I have associated these two heads of discussion because they have long been coupled in home politics, at times disastrously, but now, it may be hoped, under favouring auspices. On the lighter side of American society and its first invasions of England he also touched. I shall touch these in the next chapter, reserving this for the political aspects of the question. My first chapter has already mentioned the paragraph in his earliest pamphlet, dedicated to Canning.

Disraeli was always intensely interested in America, and watched her development with vigilance. He predicted her imperial future. He deprecated jealousy of her power, and, while England was incensed at her conduct in 1871, he alone maintained that it was due to the prejudices of a class and the objects of a party, not to the national sentiment. He descried in America’s essential democracy, which adheres even to her republican forms, one wholly peculiar to herself—a democracy of the soil, of which the base and root is land, underlying the gigantic commerce and colossal finance which are merely the froth of her wealth; and in such a democracy he perceived an element of stability lacking to every other known democratic country. Before her crucial conflict was determined, he prophesied, too, among the difficulties that must confront her, that of a vast number of emancipated negroes. When the great struggle arose between the energy of the North and the traditions of the South, Disraeli also, alone among the leaders of his party, discerned both the probabilities of the winning side and its aptitude for moderation and self-control. For this sagacity he received Mr. Bright’s approbation in 1865. When the civil war was in process, the gentry of England, naturally and generously sympathetic with the Southerners, had suspected that Canada might be threatened, and had wished something “to be done;” Disraeli restrained and allayed them. Mr. Bright said: “With a thoughtfulness and statesmanship which you do not all acknowledge, he did not say a word from that bench likely to create a difficulty with the United States. I think his chief and his followers might learn something from his example.” I quote this meed from an opponent, because Mr. Bryce, in his recent monograph, implies the contrary; but then, Mr. Bryce sometimes trips, and has made the trifling mistake of naming “Lucian” as Disraeli’s pet classic, whereas surely it was “Tacitus.”

Disraeli’s leading idea as to America was that, although she had long achieved independence, her original spirit had remained colonial, but that her civil war would transform the past colony into a coming empire. Speaking in 1863, he said—

“I am bound to say that from the first—and subsequent events have only confirmed my convictions—I have always looked upon the struggle in America in the light of a great revolution.135 Great revolutions, whatever may be their alleged causes, are not likely to be commenced, or to be concluded, with precipitation. Before the civil war commenced, the United States were colonies, because we should not forget that such communities do not cease to be colonies because they are independent. They were not only colonies, but colonising; and they existed under all the conditions of colonial life except that of mere political dependence. But even before the civil war, I think that all impartial observers must have been convinced that in that community there were smouldering elements which indicated the possibility of a change, and perhaps of a violent change. The immense increase of population; the still greater increase of wealth; the introduction of foreign races in large numbers as citizens, not brought up under the laws and customs which were adapted to a more limited, and practically a more homogeneous, race; the character of the political constitution, consequent, perhaps, on these circumstances; the absence of any theatre for the ambitious and refined intellects of the country, which deteriorated public spirit and lowered public morality; and, above all, the increasing influence of the United States upon the political fortunes of Europe;—these were all circumstances which indicated the more than possibility that the mere colonial character of these communities might suddenly be violently subverted, and those imperial characteristics appear which seem to be the destiny of man. I cannot conceal from myself the conviction that, whoever in this House may be young enough to live to witness the ultimate consequences of this civil war, will see, whenever the waters have subsided, a different America from that which was known to our fathers, and even from that of which this generation has had so much experience. It will be an America of armies, of diplomacy, of rival states and manoeuvring cabinets, of frequent turbulence, and probably of frequent wars. With these views, I have myself, during the last session, exerted whatever influence I possessed in endeavouring to dissuade my friends from embarrassing her Majesty’s Government in that position of politic and dignified reserve which they appeared to me to have taken upon this question. It did not appear to me, looking at these transactions across the Atlantic, not as events of a mere casual character, but being such as might probably influence, as the great French Revolution influenced, and is still influencing, European affairs, that there was on our part, due to the existing authorities in America, a large measure of deference in the difficulties which they had to encounter. At the same time, it was natural to feel ... the greatest respect for those Southern States, who, representing a vast population of men, were struggling for some of the greatest objects of existence—independence and power....”

