Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century

by James Richard Joy

XI

BEACONSFIELD AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE

[BENJAMIN DISRAELI, Earl of Beaconsfield; born, London, December 21, 1804; died, London, April 19, 1881; baptized in the Church of England, 1817; privately educated; studied law in a solicitor's office, 1821-24; 1825, published his first novel "Vivian Grey"; 1830-31, traveled in Europe and the Levant; his novel "Contarini Fleming" attracts notice 1832; after defeats becomes Member of Parliament for Maidstone 1837; marries Mrs. Wyndham Lewis 1839; leads the "Protectionist" attack on Peel 1846; leader of opposition 1849-52, 1852-58, 1859-66, 1868-74; Chancellor of Exchequer 1852, 1858-59, 1866-68; Premier 1868, 1874-80.]

The expansion of the English domain by discovery and colonization or by war and conquest has been one of the distinguishing features of the nineteenth century. The movement may be said to have begun with the planting of the North American colonies two hundred years before. A century later the victories of Lord Clive and the administration of Warren Hastings, the empire-builder, laid a broad foundation for British dominion in India. Before the dawn of the nineteenth century the voyages of Captain James Cook in the South Pacific had opened new doors to Anglo-Saxon expansion in Australia, New Zealand, and the neighboring islands. In 1806 England wrested from the Dutch the sovereignty of Cape Colony at the southern extremity of Africa, the strategic half- way station on the main traveled sea-road to India and the East. Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus in the Mediterranean, Aden, Singapore, and Hong Kong in the Far Eastern seas were acquired and fortified in order to protect British commerce. It could be said with truth that the sun never set upon the flag of England, and that the morning drum-beat of her garrisons saluted the sun in his daily journey around the world. At the close of the century the foreign possessions of Great Britain amounted in area to ten million square miles, and in population to three hundred and fifty million souls.

The problems which have sprung from this vast colonial empire have been among the most serious which English statesmen have been compelled to face. The colonies in America and Australia were English in blood, language, and institutions. In South Africa a large proportion of the inhabitants were Dutch "Boers," transferred without their consent and against their will to a foreign sovereignty. In India and Burma the English established their authority and maintained it by force of arms over teeming native populations of another race and religion. How to hold together an empire so vast and various; how to adapt administrative methods to its novel and changing needs; how, if possible, to organize the incongruous multitude of dependencies, colonies, and protected states into some sort of federal empire— these are among the newer problems of British statesmanship.

Americans know how imperfectly the ministers of George III. were prepared to deal with such problems, and how their blundering resulted in the independence of the United States. The lesson of 1776 has not been forgotten, as the history of England's conciliatory policy toward Canada and the Australasian commonwealth abundantly testifies. Lord Tennyson's verses, written in the year of the Queen's jubilee, give expression to the altered relation of the mother-country toward her colonial offspring:

"Britain fought her sons of yore,
Britain failed; and nevermore,
Careless of our growing kin,
Shall we sin our fathers' sin;
Men that in a narrower day -
Unprophetic rulers they-
Drove from out the eagle's nest
That young eagle of the West
To forage for herself alone;
Britons, hold your own!
"Sharers of our glorious past,
Brothers, must we part at last?
Shall we not thro' good and ill
Cleave to one another still?
Britain's myriad voices call,
Sons be welded each and all
Into one imperial whole,
One with Britain, heart, and soul!
One life, one fleet, one flag, one throne!
Britons, hold your own."

