MR. DISRAELI AT WILDA - ALT, N O one, when he is the
vein, makes such a speech on a ceremonial occasion as Mr. Disraeli, and on Monday he was, if not in his happiest vein—for his happiest vein is banter— at least in a very happy one. He possesses almost in their perfection two arts which, though they do not help to make their possessor a statesman, or even an orator, materially help him to keep up the dignity and the interest which should attach, but very seldom do attach, to such occasions. He can assume his data with an aplomb, an apparent conviction, a calm serenity which for the moment silence controversy, if only from amazement; and he can infuse into a speech full of nothings, hints, or simulacra of hints—apparitions of hints, as it were, which produce in most minds the kind of amused interest some people feel in solving an easy double acrostic. He is aware, we suspect, of this latter power, and sometimes indulges himself in stretching it till, with a secret smile at the upturned faces, he passes the border-line between a hint and a mystification. His peroration, for instance, at the Guildhall banquet contained one magniloquent sentence which everybody cheered uproariously, which sounded as if it revealed a policy, and to which no living being can attach a definite meaning. According to the Times' report, he said that Great Britain exercised a great influence for order by "exhibiting to Europe the example of a State which has solved the great political problem of combining order with liberty, and which, if some of those troubles which are anticipated may occur, will, while it still vindicates the principle of religious liberty, not shrink from proclaiming the principle of religious truth." What, in the name of theology or politics, can be the import of that sentence What are the troubles anticipated What is the principle of religious truth I We have heard of maintaining the unity, or the ascendancy, or the independence of religious truth as a principle, but the " principle of religious truth " by itself means just nothing at all. Can it be that the State, or rather Parliament, is next Session to octroyer a creed which is to be binding upon all men, but rejected by anybody who likes ?—for that is the nearest approach to a coherent explana- tion of the words of which we can even think. In that case, the year will be lively, for theologians at all events, but we cannot congratulate the Premier on his chance of avoiding or suppressing the " troubles " of which, with such vague pre- science, he prophesied to an admiring and responsive Guildhall. More frequently, however, his hints have some slight and in- sufficient, but intelligible ?basis of concrete fact. We suppose, when Mr. Disraeli says that his Government has already done something to preserve peace in Europe, that Lord Derby really helped, or tried to help, to diminish that tension between France and Germany which everybody saw a few weeks ago had arisen out of the wretched muddle in Spain ; and that the curious flavour of Gallicism which penetrated the speech—a flavour delicate and subtle as an aroma, but still perceptible to ordinary palates—was intended to announce a certain com- parative cordiality with France and with the French Govern- ment, more especially if it should assume that constitu- tional form which the Comte de Jarnac—who calls Louis Philippe " that wise King," and M. Guizot " that illustrious Minister," and who was, perhaps, with all his tact and all his command of the English tongue, a shade too friendly to this Government, rather than to the Govern- ment of the United Kingdom—must necessarily regard as his ideal. Indeed, the French Ambassador admitted as much ; his praises of English ordered liberty, though perfectly sincere, being no doubt expressed on this precise occasion because, when translated, they may influence opinion in the coming Session of the Assembly.
The way in which Mr. Disraeli gave this flavour to his speech, is quite a study in the art of dropping meanings, as a late Lord Mayor used to drop his h's, into after-dinner sherry. The rela- tion between the British workman and Count Arnim seems re- mote, but as the statesmen of Europe read these words, which in themselves are platitudes, it is of Count Arnim and the new Landsturm law that they will unconsciously be thinking :— " There are things, in my opinion, and I hope and believe in yours, even more precious than land and capital, and without which land and capital themselves would be of little worth. What, for instance, is land without liberty I And what is capital without justice ? The working-classes of this country have inherited personal rights which the nobility of other nations do not yet possess. Their persons and their homes are sacred. They have no fear of arbitrary arrest or domiciliary visits. They know as the Lord Chancellor has justly reminded'
us, that the administration of law in this country is pure, and that it is no respecter of individuals or classes. They know
very well that their industry is unfettered—that by the law of this country they may combine to protect the interests of labour, and as the Commander-in-Chief has well reminded us, they know that, though it is open to all of them to serve their
Sovereign by land or sea, no one can be dragged from his craft or his hearth to enter a military service which is repugnant to him."—" Dear me 1" comes back a telegram on Wednesday from Berlin,—" Mr. Gladstone is quite right on that Roman question. How we wish he had stayed in power!" Again the hint, though preserving its form, broadens and deepens into a statement, as in the assertion that the revenue is " realising all we antici- pated," and that on the Budget night, " more important, perhaps, than the night of the 9th of November," Sir Stafford Northcote will show " that his finance has been sound, and that he may fairly be proud of the office he fills,"— which he would not be, of course, if his office were to extenuate a deficit. And again, Mr. Disraeli, almost
abandoning his method, but still retaining it so far as to avoid the word " Feejee " rises into a tone of triumph as he declares that "we," the Ministry, "have proved our confidence in the
Colonial Empire of England by adding a province to that Empire, and are resolved by every means in our power to con- solidate and confirm it." The audience hearing these things almost thought they were listening to secrets of State, and applauded with the additional fervour of men who think or fancy that they are trusted by a superior,—an impression not diminished by their recollection of Mr. Disraeli's exordium, of the Olympian calmness with which he had reminded them of 1868, and told them of the Empires that since he last met them in that Hall had risen and passed away, of the Republics that had been established " in sight of your own cliffs "— think of that marvel!—of "that immemorial and sacred Throne .which for centuries emperors and kings had failed to control, and which had vanished away like a dream." Somehow the listeners—as many of them as could hear for the noise—felt as if the speaker had anticipated it all, and almost believed, when he added that England had been tranquil because the franchise had been widened "with no grudging hand," that Mr. Disraeli, foreseeing the fall of the Temporal Power, had in a moment of superb prescience averted all English consequences of that all but supernatural disaster by accepting Mr. Hodgkinson's pro- posal to abolish the compound householder 1 Obviously a great Minister, a man really ruling, a man for whose words one may -crane one's neck without a trace of adulation, that is the -total impression the audience received, and that is the one -which Mr. Disraeli meant to convey. The single evil of a speech like this is that it is, perhaps, a thought too perfectly artistic, so artistic that people more given than the English to interpret shades of meaning may attribute to it more importance - than it deserves. The sympathy shown for France and her representative was most graceful, and we utterly repudiate the cowardly opinion that such sympathy may be dangerous, because France is down ; but in France, as in America and Ireland, there is a thirst for sympathy, especially official sympathy, which may lead her to over-rate the friendship, or rather the self-sacrificing character of the friendship assumed from such cordiality. Mr. Disraeli, it may be well to'remind Parisians, knows how to welcome an old friend and how to ex- press himself towards a most efficient ally, but he will act precisely as Lord Granville would have acted, that is, will act in foreign politics exactly as the nation may decide, with no more courage, and with no more indifference to the truth that England is a great' Power only when her people are clear that the time has arrived to act. It is not in the Guildhall or in November that an English Ministry proclaims a serious policy, or warns foreign Powers that the patience of the people of Great Britain has at last been exhausted. There is an entente cordials here with France, but it exists only up to a certain point, and Mr. Disraeli's gracious speeches must be read, if they are to be understood, with a full recollection that all he said and all he implied did not make the Funds fluctuate in a sensitive time one-sixteenth per cent. It >is a brutal test, that, but it is one which always measures to a shade the importance of a reticent speech by an adroit Premier upon the foreign policy of the kingdom, whether Mr. Disraeli or Mr. Gladstone be its authorised exponent.
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