Long before this—in 1856—he had said, when America’s attitude towards Central American troubles was irritating England, that in his opinion “... it would be wise if England would at last recognise that the United States, like all the great countries of Europe, had a policy, and a right to have a policy. It was foolish for England to regard with jealousy any legitimate extension of the territory of the United States beyond the bounds originally fixed.” Such a jealousy would not arrest or retard the development of America; but it might involve disasters. He instanced California and the gloomy forebodings at home with regard to it, none of which had been realised; and he impressed upon the House that “It was the business of a statesman to recognise the necessity of an increase of power in the States.” The same year evoked another speech which forecasts the tenour of that in 1863, and is a fresh witness of the continuity of his imaginative insight, and his wakeful constancy of his purpose. After deprecating jealousy of America’s political and commercial progress, he thus proceeded—

“... I cannot forget that the United States, though independent, are still in some sense colonies, and are influenced by colonial tendencies; and when they come in contact with large portions of territory scarcely populated, or at the most sparsely occupied by an indolent and unintelligent race of men, it is impossible—and you yourselves find it impossible—to resist the tendency to expansion; and expansion in that sense is not injurious to England, for it contributes to the wealth of this country (let us say this in a whisper, lest it cross the Atlantic) more than it diminishes the power of the United States. In our foreign relations with the United States, therefore, I am opposed to that litigious spirit of jealousy which looks upon the expansion of that country and the advance of these young communities with an eye of jealousy and distrust.”

What he realised and first proclaimed, was that America was ceasing to be a mongrel blend or a colonial people, and was fast becoming a national community, with a voice, a vigour, a tendency, and in every department a twang, so to say, of its own; that, moreover, this consolidation would tend towards empire, and that England must prepare for and reckon with it, especially as a partial crudeness and rudeness are to some extent inseparable from developments so sudden. It had not always been thus. Even long after the Puritan settlement, the primÆval charm of an aboriginal race clung to its forests and prairies. The strain, the science of race, fascinated Disraeli; the unsubdued and the untameable ever appealed to him. Races could only be replaced by nations; and the interval was always atomic and confused; but it was also one of primitive dash and daring. As a youth, Disraeli, in Contarini, had dreamed of such a life. In Venetia136 he had wondered whether the Atlantic would ever be so memorable as the Mediterranean; whether pushfulness would ever attain refinement; whether its provincialism might not be doomed to weakness. “... Its civilisation will be more rapid, but will it be ... as permanent?... What America is deficient in is creative intelligence. It has no nationality. Its intelligence has been imported like its manufactured goods. Its inhabitants are a people, but are they a nation? I wish that the empire of the Incas and the kingdom of Montezuma had not been sacrificed. I wish that the republic of the Puritans had blended with the tribes of the Wilderness.”

Two dangers for England, however, emanated from America; and perhaps they were connected. The one was American Anglophobia, the other Fenianism. The one might estrange our North American colonies; the other was to imperil our national unity.

In 1865, Disraeli addressed himself to the former. The American war was not then decided. He was not of opinion that, when it ended, our connection with Canada would bring us into collision with America. He did not believe that if the North was vanquished, it would “feel inclined to enter immediately into another struggle with a power not inferior in determination and in resources to the Southern States of America;” and he saw many rocks ahead to divert the advancing tide—

“I form that opinion because I believe that the people of the United States are eminently a sagacious people. I don’t think they are insensible to the glory of great dominion and extended empire, and I give them equally credit for being influenced by passions which actuate mankind, and particularly nations which enjoy such freedom as they do. But ... I do not think they would seize the moment of exhaustion as being the most favourable for the prosecution of an enterprise which would require great resources and great exertions.”