Although as yet no statesman has arisen who has been able to frame a plan of federation which should weld all into "one imperial whole," the idea is abroad, and has occupied many minds. Perhaps the man whose powerful imagination first grasped the "imperial" idea and began to look upon Greater Britain as having common interests, and being capable of assuming common responsibilities, was Lord Beaconsfield, or Benjamin Disraeli—to use the name by which he first came into public notice. Death hushed his active mind before he could give form and substance to his great concept, and it was left to others trained in his school to propagate the idea, and just at the century's close to demonstrate its significance and worth. Yet what he did for England through a long life spent in conspicuous public service renders it impossible to exclude him from any list of Ten Great Englishmen of the nineteenth century. Nor is there in the entire group a personality more interesting than that of the ambitious, determined, witty, eloquent, and amazingly clever Israelite who raised himself by sheer force of intellect from an object of ridicule and contempt to the leadership of the hereditary aristocracy, membership in the House of Lords, chief minister of England, friend of the sovereign, and arbiter of the destinies of nations. On that January night in 1846, when Sir Robert Peel, as Prime Minister, confessed to the House of Commons his conversion to the theory of free trade, and his purpose to repeal the Corn Laws, he was answered by Benjamin Disraeli in a speech which for bitterness of sarcasm, brilliancy of wit, and savagery of denunciation, has seldom been equaled in parliamentary history. (See Appendix.) He denounced Peel as "a man who never originates an idea; a watcher of the atmosphere; a man who takes his observations, and when he finds the wind in a particular quarter turns his sails to suit it…..Such a man may be a powerful minister, but he is no more a great statesman than the man who gets up behind a carriage is a great whip!" Such an attack, voicing the feelings of the Tory protectionists, and coming from Peel's own side of the House, at that critical moment, made the political fortune of the speaker. From that hour Benjamin Disraeli was looked upon as the hope of the remnant of the Tory party, which could no longer follow Peel.

Disraeli was in his tenth year of membership in the House of Commons. He was a descendant of a line of Spanish and Venetian Jews who had sought refuge in England and prospered there. His father, Isaac Disraeli, had broken with the family traditions, devoting himself to literature instead of getting gain, and had renounced the faith of his fathers. The son, Benjamin, was baptized into the Church of England at the age of thirteen, educated among his father's books and in private schools, and at seventeen articled to a firm of London solicitors. Instead of practicing law the young clerk practiced authorship so cleverly as to make a sensation in his twenty-first year with a novel "Vivian Grey" (1826), the first of eleven ("Young Duke," 1831; "Contarini Fleming," 1832; "Alroy," 1833; "Henrietta Temple," 1836; "Venetia," 1837; "Coningsby," 1844; "Sybil," 1845; "Tancred," 1847; "Lothair," 1870; "Endymion," 1880), besides several long poems, burlesques, and political pamphlets, and "The Life of Lord George Bentinck." "Vivian Grey" was very smartly done, and fashionable London was captivated by its clever satire and witty dialogue. On the profits of his earlier books he traveled extensively in Europe and the Levant, where his Oriental imagination was strongly stimulated. Before he was thirty he had won his way into the most exclusive circles of London society, the vogue of his novels and the brilliancy of his conversational powers commending him to the "smart set" of the metropolis. His determination "to be somebody" in spite of the disadvantages of blood, birth, and lack of money led him to ridiculous affectations—yet, however ridiculed at the time, they served his turn, and brought him the notice that he craved. N. P. Willis, who saw the much-talked-about young Israelitish novelist at Lady Blessington's, wrote of the strange vision: "He was sitting in a window looking on Hyde Park, the last rays of sunlight reflected from the gorgeous gold flowers of a splendidly embroidered waistcoat. Patent leather pumps, a white stick with a black cord and tassel, and a quantity of chains about his neck and pockets served to make him a conspicuous object. He has one of the most remarkable faces I ever saw. He is lividly pale, and but for the energy of his actions and the strength of his lungs, would seem to be a victim of consumption. His eye is black as Erebus, and has the most mocking, lying-in-wait sort of expression conceivable. His mouth is alive with a kind of working and impatient nervousness; and when he has burst forth as he does constantly with a particularly successful cataract of expression, it assumes a curl of triumphant scorn that would be worthy of Mephistopheles. His hair is as extraordinary as his taste in waistcoats. A thick, heavy mass of jet-black ringlets falls on his left cheek almost to his collarless stock, which on the right temple is parted and put away with the smooth carefulness of a girl." A lady who met him at dinner described him as appareled in a black velvet coat lined with satin, purple trousers with a gold stripe on the outside seam, a scarlet waistcoat, lace wristbands to his finger tips, white gloves with flashy rings worn outside. Add to these the flowing black ringlets, and do not wonder that his hostess told the young man that he was making a fool of himself. Froude says he dressed in this fantastic guise to give the impression of folly so that his sudden displays of brilliancy might have the more striking effect coming from such an unlikely source.

