The Age of Disraeli: 1868-1881

217 Pages·1992·25.441 MB·English

by  Richard Shannon

A History of the Conservative Party
This series, originally to have been published in four volumes, will now be
appearing in five, of which those asterisked have already been published. The
series was established by an editorial board consisting of: John Barnes, Lord
Blake, Lord Boyle of Handsworth and Chris Cook.
* The Foundation of the Conservative Party 183{}-1867
Robert Stewart
*The Age of Disraeli, 1868--1881: the Rise of Tory Democracy
Richard Shannon The Age of Disraeli,
The Age of Salisbury, 1881-1902
Richard Shannon
1868-1881: the Rise of
* The Age of Balfour and Baldwin 1902-1940
John Ramsden
Tory Democracy
The Conservative Party since 1940
John Ramsden
Richard Shannon
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Longman
London and New York
Contents
Longman Group UK Limited, Abbreviations Vlll
Acknowledgements lX
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Part I From Derby to Disraeli, 1868
Published in the United States of America
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© Richard Shannon 1992 Chapter 1 >f'Re-establishing Toryism on a national foundation' 10
Challenging the Liberal borough monopoly 10
All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be
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A great Protestant struggle 52
First published 1992 'Unfortunately there is no chivalrous feeling among the
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record is available from the British Library 'Our men seem to be running away' 73
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Shannon, Richard. Part II The Making of Disraelian Conservatism,
The Age of Disraeli, 1868--1881: the Rise of Tory Democracy I
1869-74
Richard Shannon
p. cm. - (A history of the conservative party)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN (}-582-5071}-8 (csd).
Chapter 4 Disraeli's uncertain leadership, 1869-72 84
1. Great Britain-Politics and government-1837-1901.
2. Conservative Party (Great Britain)-History-19th century. 'The utmost reserve and quietness' 84
3. Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield, 1804-1881. I. Title. Looking forward to Gladstone becoming useless to the
II. Series.
DA560.S44 1992 Radicals 93
324.2414'09'034-dc20 91-37163 The New Social Alliance 107
ClP
The Burghley House gathering 111
Set by SEE in 10112'12 Bembo Chapter 5 ltftSof management, 1869_:73 - - \
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VI Contents
Contents Vll
Chapter 6 Better times, 1872-3 134
Manchester and Crystal Palace 134 Chapter 15 Disraeli's last year, 1880-1 388
'Still placing at their service all the advice he could afford' 388
New and unaccustomed political prosperity 143
Chapter 7 X Toryism re-established, 1873-4 158 In the shadow of defeat 394
Disraeli's last stand: 'we can but die like gentlemen' 405
In sight of the promised land 158
Epilogue 1881: 'What is it that lies before us?' 416
L Conservative reaction: crossing over Jordan 172
Index 423
Part III Disraeli's High Years, 1874-8
Chapter 8 Resuming where Lord Palmerston left off ~ ' 188
Attachment to aristocratic government 188
Putting down Ritualism 199
Chapter 9 'More than one useful measure of domestic reform ' 211
Suet pudding and ambrosia 211
Difficulties: shipping, tenant farmers, education 216
Chapter 10 Places, honours, careers 223
The laws of patronage 223
Honours: lieutenancies and great Court orders 243
Peerages 249
Pri vy-councillorshi ps 256
Baronetcies and knighthoods 257
Chapter 11 Maintaining the empire of England 268
Re-equipping the party with a foreign policy 268
The cyclone out of Bulgaria 279
Questions of war and peace 294
Peace with honour 303
Part IV The Undoing ofDisraelian Conservatism,
1878-81
Chapter 12 At home: 'a complication of disastrous influences' 314
To dissolve or not to dissolve 314
Domestic inactivity 317
Party management and public opinion 321
The party and the Great Depression 332
Chapter 13 Abroad: 'Certainly the world is out of joint' 347
Free scope for men in the field 347
Salisbury at the Foreign Office 350
South Africa and Afghanistan 354
;/Chapter 14 >(The election of 1880: Toryism disestablished 362
Augurs and entrails 362
'Infernal luck and no mistake' 369
Prologue: The name and nature
of Tory Democracy
There are difficulties about terms which must at once be encountered. 'Tory
Democracy', as one of its most scholarly connoisseurs has observed, is an
'No doubt the history of recent times as it will be written is a very strange
idea at once potent and elastic. 1 It is also doctrinally notoriously problematic.
history.'
