At the general election in 1841, Sir Robert Peel was borne into power, with a majority returned on Protectionist principles, larger than the most sanguine enthusiast had dared to hope for, Disraeli himself being returned for Shrewsbury—his connection with Maidstone having been probably broken by his late colleague’s death. When the new Parliament settled to work, Peel took the reins, and settled the finances by an income-tax—then called a temporary expedient, but in fact a necessary condition of the policy which at once he proceeded to follow. Duties were reduced in all directions, but there was no word of commercial treaties. Free Trade principles were visibly to be adopted, so far as the state of parties would allow, and the indications grew daily stronger that no such policy as Disraeli desired had come near the Premier’s mind. The middle classes had confidence in Peel. It seemed that Peel had confidence in them, and Disraeli had none at all. Still, Peel was his political chief, and Disraeli continued to serve him, and to serve effectively and zealously. More and more he displayed his peculiar powers. When he chose he was the hardest hitter in the House of Commons; and as he never struck in malice, and selected always an antlered stag for an adversary, the House was amused at his audacity. Palmerston on some occasion regretted that the honourable member had been made an exception to the rule that political adherents ought to be rewarded by appointments. He trusted that before the end of the Session the Government would overlook the slight want of industry for the sake of the talent. Disraeli ‘thanked the noble viscount for his courteous aspirations for his political promotion. The noble viscount was a master of the subject. If the noble viscount would only impart to him the secret by which he had himself contrived to retain office during so many successive administrations, the present debate would not be without a result.’ Such a passage at arms may have been the more entertaining because Disraeli was supposed to have resented the neglect of his claims when Peel was forming his Administration. It is probable that Peel had studied the superficial aspects of his character, had underrated his ability, had discerned that he might not be sufficiently docile, or had suspected and resented his advocacy of the Chartists. Disraeli may have thought that the offer ought to have been made to him, but it is evident that on other grounds the differences between them would tend to widen. The Tariff of 1842 was the first note of alarm to the Conservative party—Disraeli defended it, but not with an entire heart. ‘Peel,’ he said in a letter to his sister,[8] ‘seems to have pleased no party, but I suppose the necessity of things will force his measure through: affairs may yet simmer up into foam and bubble, and there may be a row.’ The Conservatives had been trusted by the country with an opportunity of trying their principles which, if allowed to pass, might never be renewed. Their leader was not yet openly betraying them, but everyone but himself began to perceive that the Conservatism of the Government was only to be Liberalism in disguise.
Disraeli individually had the satisfaction of feeling that he was becoming a person of consequence. He ran across to Paris, and dined privately with Louis Philippe. In London he was presented to the King of Hanover, ‘the second king who has shaken hands with me in six months.’ Public affairs he found ‘uncertain and unsatisfactory,’ Peel ‘frigid and feeble,’ and ‘general grumbling.’ He continued to speak, and speak often and successfully; but the mutual distrust between him and his chief was growing.
Peel among his magnificent qualities had not the art of conciliating the rank-and-file of his supporters. He regarded them too much as his own creatures, entitled to no consideration. Disraeli, taking the whole field of politics for his province, met with rebuke after rebuke. He had seen by this time that for his own theories there was no hope of countenance from the present chief. He had formed a small party among the younger Tory members—men of rank and talent, with a high-bred enthusiasm which had been kindled by the Church revival. A party including Lord John Manners, George Smyth, Henry Hope, and Baillie Cochrane was not to be despised; and thus reinforced and encouraged, he ventured to take a line of his own.
Among the articles of faith was the belief that Ireland ought to be treated on the principles of Charles I., and not on the principles of Cromwell. O’Connell in 1843 was setting Ireland in a flame again, and Peel, better acquainted with Ireland than Disraeli, and hopeless of other remedy, had introduced one of the periodic Coercion Bills. The Young Englanders, as he and his friends were now called, had Catholic sympathies, and they imagined that religion was at the bottom of these perpetual disturbances. Coercion answered only for the moment. A more conciliatory attitude towards the ancient creed might touch the secret of the disease. Disraeli perhaps wished to show that he bore no malice against O’Connell or against his tail. He thought that he could persuade the Irish that they had more to hope for from Cavalier Tories than from Roundhead Whigs. Of Irish history he knew as little as the rest of the House of Commons. He had heard, perhaps, of the Glamorgan Articles and Charles I.’s negotiations with the Kilkenny Parliament. Peel, when in opposition, had talked about conciliation. In office he had nothing to propose but force. Disraeli, when the Bill came before the House, gave the first sign of revolt; he said that it was one of those measures which to introduce was degrading, and to oppose disgraceful. He would neither vote for it nor against it; but as Peel had departed from the policy which he had led his party to hope that he meant to pursue before he came into power, he (Disraeli), speaking for himself and his friends, declared that they were now free from the bonds of party on this subject of Ireland, for the right hon. gentleman himself had broken them. They had now a right to fall back on their own opinions.