He then turned to the opinions which had been ventilated on American platforms and in certain American newspapers. He refused to judge the real American character and opinions by them. “I look upon them,” he said, “as I should look upon those strange and fantastic drinks ... which are such favourites on the other side of the Atlantic; and I should as soon suppose this rowdy rhetoric was the expression of the real feelings of the American people, as that these potations formed the aliment and nutriment of their bodies.” And he thus explained a point which I have already noticed: “There is another reason why this violent course will not be adopted. The democracy of America must not be confounded with the democracy of the Old World. It is not formed by the scum of turbulent cities: neither is it merely a section of an exhausted middle class, which speculates in stocks and calls that progress. It is a territorial democracy. Aristotle, who has taught us most of the wise things we know, never said a wiser one than this—that the cultivators of the soil are the least inclined to sedition and to violent courses. Now, being a territorial democracy, their character has been formed and influenced, in a manner, by the property with which they are connected, and by the pursuits they follow; and a sense of responsibility arising from the reality of their possessions may much influence their future conduct. On the other hand, this great change would certainly alter the spirit of society, and perhaps of government.” But he saw clearly the difficulties that still beset her. “... We must recollect that even if the Federal Government should be triumphant, it will have to deal with most perplexing questions and with a discontented population.... The slave population will then be no longer slaves. There will be several millions of another race emancipated and invested with all the rights of freemen; and, so far as the letter of the law is concerned, they will be upon an equality with the Saxon race, with whom they can possibly have no sympathy.... Nothing tends more to the discontent of a people than that they should be in possession of privileges and rights which practically are not recognised, and which they do not enjoy.”

Such were the elements of disunion. To cope with them a strong government was requisite; and that meant a centralising government with a military force at its command to uphold unity and order. Our colonies, on the other hand, were free from such obstacles, and were themselves developing an “element of nationality.” They would not be assailed. But none the less, we must reckon with the United States in “the balance of power.” He would not say that a class in America regarded old Europe “with feelings of jealousy or vindictiveness,” “... but it is undeniable that the United States look to old Europe with a want of sympathy. They have no sympathy with a country that is created and sustained by tradition.” We must, therefore, for the far future, foster and defend our colonies. If Canada had preferred absorption by America, “... we might terminate our connection with dignity, and without disaster.” But if, as appeared, Canada and our North American colonies desired deeply and sincerely “to form a considerable state and develop its resources, and to preserve the patronage and aid of England, ... then it would be the greatest political blunder that could be conceived, for us to renounce, relinquish, and avoid the responsibility of maintaining our interests in Canada.”

American Anglophobia once more engaged his attention in 1871. The pith of his criticism may be summarised by the purport of that elegant metaphor, “Twisting the lion’s tail.” With regard to the Alabama claims, their “indirect” demands, and the disputes with our colonies, which once more provoked British feeling, Disraeli now complained that America’s communications with England had been couched in arrogant terms, while those with Russia and Germany had been courteous. He declared that it was caused by rowdy rhetoric addressed to “irresponsible millions.” “... The reason of this offensive conduct,” he continued, “is this: there is a party in America, who certainly do not monopolise the intelligence, education, and property of the country, and who, I believe, are not numerically the strongest, who attempt to obtain political power and excite political passion by abusing England and its Government, because they believe they can do so with impunity.... The danger is this. Habitually exciting the passions of millions, some unfortunate thing happens, or something unfortunate is said in either country; the fire lights up, it is beyond their control, and the two nations are landed in a contest which they can no longer prevent.... Though I should look upon it as the darkest hour of my life, if I were to counsel, or even to support, a war with the United States, still, the United States should know that they are not an exception to the other countries of the world, that we do not permit ourselves to be insulted by any other country in the world, and that they cannot be an exception.” Nevertheless, with regard to these very matters, he reiterated as late as 1872: “Ever since I sat in this House, I have always endeavoured to maintain and cherish relations of cordiality and confidence between the United Kingdom and the United States. I have felt that between those two great countries the material interests were so vast, were likely so greatly to increase, and were in their character so mutually beneficial to both countries, that they alone formed bonds of union.... But I could not forget that, in the relations between the United States and England, there was an element also of sentiment, which ought never to be despised in politics, and without which there can be no enduring alliance. When the unhappy Civil War occurred, I endeavoured, therefore, so far as I could, to maintain ... a strict neutrality between the Northern and the Southern states.... There were some at a particular time ... who were anxious to obtain the recognition of the Southern states by this country. I never could share that opinion.... We were of opinion that, had that recognition occurred, it would not have averted the final catastrophe, ... and it would, at the same time, have necessarily involved this country in a war with the Northern states, while there were circumstances then existing in Europe which made us believe that the war might not have been limited to America.”