At a certain long and broad level of historical interpretation its explanatory
The marquess of Salisbury addressing the National Union of Conservative and
potency is sufficiently if crudely attested by the fact that since the opening
Constitutional Associations, St James's Hall, London, 16 November 1897.
of the democratic epoch of British politics the Conservative party has either
monopolised or shared power for 83 of the 124 years since the second
Reform Act of 1867 or for 75 of the 107 years since the third Reform Act
of 1884. Robert McKenzie and Allan Silver, authors of a standard text on the
phenomenon of working-class Conservatism, pointed out that since 1885 the
Conservatives have enjoyed a record of electoral success almost unrivalled
among political parties in parliamentary systems. They calculate, for instance,
that between 1885 and 1918 Conservatives captured or held 47 per cent of
parliamentary seats compared with 37.4 per cent for Liberals and 15.4 per cent
for other parties. And Conservativism has in the twentieth century distinctly
improved upon this impressive performance. Between 1885 and 1918, again,
Conservatives polled 48. 7 per cent of total votes cast in parliamentary elections,
with Liberals polling 38.2 per cent and Irish and Labour sharing the meagre
remainder. They conclude: 'From whatever perspective the Conservative
electoral record is examined, it remains one of the most striking political
achievements in the history of modern politics. '2 The salient implication of
this achievement is that it depended absolutely on the electoral loyalty of a
certain mass of 'the great democracy', the artisan and labouring 'occupier'
voters successively enfranchised in 1867 and 1884. This critical and necessary
mass allowed the Conservative party to remain electorally buoyant and to be
the only party politically great throughout both the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries.
As to elasticity: if Tory Democracy has not quite meant all things to
all men, it has often meant different things to different men. Lord Derby
startled the Lords by using the phrase 'Conservative Democracy' during the
Reform debates. He was quite familiar with arguments such as had been
earlier put to him by Lord Malmesbury that the Tories ought to 'go on
to universal suffrage', since the 'labourers', once they had the vote, would
very likely vote Conservative. 3 Indeed, ever since the French elections in
2 The Age of Disraeli, 1868-81 Prologue: The name and nature of Tory Democracy 3
1848 Liberals and Radicals had cause to be nervous on this point. At behind a mask of mythic working-class privilege its real visage, which is one of
the same time, Conservatives in Britain had to take care not to alienate middle-class advantage. The original locus classicus of the Tory embourgeoisement
nervous middle-class voters. Disraeli stressed his abhorrence of unmitigated theory is the Positivist Frederic Harrison's 'The Conservative reaction' in the
or 'American' democracy often in the Commons' debates to this end. In Fortnightly Review of March 1874. Shocked by the unexpected Conservative
the earliest days of its currency as a concept many sceptical Conservatives electoral success of the previous month, Harrison explained what other
such as Lord Salisbury dismissed Tory Democracy as a mere 'phantom' and astounded and dismayed Liberals could account for only as an 'untoward
predicted that an electorate with a working-class majority guaranteed the event' by interpreting it as a matter of middle-class aberration. But he saw
exclusion of Conservatism from control of the House of Commons. This the consequences and implications as nonetheless profound. 'There is nothing
dismal prediction seemed amply confirmed by the general election of 1868. now exclusive about the Conservative party. It is, in the old sense of the words,
By the time the concept became less phantasmal in the 1880s it remained no just as popular and democratic as the Liberal party.'
less doctrinally elusive. Lord George Hamilton remarked of the years 1881-85 Then there have always been true believers willing to use 'popular' and
that "'Tory Democracy" just then became a popular cry with some of our 'democratic' without any sense of constraint or reserve. Harold Garst, the
stalwart go-aheads, but what it meant was never clear. '4 The politician most son of Churchill's Fourth Party henchman John Eldon Gorst, offered what
famously associated with the phrase in that period, Lord Randolph Churchill, can be called the Authorised Version. Disraeli's great achievement, he argued,
'playing the part of the honest rogue', confessed in conversation in April 1885 was to have 'organized and educated the Conservative party'.
