See p. [516].
CHAPTER XLII.
DEMOCRACY AND IMPERIALISM.
1865-1885.
The death of Lord Palmerston forms a convenient point at which to draw the line between the earlier and the later history of the two great English political parties. Down to 1865, the Liberals and the Conservatives alike retained in a great measure the characteristics of their forefathers the Whigs and Tories. The Liberal host was still largely officered from the old aristocratic Whig houses; many of its members disliked and distrusted democracy, and thought that in all essential things the constitution had reached a point at which it needed no further reform. As long as Palmerston lived, there was no chance that the more militant and progressive wing of the Liberals would draw the whole party into the paths of Radicalism. In a similar way, the Conservative party still kept somewhat of the old Tory intolerance and inflexibility, though for the last twenty years the younger of its two chiefs, Benjamin Disraeli, had been striving hard to guide it into new lines of thought.
The New Liberalism.
After 1865 the new Liberalism and the new Conservatism came into direct opposition, personified in the two men who were soon to take up the leadership of the two parties—Gladstone and Disraeli. Liberalism when divested of its Whiggery was practically Radicalism. Its younger exponents took up as their official programme the ideas that had been afloat for the last forty years in the brains of the more extreme section of their party. Their main aim was the transference of political power from the middle classes to the masses, by means of a wide extension of the franchise; the new voters were to be made worthy of the trust by compulsory national education, while to guard them against influences from without, the secret ballot—one of the old Chartist panaceas—was to be introduced.
State interference and "laissez faire."
The party which proclaimed itself the friend of democracy was bound to promise tangible benefits to the working classes. But the Liberals were still divided on the question of the advisability of State interference in the private life of the citizen. The younger men were already dreaming of "paternal legislation" for the amelioration by law of the conditions of life among the poorer classes, hoping to secure them cheap food, healthy dwellings, shorter hours of labour, and opportunities of recreation and culture by means of State aid and public money. But in the sixties the "Manchester School," as the adherents of laissez faire and strict political economy were called, was still predominant, and social legislation and extensive State interference were not yet enrolled among the official doctrines of the Liberal party. Its war-cry at election time was "Peace, retrenchment, and reform." The first cry was one that had not been so much heard in Palmerston's day, but on his death his successors showed themselves very cautious in dealing with all foreign powers. Moreover, they wished to win popularity by cheap government, a thing incompatible with a spirited foreign policy. Their opponents accused them of allowing the army and navy to grow too weak, and of being compelled in consequence to assume a meek tone in dealing with the powers whom Palmerston had been wont to beard and threaten. Wrapped up in their schemes of domestic reform, they gave comparatively little attention to external affairs.
The New Conservatism.