Self-esteem was abounding in the young Hebrew, and he did not hesitate to compare himself with others to his own advantage. At twenty-nine he wrote his sister after an evening in the gallery of the House of Commons, "Heard Macaulay's best speech…..but between ourselves I could floor them all!" Egotism it doubtless was, but it sprang from no empty confidence in himself. The time was not distant when he was the acknowledged master of the House which looked so tempting from the galleries. He had offered himself as a Tory with Radical ideas—a combination as unusual as his style of apparel—to the electors of High Wycombe in June, 1832, but was beaten, as he was again in the autumn. It was said that in one of his early candidacies he replied to an elector, who had asked him on what he intended to stand, in the sententious phrase "on my head!" In 1834 he stood for Taunton, only to be defeated a third time. O'Connell, who had helped him in his first campaign, was mortally offended by Disraeli's allusion to his "bloody hand" in the Taunton canvass. The Irish orator, in a bitter rejoinder at Dublin, denounced Disraeli as a Jewish traitor, "the heir at law of the blasphemous thief that died upon the cross."

After many fruitless struggles the coveted seat was won, and in 1837 Benjamin Disraeli entered the House of Commons for Maidstone, his colleague being Wyndham Lewis, the friend whose good offices had gained him the nomination. Not long after the death of Mr. Lewis, in 1838, Mr. Disraeli married his lively widow, a woman to whose devotion not less than to her ample fortune he owed a debt of gratitude which he never failed to acknowledge.

Welcomed to the ranks of the Tory opposition by Sir Robert Peel, the ambitious recruit plunged at once into oratory—only to have his maiden effort drowned by the jeers of his hostile hearers, led by O'Connell's "tail" of Irish members. They mocked at his appeals for a hearing, and though the Tories cheered his pluck, he could not make it go. "At last, losing his temper, which until now he had preserved in a wonderful manner, he paused in the midst of a sentence, and looking the Liberals indignantly in the face, raised his hands and opening his mouth as widely as its dimensions would admit, said, in a remarkably loud and almost terrific tone, 'I have begun, several times, many things, and I have often succeeded at last; aye, sir, and though I sit down now, the time will come when you will hear me.'"

Nor did he ever again fail to get a hearing. He spoke often and to the point, enlivening his solid argument with touches of wit and gleams of imagination which light up the dreary pages of the parliamentary journals. At the first he was the steady supporter of Peel, but this clever man of ideals, imagination, and insight, could have little in common with that prosy, plodding man of business, whose stronghold was in the esteem of the plodding middle classes. When the Tories came into power in 1841, with Peel as Prime Minister, he found no place in his government for the supporter whose talent all parties had now begun to recognize. The slight bred coolness, and as Peel began to veer towards free trade principles, Disraeli, gathering a few ardent Tory protectionists about him, made himself a thorn in the premier's side. His caustic sayings about Peel's acceptance of the principles of the opposition were the talk of the clubs. "The right honorable gentleman," he said, "caught the Whigs bathing and he walked away with their clothes." He characterized the premier's genius as "sublime mediocrity," amid shouts of applause, and his government, raised to office by protectionist votes, yet steadily promoting free trade measures, he branded as "organized hypocrisy." His hostility to the repeal of the Corn Laws was based not so much upon economic argument superior to that of Cobden, as upon his fundamental belief that the greatness of the English nation in all past centuries had been derived from the wise rule of the aristocratic, land-owning class, and a fond belief that the retention of the tariff upon imported agricultural produce would support this ancient pillar of the constitution. Furthermore, his contention that England's adoption of free trade would be met by rival nations with high tariffs against imports of English goods has been borne out by the facts of subsequent history, against the confident assertion of Cobden and the Manchester school of economists that the world would soon follow the lead of England in throwing down all artificial barriers to the exchange of commodities. Peel carried his bill, as we have seen, but the protectionists wreaked their vengeance by overthrowing his government in the moment of victory.