with the maverick Radical Wilfred Scawen Blunt:
When he entered Parliament the Tories were a party of privilege. He saw the
democratic tendencies of the age, and grasped the fact that the people would not
You ask me to tell you in two words what it is. That is a question I am always in
remain satisfied with the Reform Act of 1832. The Tories, as he found them,
a fright lest someone should put it to me publicly. To tell the truth, I don't know
were a party doomed to failure. He took them in hand and educated them. He
myself what Tory Democracy is, but I believe it is principally opportunism. Say
formed out of them a great national and popular party, and taught the people of
you are a Tory Democrat and that will do.s
this country that the Conservative was their true friend. He created that generous
and almost forgotten doctrine called Tory democracy. 9
For public consumption Lord Randolph would offer more demure definitions
along such lines as 'Tory Democracy means ancient permanent institutions The process by which that generous doctrine was reanimated after Disraeli's
becoming the instruments of far-reaching reform'. 6 death and then, goes the argument, ultimately betrayed by the Old Identity
Other Conservatives of that time, celebrating the existence of what the leadership under Salisbury and Balfour, was recounted by Harold Garst in
journalist and writer T.E. Kebbel described as 'the powerful and popular The Fourth Party of 1906. It was indeed in that year that his disillusioned
Conservative party of the present day', deprecated the label as a 'contradiction and disaffected father finally abandoned the Conservative party as a lost
in terms, a solecism'. Kebbel's complaint was about confusion of categories. cause and stood (unsuccessfully) as a Liberal candidate in the next general
Properly, he held, it meant a form of government, not a class in the election on free trade principles. Sir John Garst defined the elixir he alleged
community. 'It would be rash to assert that it was never used in the latter he could never get his old party to swallow: 'It is democratic because the
sense by Lord Beaconsfield himself; but it is, nevertheless, a very misleading welfare of the people is its supreme end; it is Tory because the institutions
use of the term.' Disraeli was pre-eminently the Conservative statesman whose of the country are the means by which the end is to be obtained. '10 And
genius led him, in the words of The Times, to discern in the inarticulate mass of it was as a converted Liberal MP that Randolph Churchill's son Winston
the English populace 'the Conservative working man as the sculptor perceives in 1906 winningly offered the world the biography of his father in which
the angel prisoned in the block of marble'. 7 But Disraeli, as Kebbel pointed out, Lord Randolph's public flourishes of the 'excellence and soundness of true
always carefully drew a distinction between 'popular privileges and democratic Tory principles' as 'animated by lofty and liberal ideals', 11 were wrapped in
rights'. The former was consistent with 'great inequalities of condition'; the a warm glow of solemn filial piety and persistent political myth.
latter not. He certainly never intended to establish democracy as the form of But what in the hands of the Gorsts and the younger Churchill was the
government. As the keeper of Disraeli's historical reputation Kebbel insisted occasion of bitter indictment or polemical regret in an epoch of deserved
that he used the term 'only under protest'. s political retribution, became in the hands of others in more spacious times
Kebbel's protest illustrates the abiding power of solecism. And to solecism and better fortunes for the party an eirenic of reconciliation and a formula
add bad faith. Many less sympathetic definers have alleged that the for recalling the Conservative party, 'in an age of threatening plutocracy', to
'contradiction in terms' is one of dishonesty as much as logic. Tory a 'true sense of its inheritance and duties'. Thus Lord Henry Bentinck in his
Democracy, they accuse, is a fictional device whereby Conservatism conceals Tory Democracy of 1918:
Prologue: The name and nature of Tory Democracy 5
4 The Age of Disraeli, 1868-81
Grillion's Club dinner in February 1871, he remarked affably on the 'constant
Under the leadership of Disraeli, the influence of Randolph Churchill, and the
predominance of his party', which, as the embattled Tory Gathorne Hardy
guidance of Salisbury, the Tory party realised its true destiny; it rose above the
mere. inter~st~ of ~ class, and. became a great national party; standing for great had to admit, 'is certainly curious'. 14
prmc1ples, 1t identified itself with the welfare and happiness of the people. By 1900 all was changed. Indeed, it was 'a very strange history', in the
bemused words of Lord Salisbury, who had the most reason of any man to say
By the 1950s, with the younger Churchill leader of a peacetime Conservative
them. Yet the theme of Conservative success in the later nineteenth century has
party, the wheel of semantic history had turned full circle. Iain McLeod
curiously been little attended to. Dr. Martin Pugh, an eminent Liberal scholar,
proclaimed in 1954 that 'Disraeli started the idea of the Tory Democracy
writing in 1985, remarked that 'the Conservative half of society is still largely
and Lord Randolph proclaimed it; Lord Randolph's son today is at the head
awaiting its historians'. He commented further: 'Historians of socialism, often
of a team of ministers that is trying to put it into practice'. 12
suspicious of political leadership, tend to exaggerate the significance of the rank
Such difficulties about terms will never be reconciled to universal content
and file. Consequently a tiny organisation such as the I.LP. has attracted a
ment, even among Conservatives - perhaps especially among Conservatives.
