At all events, it is here, as elsewhere, evident what led Disraeli to oppose the introduction of unregulated competition. Things have long since marched quickly. The wall of tariffs has not tottered; Disraeli never imagined that it would. “Foreigners” now do sometimes “give us their products for nothing” through those colossal “Trusts” that make enormous profits at home to undersell us at a loss and capture our markets abroad. Competition has been reduced to the absurd. Nor is the Continent in that plight which marked it when Disraeli uttered the speech above cited. All these changed conditions require changing remedies, but the heroic remedy lately advocated may well occasion thoughtful retrospect, and the speech I have chosen may be profitably pondered in this connection.
And can any reader of his utterances doubt that, had he lived, he would never have left the problem of the housing of the poor to private experiment, or merely municipal omniscience? Thirty-three years ago he wrote as follows:—
“It is the terror of Europe and the disgrace of Britain,” says “Lothair” of pauperism; “and I am resolved to grapple with it. It seems to me that pauperism is not so much an affair of wages as of dwellings. If the working classes were properly lodged, at their present rate of wages, they would be richer. They would be healthier and happier at the same cost....”
I will conclude with an excerpt from Disraeli’s great Crystal Palace speech of 1872. It concerns the remedies which he had from the first determined to apply to a state of things which the rush of so-called “progress” had induced.
“... It must be obvious to all who consider the condition of the multitude with a desire to improve and elevate it, that no important step can be gained unless you can effect some reduction of their hours of labour and humanise their toil. The great problem is to be able to achieve such results without violating those principles of economic truth upon which the prosperity of all States depends. You recollect that many years ago the Tory party believed that these two results might be obtained ... and at the same time no injury be inflicted on the wealth of the nation. You know how that effort was encountered, how these views and principles were met by the triumphant statesmen of Liberalism. They told you that the inevitable consequence of your policy was to diminish capital; and this, again, would lead to the lowering of wages, to a great diminution of the employment of the people, and ultimately to the impoverishment of the kingdom.... And what has been the result? Those measures were carried; but carried, as I can bear witness, with great difficulty and after much labour and a long struggle. Yet they were carried; and what do we now find? That capital was never accumulated so quickly; that wages were never higher; that the employment of the people was never greater, and the country never wealthier. I ventured to say a short time ago (at Manchester) that the health of the people was the most important subject for a statesman. It is ... a large subject. It has many branches. It involves the state of the dwellings of the people, the moral consequences of which are not less considerable than the physical. It involves their enjoyment of some of the chief elements of nature—air, light, and water. It involves the regulation of their industry, the inspection of their toil. It involves the purity of their provisions, and it touches upon all the means by which you may wean them from habits of excess and brutality.... Well, it may be the ‘policy of sewage’ to a Liberal member of Parliament. But to one of the labouring multitude of England, who has found fever always to be one of the inmates of his household—who has, year after year, seen stricken down the children of his loins, on whose sympathy and support he has looked with hope and confidence; it is not ‘a policy of sewage,’ but a question of life and death. And I can tell you this, gentlemen, from personal conversation with some of the most intelligent of the labouring class, that ... the hereditary, the traditionary policy of the Tory party that would improve the condition of the people, is more appreciated by the people than the ineffable mysteries and all the pains and penalties of the Ballot Bill.... Is that wonderful? Consider the condition of the great body of the working classes of this country. They are in possession of personal privileges—of personal rights and liberties—which are not enjoyed by the aristocracies of other countries. Recently they have obtained—and wisely obtained—a great extension of political rights; and when the people of England see that under the Constitution of this country ... they possess every personal right of freedom, and according to the conviction of the whole country, also an adequate concession of political rights, is it at all wonderful that they should wish to elevate and improve their condition, and is it unreasonable that they should ask the Legislature to assist them in that behest, as far as it is consistent with the general welfare of the realm?...”
The crucial problem still exacts, though it need not baffle, solution. We are still waiting for the complete answer to the question here propounded by Disraeli.
CHAPTER IV
CHURCH AND THEOCRACY
“The equality of man,” exclaims Disraeli in Tancred, “can only be accomplished by the sovereignty of God. The longing for fraternity can never be satisfied but under the sway of a common Father ... announce the sublime and solacing principle of theocratic equality.”