LORD GEORGE BENTINCK The Library of Conservative Thought Milton Hindus, Series Editor Russell Kirk, Founding Series Editor

America’s British Culture, by Russell Kirk Authority and the Liberal Tradition, by Robert Heineman A Better Guide than Reason, by M.E. Bradford Burke Street, by George Scott-Moncrieff The Case for Conservatism, by Francis Graham Wilson Céline, by Milton Hindus Character and Culture, by Irving Babbitt Collected Letters o f John Randolph o f Roanoke to John Brockenbrough, 1812-1833, edited by Kenneth Shorey A Critical Examination o f Socialism, by William Hurrell Mallock Edmund Burke: Appraisals and Applications, edited by Daniel E. Ritchie Edmund Burke: The Enlightenment and Revolution, by Peter J. Stanlis The Essential Calhoun, by John C. Calhoun Foundations o f Political Science, by John W. Burgess Ghosts on the Roof, by Whittaker Chambers The God o f the Machine, by Isabel Paterson A Historian and His World, A Life o f Christopher Dawson 1889-1970, by Christina Scott Historical Consciousness, by John Lukács I Chose Freedom, by Victor A. Kravchenko I Chose Justice, by Victor A. Kravchenko Irving Babbitt, Literature, and the Democratic Culture, by Milton Hindus The Jewish East Side, edited by Milton Hindus Lord George Bentinck, by Benjamin Disraeli The Moral Foundations o f Civil Society, by Wilhelm Roepke Natural Law, by Alexander Passerin d’Entréves On Divorce, by Louis de Bonald Orestes Brownson: Selected Political Essays, edited by Russell Kirk The Phantom Public, by Walter Lippmann The Politics o f the Center, Juste Milieu in Theory and Practice, France and England, 1815-1848, by Vincent E. Starzinger Regionalism and Nationalism in the United States, by Donald Davidson Rousseau and Romanticism, by Irving Babbitt The Social Crisis o f Our Time, by Wilhelm Roepke Tensions o f Order and Freedom, by Béla Menczer We the People, by Forrest McDonald A POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY LORD GEORGE BENTINCK Benjamin Disraeli

with a new introduction hy Robert W. Kamphuis, Jr. Originally published in 1905 by Archibald Constable and Company, Limited.

Published 1998 by Transaction Publishers

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield, 1804-1881. Lord George Bentinck : a political biography I Benjamin Disraeli ; with a new introduction by Robert W. Kamphuis, Jr. p. em. - (The library of conservative thought) Originally published: London : Archibald Constable and Co., 1905. Bibliography: p. ISBN 1-56000-947-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Bentinck, George, Lord, 1802-1848. 2. Politicians-Great Brit- ain-Biography. 3. Great Britain-Politics and government-1837- 1901. I. Kamphuis, Robert W. II. Title. ill. Series. DA54l.B3D57 1997 941.081'092 89-34108 [B]-DC20 CIP

ISBN 13: 978-1-56000-947-4 (pbk) TO

LORI) HENRY BENTINCK

IS INSCRIBED

THIS POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY

OF

ONE FOR WHOM HE ENTERTAINED A DEEP AFFECTION

AND WHOSE TALENTS AND VIRTCES

HE SHARES

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSACTION EDITION ix

INTRODUCTION XXXV

I. STATE OF PARTIES IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

AT THE CLOSE OF 1 8 4 5 , ...... 1

II. FOUR MEETINGS OF THE CABINET IN ONE WEEK . 13

III. 1846— OPENING OF PARLIAMENT,.... 27

IV. PROPOSITION TO REPEAL THE CORN LAWS, . . 37

V. FORMATION OF THE PROTECTIONIST PARTY, . . 49

VI. SECOND READING OF THE BILL TO REPEAL THE

CORN L A W S ,...... 71

VII. STATE OF I R E L A N D ,...... 80

VIII. THE COERCION B I L L , ...... 89

IX. REMEDIAL MEASURES FOR IRELAND, . . .102

X. E A S T E R , ...... 112

XI. CRITICAL POSITION OF THE GOVERNMENT, . . 118

XII. THIRD READING OF THE CORN BILL, . . . 131

XIII. R E C I P R O C I T Y ,...... 145

XIV. THE PROTECTIONIST PARTY RESOLVE TO OPPOSE

THE COERCION B I L L , ...... 149

XV. THE CANNING E P I S O D E , ...... 170

XVI. OVERTHROW OF THE PEEL CABINET, . . .187 viii LORD GEORGE BENTINCK

XVII. CHARACTER OF SIR ROBERT PEEL, . . .197

XVIII. THE SUGAR BILL— PROGRESS AND REACTION, . 209

XIX. IRISH RAILW AYS,...... 216

XX. 1847— THE IRISH F A M IN E ,...... 227

XXI. THE BANK CHARTER A C T , ...... 267

XXII. DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT, .... 277

XXIII. THE P A N IC ,...... 286

XXIV. THE JEWISH Q U E S T I O N ,...... 314

XXV. 1848— RELINQUISHMENT OF THE LEADERSHIP OF

THE PROTECTIONIST PARTY BY LORD GEORGE

BENTINCK,...... 331

XXVI. THE SUGAR AND COFFEE PLANTING COMMITTEE, . 344

XXVII. FOREIGN POLITICS— CLOSE OF THE SESSION 1848, 358

XXVIII. THE LAST C H A P T E R ,...... 379 INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSACTION EDITION

Lord George Bentinck is an account of high political drama— among the best ever written. Lord George Bentinck, Ben­ jamin Disraeli, and Sir Robert Peel are the stars, with Peel as the antagonist and Bentinck the subject and Disraeli the author as the protagonist team. “Although of perfectly dif­ ferent natures, they pulled together without any difficulty,” a contemporary observed.1 By temperament, skills, back­ ground, and resources, they were ideally matched and nec­ essary to one another. Disraeli wrote this biography as a tribute to his colleague, whose untimely death in 1848 left Disraeli alone to lead the Conservative party in the House of Commons. Lord George Bentinck was well known in his day, even if most history books pass him by. From the 1820s to the mid- 1840s he was a dominant figure in English horse racing, ac­ knowledged by many as “king of the turf.” In 1845 alone, his horses won 82 races. Victories came about in part thanks to Bentinck’s close attention to every detail of the diet, care, and training of his horses. As demonstrated in the events of this book, he had a phenomenal capacity for facts and their relations, and he was willing to put in as much effort as nec­ essary to master them. He was a winner because he worked. He was also known for his relentless integrity. Once, in a storyline worthy of Dick Francis, he became convinced that one of his own jockeys had thrown a race, and he pursued the matter, and the hapless jockey, regardless of cost until the Jockey Club was convinced and disqualified the rider. At a time when racing was a passion of the ruling class, Lord George Bentinck was one of the patricians. X LORD GEORGE BENTINCK