I must now consider Fenianism. Every one now knows that Fenianism, at its inception in 1865, though its pretext was Ireland and its rallying centre America, was really an international ruffianism for the disruption of the foundations of social order—was, in fact, an alliance of anarchists with soldiers of misfortune. Disraeli discerned this from the first. Plots and conspiracies of all kinds piqued at once his curiosity, his skill, and his fancy. I was told, more than thirty years ago, by an old gentleman who was a schoolfellow of Disraeli, that he remembered a boyish mutiny. Disraeli headed the conspiracy, and the head-master himself listened at the keyhole, spellbound by the eloquence that controlled it. He loved to unravel their machinations, to contrast their underground conclaves with their open appearance. Conspiracies abound in Vivian Grey, Alroy, Iskander, Contarini Fleming, Sybil, and Tancred; these very secret societies, together with those of Jesuitry, pervade Lothair. “Mirandola” and “Captain Bruges” are drawn from life. When Fenianism raged in Ireland, Disraeli himself crossed the Channel and attended their meetings. He spoke about what he knew; and if secret societies were his hobby, he was yet undoubtedly right in ascribing most of the unforeseen abroad to their initiation.

Adverting, in 1872, to its fatal influence on Ireland, he remarked: “... The Civil War in America had just ceased, and a band of military adventurers, Poles, Italians, and many Irishmen, concocted at New York a conspiracy to invade Ireland, with the belief that the whole country would rise to welcome them. How that conspiracy was baffled ... I need not now remind you.... You remember how the constituencies were appealed to, to vote against the Government who had made so unfit an appointment as that of Lord Mayo to the Viceroyalty of India. It was by his great qualities when Secretary for Ireland, by his vigilance, his courage, his patience, and his perseverance, that this conspiracy was defeated. He knew what was going on at New York, just as well as what was going on in the city of Dublin?...” And when, only a year before, the then Lord Hartington, at a moment of Fenian resurrection, withdrew his motion for a secret committee, Disraeli inveighed against an indecision that would be flashed in an hour across the Atlantic. This new movement of Fenianism brought America into dangerous relations with England. And in many disguises and under mitigated forms, it half associated itself with the agitation for repeal, and the restless intrigues of the Papacy. Paid Nationalists and peasant priests were brought into connection with these Swiss guards of treason, ready to compass the destruction of property and authority in any country, and for any cause. It had been otherwise before its invention in America. When O’Connell—the great O’Connell as, despite everything, Disraeli publicly confessed when he died—supported Disraeli (who began as an “Independent”) at his first election in 1832, he did so on the common ground that both abominated the Whig system and desired the extension of reform. It was only afterwards, when O’Connell pronouncedly lent himself to what tended towards a repetition of “Captain Rock,” and became at once an agitator for dismemberment137 and a pillar of the Whigs, that the young Disraeli denounced the fellowship of the dagger with the mitre, and incensed the degenerating patriot into insult. But the violence in Ireland of O’Connell’s days was native. It sprang from, and it disgraced, the soil. Fenianism, however, added to the ancient terrors of a country distressed to madness and goaded into crime, the worst horrors of cosmopolitan conspiracies mated with every movement for the unsettlement of Europe; and for a while it tainted every breath of Irish nationalism, not only with detestation of England, but with enthusiasm for her enemies. The “Clan-na-gael” still foments the last vestiges of genuine discontent; but the headquarters seem to have shifted from New York to a European capital. And yet so unconcerted and unprepared was Ireland herself, however equipped and compact were these mercenary foreigners, that Disraeli makes “Captain Bruges” exclaim in Lothair, after his rescue of the hero at the meeting, held under the sham banners of St. Joseph and harangued by a mock priest, “They manage their affairs in general wonderfully close, but I have no opinion of them. I have just returned from Ireland, where I thought I would go and see what they really are after. No real business in them. Their treason is a fairy tale, and their sedition a child talking in its sleep.”

And this brings me to Disraeli’s ideas concerning the romantic, the persecuted, the generous, the witty, the pathetic Ireland.