PERSONAL INDEPENDENCE
Something still more significant was to follow. A few days later (August 1843) the Eastern question came up. Disraeli, whose friendship for the Turks was of old standing, asked a question relating to Russian interference in Servia. Peel gave an abrupt answer to end the matter. Palmerston, however, taking it up, Disraeli had a further opportunity of speaking. He complained that Turkey had been stabbed in the back by the diplomacy of Europe; that the integrity and independence of the Turkish dominions were of vital consequence, &c. But the point of his speech was in the sting with which it concluded. Winding up in the slow, deliberate manner which he made afterwards so peculiarly effective, he reminded the House of his own previous question, couched, he believed, in Parliamentary language, and made with all that respect which he felt for the right hon. gentleman. ‘To this inquiry,’ he said, ‘the right hon. gentleman replied with all that explicitness of which he was a master, and all that courtesy which he reserved only for his supporters.’
THE IRISH QUESTION
The House of Commons had much of the generous temper of an English public school. Boys like a little fellow who has the courage to stand up to a big one, and refuses to be bullied. The Whigs were amused at the mutiny of a Tory subordinate. The Tory rank-and-file had so often smarted under Peel’s contempt that the blow told, and Disraeli had increased his consequence in the House by another step. Those who judge of motive by events, and assure themselves that when the actions of a man lead up to particular effects, those effects must have been contemplated by himself from the outset of his career, see indication in these speeches of a deliberate intention on Disraeli’s part to supersede Sir Robert Peel in the leadership of the Conservative party. The vanity of such a purpose, had it been really entertained, would have been exceeded by the folly of his next movement. In the following year O’Connell’s monster meetings had become a danger to the State. Peel had again to apply to the House of Commons, with a general sense on both sides that the authority of the Crown must be supported. Disraeli, almost alone among the English members, took the same daring attitude which he had assumed on the Chartist petition. Being in reality a stranger in the country of his adoption, he was able to regard the problems with which it was engaged in the light in which they appeared to other nations. The long mismanagement of Ireland, its chronic discontent and miserable state, were regarded everywhere as the blot upon the English escutcheon, and the cause of it was the mutual jealousy and suspicion of parties at Westminster. If a remedy was ever to be found, party ties must be thrown to the winds. What, he asked, did this eternal Irish question mean? One said it was a physical question, another a spiritual question. Now it was the absence of an aristocracy, then the absence of railroads. It was the Pope one day, potatoes the next. Let the House consider Ireland as they would any other country similarly situated, in their closets. They would see a teeming population denser to the square mile than that of China, created solely by agriculture, with none of those sources of wealth which are developed by civilisation, and sustained upon the lowest conceivable diet. That dense population in extreme distress inhabited an island where there was an Established Church which was not their Church, and a territorial aristocracy the richest of whom lived in distant capitals. They had a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and, in addition, the weakest executive in the world. That was the Irish question. Well, then, what would honourable gentlemen say if they were reading of a country in that position? They would say at once ‘the remedy was revolution.’ But Ireland could not have a revolution; and why? Because Ireland was connected with another and more powerful country. Then what was the consequence? The connection with England became the cause of the present state of Ireland. If the connection with England prevented a revolution, and a revolution was the only remedy, England logically was in the odious position of being the cause of all the misery in Ireland. What, then, was the duty of an English Minister? To effect by his policy all those changes which a revolution would do by force. That was the Irish question in its integrity.... If the noble lord (Lord John Russell) or any other honourable member came forward with a comprehensive plan, which would certainly settle the question of Ireland, no matter what the sacrifice might be, he would support it, though he might afterwards feel it necessary to retire from Parliament or to place his seat at the disposal of his constituency (‘Life of Lord Beaconsfield,’ T. P. O’Connor, 6th edition p. 255, &c.).
Truer words had not been spoken in Parliament on the subject of Ireland for half a century, nor words more fatal to the immediate ambition of the speaker, if ambition he then entertained beyond a patriotic one; and many a session, and many a century perhaps, would have to pass before a party could be formed in England strong enough to carry on the government on unadulterated principles of patriotism.