IV
Man, as Aristotle tells us, is a political animal: and among imaginative writers in the ’thirties and ’forties of the last century, Disraeli had an eminently political mind. I say, “eminently,” because in the years that followed the great struggle over the Reform Bill all men’s eyes—eyes of advocates as of opponents—were turned on this wonderful Reformed Parliament, awaiting some transformation of our society, for good or for evil. The expectancy operated on Disraeli as on the rest. He was a House of Commons man with his ambition centred on success in that House. He did not believe that this reformed House was in any way capable of producing a millennium. With his own purpose very steadily set to advance his career; with a sense of intrigue and a courage steadily sharpened by disappointment; he perceived the nostrums of the new Parliament to be nostrums no more honest than the old; as he perceived the counteracting devices of his own party to be no more than delaying devices devoid of principle. He hated the very name of “the Conservative Party” invented by Croker:
I observe, indeed, a party in the State whose rule is to consent to no change until it is clamorously called for, and then instantly to yield; but these are Concessionary, not Conservative principles. This party treats institutions as we do our pheasants, they preserve but to destroy.
But he felt, with the feeling of England, that this evil of the factory system demanded an instant redress only to be achieved by sharp legislation: and, so far he was right. Ashley and his backers could look nowhere but to Parliament for immediate cure. There happen from time to time in the history of a nation (as sensible men must admit) crises to which hasty methods must be applied, as you catch up and spoil a valuable rug to smother an outbreak of fire.