Aside from his renown on the turf, family and fortune were enough to secure his standing in society’s highest elite. Bentinck’s father was the Duke of Portland, and both his grandfather and his uncle had been prime ministers. Bentinck himself was immensely rich. His contemporaries report that more than once he stood to gain or lose £150,000 on a race (he was proud to back his judgment), and in the fashion-conscious age of Beau Brummell, he never wore the same cravat twice. In short, “a vehement and imperious spirit, unflinching courage, a mind of great native vigor directed by a will that never knew submission, and the reputation for unbending rectitude that wins the confidence of men.”2 Lord George was also a long-standing member of the House of Commons. Though a member of Parliament for 18 years prior to the start of the events in this book, he spoke only infrequently in debates. During his first eight years he said nothing at all. Viewing himself as nothing but a good judge of men and horses, he admitted that he had little at­ traction to politics, and was known to put in appearances at Westminster in a topcoat pulled over hunting regalia. Disraeli’s biography brings to life matters bigger than Bentinck’s personality: enduring issues and principles by which to govern and to live. We really meet Bentinck only in flashes. Yet since his pride did not demand sycophancy, he would have applauded Disraeli’s treatment. It took ex­ treme provocation—“being sold” was Bentinck’s term—at the hands of his party’s leader, Sir Robert Peel, to move him off the back bench and track, into the forefront of na­ tional controversy and leadership. In 1845 he had clout, abil­ ity, indignation, and a determination to do something about it. What he and like-minded men needed was (and is) rare: an imagination powerful enough in depth and breadth to bring the full range of their convictions into focus and de­ vise an effective program of action. No word attaches more naturally to Benjamin Disraeli than imagination, though others may apply equally. The chronicle of his life and achievements is erratic, even wild. INTRODUCTION xi Yet a unifying purpose may be found underlying his major successes and failures, especially as a statesman.3 From his flamboyant, fervid youth to the full maturity of power, Disraeli strove to discern, articulate, and participate in the essence of English greatness. “My politics are described by one word,” he said, “and that word is England.” His appre­ hension of order is his greatest accomplishment and his enduring legacy. But Disraeli was not a seer only. “I am only truly great in action,” he once said of himself. Elsewhere he wrote, “Action may not always be happiness, but there is no happiness with­ out action.” Disraeli’s compulsion to act boldly to defend and enhance English order was irresistible, perhaps as often as not precipitous. The tension between Disraeli’s great gifts and the demands of the situations in which he placed himself may be the best key to understanding his failures. For those who govern, the present moment is always decisive, but imagi­ nation is seldom rushed to good effect. The meaning and truth of this emerge in a contrast with Disraeli’s and Bentinck’s great antagonist in these events, Sir Robert Peel. “Though nearly two generations have elapsed since his death,” wrote Moneypenny in 1912, “...he still suffers from the excessive praise, and in a less degree from the excessive blame, that fall to statesmen while they live.” Moneypenny continues,

Mainly interested in finance and in practical measures of administra­ tion, he cared little for the imperial ideas of generations that had pre­ ceded and were to follow his own. But, as Mr. Gladstone once remarked, he was the best man of business who was ever Prime Minister; and he was that not only by virtue of what Disraeli called his “unrivaled pow­ ers of dispatching affairs,” but also by his possession of many of the higher moral qualities of the ideal man of business. There was indeed a good deal more of egoism and ambition in his character than has often been recognized, but he was incapable of any petty or ignoble self-seek­ ing; and in point of industry, rectitude, and devotion to public duty, he set an example which has served permanently to raise the standard of English government. That is a better title to fame than the dubious distinction, which Disraeli assigned him, of having been the greatest Member of Parliament that ever lived.4 X ll LORD GEORGE BENTINCK

Walter Bagehot, in his lucid 1856 essay “The Character of Sir Robert Peel,” cuts to the heart of Peel’s strengths and weaknesses:

A great administrator is not a man likely to desire to have fixed opin­ ions,—his natural bent and tendency is to immediate action: the exist­ ing and pressing circumstances of the case fill up his mind; the letters to be answered, the documents to be filed, the memoranda to be made, engross his attention; he is angry if you distract him. A bold person who suggests a matter of principle, or a difficulty of thought, or an abstract result that seems improbable in the case “before the board,” will be set down as a speculator, a theorist, a troubler of practical life. To expect to hear from such men profound views of future policy, di­ gested plans of distant action, is to mistake their genius entirely.... So the brain of the great administrator is naturally occupied with the de­ tails of the day, the passing dust, the granules of that day’s life; and his unforeseeing temperament turns away uninterested from reaching speculations, from vague thought, and from extensive and far-off plans. Of course it is not meant that a great administrator has absolutely no general views: some indeed he must have,—a man cannot conduct the detail of affairs without having some plan which regulates that detail; he cannot help having some idea, vague or accurate, indistinct or dis­ tinct, of the direction in which he is going and the purpose for which he is traveling. But the difference is, that this plan is seldom his own, the offspring of his own brain, the result of his own mental contention; it is the plan of someone else.5

For one who assumes the burden of governing, “The neces­ sary effect of all this labor is, that those subject to it have no opinions,” according to Bagehot. “It requires a great deal of time to have opinions; belief is a slow process.”6 Unlike Peel, Disraeli insisted both on governing, and on having opinions that were his own. This was his quandary. Quick and in­ sightful, Disraeli’s mind was amazingly gifted, but it is still small wonder that the insistent “now” of the political moment caught him on many occasions less than wholly prepared. The “now” of Lord George Bentinck, however, found Disraeli at his best; in a sense he had spent years preparing for it. “Disraeli’s personal contest with Peel is the dramatic moment of his career,” observes Paul Elmer More.7 F. J. Heamshaw writes, “It was he personally who brought Peel down, as clearly as it was David who brought down Goliath. INTRODUCTION X lll

