Whilst however there was satiety of heroic legislation there was a well-marked appetite for improved administration. In matters of administration the mistakes or misfortunes which must happen to every Government invariably bring about a time when people begin to wish for new men.

The Spectator, writing at a date when the Government policy had developed itself, remarked :—

People in 1874 thought it did not matter which party administered; now they have found out that it does. (Sept. 20, 1877.)

[Disraeli's] was to be a Cabinet of administration, and by his skilful management of his own party and his adroitness in the conduct of public business, he was to prove himself its lawful head. . . . Even his deficiency in political earnestness was held to be an advantage for the efficient discharge of these delicate and somewhat trying duties.—Brit. Quart. Rev. July, 1875.

Nor can it be doubted that the election was a protest against the supposed Liberal policy of minimising the influence of England in foreign affairs and of loosening the bond with the colonies. More activity abroad and less at home was a prominent note of Mr. Disraeli's election address; though his selection of the Straits of Malacca as a point on which to assail the foreign policy of the Liberal Ministry was caviar to the general.

This then, we take it, was the main significance of the Conservative victory of 1874.

Mr. Gladstone's retirement from the leadership of the Opposition, and Lord Hartington's accession to that position, point to the conclusion that the Liberal party was disposed to accept the rule of quiescent criticism laid down for it by the Edinburgh Review.

And the new Premier, what was looked for from him? In 1874 he was hardly taken seriously. The Pall Mall Gazette found it possible to write of him in jocular strain, soon after the general election :

"How we have been running a muck-muck,
We see by this inopportune
Unexpected success of the buck-buck
Buckinghamshire buffoon."

Perhaps it was expected that his vivid and interesting personality would do something to break the dead level. He would be a relief from the terrible earnestness of Mr. Gladstone. So calm was the outlook, some thought it a safe opportunity to give him the spell at the helm which he had well earned by a long

course of patient and good-tempered watchfulness in opposition. He was to temper Conservatism with epigrams. He was to amuse.

On the whole, we may say, that during the first two years of the new Administration the country was getting pretty much what it bargained for at the general election. "Beer and Bible" had been in effect the hustings cry, so it was said, of the Conservatives; and in the first session of the new Parliament the licensed victuallers were appeased by an extension of the hours of closing which had been imposed by the Act of 1872, and the antiRitualists were gratified by the Public Worship Regulation Act of 1874.

In the first and following Sessions, something was done to give effect to the maxim sanitas sanitatum, by various Acts which extended existing provisions with respect to Factories, Artisans' Dwellings and the Adulteration of Food and Drugs.1 Moreover,

In

the Act of 1871 which had legalised Trade Unions, was followed in 1875 by an Act relaxing the law of conspiracy in favour of persons engaged in trade disputes, and in 1876 Lord Sandon's Act was passed, supplementing the existing Education Acts, particularly with respect to the provisions for compulsory attendance. none of these measures did the Legislature take anything like a new departure; but the case is rather different with respect to the Act of 1875, which gave validity to the claim of agricultural tenants in England to be compensated for unexhausted improvements, in default of agreement to the contrary, and the important Act of 1876 relating to Commons.2

Again, the Acts for preventing loss of life at sea (the first of which, associated with Mr. Plimsoll's name, was repealed the year after it was passed, and replaced by the Merchant Shipping Act of 1876), constituted a large extension of the principle of State supervision over merchant shipping. In taking this step, however, the House of Commons was moved by a very special impulse.

1 The Public Health Act of 1875 was almost entirely a re-enactment and codification of existing provisions.

2 Compare the preamble of the Act of 1845, which recites that "it is expedient to facilitate the inclosure and improvements of commons and other lands now subject to rights of property which obstruct cultivation and the productive employment of labour," with the preamble of the Act of 1876, which takes into account the health, comfort and convenience of the neighbourhood, and deprecates inclosure in severalty, unless it can be shown to be for the benefit of the neighbourhood as well as of private interests. The contrast marks quite a revolution in opinion on this head during the interval. In 1876 many Liberal members desired to go further than the Home Secretary would allow, in giving effect to the considerations pointed to in the preamble of the Act of that year, viz., by preventing inclosure, except under the Act, even when the Lord of the Manor and the Commoners all agreed.

