person; or if there be, his imagination is either jaundiced or uninformed. Yet when we ask ourselves how it was that the Mystery Man and Mountebank of the middle of the century (a period unmatched for political error) achieved at last the rare distinction of a lasting fame, there is no complete answer—unless, indeed, it be the one that is recalled by Renan's remark to Mr Cobden. Is it because the common-sense of the country is forced to acknowledge "la fin de la grande politique d'Angleterre," found out some years before Disraeli died that his worst and most persistent fault was a desire to arrest that consummation, and perceives in this great year of the Queen's reign a rapid accumulation of proof that he was not wrong but right? That, we may believe, is the explanation, though its announcement must not be expected yet awhile in the party prints of either side. Yet it does peep out there too; for the Radicals, who loathed Disraeli, and the Conservatives, who are beginning to find his history a reproach to them, agree in proclaiming one high doctrine pertaining to "la grande politique d'Angleterre." This is the doctrine of Imperialism; and we know who it was that succeeded, after many years, in re-establishing respect for it. At the moment, however, Lord Beaconsfield's reputation with the public is exposed to an assault which, for one reason or another, has surprised everybody. The Eastern Question being again opened up, and going from bad to worse, it is announced that in his later days, and at a critical period, Lord Beaconsfield was the victim of a totally mistaken scheme of foreign policy; an error for which England must expect to suffer. That is not an exact verbal repetition of what has been said, but it is the precise sense of two or three plain expressions of opinion from an authoritative quarter. Now this has been the bitterest accusation of Disraeli's enemies since 1876. Dropped for a little while for lack of occasion, they revived it more than a year ago as an accusation proved by events; and they boast of being able to say that the best Conservative knowledge and intellect agree to-day in condemning Lord Beaconsfield's Eastern policy as a grievous mistake. How far the public mind will give way to that account of the matter it is impossible to say as yet. Not very far, I hope, before a sufficient number of fair-minded instructors of the people makes known what may be said to the contrary — which I believe is a great deal. To those who are inclined by good nature to do as much as that for an absent comrade or a disabled opponent, the following considerations are submitted. To begin with, one forgotten fact should be recalled and pinned down for reference as every point in the debate is touched. It is that an embarrassed or even a lamed and impotent diplomacy is no impeachment of the policy which underlies it. That is an obvious general truth which should be well kept in mind, for there was never more need to remember it than when Lord Beaconsfield's policy in relation to the RussoTurkish war is arraigned. show in detail why it should be particularly remembered in that relation would make too long a story of these notes for the defence; and, indeed, it is enough To DISRAELI THE persistent vigour of Lord Beaconsfield's popularity is almost as much of a surprise to his friends as to his enemies; though of course they feel it most who like it least. According to precedent, the statesman who died in 1881 should have been forgotten by this time, so speedily do they vanish from the memory of the world who figure most proudly in it while they live. Earl Russell, a true statesman, a great power, and extremely popular, had so little hold upon remembrance that he was forgotten years before he died: on this side of the grave he completely passed away. Lord Palmerston was still more popular, and men whose recollection is as long as mine can attest that his name was rarely heard five years after his masterful activities had ceased. True, both these statesmen were English in a sense which, since their time, English statesmanship has been assiduous to unlearn; and it may be said that their memory suffered the particular misfortune of eclipse in the rising brilliancy of Mr Gladstone's genius. Besides, they were remnants of an expiring age-an age condemned by its successor as politically bad and foolish; though in truth no word was ever more apt than Renan's when he told Mr Cobden that he admired him very much, "mais vous marquez la fin de la grande politique d'Angleterre." It may be, then, that these things do account in some degree for the oblivion that fell so speedily upon the statesmen of that age; but considering that, one by one, their dead successors, save Disraeli, were VINDICATED. I. all lost in the same darkness before their friends were out of mourning, there seems small reason to admit the operation of exceptional circumstances. Unless their names are closely associated with great and striking historical events-as those of Fox and Pitt with the French revolution and its first prodigious consequences-the most eminent statesmen must not look to be remembered for many days after they have doffed the ministerial uniform. Yet after a great defeat, after a year of rayless seclusion, and fourteen years of absence altogether from this changing world, Lord Beaconsfield retains a hold upon the popular mind which has scarcely relaxed since its unsuspected strength was revealed at his death. To some that may appear an exaggerated statement, but I believe it would bear any test that could be applied to it. Test is difficult-the dead do not return; but let us imagine a pageant in the Queen's honour20th June of this royal year-in which the greater of her old departed servants should rise and take part with these others of to-day-all in their robes of State. It is not pretended that Lord Beaconsfield would make the first figure in that noble procession(the Great Duke! what in these days would the sight be worth of that "good grey head" moving with the rest under the dome of St Paul's!)