And the one event was scarcely less spectacular and sensa­ tional than the other.”8 Disraeli was an exceptional practitioner of the art of poli­ tics, an art that in his day found its highest expression in Parliamentary debate. His early forays were failures. He lost his first four elections. Once he did win a seat, his maiden speech was a disaster: the derisive laughter of the House even­ tually drowned out his words. According to Lord Blake, the effort was so unfortunate that, “If Disraeli’s peroration had been listened to in silence it might have blasted his Parlia­ mentary reputation forever. As it was, he inspired a certain sympathy for his courage if for nothing else when, having been on his feet for precisely the time that he intended, he shouted in a voice heard high above the hubbub, ‘I will sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear me.’”9 His talent matured into ability. Weekly Chronicle, a Newsweek of the nineteenth century, describes Disraeli in top form at the time of these events: “No report can give an idea of the effect produced in the House of Commons. The manner of delivery, the perfect intonation of the voice, the peculiar looks of the speaker—all contributed to a success that we believe to be perfectly unparalleled. No man within our recollection has wielded a similar power over the sym­ pathies and passions of his hearers.”10 He was heard indeed. Again according to Weekly Chronicle: For him to rise late, in a stormy debate, cool, even to iciness, amidst the fever-heat of party atmosphere around, was suddenly to arrest all passions, all excitement, all murmurs of conversation, and convert them into one absorbing feeling of curiosity and expectation. They knew not on whom to fix their watch—whether on the speaker, that they might not lose the slightest gesture of his by-play, or whether they should concentrate their attention on his distinguished victim, whom he had taught them almost to regard with levity. The power of the orator was more confessed, perhaps, in the nervous twitchings of Sir Robert Peel, and his utter powerlessness to look indifferent, or to conceal his pal­ pable annoyance, than even in the delirious laughter with which the House accepted and sealed the truth of the attacks.11

Despite his dominant presence in the actual events, Disraeli is almost invisible in Lord George Bentinck. To un­ XIV LORD GEORGE BENTINCK

derstand this, remember that his esteem for Bentinck, his friend and colleague, was great and genuine. “Overwhelmed by a great calamity [in] the death of one to whom I was bound by personal ties, far stronger even than those politi­ cal ties that knit us together,” is how Disraeli described him­ self in a letter of 1848. “It is the greatest sorrow I have ever experienced,” he wrote in another.12 Disraeli also recognized the significance of Bentinck’s complementary style and standing. As noted earlier, Bentinck had an encyclopedic mind for facts, and his own speeches were always closely and even tediously tied to the best available evidence. Be­ cause of his established credibility and minute attention to detail, Bentinck’s words carried weight and provided a pow­ erful foundation for Disraeli’s attacks. In tribute to his friend and to his importance in these events, Disraeli stays in the wings offstage.13 Also revealing may be a comparison between Disraeli’s treatment of Bentinck and his development of leading char­ acters in the body of his other narrative prose, his novels. Disraeli wrote fiction of enduring interest. Several of his books remain in print, and for good reason. There is a gem­ like quality about them: the best, including Coningsby, Sybil, and Tancred, sparkle brilliantly, though they can be rough and are not all equally well polished. In praise of Disraeli’s literary talent, one critic of the time went so far as to ask, “May not I lament the degradation of a promising novelist into a Prime Minister?”14 As a literary device, Disraeli com­ monly relies on a title character to maintain the unity of what otherwise threatens to break down into a series of vi­ gnettes, portraits, sketches, and comments. We meet them in flashes, just as we do Lord George. The title characters Coningsby and Sybil, for instance, are like punts that carry the reader along streams that wind through much of the social and political landscape of Victorian England. Simi­ larly, Lord George carries us through the great events of 1845 to 1848. Something of the essence of the Bentinck-Disraeli part­ nership— and something of the character of each man—may INTRODUCTION xv

be seen in their responses to the issue of whether Jews might sit in the House of Commons. Removal of Jewish disabili­ ties was brought up regularly by the Whigs, and rejected just as regularly by the Conservatives. In 1847—the year after the fall of Peel, when Disraeli and Bentinck needed to consolidate their leadership of the Conservative party—an­ other round of this debate arose, and it is described in this book. Both Disraeli and Bentinck defied the pressure of po­ litical expedience to speak in support of a Whig proposal. Disraeli’s position was characteristically complex. Per­ sonal factors shaped his views in distinctive ways. His fam­ ily was Jewish until a dispute over temple duties moved Isaac Disraeli to have his children baptized when Benjamin was 13. Benjamin regarded Christianity as the fulfillment of Judaism. In Lord George Bentinck he asserts a view par­ allel to the traditional theological paradox of felix culpa— “the happy fall.” Just as the fall in Eden made it possible for us to know God’s grace in a rich way that would have been otherwise inconceivable, so, Disraeli argues, we know the fullness of God’s grace in Christ only through the crucifix­ ion. To what extent is it really appropriate, he asks, to con­ demn Jews who were the instrument of this unfolding of divine goodness? Was it not in fact among Jews that the Church first took root, so that we are all in this sense chil­ dren of Abraham? Disraeli recognized the Jews as a people chosen and distinguished by God. That and their strength in adversity show them to be natural aristocrats of the high­ est order. Believing this gave him a sense of perspective on the social scene; as a scion of the Jewish race, he was free to be audacious and to reach for the heights.15 He was also free to support removal of Jewish disabilities. Views like these were quite unpopular in Britain, yet time and time again throughout his career Disraeli boldly as­ serted them.16 His stance may also have been in part a reac­ tion to the sedentary state of the religious life in which most early nineteenth-century Anglicans comfortably partici­ pated.17 Many leading minds of the time, such as Newman and Coleridge, were dissatisfied religiously and searching XVI LORD GEORGE BENTINCK for sources of vitality to invigorate Christian religion. It is not surprising that Disraeli would have sought to identify sources for vital religion, and given his propensity to form his opinions in his own idiosyncratic way, it is furthermore not surprising that he would have looked to his own heri­ tage for such sources. Bentinck did not share Disraeli’s views. For the most part, he was indifferent to the issue and did not view it as a high- priority problem. “This Jewish question is a terrible annoy­ ance,” he wrote in a letter to a friend. “I never saw anything like the prejudice that exists against them. For my part I don’t think it matters two straws whether they are in or out of Parliament.”18 Though not a matter of deep personal sig­ nificance, Bentinck had in earlier debates and votes been a supporter of Jewish rights, though he based his support on a widely held, conventional principle of straightforward tol­ eration rather than anything like Disraeli’s theories. Loy­ alty and recognition of Disraeli’s significance to the Conser­ vative party pushed him to a bolder position on the issue than he might otherwise have chosen: “I don’t like letting Disraeli vote by himself apart from the party otherwise I might give in to the prejudices of the multitude,” he contin­ ued in his letter to his friend. Thus, Bentinck stood by Disraeli in a difficult situation, in a manner consistent with his own convictions. Standing against the current led Bentinck to feel constrained (if not relieved) to step aside from formal leadership of the party. His outspoken support on this and other issues may be seen to have saved Disraeli from being dropped by the newly es­ tablished Conservatives.