No one who has studied his career can question his intense sympathy. Many of his earliest friends had been brilliant Irishmen and Irishwomen. He too sprang from a race once persecuted, still pathetic, always witty and romantic. Already, in 1843, Disraeli had exclaimed: “You must reorganise and reconstruct the Government, and even the social state of Ireland.... By really penetrating into the mystery of this great misgovernment” might be brought about “a state of society which would be advantageous both to England and Ireland, and which would put an end to a state of things that was the bane of England and opprobrium of Europe.” But his ideas are conspicuously set forth in the great speech of 1844, which won the high praise of Macaulay, which Mr. Gladstone, some quarter of a century later, described as one of the “most closely woven tissues of argument and observation that had ever been heard in the House,” and the reperusal of which he recommended as an intellectual “treat;” though Disraeli himself then ironically observed that when he delivered it, nobody appeared to listen. “It seemed to me that I was pouring water upon sand, but it seems now that the water came from a golden goblet.” He showed that, politically, Ireland was an open question. It was not the Tories who started the penal code. Mr. Pitt would have settled the question long ago had not the great war diverted his policy. Again, the grievances of Ireland were not due to Protestantism. They were owing to Puritanism—Puritanism in disloyal rebellion against which loyal Ireland rebelled. Ireland, he proved, was never so contented as in 1635. There was then perfect civil and religious equality. “At that period there was a Parliament in Dublin called by a Protestant king, presided over by a Protestant viceroy, and at that moment there was a Protestant Established Church in Ireland; yet the majority of the members of that Parliament were Roman Catholics. The government was at that time carried on by a council of state presided over by a Protestant deputy, yet many of the members of that council were Roman Catholics. The municipalities were then full of Roman Catholics. Several of the sheriffs also were Roman Catholics, and a very considerable number of magistrates were Roman Catholics. It is, therefore, very evident that it is not the necessary consequence of English connection—of a Protestant monarchy, or even of a Protestant Church—that this embittered feeling at present exists; nor that that system of exclusion, which either in form or spirit has so long existed, is the consequence of Protestantism.”

It was not the Protestantism, not the connection, but the kind of Protestantism, the sort of connection, the exclusive and selfish spirit, that filled Ireland with ferment.

Hitherto Government had offered “a little thing in a great way.”138 “Justice to Ireland” had been long cried on the housetops. What was the meaning of that cry? It only signified a forced identity of English institutions with Irish. Identity, however, was just what Ireland resented with disgust.

What were her stumbling-blocks and stones of offence? What was “the Irish question”? “One says it is a physical question, another a spiritual. Now it is the absence of the aristocracy, now the absence of railroads. It is the Pope one day, potatoes the next. Let us consider Ireland as we should any other country similarly situated.... Then we shall see a teeming population, which, with reference to the cultivated soil, is denser to the square mile than that of China; created solely by agriculture, with none of those sources of wealth which are developed with civilisation, and sustained, consequently, on the lowest conceivable diet; so that, in case of failure, they have no other means of subsistence upon which they can fall back. That dense population in extreme distress inhabit an island where there is an Established Church which is not their Church, and a territorial aristocracy, the richest of whom live in distant capitals. Thus you have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church; and, in addition, the weakest executive in the world. That is the Irish question. What were the remedies?

“To begin with, and before anything else, you must have a representative, a responsive, a strong Executive. Ireland is an exceptional piece of the United Kingdom, and she alone demands what is foreign to the English spirit—centralisation of government. Next, the administration must be impartial. There must be no exclusion and no favouritism. You must also have ecclesiastical equality. The Church in Ireland must change the tone of its temper. And you must ‘reconstruct the social system’ of Ireland. ‘All great things are difficult;’ but it is more difficult to reconstruct a society than a party. Agitation only unsettles: it does not settle; and it means the incompetence of a Government. You must ‘create public opinion instead of following it; lead the public instead of always lagging after and watching others.’

“... What, then, is the duty of an English minister? To effect by his policy all those changes which a revolution would do by force.... It is quite evident that, to effect this, we must have an Executive in Ireland which shall bear a much nearer relation to the leading classes and characters of the country than it does at present. There must be a much more comprehensive Executive, and then, having produced order, the rest is a question of time. There is no possible way by which the physical condition of the people can be improved by Act of Parliament.”139