disproportionate share of the attention of researchers.' He added a devastating
Summary expedience must at a certain point be imposed. For present purposes
point to that comment: 'It is a sobering thought that the total paid membership
it is expedient to assert that while Tory Democracy was a famous crux of
of the ILP in 1900 has been put at 6, 000, a figure equivalent to the paid
doctrinal dispute, that very fame allows it to transcend the polemic level of
membership of the Primrose League in Bolton at that time!'ts Neglect of the
contraverted doctrine and to attain to a status of blandly descriptive historical
Conservative side of politics, he continued, has led to a 'somewhat unbalanced
category. Habent sua fata libelli. That ironic fate would greatly appeal to the
impression of historical development', with the march of mind and the march
ghost of the elder Churchill's sardonic and cynical turn; it would outrage the
of time being seen in Liberal or Labour colours. Dr. Pugh has himself helped
ghost of the priggish and prefectorial elder Gorst.
impressively to redress that imbalance with a fine study of the Primrose
Thus: 'a great national and popular party'; 'the powerful and popular
League. Others, as the pages following will acknowledge, have helped towards
Conservative party of the present day': these are held to be the descriptive
redress no less impressively. But still the resistance of the clerisy and the
consequences of 'the rise of Tory Democracy'. This book's purpose therefore
academy to Conservatism - especially to a Conservatism now of the market
is to attempt to explain how and why the Conservative party became and
- remains the given cultural constant. Salisbury in wonderment celebrated in
remained, in the first epoch of our democratic politics, great, national,
1897 the deliverance of the Conservative party from the demolition he had
powerful, and popular.
himself mordantly predicted in 1867. The later enemies of Conservatism have
It was certainly not all of these things in the 1860s. It possessed certain
equal cause to wonder at the 'very strange history' of that deliverance.
historical claims to greatness founded upon appeals to the memory of the
Perhaps this neglect is explained in Dr. Pugh's conclusion that 'ultimately
Younger Pitt as mediated mainly through Canningite propaganda; and to
Conservatism has proved comparatively elusive'16 as a system of ideas.
appeals to carefully selective memories of Peel.· Plausible claims about its
Conservatism is undoubtedly either much more or much less than a system
national character could also be asserted, though with waning conviction as
of ideas. Liberalism and socialism are both heirs of the Enlightenment
failed general election followed failed general election. Popular and powerful
science of ideology, the foundation of what Disraeli always used to define
the Conservative party decidedly was not. Lord Derby, its leader since the
contemptuously as 'philosophic politics'. And it was a very characteristic Tory
calamitous split of 1846, had held office briefly as prime minister of minority
of the present century who denounced 'intelligentsia' as 'an ugly name for an
governments on occasions when the hegemonic Liberals chose to quarrel
ugly thing'.17 A socialist scholar, Dr. Brian Harrison, has contended that
among themselves. He had come to office for the third time in 1866 on just
Conservatism's 'real strength often lies in silence. The historian is therefore
such an occasion. A group of anti-reform Liberals in the Commons was led
less likely to be able to depict Conservatism satisfactorily either as doctrine
by Robert Lowe into what John Bright denounced as the 'Cave of Adullam'
or as party programme, but is obliged to look into the informal, underlying
to join the Conservatives to block the Reform Bill proposed by Gladstone
conservatism which reveals itself in ill-defined but widespread phenomena
on behalf of Russell's ministry. Russell resigned forthwith. It was a jubilant
matter of exchanged congratulations with Disraeli, the party's leader in the such as patriotism, monarchism, and imperialism. '18 Both these historians
find it easy to believe that 'the popular sentiments characteristic of the era
House of Commons, when in June 1867 Derby could celebrate while still
of Lord Salisbury remain only just beneath the surface of British society'.
in office the anniversary of that accession. There had been times in the early
That may well be so.