From the hour of his defeat, in 1846, Sir Robert Peel was no longer a party chief. The Tory aristocracy who had lent their aid to the fatal coalition against him were led at first by Lord George Bentinck, but the real director of the organization was Disraeli. In 1849 he succeeded to the formal leadership of the Conservative opposition in the House of Commons, and in 1852, when the Russell ministry went out, he took office under Lord Derby as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and leader of the House of Commons. The Free Trade League bristled up at this resurgence of the protectionist champions, but Disraeli was too wise to invite a renewal of that contest which the voice of the nation had settled, and the subject was left to lapse into innocuous desuetude for half a century. Representing but a minority in Parliament, the ministry could maintain itself but a few months. December, 1852, found the Whigs again in power, where they remained until 1859, Disraeli using his talents the while to build up and consolidate the Tory opposition and to disintegrate the discordant elements, Free Trade, Liberal, Peelite, and Radical, who rallied under the government banner.

In 1858-59 the Derby-Disraeli ministry enjoyed a second brief lease of office, and after the long Whig administration of Palmerston and Russell (1859-66), they succeeded to the direction of affairs for the third time.

Out of office Disraeli continued to entertain Parliament with the audacious, brilliant, and often masterly speeches which he alone of his generation could deliver, and his short-lived experiences as the director and spokesman of the government policy equally evidenced his administrative ability, his control of his followers, and his knowledge of the spirit and temper of the Commons and the nation.

When Benjamin Disraeli, the young novelist, was presented to Lord Melbourne at a social gathering in the early '3O's his lordship had graciously asked how he could serve him. To which the flippant young man had replied that he would like to be Prime Minister. In February, 1868, the resignation of Lord Derby raised Mr. Disraeli to the height of his youthful ambition. He was premier until December, 1868, when his great rival and former party-associate, Gladstone, wrested the honor from his grasp.

During the third Derby-Disraeli ministry, the Reform Bill of 1867 was passed. Thirty-five years before the Grey-Russell Whigs had disfranchised the rotten boroughs and admitted the middle class people of the towns to citizenship and parliamentary representation. As years passed the demand increased for a further extension of the electoral franchise. The Chartists of 1848 demanded universal suffrage and were sternly repressed. After nearly a score of years the Gladstonian Liberals were prepared to gratify this demand in considerable measure, but before they could fully develop their policy, they were out and the Conservatives were in. It was at this juncture that Disraeli took "the leap in the dark," carrying, in 1867, an act "which, in its inevitable developments must give the franchise to every householder in the United Kingdom; and he gained for his party the credit, if credit it was, of having passed a more completely democratic measure than the most radical responsible statesman had yet dared to propose." His accession to the premiership evoked fresh testimony to his popularity. Mr. Froude makes no concealment of the attacks which were made upon him by open foes, or the disguised contempt of members of the aristocracy whose pride of birth had nevertheless allowed them to avail themselves of his talent for leadership. "Yet," says the same biographer, "when he went down to Parliament for the first time in his new capacity, he was wildly cheered by the crowds in Palace Yard. The shouts were echoed along Westminster Hall and through the lobbies, and were taken up again warmly and heartily in the House itself, which had been the scene of so many conflicts-the same House in which he had been hooted down when he first arose to speak."

When Gladstone's first administration (1868-74) had exhausted its volcanic energies, Disraeli for a second time became the chief minister of the Queen, this time not to finish out a weakened term, but with a clear majority at his back, and with the confidence of the Crown and the nation. Internal reforms had gone far enough for the time, and foreign affairs for which Mr. Gladstone had shown less aptitude needed attention from some one who could reproduce the spirit of a Canning, a Palmerston, or a John Bull.

