidarity of the State and the welfare of the
nation. He proved that “progress” is not synonymous with push, and that
in going forward it is wise also to look back, lest the goal should be
a precipice. Still, long as this disquisition has necessarily been, I
may hope that it is not dull, since, in Mrs. Malaprop’s aphorism, “I
don’t think there is a superstitious article in it.”