1860s when Disraeli himself was hard put to keep the faith. He said to his
Certainly, this present study will not attempt to depict Conservatism,
whip, Jolliffe: 'We must trust to providence which always guards over the
satisfactorily or otherwise, either as doctrine or as party programme. It
Conservative Party. '13 Sir George Grey was a characteristic Whig when, at a
6 The Age of Disraeli, 1868-81
will attend to matters of doctrine and programme when it is necessary that
they be attended to. The Conservative party has often been in possession of
something roughly describable as a doctrine, and it used occasionally to be (pace
Disraeli), and latterly invariably is, in possession of something describable as a
programme. But it could exist, and flourish, without the second, and perhaps
even without either. What it has never been, however, is silent. The following
pages will, it is to be feared, testify only too faithfully to that fact.
Notes and References
1 R.F. Foster, 'Tory democracy and political elitism: provincial conservatism
and parliamentary tories in the early 1880s', in A. Cosgrove and
JI. McGuire (eds), Parliament and Community (Belfast, 1983), 148-9. See" ..
also W.J. Wilkinson, Tory Democracy (1925), 14, on its 'very spacious
significance'.
2 R. McKenzie and A. Silver, Angels in Marble. Working Class Conservatives
in UrbanEngland(1968), 11-12.
3 Ibid., 36.
4 Lord G. Hamilton, Parliamentary Reminiscences and Reflections, 1868 to 1885
(1917), 200.
5 W. S. Blunt, 'Randolph Churchill. A personal recollection', Nineteenth
Century (1906), 407.
6 T.E. Kebbel, Lord Beacons.field and Other Tory Memories, (1907), 254.
7 McKenzie and Silver, Angels in Marble, ii.
8 Kebbel, Lord Beacons.field and Other Tory Memories, 256, 259.
9 H. Gorst, The Earl of Beacons.field (1900), 225--6.
10 Buckle, ii, 709.
11 W.S. Churchill, Lord Randolph Churchill (1906), i, 240.
, 12 Conservative Political Centre, Tradition and Change (1954), 65.
13 P. Cohen, Disraeli's Child. A History of the Conservative and Unionist Party
Organisation (unpublished, CCO, 1964), i, 18.
14 Hardy, Diary, 126.
15 M. Pugh, The Tories and the People, 1880-1935 (1985), 2.
16 Ibid., 3.
17 Lord Cobham, while governor-general of New Zealand, used this phrase
in the aftermath of the Suez crisis.
18 B. Harrison, Separate Spheres (1978), 241.
Part I
From Derby to Disraeli, 1868
'Re-establishing Toryism on a national foundation' 11
Chapter 1 bolder manoeuvre of discovering the point at which a substantially united
Conservative party could be persuaded to meet the advanced party of radical
Liberals and pay their blackmail. That point was found to be 'household
suffrage' in the boroughs. Disraeli audaciously allowed himself to be hustled
'Re-establishing Toryism on a and blackmailed into conceding what amounted to an 'occupier' franchise of
adult urban males founded on the principle of residence in rateable premises.
national foundation' This was dramatically stretched to include the very large class (estimated at
half a million) of ratepayers who 'compounded' with their landlord to include
rate charges within the rent. The one concession to caution within this frenzy
of electoral adventure was acceptance of Cairns's amendment in the Lords
Challenging the Liberal borough monopoly
which provided that in eight of the largest English borough constituencies
Benjamin Disraeli, chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of voters would have two votes when electing three MPs (and in the case of
Commons in Lord Derby's third ministry, wrote to Lord Beauchamp in the City of London three votes when electing four MPs). Cairns's purpose
April 1867: 'There are, no doubt, breakers yet ahead, but I feel great hope in this 'cumulative' system was to ensure that minorities in the great cities
of overcoming them, and of realising the dream of my life and re-establishing who possessed the 'greatest amount of property and intelligence' could secure
Toryism on a national foundation. '1 Disraeli hoped on the strength of the a degree of representation. 4
new broader electorate he planned to create by the Reform Bill he had lately Apart from this finicking 'cumulative' amendment (which, by stimulating
introduced to an amazed House of Commons. Radical electioneering counter-measures, failed almost entirely in its Conser
From the Reform Act he eventually saw through parliament in 1867 - vative purpose), Disraeli's Reform Bill left the spirit of the ancient constitution
'the happy opportunity' as he later called it, 'to enlarg~_j_ht~_priYili;ges unbreached. As with the act of 1832 the medieval tradition of two-member
of the people of England'2 - Disraeli got rather more of an extended borough and county constituencies remained largely intact. Aside from a
electorate than he had bargained for in April. His and Derby's strategy little judicious redistribution to add more county divisions and tidy away
at that time had been to produce at some conveniently distant date in encroaching urban infections the counties were left very much as they were.