So I read this pregnant deliverance. So, I believe, will read it any one who scans it closely in relation to its time and setting. In 1868, when there was capital to be made out of it, Mr. Gladstone did not so read it. Mr. Gladstone contended—and he had full right to contend—that, with regard to the Church, at any rate, it spelled out “Destruction.” Disraeli contented himself with retorting: “... There are many remarks which, if I wanted to vindicate ... myself, I might legitimately make.... But I do not care to say it, and I do not wish to say it, because in my conscience the sentiment of that speech was right....” My view is that it spelled out “Reconstruction.” It would have settled Ireland and the Irish question by the principles of 1636 and on the lines of 1792, and not either by the Orange lodges of 1795, which answered Pitt’s abortive schemes of improvement, or by the undemanded spoliation of 1868, which trebled the discontent it designed to allay. All Pitt’s proposed measures were against exclusion. He tried to grant Ireland that free outlet for her manufactures to England which had proved her main source of discontent throughout the eighteenth century. He tried to include the Protestant Dissenters as well as the Roman Catholics in the avenues to political power. He was foiled by the selfishness and corruption of an Irish caste, and by the spread of the French Revolution to the Irish multitude. But in each case inclusion was his principle; development, not destruction. Disraeli followed him. It was his hatred of exclusiveness that prompted his aversion alike to the Whiggism of the Grenvilles and the Toryism of Eldon. It was his devotion to wide and popular as opposed to democratic and class principles that drew him to the Toryism of Bolingbroke and Wyndham, and enabled him to reconstruct the Tory party on its first but forgotten foundations.

But if we want a practical comment on the speech of 1844, we have it in an utterance of 1868. In 1868 he defined the position: “... I said the other night, as I say now, that I think you might elevate the status of the unendowed clergy in Ireland.... My opinion is, that if this system of conciliation, founded on the principle that in Ireland you ought to create and not destroy, had been pursued, you might have elevated the Irish Church greatly to its advantage. You might have rendered it infinitely more useful.... I do not think it impossible that you might have introduced measures which would have elevated the status of the unendowed clergy, and so softened and terminated those feelings of inequality which now exist, so that you might have had the same equality in the state of Ireland which you have in England. There is perfect equality in the state of the Dissenter in England, although his is no established Church. That state of things might exist in Ireland, if you had taken measures which would, among a sensitive people, have prevented a sentiment of humiliation.... Without disestablishment, without the difficulties and dangers of concurrent endowment, there might have been a system of Government grants both to Romanists and Dissenters for education and other public objects. That is how I interpret the ‘ecclesiastical equality’ of 1844; ‘to create and not to destroy.’”140 And, speaking again of his desire to supplement the educational means for the Roman Catholics, he said: “... That is in accordance with our uniform policy, ... a reconciliation between creeds and classes.”

After 1844 the Irish question still festered. Nowhere did the repeal of the Corn Laws inflict more immediate distress than in a country so dependent on native agriculture as Ireland was then and still remains. Pauperism became the crying evil of Ireland. Even in 1869, more than a quarter of the inhabitants were paupers. Pauperism defied “political palliatives.” The Government of Ireland, despite his warnings, remained a weak one, and, alluding to this in a famous speech of 1869, he pertinently brought into prominence the fact that what strength it has depends now on its connection with England. “... The Government of Ireland is not a strong one; its sanctions are less valid than those of the Government of England. It has not the historic basis which England rests upon. It has not the tradition which the English Government rests upon. It does not depend upon that vast accumulation of manners and customs which in England are really more powerful than laws or statutes.” What Disraeli felt all along was that Ireland needed security for capital and variety of employment; and that for these repose and order were requisite. In November, 1868, alluding to the naturalisation of Fenianism in Ireland at a time when Ireland was inherently contented and immeasurably superior to her plight in 1844—when she had begun to rest and be thankful—he made the following comment:—

“... In Ireland there was always a degree of morbid discontent which the Fenians believe they may fan into flame, and which might lead to the revolutionary result they desire. The whole nature of the race will account for it. An Irishman is an imaginative being. He lives in an island, in a damp climate and contiguous to the melancholy ocean. He has no variety of pursuit. There is no nation in the world that leads so monotonous a life as the Irish, because their only occupation is the cultivation of the soil before them.... The Irishman in other countries, where he has a fair field for his talents in various occupations, is equal, if not superior, to most races.... I may say with frankness that I think this is the fault of the Irish. If they led that kind of life which would invite the introduction of capital into the country, all this ability might be utilised; and instead of those feelings which they acquire by brooding over the history of their country, a great part of which is merely traditionary, you would find men acquiring fortunes, and arriving at conclusions on politics entirely different from those which they now offer.”

The same outlook prompted him in another speech to regret the cry of a “conquered people” which the manipulators of grievance perpetually raised. Ireland was no more a conquered country than England. In both there had been conquerors and conquests;141 but in both a blend of races and institutions which had produced a nation in one, and made for nationality in the other.

