would have been still free to express his own opinions; as the leader of a party he had now to consider the disposition of his followers and the practical exigencies of the situation. All that was for the present possible was to moderate the pace of what was called Progress, keep the break upon the wheels, and prevent an overturn in the descent of the incline. In the life of nations the periods of change are brief; the normal condition of things is permanence and stability. The bottom would be reached at last, and the appetite for innovation would be satiated.

DISRAELI THE CONSERVATIVE LEADER, 149

CHAPTER X

Disraeli as Leader of the Opposition-Effects of Free TradeScientific discoveries -- Steam - Railroads - Commercial revolution - Unexampled prosperity-Twenty-five years of Liberal government-Disraeli's opinions and general attitude-Party government and the conditions of it-Power of an Opposition Leader— Never abused by Disraeli for party interests-Special instancesThe coup d'état-The Crimean War--The Indian Mutiny-The Civil War in America-Remarkable warning against playing with the Constitution.

MR. DISRAELI's career has been traced in detail from his birth to the point which he had now reached. Henceforward it is neither necessary nor possible to follow his actions with the same minuteness. The outer side of them is within the memory of most of us. The inner side can only be known when his private papers are given to the world. For twenty-five years he led the Conservative Opposition in the House of Commons, varied with brief intervals of power. He was three times Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Derby-in 1852, in 1858-9, and again in 1867-but he was in office owing rather to Liberal dissensions than to recovered strength on his own side, Being in a minority he was unable to initiate any definite policy; nor if the opportunity had been offered him would he have attempted to reverse the commercial policy of Peel. The country had decided for Free Trade, and a long Trade Wind of commercial prosperity seemed to indicate that the

The

New

Manchester school had been right after all. On this ques-
tion the verdict had gone against him, and the opinion
of the constituencies remained against him. More than all,
what Cobden had prophesied came to pass. Science and
skill came to the support of enterprise. Railroads cheapened
transport and annihilated distance. The ocean lost its
terrors and became an easy and secure highway, and
England, with her boundless resources, became more than
ever the ocean's lord. Exports and imports grew with
fabulous rapidity, and the prosperity which Disraeli had
not denied might be the immediate effect exceeded the
wildest hopes of the Corn Law League. Duty after duty
was abandoned, and still the revenue increased.
people multiplied like bees, and yet wages rose.
towns sprang out of the soil like mushrooms, and the happy
owners of it found their incomes doubled without effort
of their own. Even the farmers prospered, for time was
necessary, before America, and Russia, and India could pull
down the market price of corn. Meat rose, farm produce
of all kinds rose, and rent rose along with it, and the price
of land. The farm labourer had his advance of a weekly
shilling or two, and the agricultural interest, which had
been threatened with ruin, throve as it had never thriven
before. Althea's horn was flowing over with an exuberance
of plenty, and all classes adopted more expensive habits,
believing that the supply was now inexhaustible. The lords
of the land themselves shook off their panic, and were heard
to say that 'Free Trade was no such a bad thing after all.'
When things are going well with Englishmen they never
look beyond the moment.

Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
We see the lords of human kind go by.

Our countrymen of the last generation had confidence in themselves. They were advancing by leaps and bounds, and the advance was to continue for ever. Carlyle told them that their 'unexampled prosperity' was in itself no such beautiful thing, and was perhaps due to special circumstances which would not continue. Carlyle was laughed at as a pessimist. Yet as time goes on a suspicion does begin to be felt that both he and Disraeli were not as wrong as was supposed. The anticipated fall in wheat, though long delayed, has come at last; at last the land is falling out of cultivation, and the rents go back once more, and the labourers have lost their extra shillings. The English farmer is swamped at last under the competition of the outer world, and the peasantry, who were the manhood of the country, are shrinking in numbers. The other nations, who were to have opened their ports after our example, have preferred to keep them closed to protect their own manufactures and supply their own necessities.

Chimneys still smoke and engines clank, and the volume of our foreign trade does not diminish, but if the volume is maintained the profits fall, and our articles must be produced cheaper and ever cheaper if we are to hold our ground. As employment fails in the country districts the people stream into the towns. This great London of ours annually stretches its borders. Five millions of men and women, more than the population of all England at the time of the Commonwealth, are now collected within the limits of the Bills of Mortality. Once our English artisans were famous throughout Europe. They were spread among the country villages. Each workman was complete of his kind, in his way an artist; his work was an education to him as a man. Now he is absorbed in the centres of

industry and is part of a machine. In the division of labour a human being spends his life in making pins' heads or legs of chairs, or single watch wheels, or feeding engines which work instead of him. Such activities do not feed his mind or raise his character, and such mind as he has left he feeds at the beer shop and music hall.

Nay, in the rage or cheapness his work demoralises him. He is taught to scamp his labour and pass off bad materials for good. The carpenter, the baker, the smith, the mason learns so to do his work that it may appear what it professes to be, while the appearance is delusive. In the shop and manufactory he finds adulteration regarded as a legitimate form of competition. The various occupations of the people have become a discipline of dishonesty, and the demand for cheapness is corroding the national character.

Disraeli as a cool looker-on foresaw how it would be, but it was his fate to steer the vessel in the stream when it was running with the impetuosity of self-confidence. He could not stem a torrent, and all that he could do was to moderate the extent of its action. Only he refused to call the tendency of things Progress. 'Progress whence and progress whither?' he would ask. The only human progress worth calling by the name is progress in virtue, justice, courage, uprightness, love of country beyond love of ourselves. True, as everyone was saying, it was impossible to go back; but why? To go back is easy if we have missed our way on the road upwards. It is impossible only when the road is downhill.

His function was to wait till the fruit_had ripened which was to follow on such brilliant blossom, and to learn what the event would teach him; to save what he could of the old institutions, to avoid unnecessary interference,