1868 a carefully balanced borough electorate wide enough to outflank A new £12 county rating franchise was introduced, adding to the already
the existing 'sleek, narrow-minded, dissenting rulers of the boroughs'3 arcane complexities of county registration. The Conservative party was
who embodied the Liberal hegemony, but not so wide as to make a already strong in the counties. There would be no advantage in tampering
disturbingly unpredictable 'democratic' preponderance. As it turned out with them. The new £12 voters were calculated to top up Conservative
Disraeli found himself throwing these carefully contrived distances and strength.
balances to the winds and ended up in 1867 adding nearly 1 million new The substantial purpose of franchise reform in 1867 from the point of
voters to the existing electorate of just over 1 million. Theoretically the view of the government of Derby and Disraeli was to make a big enough
borough electorate was increased by 138 per cent. But in fact complexities change in the borough franchise to put into question the political future
of registration meant that the immediate increases were often not so dramatic of the borough constituencies. These were much more numerous than the
as many hoped or feared. county seats. More to the point, they had hitherto been the chief source of
Derby and Disraeli sowed a wind and reaped a whirlwind. The essence of Liberal electoral strength. The Conservative party had failed consistently in
the affair had been that the Conservative minority in the Commons could get all elections since it lost its majority in 1846 to penetrate and demolish the
a majority for a Reform Bill only by a tacit compact with a sufficient number Liberal borough hegemony. What would now come of the huge increase of
of Liberals who were both willing to defy their leader, Gladstone, and eager to the overall borough electorate? Lord Derby himself, a famous horseman, had
squeeze Disraeli to see how far they could sell their support to a point beyond candidly described his government's reform gambit as 'taking a leap in the
what Gladstone would have given them and at which Disraeli could still dark'. He rallied his doubting fellow peers by insisting 'Don't you see how
deliver his own, rather nervous, party. Left to themselves, the Conservatives we have dished the Whigs?'5 But many Conservatives could not see this 'great
in the Commons would have preferred either to continue blocking the Liberal experiment' in so breezily sporting a light. To them Derby was bluffing:
reform policy in alliance with Whigs and resistant Liberals as had happened in making a virtue of a cynical gamble he had weakly and unnecessarily allowed
1866, or to make a deal with Gladstone to ensure the most anodyne possible Disraeli to foist upon him. Their poetic voice was Coventry Patmore's bitter
degree of franchise extension. Disraeli, with Derby's backing, insisted on the evocation of 1867:
'Re-establishing Toryism on a nationalfoundation' 13
12 The Age of Disraeli, 1868-81
that the prize was worth the risk. The only chance ofloosening the Liberal grip
on the boroughs would be by an enfranchisement larger than that proposed
The year of the great crime,
When the false English Nobles, and their Jew, by the Liberal government in 1866. That was to have been a genteel Liberal
By God demented, slew topping-up exercise. By upsetting it Disraeli created two possibilities. The first
The Trust they stood twice pledged to keep from wrong. 6 was that he had merely aggravated the existing Liberal borough ascendancy.
