TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. DISRAELI'S TWO IDEAS.
T HOSE who dislike Mr. Disraeli, and they are neither few 1 nor silent, are apt to say that he has not only no poli- tical principles but no political fixed ideas. There never was a greater mistake. Not only has he one strong political prin- ciple, viz., that he ought to govern England, but he has at least two fixed political ideas. One is the ecclesiastical notion that attacking your enemy's creed is equivalent to fixing , your own—an idea seldom absent from the Record, Dr. Puny, and speakers in Convocation ; and the other, the demagogue's belief that mankind are governed by words. To the first he has been consistent from the day when he surrendered the last hope of succeeding within the Whig ranks. As in 1846 he confounded fierce hostility to Sir Robert Peel and his fol- lowers with a policy for Conservatives, so, on Friday, at the dinner of the "National Conservative Registration Associa- tion," he made opposition to all ideas which Liberals might, could, would, or should entertain, serve for the Tory creed. Ile had no scruples as to whether they did entertain them— that was mere matter of fact beneath an orator's cognizance. The Liberal party, for instance, are almost morbidly afraid of "Americanizing" the suffrage. They have in this last Parliament rejected one reform bill as being too democratic. Not only are they reluctant to swamp the educated in a flood of six-pound voters—which is wise, but they refuse the mode- rate compromise which would bring the whole body of artizans en raiport with the constitution.—which is simply silly. Consequently, Mr. Disraeli affirms The Liberal party are of opinion that the electoral franchise ought to be democratic. We are not." The Liberal party are excessively anxious, anxious to timidity, that the National Church should be strengthened, that no one should be driven out of her ranks by inquisitorial harsh- ness, that the educated should not be delivered up bound hand and foot to Calvinistic tub-orators, whether devoted to episcopal order or congregational freedom. Although ashamed to oppose, they suffer every proposed reform to drop through, keep the Universities closed as if culture made Non- conformists, and keep up the rates which give force to dissent, lest by changing the plaster the " bulwarks " of the Church should grow weak. Consequently, Mr. Disraeli says :-- "The Liberal party are of opinion that the union between Church and State should be abolished. We are not."
The Liberals are of opinion that the relations between England and her colonies are beneficial to both, and should never be abrogated except on the declared will of the latter, and therefore Mr. Disraeli says :—" Our colonial empire, which is the national estate that assures to every subject of Her Majesty, as it were, a freehold, and which gives to the energies and abilities of Englishmen an inexhaustible theatre —the Liberal party are of opinion that the relations between the metropolis and the people of the colonies should be abrogated. We are not." (Mark that exquisite touch about the colonies being estates, as if Canada would, independent, offer a poorer soil or demand a higher price per acre than Canada grown from a colony into a nation.) The Liberal creed is first invented, and then the Tory creed is defined as opposition to that. Of course, the The dogma of pure resistance, however, though it might go down with a company such as that assembled at Willis's Rooms, never quite suits the electoral mass. " Acred up to their necks con-soiled up to their chins," as their leader once described them, the Tory members who thronged to applaud, of an historic party as the negation of other men's creeds. eldest sons and landed squires, old bankers, and merchants who have succeeded in life, feel instinctively that let the world go as it will they can be no better off. If only by infinite shoving and generalship they could keep it from turning round! The bulk of electors, however, the men for whose especial benefit registration societies exist, feel, despite their party theories, that the world is not quite perfect yet, that change is not very dreadful to them, that Governments might, under certain circumstances, almost as well exist for the benefit of those they govern. They must be conciliated, for they have votes, and for their behoof Mr. Disraeli puts on the demagogic costume. If there be one sound article in the Tory faith it is that a thing is not necessarily good because the mass of mankind approve it. If there be one immove- able conviction in Mr. Disraeli's own mind, it is that power can best be wielded by sections of humanity, and not by the whole—by castes, sects, races, by Sews, Orangemen, aristocrats, and not by the bulk of the peoples. He believes, however, in words, and boldly describes the faith he has not defined and the policy he has not suggested as the only ideas deserving the credit of "popularity :"—" It has always appeared to me that the great political struggle which has prevailed during the last thirty years is, in fact, a struggle between popular principles and Liberal opinions." Mr. Disraeli, we will do him the justice to believe, intends to affirm that those principles are "popular" which benefit the people, but he nowhere explains his meaning. All he wants is a catchword, and so he adroitly employs one which will convey to a tenant-farmer the idea that his policy is one desired by the people, and to the educated few the notion that it will be for the people's benefit. So delighted is he with the equivoque, that it tempts him, though addressing a room full of members, ta indulge in a regular burst of hustings ora- tory :—" Gentlemen, the Tory party is only in its proper position when it represents popular principles. Then it is truly irresistible. Then it can uphold the Throne and the Altar, the majesty of the Empire, the liberty of the nation, and the rights of the multitude." If that magnilo- quence meant anything, it would mean that the Tory party was only in its proper position when it upheld retrenchment, progress, and freedom, that is, when it had ceased to be the Tory party ; but in reality it means nothing. It is only a "catch" sentence, intended, to convince those who doubt whether the permanence of the Papacy, of the Irish Church, of a feudal tenure, of Continental oppression, of oaths without meaning and restrictions without justice can, indeed, be for their good, that the Tory party, which supports all these things, is, though misunderstood, really the popular side. It is the utterance of the old demagogue as improved by civilization, of the man who in one country becomes Csesar only "to give energy to the popular will," in another makes priests despotic to protect the people's chance of salvation, and in a third massacres the proprietary in order to "secure the popular welfare." The public will is to be resisted in every direction under cover of the "popular" claims, which are again explained as those benefits which the leaders of the immoveable party think the people ought to have.
Once in his speech Mr. Disraeli descended to detail, but it was only once more to prove how strong is his faith in words. In a series of marvellously clever sentences he ascribed the two last defeats of the Tories, and the existing Government, to "coalitions." He would have ascribed them to astral in- fluences if the stars had been sufficiently unpopular to reflect discredit upon their friends, but be chooses his phrases well. Englishmen, whose political history is one long succession of compromises, have, for accidental reasons, an extreme dislike to hear of that form of political compromise called a which, on his own showing, is a coalition of the very worst kind, who is always buying up the debris of forgotten factions by little agreements for mutual benefit, accuses the Whigs of the heinous crime of havina.° "exhausted coalitions." We fear greatly that they have not, that the men of this generation will have to record one more stronger than any of those which Mr. Disraeli named, and approaching in his judgment yet more nearly the floor of the abyss. Should the " Conserva- tive Liberals," as they threaten, ever quit the Whigs for the Liberal Conservatives, the price which they will demand for that dangerous coalition will be the dethronement of the un- scrupulous dealer in words, who now tries to define the creed
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