Disraeli’s earliest novel—one of the books “written by boys,” vague in its restlessness and untamed in its dazzling extravagance, contains in its episode of “Poor John Conyers” the germ of that genuine sympathy with Labour which he afterwards more seriously developed. Apart from his human instincts and from his desire for a real national unity, it was founded on his contempt for the merely mechanical or formal in society; and in 1845, on that tour of experience in Lancashire which brought home to him anew the terrible gulf between “the two nations” of rich and poor, and which the pathos, the humour, the wit and the thought of Sybil have immortalised.
Few that have read Coningsby will forget the vivid impressions of Manchester machinery in its pages. They are, perhaps, too familiar for quotation, and I prefer here to cite some sentences from Sybil.
“... Twelve hours of daily labour at the rate of one penny each hour; and even this labour is mortgaged,” groans the loom-worker. “... Then why am I here?... It is that the capitalist has found a slave that has supplanted the labour and ingenuity of man. Once he was an artisan; at the best he only now watches machines; and even that occupation slips from his grasp to the woman and the child. The capitalist flourishes, he amasses wealth; we sink, lower and lower; lower than the beasts of burthen; for they are fed better than we are, cared for more. And it is just, for according to the present system they are more precious. And yet they tell us that the interests of Capital and of Labour are identical. If a society that has been created by labour suddenly becomes independent of it, that society is bound to maintain the race whose only property is labour, out of the proceeds of that other property which has not ceased to be productive.... We sink among no sighs except our own. And if they give us sympathy—what then? Sympathy is the solace of the Poor; but for the Rich there is Compensation.
“You (the nobles) govern us still with absolute authority, and you govern the most miserable people on the face of the globe. ‘And is this a fair description of the people of England?’ said Lord Valentine. ‘A flash of rhetoric, I presume, that would place them lower than ... the serfs of Russia or the lazzaroni of Naples.’
“‘Infinitely lower,’ said the delegate, ‘for they are not only degraded, but conscious of their degradation. They no longer believe in any difference between the governing and the governed classes of this country. They are sufficiently enlightened to feel they are victims. Compared with the privileged of their own land, they are in a lower state than any other population compared with its privileged classes.’
“‘The people must have leaders,’ said Lord Valentine.
“‘And they have found them,’ said the delegate.
“‘When it comes to a push, they will follow their nobility,’ said Lord Valentine.
“‘Will their nobility lead them?’ said the other delegate....
“‘We have an aristocracy of wealth,’ said the delegate who had chiefly spoken. ‘In a progressive civilisation wealth is the only means of class distinction; but a new disposition of wealth may remove even this.’