This kind of thing, like Carlyle's equally hysterical fulmination in 'Shooting In that case little was lost to Conservatives who were already hopelessly
Niagara', could to a great extent be discounted as beyond the bounds of disadvantaged. The second was that somewhere beneath the social stitatum
sober public discourse. But no public discourse was more sober than that of reliably Liberal support there might be hitherto untapped resourF;es of
of Sir Michael Hicks Beach, MP for East Gloucestershire, who avowed that popular Toryism. Most Conservatives accepted, with varying degrees of
'very many, including myself, felt that this was something like a ~epetition trepidation, Lord Derby's sporting view of the game. As they had little
of Sir R. Peel's betrayal'. 7 Lord Carnarvon wrote to the duke of Richmond: joy of the boroughs as things were there was nothing to lose by going
'Household suffrage will produce a state of things in many boroughs the result for a big change and hoping for the best. Disraeli put the matter on to a
of which I defy anyone to predict. '8 more formal basis in his Mansion House speech at the end of the session.
There was no convincing answer to that proposition, which is why His theme was to contrast the 'national' principles of Conservatism with the
Carnarvon, along with Lord Cranborne (soon to be 3rd marquess of 'cosmopolitan' principles and jargon of Liberalism. He deprecated fears of
Salisbury) and General Peel, resigned from the cabinet as being unwilling democracy by insisting that what the Conservative government and party
to share responsibility for so reckless a gamble. Cranborne's philippic in had summoned into being was the reality of a truly national politics.
the October Quarterly Review, 'The Conservative surrender', commented
I have seen in my time several monopolies terminated, and recently I have seen
so pungently on Disraeli's political honour as to make personal and social
the termination of the monopoly of Liberalism ... the Tory party has resumed
intercourse between them impossible for more than six years. Carnarvon's
its natural functions in the government of the country. For what is the Tory party
electoral calculations, however, were more to the immediate point. They unless it represents national feeling?10
suggested to him in the case of Leeds, for example, that an existing
Having thus launched their great gamble in the boroughs it was now up
electorate of some 8,500 would burgeon to something like 35,000. 'Is
to the Conservatives to make the most of it and get the artisan vote into
there anyone who dares to say', asked the dismayed Carnarvon, 'what
deliverable condition. Markham Spofforth, principal agent of the party and
will be the character and tendency of that constituency? It mar, be good
representative of the Conservative managerial legal firm of Baxter, Rose,
or bad: but it is a revolution.' Carnarvon's calculation proved i'n fact to
Norton & Company, presented Disraeli in August 1867 with an American
be quite accurate. And while many of the smaller boroughs were re~atively
axe and an English saw, 'both I am told of the finest temper'. 'Should you
unaffected, the large industrial centres such as Leeds would unquestionably
flatter me by using them in the woods of Hughenden I trust the effect will
reflect the same kind of electoral revolution. It was not possible to calculate
be as benign to your timber as your eloquence and policy have been to the
accurately the overall numbers involved. Stanley remarked in January 1_869
monopoly of the Liberal Party!'
that it was 'singular that we cannot ascertain with any approach to certamty
the numbers of the enlarged constituency. According to an estimate in one We have commenced organizing the new Boroughs. Good local candidates are
of the magazines, it is probably between 1, 700,000 and 2,000,000, or about already cropping up for some of them. We must get the newly enfranchised into
equal to one-fourth of the total adult males of the country. '9 . . good training - by management. But this requires funds. 11
Conservatives could, of course, hope that it would be a revolution to their Management and funds were not in themselves sufficient to break the
advantage. There was much canvassing of the idea of the 'Conserv~t.ive Liberal borough monopoly, but they were supremely necessary. They
working man', the artisan who might well feel no compelling sense of pohu~al were also supremely present and available in the Conservative party. The
identity with Liberal employers of labour or Radical or Nonconfor_mist central problem confronting Derby and Disraeli at the end of 1867 was
shopk~epers. Working men's Conservative clubs or associations h~~ existed by no means that the party lacked money. What was lacking was rather
since at least the 1830s. Something might be done to enliven the tradition. But a resolute will to match the parliamentary achievement of the Reform Act
I . . • .
it was far from being strong enough m 1867 to reassure anx10us Conservatives with a corresponding organisational response. It has been established that
like Carnarvon that the monarchy, the aristocracy, the territorial constitution, the most 'pernicious' effect on the long-term prospects of the Conservative
and the established Church stood in no danger if from out of electoral party after 1846 was that the counties and boroughs consistently returned
revolution were to come political democracy. a 'large enough Conservative bloc to Westminster for the party to avoid
Yet Disraeli's pragmatic counter-argument convinced most Conservatives