T he Corn L aws and the F all of P eel

Bentinck, Disraeli, and Peel—the main figures of the drama—are now introduced. On to the setting. When this book opens in 1845, Peel had been prime minister for four years with a commanding majority of 91. In describing his “mandate” Keir writes that, “The electorate of 1841 rallied INTRODUCTION xvn

to a party which stood for economy, remedy of abuse, and resistance to further organic change” in society.19 But Peel lost sight of his mandate, and therein hangs the tale. “Peel by his tactless arrogance [though supremely competent, he was never warm or endearing] had seemed to invite a dec­ laration of war,” writes Moneypenny, “and war, if he sought it, he was now to have with a vengeance.”20 The gauntlet was thrown on a matter that may sound trivial and boring to any modem readers: the corn laws. Yet in reality the is­ sues are surprisingly contemporary. The “corn laws” were a tax on com imported into England. The purpose was to protect British farmers from foreign competition that could force them to cut prices to less than what would be needed for a decent living. Ensuring reason­ able income was in turn expected to ensure that the coun­ try was capable of self-sufficiency in agriculture. During the eighteenth century, protection for a great many British com­ mercial activities had been the national policy. Through the first four decades of the nineteenth century, however, Par­ liament dismantled the protectionist edifice. Peel and his party took part in this process. When he took office, protectionist duties remained on some 1200 goods. In an effort to update fiscal policies, consistent with his man­ date, he revised 750 of these duties in 1842, including the corn law. By 1845, duties still covered 813 articles; Peel that year placed 430 on the duty-free list. He also turned against the corn law completely, prompted by a potato blight in Ire­ land that caused great suffering there. Because many Irish were cash-poor peasants, Peel judged that removal of the corn duty was necessary, so that grain prices might fall to levels that the Irish could afford. But the com laws were unique among protectionist mea­ sures. As McDowell observes, “the com laws were not merely a section o f the fiscal system, they were a symbol and a prac­ tical expression of the national determination to maintain the social and political supremacy of the landed interest.”21 The agricultural interest already had been shaken by pas­ sage of the Reform Bill of 1832. A mordant journal entry by XV111 LORD GEORGE BENTINCK

Sir Walter Scott reveals the mood of despair among conser­ vatives, or Tories, as they were called at the time: “It has fallen easily, the old Constitution.... It has been thrown away like a child’s broken toy. Well, transeat, the good sense of the people is much trusted to; we shall see what it will do for us. The curse of Cromwell on those whose conceit brought us to this pass. Sed transeat. It is vain to mourn what can­ not be mended.”22 More than a century earlier, the Tory Lord Bolingbroke described the idea of the constitution. “By constitution we mean, whenever we speak with propriety and exactness, that assemblage of laws, institutions and customs, derived from certain fixed principles of reason, directed to certain fixed objects of public good, that compose the general system, ac­ cording to which the community hath agreed to be governed.” Disraeli spoke of the constitution in this sense as “the real­ ized experience of the nation.”23 In 1832, in 1845, and throughout much of the nineteenth century, this constitution—the assemblage of laws, institu­ tions, and customs according to which the community had agreed to be governed—suffered hard knocks from a kind of “fixed principle” generally alien to previous British experi­ ence: a rationalistic abstraction promulgated with ideologi­ cal fervor. “Freedom of enterprise was indeed the prevalent maxim of the whole century from the younger Pitt to Gladstone,” according to Sir David Keir. “This was the age of laissez-faire.”24 In this age, with its strong atomistic procliv­ ity derived from or reflected in Benthamite utilitarianism, everything in Bolingbroke’s assemblage was open to chal­ lenge. “Unfortunately,” Holdsworth observes, “those prin­ ciples [of individualism and free trade] were based not so much on their expediency in the conditions of the day, as on the ground that they embodied a set of truths which, being uni­ versally true, should be universally applied.”25 “Cold” and “cal­ culating” are the words used by Sir Richard Vyvien, M.P., in 1842, in a letter to his constituents to describe the free trade view, advocates of which were prepared to sacrifice nearly any custom or institution on the altar of efficiency.26 INTRODUCTION xix Free trade sentiment crystallized for the undoing of the corn laws in the form of the Anti-Corn Law League, founded at Manchester in 1839. The League was a new phenomenon in British politics: a well-organized movement that made use of demagogic techniques to achieve a single, narrowly defined political objective. “The anti-corn law pressure is about to commence,” wrote Sir James Graham at the begin­ ning of the Irish potato blight, “and it will be the most for­ midable movement in modern times.”27 Insofar as great political questions seldom can be reduced to black and white, there is much to be said for the position of the League. Evaluated in purely economic terms, the corn laws were, like import duties generally, crude instruments for achieving political goals. While gauging the effective­ ness of tariffs in promoting domestic industry is often hard, certain effects are clear. Tariffs decrease trade in both a taxed commodity and, in generally unintended and undes­ ired ways, in other goods and services dependent on that commodity. Moreover, they raise prices. These effects were evident in the history of the com laws. On the matter of unintended side effects, it was argued that “the com laws limited the overseas market for British goods. Agrarian coun­ tries were willing to buy our manufactures, but they could only pay for them with corn, and this we refused to receive. Remove the import duties on grain and immediately a great expansion of our export trade would follow. Industrial stag­ nation and unemployment would come to an end.”28 Thus, manufacturers, with increasing success as their economic power grew, tended strongly to oppose the com laws. The duties were also intensely unpopular among consumers: passage of the 1815 version even caused riots in London. Various versions of the corn laws, including Peel’s of 1842, had the defect that they aimed at maintaining a specific price rather than at achieving a general effect. Because a sector of an economy, such as agriculture, involves an al­ most infinitely complex interaction of participants, decisions, and external factors, including in this case international factors, to find the optimum level for a tariff is notoriously XX LORD GEORGE BENTINCK difficult, and there is little reason for confidence that civil servants or a crowd of legislators will do the job right. But these concerns were moot in any case in the 1840s. The high cost of transportation to Britain made imported corn considerably more expensive than domestically grown crops, even without the tariff. The reality of this natural protection, candidly acknowledged even by Richard Cobden, a guiding light of the League, removed the real issues in retention or repeal of the com laws from the realm of expe­ dience to that of symbol and vision. Disraeli had long objected to the “cold and calculating” mind of the free trade ideologues. As early as 1835 he de­ cried it in his Vindication of the English Constitution:

We have before this had an a priori system of celestial mechanics, and its votaries most syllogistically sent Galileo to a dungeon, after having triumphantly refuted him.... And now we have an a priori system of politics. The schoolmen are revived in the 19th century, and are going to settle the State with their withering definitions, their fruitless logomachies, and their barren dialectics.... These considerations natu­ rally lead me to a consideration of the great object of our new school of statesmen in general, which is to form political institutions on abstract principles of theoretic science, instead of permitting them to spring from the course of events, and to be naturally created by the necessi­ ties of nations. It would appear that this scheme originated in the fal­ lacy of supposing that theories produce circumstances, whereas the very converse of the proposition is correct, and circumstances indeed pro­ duce theories.29

Disraeli was not alone in his disdain for such a distortion of market-oriented political economy to ideology. Nearly a century before, Adam Smith, the father of modern econom­ ics, wrote:

The man of systems... is apt to be very wise in his own conceit, and is so often enamored with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of gov­ ernment, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it: he seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess board; he does not consider that the pieces INTRODUCTION xxi upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it.30

Peel, on the other hand, was won over by the logic of the League. In 1845 the facts about the potato blight and the state of British agriculture were quite unclear, which is hardly surprising given the limitations of economic analy­ sis then and the deep ideological predispositions toward such evidence as there was. Despite these uncertainties, Peel abandoned protectionism. In Parliament he announced to members of his own party, “I wish to have the opportunity of frankly stating to those gentlemen who have honored me upon so many occasions with their confidence, that I can continue this contest no longer—that they must devolve the duty of maintaining protection upon other persons, who can adduce better arguments in its favor than I can.”31 While “being sold” is what Lord George Bentinck termed such a change in policy, others are more sympathetic. A nine­ teenth-century biographer of Peel writes,

No man can venture to impugn the honesty of the motives by which Sir Robert Peel was actuated at this most important crisis of his public life. The course which he adopted involved the sacrifice of every object and every feeling most dear to a political leader; it was equally fatal to the reputation of the past, and the prospects of the future.... It was a political martyrdom of the noblest description; it was the voluntary submission to stings and tortures, infinitely more agonizing and more difficult to endure than “Luke’s iron crown and Damien’s bed of steel.” Where a statesman has everything personally dear to lose, and noth­ ing to gain, by a change of policy, it requires infinitely more than ordi­ nary perversity of faction, to discredit his motives.32

Good intentions notwithstanding, only Peel himself seemed surprised and vexed when his party followed his advice and found others on whom to devolve the duty of maintaining protection, or, more accurately, their vision for England. Disraeli’s opposition was hardly a part of the surprise, even to Peel. From the beginning the two coexisted uneas­ XXII LORD GEORGE BENTINCK

ily in the Conservative party. Peel was thoroughly in con­ trol, truly a “Goliath,” as Hearnshaw observed. The expan­ sion of the franchise in 1832, so lamented by Sir Walter Scott, brought with it a great electoral victory for the Whigs and complete disarray for the Tories. It was Peel who saved the party from disintegration, gave it the name “Conser­ vative,” and patiently labored to bring about the victory of 1841. Building on a program spelled out in his Tam worth Manifesto of 1834, he sought to forge a party that could win elections and meet the needs of the times—largely construed in terms of finances and administration. He succeeded. Disraeli, on the other hand, had no such record of ac­ complishment, and indeed had been erratic in his poli­ tics. Aside from a virulent anti-Whiggism developed early, he had difficulty settling his political allegiances. Lord Blake chronicles his casting about as he sought to develop and articulate his own political vision: “Disraeli had first tried to get in with Whig consent,...then stood as a strong Radical, then as a Radical with a slightly Tory tinge,... then issued an address whose tone was near-Tory with a slight Radical tinge, and finally issued one as a strong Radical again.” To justify this floundering Disraeli once even felt constrained to produce a pamphlet entitled “What is He?”33 Disraeli finally joined the Conservatives, though not un­ equivocally. His declarations of loyalty to the party were fulsome enough, and he was eager to be on Peel’s good side, as is shown by the dedication of Vindication to him. None­ theless, Disraeli remained quite prepared to vote against his party’s leadership. In 1839, for example, he opposed Peel’s initiative to centralize the administration of poverty relief through revision of the Poor Law, the framework for dealing with the problems of poverty. That year he was one of only three, and in 1840 one of only five, to oppose strong measures against Chartism, a populist reform movement originating in the difficulties of societal adjustment to rapid industrialization. INTRODUCTION xxiii

Relations were further strained in 1841 when Peel re­ fused a direct request from Disraeli for a post in his ad­ ministration. This rejection is quite understandable, in light of Disraeli’s erratic record and bizarre mannerisms. It was also a mistake. Disraeli was supremely able, and equally ambitious. Peel’s rebuff threatened to stall his ca­ reer, and left him with nothing to lose in breaking ranks. By 1845 Disraeli was in open rebellion, opposing Peel re­ peatedly in Parliament, and publishing harsh criticism of the prime minister’s program and leadership in the novels Coningsby and Sybil. In Book II o f Coningsby, for instance, Disraeli fulminates that,

The Tamworth Manifesto of 1834 was an attempt to construct a party without principles: its basis therefore was necessarily latitudinarianism; and its inevitable consequence has been Political Infidelity.... There was indeed considerable shouting about what they called Conservative principles; but the awkward question naturally arose, what will you conserve? The prerogatives of the Crown, provided they are not exer­ cised; the independence of the House of Lords, provided it is not as­ serted; the Ecclesiastical estate, provided it is regulated by a commis­ sion of laymen. Everything in short that is established, as long as it is a phrase and not a fact.... Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for An­ tiquity, it offers no redress for the Present, and makes no preparation for the Future.34