-but who believes that he would pass with less acclaim or less regret than attended his last days with us? There is no such person; or if there be, his imagination is either jaundiced or uninformed. Yet when we ask ourselves how it was that the Mystery Man and Mountebank of the middle of the century (a period unmatched for political error) achieved at last the rare distinction of a lasting fame, there is no complete answer-unless, indeed, it be the one that is recalled by Renan's remark to Mr Cobden. Is it because the common-sense of the country is forced to acknowledge "la fin de la grande politique d'Angleterre," found out some years before Disraeli died that his worst and most persistent fault was a desire to arrest that consummation, and perceives in this great year of the Queen's reign a rapid accumulation of proof that he was not wrong but right? That, we may believe, is the explanation, though its announcement must not be expected yet awhile in the party prints of either side. Yet it does peep out there too; for the Radicals, who loathed Disraeli, and the Conservatives, who are beginning to find his history a reproach to them, agree in proclaiming one high doctrine pertaining to "la grande politique d'Angleterre." This is the doctrine of Imperialism; and we know who it was that succeeded, after many years, in re-establishing respect for it. At the moment, however, Lord Beaconsfield's reputation with the public is exposed to an assault which, for one reason or another, has surprised everybody. The Eastern Question being again opened up, and going from bad to worse, it is announced that in his later days, and at a critical period, Lord Beaconsfield was the victim of a totally mistaken scheme of foreign policy; an error for which England must expect to suffer. That is not an exact verbal repetition of what has been said, but it is the precise sense of two or three plain expressions of opinion from an authoritative quarter. quarter. Now this has been the bitterest accusation of Disraeli's enemies since 1876. Dropped for a little while for lack of occasion, they revived it more than a year ago as an accusation proved by events; and they boast of being able to say that the best Conservative knowledge and intellect agree to-day in condemning Lord Beaconsfield's Eastern policy as a grievous mistake. How far the public mind will give way to that account of the matter it is impossible to say as yet. Not very far, I hope, before a sufficient number of fair-minded instructors of the people makes known what may be said to the contrary which I believe is a great deal. To those who are inclined by good nature to do as much as that for an absent comrade or a disabled opponent, the following considerations are submitted. To begin with, one forgotten fact should be recalled and pinned down for reference as every point in the debate is touched. It is that an embarrassed or even a lamed and impotent diplomacy is no impeachment of the policy which underlies it. That is an obvious general truth which should be well kept in mind, for there was never more need to remember it than when Lord Beaconsfield's policy in relation to the RussoTurkish war is arraigned. show in detail why it should be particularly remembered in that relation would make too long a story of these notes for the defence; and, indeed, it is enough То for present purposes to adduce the proposition in harmless generality. We have only to do with Disraeli's Eastern policy in the seventies, which is accused as the plan of a general might be by his own captains; though, for that matter, no one has the execution of it on his conscience. The next thing to recall and bear in mind is yet more to the purpose, perhaps. As Lord SalisAs Lord Salisbury has said, Disraeli's Eastern policy was not the contrivance of his own mind. He did not invent it, as the millions of a new reading public are invited or allowed to believe by their newspapers. Indeed, it was no invented policy at all, but a spontaneous product: hardly more so is the common desire to remain on the inside of a boat at sea, or the preference of a tiled to an untiled roof. For many years before Disraeli had any responsibility for public affairs it was the national policy, firmly held as a national necessity. The statesmen of the one political party were no less convinced than the statesmen of the other that it had become an imperative policy; and the affairs of the country were carried on in those days by men who, by any test or by any measure, equalled the statesmanship of later generations. might even be said that, less cultured, they lived nearer to the