Time went on. Ireland had improved by rest. There was even prosperity in her borders. Fenianism was subsiding.142 Classes were less estranged. Emigration had increased, but the Liberals welcomed emigration. Disraeli had risen into supreme power, and had constitutionalised the democracy by his Bill of 1867. The Radicals were incensed at the measure, which they had coveted in another form and with sectional objects. The stiffer even of his own party stood aghast, and some seceded. The Liberals began to nibble at the Radical bait. It is a curious fact that the Whigs, when in political despair, usually resort to a revolutionary measure. Already, over thirty years before, they had done so in connection with Ireland. Suddenly, without warning, without a popular mandate, or even an Irish outcry for the upheaval, like a bolt from the blue came Mr. Gladstone’s first great conversion from principles firmly protested only a year before.143 The question was sprung on both countries. He brought in, and in a manner so imperious that a solid portion of his own followers deserted him, his Act for the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Irish Church; not only for its severance from the State, but for its spoliation by the State.

In the abstract its disestablishment, apart from its disendowment, was a great, a just, and a generous measure; theoretically it was as sound as bimetallism. But its logical issues were incompatible with a united kingdom. They really, on examination, involved that separatist theory of the “right” of “nationalities” to be self-governing, of which he grew so fond. “Nationality” is here a wrong expression, for “nationality” is, by its essence, a term of union, and not of division. It should be “Locality.” What is meant by this assumed “right” is, that particular races or particular provinces, absorbed into or dependent on “nationalities,” are entitled, from the mere fact of their geographical limits, to withdraw from the greater whole of which they are portions. This theory would revive the Heptarchy. It would make Jersey and Guernsey, or the Isle of Man, it would make Scotland or Wales, a “nation.” I say that Mr. Gladstone’s measure, introduced when and how it was, and with its double purport, involved these conclusions, because if the mere existence of an “alien Church” justifies the severance of the ties between authority and religion, and the plunder of its revenues for purposes other than that for which they were created, then the same reasoning would not only justify the abolition of an alien and the substitution of a native government, but also a refusal to contribute any revenue to the deposed government at all. There might be occasions demanding such a course. An oppressive Church, a tyrannical government, might well be swept away by a statesman with ears to hear the cries of impatience and eyes to see the ravages of injustice—a true statesman who, as Disraeli said in 1844, would accomplish by statute and conciliation what revolutions necessitate by force.

But this was not one of them. The English Church itself was not practically resented, however its historical existence might be made to rankle in common with the other historical anomalies in Ireland, including its connection with England. The Church itself had been bettered, and might be still more improved. It was alive with opportunities. The Catholics and the Dissenters might, apart from the Establishment, which stood for British authority, be set upon a complete equality, and helped towards usefulness in many directions. The Church itself had proved a valuable educational centre. The Roman clergy called, not for its extinction, but for its disendowment; and rather because they could not bear to think that it was there at all, just as they cannot bear to think that it exists in England, than because they wanted the revenues or suffered under the rebuffs or rivalry of an English Church. It was an argument, as Disraeli put it, that might be paralleled if all those Irish gentlemen who had small estates, but frequented the same society, were to say that their brethren of large estates should surrender their revenues to the State; or if the unendowed hospitals of London were to exact the deprival of the endowments enjoyed by St. Bartholomew’s, St. Thomas’s, and Guy’s, not with the object of themselves sharing them, but out of wanton envy.

Disraeli delivered three main speeches of great power, interest, and length on this subject. I shall not quote them in words, but shall only endeavour to present their pith.

As regards the Disestablishment.

He objected to it on principle—the principles outlined in my second chapter. The union of Church and State is a symbol of the Divine nature of government, which is the only truth underlying the obsolete fiction of the “Divine Right of Kings.” He objected to it on policy. Divorce the religious principle from that of government, and it is the State that will suffer most. The result must be disorder. One day that might take a peculiar form. The political power once separated from the spiritual, a crisis might arise where the two might collide; and where, though the political power might be right, the spiritual would appeal in haste to both passion and prejudice.

As regards the Disendowment.