The statesmen who had directed the affairs of the nation for the past thirty years, had seen little to be thankful for in the extensive colonial possessions of England. They had for the most part been "Little Englanders," to use a term of recent coinage, and while using the military power of the government to put down armed resistance to English sovereignty and to defend the integrity of the boundaries of the distant colonies, had done little else to hold the fabric together. Some of the most eminent among them were of the opinion that the possession of the colonies was an element of weakness. In the pursuance of such theories the English commonwealths of British America, Australia, and New Zealand were allowed to develop forms of local government but slightly removed from independence. Their constitutions, approved by English Liberal cabinets, allowed them to impose duties against the mother country, and exempted them from most of the burdens of taxation and military service which are the natural incidents of dependence.

Disraeli's view of all this was vigorously expressed in 1872. "Gentlemen, if you look to the history of this country since the advent of Liberalism, forty years ago, you will find that there has been no effort so continuous, so subtle, supported by so much energy, and carried on with so much ability and acumen, as the attempts of Liberalism to effect the disintegration of the empire of England. And, gentlemen, of all its efforts, this is the one which has been the nearest to success…..Not that I, for one, object to self-government…..But self-government when it was conceded ought to have been conceded as part of a great policy of imperial consolidation. It ought to have been accompanied with an imperial tariff, by securities for the people of England for the enjoyment of the unappropriated lands which belonged to the sovereign as their trustee, and by a military code which should have precisely defined the means and the responsibilities by which the colonies should be defended, and by which, if necessary, this country should call for aid from the colonies themselves. It ought further to have been accompanied by some representative council in the metropolis, which would have brought the colonies into constant and continuous relations with the home government. All this, however, was omitted because those who advised that policy looked upon the colonies of England, looked even upon our connection with India as a burden on this country, viewing everything in a financial aspect, and totally passing by those moral and political considerations which make nations great." Further on in the same speech he had declared, "in my opinion no minister in this country will do his duty who neglects any opportunity of reconstructing as much as possible our colonial empire, and of responding to those distant sympathies which may become the source of incalculable strength and happiness to this land." Yet his own ministry either had no such opportunity, or neglected it, and this far-seeing view of imperial relations was bequeathed unfulfilled for the guidance of those who were to come after.

Disraeli's six years of government were, however, signalized by a series of exploits which restored the tarnished prestige of England in the councils of Europe and doubtless served, however indirectly, to increase the pride of the colonies in the mother country.

When the ship canal was constructed by de Lesseps, connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea and shortening by one-half the route to India, the project had been frowned on by England. In 1875 the Khedive of Egypt, the largest stockholder in the canal, became hard-pressed for funds, and a telegram from Disraeli bought the entire block of shares for the English government for four million pounds. This stroke secured English control of the waterway, and was immensely popular with the nation. The Prince of Wales was sent with great pomp on a tour of India, and in 1876 the Queen's title was made more imposing by the addition of the words "Empress of India." The latter move may be viewed as a counter-stroke against recent advances of the Russians, whose disposition to raise the Eastern Question was irrepressible. The revolt of certain Christian states of Turkey in Europe had revived the animosities which had smouldered since the Crimean War, and while Russia prepared to support the claims of the Christians, Disraeli again ranged England on the side of the Turk. The Queen-Empress, as if to give personal support to the policy of her Prime Minister, raised him to the peerage with the title of Earl of Beaconsfield (1876).

The hatreds and intrigues in the Balkan peninsula led to a bloody war between Russia and Turkey. It soon became evident that unless saved by English intervention, Constantinople must fall into the hands of the Czar. Beaconsfield's spirited language at this crisis was paraphrased in the London music-halls in the famous couplet:

"We don't want to fight, but, by Jingo, if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money, too,"

a song which gave the name of "Jingo" to the war policy of the Conservatives. An English fleet was sent to Constantinople, and England refused to recognize the terms of the treaty of San Stephano, which Russia had extorted from her conquered foe, and demanded that the Eastern Question should be submitted to a congress of the powers. That congress was held at Berlin in the summer of 1878. Prince Bismarck presided, and Lord Beaconsfield attended in person, accompanied by the Foreign Secretary, Lord Salisbury (since premier). The provisions of the Berlin treaty are too complex to be explained here, but they removed the grip of Russia from the throat of the Sultan, and established a group of Balkan principalities of varying degrees of autonomy. "Peace with honor" Beaconsfield announced as the outcome of his mission to Berlin, while the majority of the nation applauded.