For Peel, in light of all this, the surprise was not Disraeli’s final break, but that Bentinck and those like him (the back­ bone of the Conservative party) went with him. Mainly this can be accounted for by Disraeli’s firm adherence in this cri­ sis to the Burkean notion of party. As Bentinck and Disraeli understood it, and as Peel did not, a national party must be more than a mere amalgamation of power- and advantage­ seeking individuals and interests, and more than its leaders. Instead it must be, as Burke described it, “a body of men united, for promoting by their joint endeavors, the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed.”35 In rejecting the corn laws, Peel rejected the “par­ ticular principle” upon which he came to power. xxiv LORD GEORGE BENTINCK

D iscerning E nglish O rder

Drawing on Disraeli’s speeches, novels, and political writ­ ings, one may discern his understanding of the British con­ stitution. This is far from easy, however, for after his Vindi­ cation Disraeli never attempted to lay out his views sys­ tematically.36 Nonetheless, four aspects of his politics are particularly relevant to the events recounted in Lord George Bentinck. First, society is an organic unity, not a mere ag­ gregation of individuals and material interests. Second, so­ ciety is best governed by an aristocratic principle that can­ not be equated merely with the nobility and its material advantages. Third, historic institutions are vital to national greatness. And finally, the land is perhaps the most impor­ tant of these institutions. Throughout his career Disraeli affirmed the fundamen­ tal, organic unity of English society. He rejected simple di­ chotomies among classes or interests. For example, in Coningsby he lauds England’s manufacturers: “rightly un­ derstood, Manchester is as great a human exploit as Ath­ ens.. .. It is the philosopher alone who can conceive the gran­ deur of Manchester, and the immensity of its future.”37 Disraeli is often portrayed as a simple apologist for the nobility, motivated throughout his life by an intense, almost pathetic, longing for acceptance. That is a mistaken view, and not only in light of Disraeli’s affirmation of fundamen­ tal unity in society.38 In this book Disraeli articulates a posi­ tive vision of aristocracy:

It is not true that England is governed by an aristocracy in the common acceptation of the term. England is governed by an aristocratic prin­ ciple. The aristocracy of England absorbs all aristocracies and receives every man in every order and class who defers to the principle of the society, which is to aspire and excel.39

This Burkean “natural aristocracy” is also asserted in Coningsby, by Millbank, Disraeli’s model of the best in the rising class of industrialists. “No sir,” says Millbank, “you may make aristocracies by laws; you can only maintain them INTRODUCTION XXV by manners. The manners of England preserve it from its laws. And they have substituted for our formal aristocracy an essential aristocracy; the government of those who are distinguished by their fellow-citizens.”40 Here “manners” are an outward expression or manifestation of inner character. What one does and how one does it are the distinguishing marks of the “essential” aristocrat, whatever some law might say about his status. Certain classes serve the common good. Fulfillment of such duty is a foundation of personal dignity and the proper basis of privilege. The natural aristocracy must operate through institutions, Disraeli argues. “Individuals may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation,” he says in Vindication:

It is our institutions that have made us free, and can alone keep us so; by the bulwark which they offer to the insidious encroachment of a convenient and enervating system of centralization which, if left un­ checked, will prove fatal to the national character. Therefore I have ever endeavored to cherish our happy habit of self government, as sus­ tained by a prudent distribution of local authority.

In part it was recognition of the importance of institu­ tions that led him to cast his lot with Peel’s Conservatives, rather than attempt to succeed as an independent or a scarcely less isolated Radical. In a letter of the same year as Vindication, Disraeli expounds the true nature of Toryism and its relationship to institutions:

I am still of the opinion that the Tory Party is the real democratic party of this country. I hold one of the first principles of Toryism to be that Government is instituted for the welfare of the many. This is why the Tories maintain national institutions, the objects of which are the pro­ tection, the maintenance, the moral, civil, and religious education of the great mass of the English people: institutions which whether they assume the form of churches, or universities, or societies of men to protect the helpless and to support the needy, to execute justice and to maintain truth, alike originated, and alike flourish for the advantage and happiness of the multitude.41

It was this concern for the vitality of institutions that led Disraeli to oppose Peel’s 1839 revision of the Poor Law. Cen­ XXVI LORD GEORGE BENTINCK tralization subverts local institutions by shifting both re­ sponsibility and power out of the hands of those most closely in touch with problems and the people they affect. Central­ ization may be cheaper, but it is not necessarily more effec­ tive, since “crystallizing” customs into national legislation deprives communities of flexibility and the ability to “adapt to all the circumstances of the moment and the locality.” In keeping with his commitment to the fundamental unity of society, Disraeli objected to the way in which centralization and the enervation of community result in the neglect of the duty of every person to care for his neighbor. Speaking specifically of lonely anonymity in big cities, but with more general application, Disraeli observes that the inhabitants “are not in a state of cooperation, but of isolation, as to the making of fortunes; and for all the rest, they are careless of neighbors. Christianity teaches us to love our neighbor as ourself; modem society acknowledges no neighbor.”42 Throughout his career Disraeli maintained the central importance of the land. To understand this, one can start by recognizing that people associate for many reasons: shared work, principles, financial interests, likes or dislikes, and more. There is a danger in such association, founded on distinctiveness, difference, and exclusivity. Too often vision narrows to the limited perspective of the group, and par­ ticular interest is pursued at the expense of others. Disraeli recognized a significant impetus toward an inclusive per­ spective in the territorial constitution of England. Within a given area one is likely to find a fairly broad cross-section of the people—rich and poor, educated and uneducated, crafts­ men, laborers, professionals, and others—among whom unity may be attained through the shared experiences, achievements, responsibilities, and interests of living to­ gether. This is the essence of community. The “squirarchy” that Disraeli defended were pillars in the social structure that expressed and perpetuated this territorial constitution. “This was the class which, in alli­ ance with the clergy as junior partners, effectively governed a great part of England,” observes Lord Blake. “They were INTRODUCTION X X V ll unfashionable and cut no ice outside their own localities, but they were the solid backbone of rural England.”43 Even Gladstone, who built his career opposing Disraeli and the Conservatives after the fall of Peel, said in 1852, “I look to the sober-minded portion of that party as the most valuable raw material of political party in the country.”44 Peel’s repudiation of the com laws struck at everything above; Disraeli had stronger reasons than mere ambition for opposing him. In Disraeli, Bentinck recognized a kindred spirit. Their alliance and their success made it possible for Stanley, the Conservative leader in the House of Lords, still to ask in 1850, “whether the legislative power is to rest with the land and those connected with it or with the manufactur­ ing interests of the country.” A hundred years later a Conser­ vative could still maintain such views in these terms:

The true English character is robust, independent, and adventuring. I stand convinced that the mainspring of these great qualities of the English people—the greatest qualities of the English people—is the land and soil of England. If the English character were to lose its ro­ bustness and independence, it would lose its very substance, and En­ gland would cease to be England. That is why I stand solid to my belief that before everything and above all things we must maintain a vigor­ ous and secure agriculture and countryside ever to invigorate our na­ tional life.... I would have England turn again to Disraeli for inspira­ tion, for that would be to return again to the land.45

Disraeli gave effective voice to convictions that were widely and deeply held. “Return me to Parliament—not because my broad lands stretch from Buckingham to Ayelsbury—” said Disraeli in an election speech shortly after the fall of Peel, “but because my public character and my Parliamen­ tary reputation have shown you that I may be trusted, and, what is more, that I am capable.... No one has done more by his speeches or his pen to uphold these loftier influences which regulate society.”46

“T he G reat G ame ”

Bentinck certainly recognized the accuracy of Disraeli’s XXV111 LORD GEORGE BENTINCK words, but nearly all others in Parliament who agreed with the message mistrusted Disraeli the messenger. This problem plagued him throughout his career. Partial expla­ nations may be found in his youthful mistakes, indiscre­ tions, misadventures, quirks, and affectations, and later, of course, in partisan differences and odd positions such as we have discussed. Clearly Disraeli could not have prevailed in these events without the partnership of Lord George, and Bentinck’s death surely slowed Disraeli’s rise to national leadership. Yet there remains a further dimension of Disraeli that put off many of his contemporaries. Perhaps an additional piece of this puzzle may be found in regarding him as an exemplar of Johan Huizinga’s homo ludens, the man at play. Huizinga’s thesis47 is that play is a natural and im­ portant dimension of serious cultural phenomena such as knowing, law, art, and religion. In his provocative devel­ opment of this idea Huizinga writes of the nineteenth cen­ tury as an era in which,

the great currents of its thought, however looked at, were all inimical to the play factor in social life. Neither liberalism nor socialism offered it any nourishment. Experimental and analytical science, philosophy, reformism, Church and State, economics, were all pursued in deadly earnest.... Never had an age taken itself with more portentous serious­ ness. Culture ceased to be “played.”48

Walter Bagehot, who understood Peel so well, expresses this grave spirit of the era. Describing at their close Disraeli’s years as a member of the House of Commons, he writes,

after his fashion, he showed a high magnaminity and conscience in not opposing or hampering the ministry on great questions,—say of for­ eign policy, when his so doing would hurt the country; but this praise must end here. On all minor Parliamentary questions, Mr. Disraeli has simply no conscience at all: he regards them as a game.... His mode of regarding Parliamentary proceedings as a play and a game is incom­ prehensible to the simple and earnest English nature.49

What Water Bagehot and other earnest Victorians re­ proach, Huizinga celebrates: INTRODUCTION XXIX Ever since the end of the 18th century, debates in the House of Com­ mons have been conducted very largely according to the rules of a game and in the true play-spirit. Personal rivalries are always at work, keep­ ing up a continual match between the players whose object is to check­ mate one another, but without prejudice to the interests of the country which they serve with all seriousness.50

Just so Disraeli said late in life, “I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole,” when for the first time he became prime minister with a commanding majority. A spirit of play per­ meated his career, and it permeates Lord George Bentinck , making the book a delight.

Robert W. Kamphuis, Jr. March 1997

N otes 1. Lord Malmesbury, as quoted in Moneypenny and Buckle, Life of Ben­ jamin Disraeli (New York: Macmillan and Co., 1910-1920), vol. 3, p. 116. Hereafter referred to as Moneypenny and Buckle. 2. Moneypenny and Buckle, vol. 2, p. 359. 3. Analyzing Disraeli’s late novel Endymion (1880), Moneypenny and Buckle observe that “[Disraeli’s] own ambition, his belief in the power of will, and in the utilization of opportunity, find extreme and un­ compromising utterance in Myra’s words: ‘a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it,”’ vol. 6, p. 560. 4. Moneypenny and Buckle, vol. 2, pp. 309-10. 5. Walter Bagehot, “The Character of Sir Robert Peel” (1856), reprinted in The Works of Walter Bagehot (Hartford, Conn.: The Travelers In­ surance Company, 1891), vol. 3, pp. 21-22. 6. Bagehot, pp. 20-21. 7. Paul Elmer More, “Disraeli and Conservatism,” in Aristocracy and Justice: Shelbourne Essays, Ninth Series (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1916), p. 162. 8. F. J. C. Hearnshaw,Conservatism in England (London, 1933), p. 207. 9. Robert Blake, Disraeli (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1966). 10. Weekly Chronicle , March 23, 1845. 11. Ibid. 12. Moneypenny and Buckle, vol. 3, pp. 112-13. 13. Disraeli’s abiding gratitude to the Bentinck family is revealed in the following incident, recounted by Harold Macmillan in 1962:

a remarkable thing happened towards the end of Disraeli’s life. There was another duke by now—the one who told me the story. XXX LORD GEORGE BENTINCK He was 23, and he had only just succeeded. He had been a young officer in the Blues, on £500 a year, and now he had come into all the vast Portland estates. He was inexperienced in public affairs and politics, and was quite unnerved one day when Disraeli’s pri­ vate secretary sent for him and said that Disraeli wanted to see him at Hughendon [the estate bought for Disraeli by the Bentincks]. To his horror he discovered that he was the only guest. He was asked to put on a white tie for dinner (he was to stay the night). When he came down to dinner there were just the three of them, Disraeli, the private secretary, and himself. Disraeli said good evening to him, and not a single word was spoken by anyone throughout that long Victorian dinner, not one single word. Disraeli sat there impassive, glittering with all his orders, wearing the lot— the Star of India and all the rest. His face was white, and tight like a drum; he was an old, old man. Then at the end of dinner he spoke, and he said: “My lord duke, I have asked you here tonight because I belong to a race that never forgives an insult and never forgets a benefit. Everything I have I owe to the house of Bentinck. I thank you.”

