Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/116

 ratepayers there was no such change of front, no such 'unparalleled betrayal,' as Mr. Lowe charged him with. The conservative party had never taken their stand on any particular figure. And in point of fact the necessity of a rating suffrage pure and simple had long been contemplated by the two conservative leaders.

The cabinet, however, was divided on the subject, Lord Derby, Disraeli, and the majority being in favour of a measure on which the two leaders of the party had for some time been agreed, while Lords Cranborne and Carnarvon and General Peel considered that it went too far. In deference to their opinions, and to avert their resignation, a measure of a different character was devised on the spur of the moment and subsequently submitted to the house. Disraeli, who had at one time tendered his own resignation, which of course was not to be heard of, was observed to be labouring under very unwonted depression while discharging this unwelcome duty. But the 'ten minutes' bill,' as it was named, was only born to perish. The ministry soon found their new position untenable. Their own followers demanded the original scheme. The resignation of the dissentients was accepted: and on 18 March 1867 the more popular bill was introduced.

On 12 April Mr. Gladstone moved an amendment which struck at the principle of the bill by proposing to give the franchise to the householder who compounded for the rates as well as to the householder who paid them. This debate was the first real trial of strength between the government and the opposition, and when the numbers were read out, for Gladstone's amendment 289, against it 310, a scene was witnessed in the house such as few of its oldest members recollected. The bursts of cheering were again and again renewed; and none crowded to shake hands with the leader of the house more heartily than the very tory country gentlemen whom he was absurdly said to have betrayed. The younger members of the party extemporised a supper at the Carlton and begged of him to join them. But, as Lady Beaconsfield was never tired of repeating, 'Dizzy came home to me' and then she would add how he ate half the raised pie and drank the whole of the bottle of champagne which she had prepared in anticipation of his triumph.

Perhaps the best defence of the conservative Reform Bill within a narrow compass is to be found in Disraeli's speech at Edinburgh on 29 Oct. 1867, celebrated for its comparison of the 'Edinburgh' and 'Quarterly' Reviews to the boots at the Blue Boar and the chambermaid at the Red Lion. While regretting that the settlement of 1832 had not been respected by its authors, he had always reserved to the conservative party the full right of dealing with the question now that their opponents had reopened it, and of redressing the anomalies which confessedly existed in Lord Grey's Reform Bill. In 1859 both Lord Derby and himself had come to the conclusion that between the existing 10l. franchise and household suffrage there was no trustworthy halting-place. In their first Reform Bill they chose to abide by the former, and, that alternative having been rejected, they could in their second essay only have recourse to the latter. It is pretty clear that they were right, and that any intermediate franchise of 7l., 6l., or 5l. would have been swept away within a very few years of its creation. But at the time the experiment was regarded with considerable distrust and apprehension, which the results of the general election of 1868 were not calculated to allay. But, whatever the policy of the measure, there could not be two opinions of the extraordinary ability displayed by Disraeli in the conduct of it. Nor must the fact be forgotten that in the introduction of a measure repugnant to the prejudices and connections of conservatives in general, Disraeli, unlike Peel, carried his party with him.

The Reform Bill became law in August 1867, and then, his work being done, Lord Derby, who had long been a great sufferer from the gout, retired from office, and Mr. Disraeli realised the dream of his youth, and became prime minister of England. But the popularity of the tory party did not ripen all at once. The Reform Bill of 1867 was not so inconsistent with the principles of toryism as many people supposed who took only the narrow view of tory principles which was fashionable about the middle of the century. The late Sir Robert Peel always regretted the extinction of those popular franchises which the first Reform Bill had abolished. And in 1831 Lord Aberdeen suggested household suffrage to the Duke of Wellington as quite a natural and feasible principle for the tory party to adopt without incurring either remonstrance or reproach. But the tory party were not at first accredited with the change. The people were told that it had been wrung from a reluctant aristocracy by the liberals, and the liberals reaped the whole benefit of it when the appeal to the people came. At the Guildhall dinner on 9 Nov., Disraeli spoke confidently of the organisation and prospects of the conservatives. 'Arms of precision' would, he said, tell their tale. But he was doomed to disappointment, and Mr. Gladstone returned to power with a majority of 170.

Now began the last long phase of the Irish