Beaconsfield's star culminated at the Congress of Berlin. The efforts of his administration to defend India on the side of Russia by strengthening English hold on Afghanistan, led to the second Afghan War with its bloody massacres and humiliating episodes. In South Africa the imperial policy gave offense to blacks as well as whites, and led to wars which reflected little honor upon British arms. Hard times and consequent hardship among the agricultural classes at home combined with the petty but distressing occurrences in Asia and Africa to bring about a Liberal victory at the general election of 1880, and in April of that year Beaconsfield resigned his portfolio and seals to his great rival, Mr. Gladstone.

It was characteristic of the man's indomitable energy to signalize the year of his fall by writing another novel, "Endymion," a remarkable feat for a man of seventy-six years. He continued to appear in Parliament until near the day of his death, which took place in London, April 19, 1881, on the night following Easter Day.

Among the eulogies pronounced in Parliament upon the fallen leader none was more satisfactory in its explanation of Disraeli's remarkable career than that of the Marquis of Salisbury, who, at his death, succeeded to the chieftancy in the Conservative party. "To me," he said, "as I believe to all others who have worked with him, his patience, his gentleness, his unswerving and unselfish loyalty to his colleagues and fellow- laborers, have made an impression that will never leave me so long as life endures. But these feelings could only affect a limited circle of his immediate adherents. The impression which his career and character have made on the vast mass of his countrymen must be sought elsewhere. To a great extent, no doubt, it is due to the peculiar character of his genius, to its varied nature, to the wonderful combination of qualities he possessed, and which rarely reside in the same brain. To some extent also there is no doubt that circumstances—that is, the social difficulties which opposed themselves to his early rise and the splendid perseverance by which they were overcome—impressed his countrymen who love to see exemplified that career open to all persons, whatever their initial difficulties may be, which is one of the characteristics of the institutions of which they are most proud.

"Zeal for the greatness of England was the passion of his mind. Opinions might, and did, differ deeply as to the measures and steps by which expression was given to the dominant feelings, and more and more, as life drew near its close, as the heat and turmoil of controversy were left behind, as the gratification of every possible ambition negatived the suggestion of any inferior motives and brought out into greater prominence the purity and strength of this one intense feeling the people of this country recognized the force with which this desire dominated his actions. In the questions of interior policy which divided classes, he had to consider them, he had to judge them, and to take his course accordingly. It seemed to me that he treated them always as of secondary interest compared to the one great question—how the country to which he belonged might be made united and strong!"

The party to which Disraeli's genius gave direction and victory came again to power after the defeat of the Gladstonian schemes for the relief of Ireland, and reinforced by the Liberal-Unionist contingent under Joseph Chamberlain it has governed England for nearly twenty years. Its head, Lord Salisbury, one of Beaconsfield's most trusted lieutenants, has been true to the ruling ideas of his brilliant chief. The idea of an English empire, its parts inspired with a common purpose, has been zealously nourished. The jubilee (1887) and diamond jubilee (1897), of Queen Victoria's reign, were seized upon to give prominence and honor to the colonial representatives. The premiers of the colonies have met in conference at London and the whole vast and complex problem of federal empire has come under discussion. The problem is still far from solution, but that the relation has passed beyond the stage of mere sentiment is shown in many ways. The joy of the colonies over the diamond jubilee (1897), their united grief at Victoria's passing (1901), their welcome to the son of Edward VII., upon his progress around the world, and the unanimity with which volunteers sprang to the aid of England in the South African War—this response of English hearts in Canada, Australia, and elsewhere to the drum-beat of the empire was the fulfillment of one of Beaconsfield's imaginative dreams. A writer in the "Spectator" two years earlier had made the prophecy which in the century's end came to be realized:

"The night is full of darkness and doubt,
The stars are dim and the Hunter's out:
The waves begin to wrestle and moan;
The Lion stands by his shore alone,
And sends to the bounds of Earth and Sea
First low notes of the thunder to be.
Then East and West through the vastness grim,
The whelps of the Lion answer him."