The new Conservatism of which Disraeli was the exponent was a creed of a very different kind. It was the aim of that statesman to lay the foundations of his party on a combination of social reform and national patriotism. Since his first appearance in Parliament, he had striven to persuade the people that the Conservatives were truer friends of the masses than the Liberals. The latter, he maintained, offered them barren political privileges; the former were ready to aid them by benevolent legislation to secure a practical amelioration of the conditions of their life. They would govern for the people, if not by the people.
Disraeli and Reform.
Even in the direction of enlarging the franchise, Disraeli was prepared to go far, though at first he shrank from granting so much as his rivals, and wished to give an extra voting power to education and wealth.
Disraeli and Imperialism.
But the feature of the new Conservatism which was most attractive to the public was one of which Palmerston would have thoroughly approved. Disraeli had a great confidence in the imperial destiny of Great Britain, and a firm belief that she ought to take a bold and decided part in the councils of Europe. With this end in view, he was anxious to keep our armed strength high, and his expenditure on military and naval objects was one of the things most frequently thrown in his teeth by his opponents. The Liberals accused him of a tendency towards "Imperialism," meaning, apparently, to ascribe some discredit to him thereby. He himself never denied the charge, but made his boast of it, though in his mouth it had another shade of meaning. To the Liberals it meant presumption, a love of show and of sounding titles, a readiness to annex to the right hand and the left, a proneness to intervene in foreign quarrels, "a policy of bluster," in short. But in the mouth of its exponents Imperialism meant a desire to knit more closely together Great Britain and her colonies; to treat the empire as a whole, and to govern it without any slavish subservience to the "parochial politics" of England; to make the British name respected by civilized and feared by barbarous neighbours.
At the opening of the new period, therefore, the nation was about to be confronted by two rivals, one of whom offered it internal political reform, the other imperial greatness. But at first the issues were not clear; the two parties were still, to a certain extent, draped in the remnants of the old wardrobe of Whiggery and Toryism. Till these were torn away, the meaning of the new movements could not be distinctly seen.
Lord John Russell Premier.—The Reform Bill of 1866.
On Palmerston's death, the leadership of his cabinet fell to the aged Lord John—now Earl—Russell. His accession to power was followed by the bringing forward of the first of the Reform Bills which were to occupy the forefront of English politics for the next three years. It was proposed to reduce the qualification for the franchise to the possession of a £14 holding in the counties, and a £7 house in the boroughs. Lord Derby and his Conservative followers opposed it, though Disraeli had long ago pointed out that a Reform Bill of some sort was inevitable. But the Tories were strengthened by seceders from the ministerial camp, followers of the old Palmerstonian policy, who hated the idea of unrestrained democracy. By their aid the bill was thrown out, and Lord John Russell immediately resigned (June, 1866).
Ministry of Lord Derby.