heart and root of things than their successors in Downing Street. There is certainly no reason to think them less capable of tracing out necessary lines of conduct. This policy, then, which Lord Beaconsfield is condemned for, was really no invention of his, but sprang from the natural suggestions of self-defence against the encroachments of a dangerous rivalry; and coming that way into existence, had the sanction of all British statesmanship for generations, backed by the consenting instinct of the whole British people. It may have been wrong, of course, for all that; but not because it was Disraelian in the first place. In Nor was it a pro-Turkish policy, which is the second charge. truth, there has always been an anti - Turkish feeling in British statesmanship, of exactly the kind which, later, was aroused in the country; though for official or politic reasons more often hidden than publicly displayed. Yet it was allowed to come out pretty strongly at times, and, contrary to current teaching on the subject, it had no particular association with It Liberal officials or the Liberal idea.1 Lord Stratford de Redcliffe may be said with little exaggeration to have had command at the Porte for many years; and who would call the Great Eltchi a proTurk? Yet what more willing or effective Minister of the Beacons 1 On these points a quotation from a very good authority may be interesting. Writing about the Cretan insurrection of 1866, and his endeavours to arouse a sympathetic interest in it, the Duke of Argyll says: "I found Liberalism as dead in conscience and as apathetic on our duties in the East as the most fossil Toryism. It was not till eight years later, when an outbreak of Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria awoke for the first time a strong wave of public sentiment -and not till this was found of value in opposing Lord Beaconsfield's Government—that the Liberal leaders took up a cause which—” &c., &c. field policy (so called) ever lived? Neither was it an anti- Russian policy, as they say who wish to prove it foolish, any more than it was the pro-Turkish policy which they denounce it for who would make it out inhuman. Both descriptions are wrong, and only useful for self-deception or to deceive. We had here a national policy in every sense, in every article, and at every point: a proTurkish or an anti-Russian policy only as it became so in being proBritish. That is to say, it was so in being what it ought to be. So So I submit on behalf of the last English Minister, who, being challenged to carry on this policy, was not afraid of the attempt. Disraeli needs more than this to absolve him, no doubt. Courage is as much a statesman's quality as the soldier's a quality indispensable, without which all the rest is in effect a snare and an imposture. But it should not be unrighteous, and it should be justified by wisdom or necessity at all times-certainly when war on the grand scale is contemplated. That being said, we may go on to ask if it was for a small matter that the traditional Eastern policy was established, or if it was wrongly imagined, falsely weighed, badly calculated. It does not appear so. As a policy, it was suggested by solicitude for England's greatness and safety, which was the righteousness of it; and it was upheld by an accurate comprehension of what was in train for her very great damage, which completes its justification. The statesman by whom it was established saw in Russia a power which, unless firmly kept within bounds, would dominate Europe; and more particularly that it would undermine and supersede British authority in the East. And without nicely con VOL. CLXI. -NO. DCCCCLXXVII. sidering the desire of Russia to expand to the Mediterranean, the Pacific, and the other seas (so much must be confessed), these guardians and trustees of England refused the prospect. They thought it a matter of the first importance to maintain our Eastern empire; or, to put it another way, that we should be subject to Russian ascendancy (if ever) at the remotest period allowed by Destiny. Such were their ideas, and thus were they grounded; and though, as we all know, a rising breed of Britons has adopted the Moslem's fatalism without his pluck, no one has ventured to utter an open word of dissent from them to this day. So far, then, it does not seem that Lord Beaconsfield was much to blame in taking up the traditional policy which, on these grounds and for these reasons he did adopt. His acceptance of it is beyond denial; and it is true that he did his utmost, from 1876 onward - when a great and last occasion arose-to maintain it in the spirit and by the means which his predecessors considered the only effective ones when hard comes to hard. That is to say, being challenged by the Russian invasion of Turkey, he would have sustained England's Eastern policy in the field and on the seas. Not to bolster up the Turkish empire, but to bolster up the British empire, he would have fought the Russians in alliance with the Turks. There were occasions during that war when unisolated England's soldiers and ships, her wealth and her leadership, added to the valour of the Turkish rank and file, could have been counted on to bring the invasion to ruin : and the public will learn some day, I have no doubt, that, in Lord Beaconsfield's belief, not to throw 2 G |