He objected to it on principle. The plunder of public corporations was nothing new, but where the trust for which the corporation had been endowed was not observed in the application of the spoil by the State, which was a trustee, it was indefensible. It became confiscation. “Irish purposes” were vaguely hinted as the destination, but the repeal of the whisky duty might be an “Irish purpose;” and where was the sense of dedicating some of this annexed property to Irish pauper lunatics? Moreover, historically, he had always noticed that the spoil of the Church went eventually to enrich the large landed proprietors.

He objected to it on policy. One of the causes of discontent was alleged to be that a particular Church was not connected with the State. Mr. Gladstone proposed to regenerate the country by having three Churches not connected with the State. Discontent, however, would still remain smouldering, and Disraeli prophesied that its next phase would threaten the tenure of land. What would be the effect in this relation of having three Churches disconnected from the State? The land question would, he predicted, assume many threatening forms with one purpose—a purpose against the rights and the duties of property. One Church was to be deprived of property which none of the others claimed. Three sets of clergy were to be equally apart from the State. A class in the first place, therefore, and that a class of resident proprietors, was to be destroyed; when it was agreed that one of the evils in Ireland was the want of a variety of classes and of resident proprietors. In the second, one of the avowed evils, the curse of Ireland, was poverty; but here was an Act to confiscate property, and that property in its nature popular—the appanage of the people.

When the land question should arise, there might ensue a triple danger, that of three sets of clergy divided in theology and matters of discipline, but united in discontent; and the three might eventually demand the restoration of the national property; and if it were refused, there might be revolution. England could afford no more revolutions. But, in any case, the spoliation of the Protestant clergy would breed jealousies among themselves also; for they were actually invited and induced (by means which he exposed) to co-operate in their own expropriation. The plunder of the Catholic clergy had bred great discontent. The plunder of the Protestant clergy would do the same. And if discontent were left to grow as it went, the land outcry would produce others, and they again others in their turn and train. There would be no rest, no finality. It would be discontent without end.

Far more than this, however, he objected to the ultimate consequences of this revolutionary departure. Confiscation was contagious. What was now applied—and applied in a form aggravated by its complications—to the national property, might one day be applied to private property. What was now applied to Ireland might one day be forcibly applied to England. If the public disaster of the disestablishment and disendowment of the English Church ever took place, in deference to the jealousy of a class and not because of its own inherent decay as a great civil and ecclesiastical institution, it would be aided by the precedent of Ireland.

Such is the pith, though many of the details and much of the historical criticism are omitted; nor have I here dealt with the Maynooth and “Regium Donum” problems and their bearings on these matters, which Disraeli discussed in full. But I have condensed enough to point the path of his ideas.

Not all these dismal forebodings have yet been realised; but many of them, unfortunately, came to pass. Ireland’s discontent, Catholic discontent, were, neither of them, allayed by the disestablishment and disendowment of the Protestant Church. The clergy of that Church are still far from contented. The land question burst out within a brief space of Disraeli’s prediction. It brought with it a long and fatal series of cumulative troubles; and, as Disraeli had also predicted, the actual rights of civil property, the rights of civilised society, became invaded. “Compensation for disturbance” asserted the right to pay no rent. For a time the last state of Ireland was almost worse than the first. There were “months of murder, incendiarism, and every conceivable outrage.” “The Executive absolutely abandoned their functions.” Disraeli’s last trumpet-call was to warn the country, in his celebrated letter to the Lord-Lieutenant, that there were those who wished to sever Ireland from England as part of a scheme for the disruption of the Empire. In 1881 he adverted to that warning.

“... Now what was the consequence of that declaration? The present Government took an early opportunity soon after I had made that declaration, to express a contrary opinion. They said there was in Ireland an absence of crime and outrage, with a general sense of comfort and satisfaction.... I warned the constituencies that there was going on in Ireland a conspiracy which aimed at the disunion of the two countries, and probably at something more. I said that if they were not careful something might happen almost as bad as pestilence and famine.... My observations, of course, were treated with that ridicule which a successful election always secures....”

We all know the rest. The country was only saved by a secession of the light and leading of the Liberal party from their rash and misguided leader. Wisdom has been justified of her child. In conclusion, let me say that none would have welcomed more gratefully than Disraeli the statesmanlike effort to settle the land question which has recently made England the landlord of Ireland. He might have descried in it elements of difficulty, and even of some danger for the future. But it would, in the main, I am confident, have received his unstinted support; for it is founded on the rock of conciliation—on Disraeli’s policy “To create and not to destroy.”