Again, as regards this very Reform Bill of 1832, and the stagnant formulæ of its pioneer, I will again invoke Carlyle—
“... An ultra-radical, not seemingly of the Benthamee species, is forced to exclaim, ‘The people are at last wearied! They say, “Why should we be ruined in our shops, thrown out of our farms, voting for these men?” Ministerial majorities decline; this Ministry has become impotent, had it even the will to do good. They have long called to us, “We are a Reform Ministry; will ye not support us?” We have supported them, borne them forward indignantly on our shoulders time after time, fall after fall, when they had been hurled out into the street, and lay prostrate, helpless, like dead luggage. It is the fact of a Reform Ministry, not the name of one, that we would support.... The public mind says at last, Why all this struggle for the name of a Reform Ministry? Let the Tories be a ministry, if they will; let, at least, some living reality be a ministry!’...”
Let me illustrate Carlyle by two further passages from Disraeli. The first concerns parties in 1837, the second concerns the withered and withering Toryism left to confront the hollow conventions of the Reform Ministry. He is arguing that “the man who enters public life at this epoch has to choose between political infidelity and a destructive creed.”
“... The principle of the exclusive constitution of England having been conceded by the Acts of 1827–28–32, ... a party has arisen in the State who demand that the principle of political liberalism shall consequently be carried to its extent, which it appears to them is impossible without getting rid of the fragments of the old constitution that remain. This is the destructive party—a party with distinct and intelligible principles. They seek a specific for the evils of our social system in the general suffrage of the population. They are resisted by another party who, having given up exclusion, would only embrace as much liberalism as is necessary for the moment; who, without any embarrassing promulgation of principles, wish to keep things as they find them as well as they can; but, as a party must have the semblance of principles, they take the names of the things that they have destroyed. Thus they are devoted to the prerogatives of the Crown, although in truth the Crown has been stripped of every one of its prerogatives; they affect a great veneration for the constitution in Church and State, although every one knows that it no longer exists; they are ready to stand or fall with the independence of the Upper House of Parliament, although in practice they are perfectly well aware that, with their sanction, the ‘Upper House’ has abdicated its initiatory functions, and now serves only as a court of review of the legislation of the House of Commons. Whenever public opinion, which this party never attempts to form, to educate, or to lead, falls into some violent perplexity, passion, or caprice, this party yields without a struggle to the impulse, and, when the storm has passed, attempts to obstruct and obviate the logical, and ultimately the inevitable results of the very measures they have themselves originated, or to which they have consented. This is the Conservative party. I care not whether men are called Whigs or Tories, Radicals or Chartists, ... but these two divisions comprehend at present the English nation.... With regard to the first school, I for one have no faith in the remedial qualities of a Government carried on by a neglected democracy, who for three centuries have received no education. What prospect does it offer us of those high principles of conduct with which we have fed our imagination and strengthened our will? I perceive none of the elements of government that should secure the happiness of a people and the greatness of a realm.... Many men in this country ... are reconciled to the contemplation of democracy, because they have accustomed themselves to believe that it is the only power by which we can sweep away those sectional privileges and interests that impede the intelligence and industry of the community, ... and yet the only way ... to terminate what, in the language of the present day, is called class legislation, is not to entrust power to classes. You would find a ‘locofoco’[69] majority as much addicted to class legislation as a factitious aristocracy.... In a word, true wisdom lies in a policy that would effect its ends by the influence of opinion, and yet by the means of existing forms.”
And the other—
“Mr. Rigby began by ascribing everything to the Reform Bill, and then referred to several of his own speeches on Schedule A. Then he told Coningsby that want of ‘religious faith’ was solely occasioned by want of churches, and want of loyalty by George IV. having shut up himself too much at the cottage in Windsor Park, entirely against the advice of Mr. Rigby. He assured Coningsby that the Church Commission was operating wonders.... The great question now was their architecture. Had George IV. lived, all would have been right. They would have been built on the model of the Buddhist pagoda. As for loyalty, if the present king went regularly to Ascot races, he had no doubt all would go right. Finally, Mr. Rigby impressed on Coningsby to read the Quarterly Review with great attention, and to make himself master of Mr. Wordy’s “History of the Late War,” in twenty volumes—a capital work which proves that Providence was on the side of the Tories.’...”
As regards the principles and conduct of the Reform Ministers themselves, years before he entered Parliament, in that brilliant series of speeches on the hustings of High Wycombe and Taunton, which preluded so many of his ideas, he denounced the incompleteness of the measure and the inadequacy of the men. In 1832 he said—
“... If, instead of filling the humble position of a private individual, I held a post near the person of my King, I should have said to my sovereign, ‘Oppose all change, or allow that change which will be full, satisfactory, and final.’ In the change produced by the professing party now in power, there are omissions of immense importance. These points they promised; these points they have not given you; and now, after all their protestations, they turn round and ask how the people can have the audacity to demand them.”[70]
In 1834 he denounced “the Whig system of centralisation,” and their organised attempt to “overpower” the House of Lords and to despotise the House of Commons, while of their subsequent disorganisation from within, because of the failure of concerted opposition from without, he gave that surpassing simile of Ducrow’s Circus. In 1835 he pursued the subject of constitutional opposition, and he expressed his dread, as he did in 1881, that if the Whigs remained “our masters for life, the dismemberment of the Empire” might follow. And all this in the teeth of what was then considered a system installed for fifty years, and which would have promised him a personal triumph had he appeared then to have chosen to have endorsed it.
But the views he always retained as to the first principles of representation are best heard in a passage from Coningsby.