Disraeli, Democracy and the Tory Party E. J. Feuchtwanger (Clarendon
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Tory story
ROBERT BLAKE
The years leading up to and following the second Reform Act have gone a good way to displace the period around 1832 as a focus of interest to nineteenth century political his- torians. This is perhaps because they are so much more akin to our own time; or at least we can recognise modern problems there in embryo, whereas the significance of the first Reform Act now seems to be less and to have been exaggerated by some of the older his- torians. Whatever the reason, the result has been a number of excellent books in the last few years.
Professor Hanham cleared the way with his admirable Elections and Party Management (1959). Then came Mr R. T. Shannon's fas- cinating study, Gladstone and the Bulgarian Agitation (1963)—a book which threw much light on far wider issues than the scope of the title suggests. In the same year Dr Royden Harrison published his important Before the Socialists. During the last two years there has been quite a spate of studies in this field: Mr Maurice Cowling's illuminating Disraeli, Gladstone and Revolution, Dr Paul Smith's thoughtful Disraelian Conservatism and Social Reform, Dr F. B. Smith's Making of the Second Reform Bill, Mr John Vincent's For- mation of the Liberal Party and Mr Trevor Lloyd's General Election of 1880.
Mr Feuchtwanger has made a valuable addi-
lion to the historiography of the period. The Conservatives have always been more of a puzzle than the Liberals. They have been less articulate and more reticent. Everyone knows about Chamberlain and the Caucus, but it is only recently that attention has been directed to the corresponding structure on the Tory side. Not that it corresponded at all closely. Indeed, one of Mr Feuchtwanger's points is that the Liberal party was much more the product of various external pressure groups than the Con- servative party, which has always bad its roots deep in the House of Commons—and at that time in the House of Lords too.
The moment when the Conservative party seemed most likely to adopt the Chamber- lainite pattern was at the height of the struggle waged by Lord Randolph Churchill against 'the old men crooning round the fires of the Carlton Club.' But Mr Feuchtwanger is surely right to say of this enjoyable if over- written drama: 'Much of it had been shadow boxing.' Clearly Lord Randolph was out for himself rather than any 'cause' such as the democratisation of the Conservative machine, which he was quite ready to drop—to the mor- tification of those who took it seriously. But even so there are mysteries about his behaviour, and to this day it is not quite clear what the nature and causes of his eventual compromise with Lord Salisbury really were.
The Conservative party's two most important extra-parliamentary institutions, the Central Office and the National Union, were both founded at the beginning of the period. Mr Feucbtwanger gives us the first full account of how this occurred, basing his narrative on a great deal of unpublished material. It is a more complicated story than has hitherto been recognised, and the notion that the party sud- denly evolved a quasi-modern pattern as a result of Disraeli's belief in 'Tory Democracy' is clearly fallacious. In fact, the Central Office came into being because a change in the law made it no longer profitable for his London solicitors, Baxter, Rose, Norton and Co, to conduct the affairs of the party in return for a monopoly in the conduct of Conservative elec- tion petitions. These had hitherto been tried before committees of the House of Commons, but were now heard locally by a judge. At the same time Markham Spofforth, the partner who acted as principal agent, fell under a cloud because of the loss of the election of 1868. The upshot was a new office in Parlia- ment Street headed by atnew man, John Eldon Gorst—a clever, quirky...cantankerous figure who quarrelled in the. long - run with nearly everyone and ended by resigning from the party and standing as a Liberal. in 1910. He deserves an important place in the-history of party or- ganisation for, despite his defects, he un- doubtedly improved the Conservative machine out of all recognition.
Gorst also founded the National Union. In its early stages it was a very hole-and-corner affair. No member of the government attended its inaugural meeting on 12 November 1867, and it played no significant part in the election a year later. It was Gorst's decision to double the position of its secretary with that of prin- cipal agent, and—even more important—Dis- raeli's decision to address it at the Crystal Palace in 1872, which put it on the map. But the leaders of the party neither then nor at any subsequent time were willing to let the tail wag tfie dog. Disraeli, Salisbury, Balfour and their successors have always kept the National Union firmly in its place—or tried to do so; and have usually succeeded.
The whole problem of 'Tory democracy' arises here. In Gorst's day there were two quite separate elements in the Conservative party's support: the counties and small boroughs dominated by the landed gentry who used methods of 'influence' too often reminiscent of bygone days—what Gorst called 'the Old Identity'; and the electorate in the large cities, which had to be won if the party was ever to escape its minority status—and could only be won by the new techniques of mass organi- sation. Tory democracy was essentially for the cities, but it could mean two things. It could mean the rise of the middle-class urban leaders to something like equality—or at least 'parity of esteem'—with the magic circle of London club and country house. It also meant a policy which appealed to the newly enfranchised urban householder whose interests did not necessarily coincide at all with those of the middle-class leaders in Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham etc. These ambiguities were never fully re- solved. Lord Randolph Churchill characteris- tically swept them aside by simply calling it the 'democracy which supports the Tory party.' Tory democracy thus defined certainly has one advantage: all sections of the party agree, whatever their opinions of democratic dobtrines in general, that there simply cannot be too much of it. But neither Lord Randolph nor anyone else has yet discovered bow to make it permanent—and a good thing too! It would be a dull world if they had.
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