Quoted in The Oxford Book of British Political Anecdotes, edited by Paul Johnson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 136. 14. Sir Leslie Stephen, “Disraeli’s Novels,” in Hours in a Library (Lon­ don, 1879), p. 140. 15. For further exploration of the influence of Judaism on Disraeli, see Isaiah Berlin, “Benjamin Disraeli, Karl Marx, and the Search for Iden­ tity,” in Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas (New York: The Viking Press, 1980), pp. 252-86. 16. For example, at the time of the events covered in this book Disraeli published Tancred (1847) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, The World’s Classics edition, 1982). The novel forms the third part of a trilogy begun with Coningsby and continued in Sybil. Tancred deals explicitly with religious themes. 17. See Claude Welch, Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), vol. 1, pp. 109-10. See alsoThe Study of Anglicanism, edited by Stephen Sykes and John Booty (Lon­ don SPCK, 1988), especially the contributions by Perry Butler, A. M. Allchin, and Paul Elmen. 18. Letter to John Manners, quoted in Blake, p. 260. 19. Sir David Lindsay Keir, The Constitutional History of Modern Brit­ ain Since 1485, 9th edition (New York: W.W. Norton, 1969), p. 411. 20. Moneypenny and Buckle, vol. 2, p. 310. 21. R. B. McDowell, British Conservatism: 1832-1914 (London: Faber and Faber, 1959), p. 45. 22. Journal of Sir Walter Scott, 1829-1832, pp. 154-155. 23. Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, “A Dissertation Upon Par­ INTRODUCTION XXXI ties,” in Works of Lord Bolingbroke (Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1841), vol. 2, pp. 5-172. 24. Keir, p.368. 25. Sir William Holdsworth, A History of English Law (London: Methuen & Co., 1952), vol. 14, p. 8. 26. See McDowell, 35. Birnie’s 1948 account of “the rise and decline of free trade” in nineteenth-century Britain seems remarkably similar to what one might observe about twentieth-century America. Birnie writes,

With the close of the Napoleonic Wars, Britain was now the sole workshop of the world, and her manufacturers stood in no fear of foreign competition. They were prepared to sacrifice protection for themselves in the home market, in the hope that greater freedom of trade would assist them in establishing a foothold in foreign markets.... [By the 1880s, however,] to the man on the street, it seemed unjust that foreign goods should be admitted to Britain free, while British goods were taxed in other countries, and to this unfair treatment he was inclined to attribute the persistently un­ favorable balance of trade which now began to excite anxiety. Worst of all, it had become clear that Britain could not hope to maintain the lead over her competitors which she had held during the early nineteenth century. She continued to make progress, it was true, but relatively her progress was less rapid than that of other na­ tions, which were becoming industrialized and entering into com­ petition with her in foreign markets. Between 1876 and 1885, Britain's share in world trade fell from 23 to 19 percent. It was inevitable that this relative decline should stimulate criticism of her fiscal policy. Protectionist sentiment revived, [and it was urged that] the weapon of retaliation should be used to induce other na­ tions to lower their tariffs.

Arthur Birnie, An Economic History of the British Isles (London: Methuen & Co., 1948), pp. 294, 299. 27. Charles Whibley, “The Corn Laws: A Group,” in Political Portraits (London: MacMillan & Co., 1917), p. 261. 28. Birnie, p. 297. 29. Benjamin Disraeli, “Vindication of the English Constitution” (1835), reprinted in Whigs and Whiggism: Political Writings by Benjamin Disraeli, edited by William Hutcheon (London: Kennikat Press, 1971), p. 119. 30. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1795. 31. W. Cooke Taylor, The Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel (London: Peter Jackson, Lake Fisher, Son, & Co.), vol. 3, pp. 433-34. 32. Taylor, p. 423. 33. Disraeli, “What is He?” 1833. Reprinted in Whigs and Whiggism, pp. 16-22. XXX11 LORD GEORGE BENTINCK 34. Disraeli, Coningsby, or the New Generation (1844) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), Book 2, chapter 5. 35. Burke, “Thoughts on Present Discontents,” in Select Works, edited by E. T. Payne, vol. 1, p. 82. 36. Asked for advice by the editor of a new conservative journal, Disraeli was succinct: “Above all, no programme.” This attitude is consistent with his rejection of the systematizing tendencies of Benthamites and free traders. 37. Coningsby, Book 4, chapter 1. 38. Disraeli’s early years clearly demonstrate a strong element of social climbing, which is why the charge has enough validity to stick, de­ spite his consistent growth toward deeper, more enduring concerns, and despite his abiding hostility toward the Whig “grandees” and “magnificoes,” a group that included most of the nation’s richest and most powerful families—people a mere climber would probably want to conquer. 39. Lord George Bentinck, p. 560. 40. Coningsby, Book 4, chapter 1. 41. The next sentences of this letter strikingly anticipate a contempo­ rary political issue. Ours is a society characterized by governmental programs that benefit and are advocated by particular constituen­ cies. Sam Peltzman has analyzed empirically “the necessary condi­ tions for growth of government: a broadening of the political base that stands to gain from redistribution generally and thus provides a fertile source of political support for expansion of specific programs” 6Journal of Law and Economics 23 [October 1980: 209-87]). Theodore J. Lowi analyzes this in terms of “interest group liberalism” in The End of Liberalism, 2d edition (New York: Norton, 1979). Foreshad­ owing Peltzman’s observations, Disraeli writes,

I deny that the Tories have ever opposed the genuine national or democratic spirit of the country; on the contrary, they have al­ ways headed it. It was the Tories who increased the constituency by the £50 tenancy clause; a most democratic measure, but one in my opinion, that has eminently tended to the salvation of the State. I deny that the Tories oppose short Parliaments or the ballot, be­ cause they will give too much power to the people: it is because they will give too much power to the constituency; a shrewd and vast difference. (Emphasis original.)

Quoted in Gertrude Himmelfarb, Marriage and Morals Among the Victorians and Other Essays (New York: Vintage Books, 1987), p. 187. 42. Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil, or the Two Nations, 1845 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), Book 2, chapter 5. 43. Blake, p. 279. INTRODUCTION xxxiii 44. Quoted in J. B. Conacher, The Peelites and the Party System: 1846- 52 (Newton Abbot, Devon, England: David and Charles, Ltd., 1972), p. 130. 45. Sir R. George Stapledon, Disraeli and the New Age (London: Faber and Faber, Ltd., 1943), p. 5. 46. Speech at Aylesbury to his constituents before the General Election of 1847. Found in Selected Speeches of the Late Right Honorable the Earl ofBeaconsfield, edited by T.E. Kebbel (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1882), vol. 1, p. 179. 47. Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens (Boston: Beacon Press, 1950). 48. Huizinga, p. 192. 49. Bagehot, “Mr. Disraeli as a Member of the House of Commons” (1876), reprinted in The Works of Walter Bagehot, vol. 3, pp. 446-50. 50. Huizinga, p. 207.