Measures of this class constituted a certain amount of what may be called condition-of-the people legislation, that is to say, legislation intended to countervail some of the mischiefs attending unchecked industrial development and unregulated competition. Legislation of this kind the Premier was disposed to claim as belonging peculiarly to the Conservative party, and indeed, in so far as such measures interfered with freedom of contract, or encouraged reliance on the action of the State, they appear to be opposed to the principles of the older Liberalism.

Still, in point of fact, most of the measures of this kind passed in the early years of Mr. Disraeli's government were really legacies from the late Ministry. They were not treated as questions between the two parties. They were passed with the good-will of the Liberals, if indeed the impulse did not come from them.

There were indeed a few Acts where the element which the Spectator (Sept. 25, 1875), called the "Tory virus" of the Government showed itself (e.g. the Endowed Schools Act, 1874, as first introduced, and the Army Exchange Act, 1875). There does not appear to be any particular significance in the Act of 1876, which after two postponements of the operation of the Judicature Act of 1873, restored to the House of Lords its appellate jurisdiction. But we can imagine some ingenious historian of the future, who should light upon it as a solitary fragment, thereupon proceeding to explain the election of 1874 as a great revindication of the power of the aristocracy, which a demagogic minister had attempted to subvert.

The term "Tory" is used, it must be noted, in the phrase just quoted in the sense oligarchical, devoted to class interests, repressive. It would appear that this is the sense in which the word is commonly used by Professor Goldwin Smith. Of Toryism in the special sense in which we have used the word in connection with Personal Government,1 there was as yet no talk. The reactionary element in the Government, however, was by no means strong, and it is to be noticed that so far from the Premier's being represented as adding to its strength, he is looked upon as one of those by whom the evil tendencies of certain others are held in check. Thus it was looked upon as only what was to be expected

1 Ante, p. 61.

2 In a curious article in the Spectator of Feb. 12, 1876, we get Mr. Disraeli, Sır Stafford Northcote, and Mr. Cross enumerated as the " good boys" in the Cabinet; while on the other side, stand as "Tories," Lord Derby (who ought to know better), Lord Salisbury, Lord Sandon, Mr. Ward Hunt and Sir Charles Adderley.

from him when in the debate on the Address, 1875, he took occasion to administer a snub to certain advocates of reaction in the press, and elsewhere.

This is a most ingenious course which I have noticed among many honourable gentlemen opposite. . . . of seeking out the most violent speeches made by the most uninfluential persons in the most obscure places, and the most absurd articles appearing in the dullest and most uninfluential newspapers, and saying these are the opinions of the Conservative Party.1-Mr. Disraeli, H. of C. Feb. 5, 1875.

Two incidents occurred in the summer of 1875, in both of which we find the Government encountering an agitation connected with sentiments of humanity. These were the issue of an Admiralty Circular respecting the surrender of fugitive slaves taking refuge on board men-of-war in foreign territorial waters, and the announcement that the Government would not proceed with the Merchant Shipping Bill. These events did something, perhaps, to impress people with the belief in the Government's "Tory virus and to give them a reputation of cynicism, but at the same time the sequel seemed to show that the Government would yield—if somewhat grudgingly-to Public Opinion, whenever it got aroused on any subject. In fact the Government appeared willing, if hardly anxious, to do anything which was demanded, not so much by the House of Commons, as by Public Opinion, as soon as they could be sure of its drift. This attitude of the Government is very noteworthy.

The original Slave Circular (dated July 31st, 1875), was suspended early in October, and withdrawn in November. A second circular was issued in December. This was but a modified edition of the old one. If the Government hoped that people (perhaps then less alive on the subject than three months before) would believe that they had got what they wanted, the hope was disappointed. The agitation was renewed, and the Government early in 1876 had recourse to a Royal Commission, which did not report till later in the year, when the subject had been almost forgotten.2

1 See Mrs. Gamp's expostulation (Mrs. Gamp is the Standard) :— "And it's many the time I've been called dull and stupid by Radical spite. They're that bragian and bold and owdacious! but Benjamin, pride o' my 'art, For you for to turn and to sting me like this, makes your Sairey to smart!" -Punch, Feb. 27, 1875.

2 Punch, Feb. 19, 1876, draws the Premier as the good-tempered conjurer performing "The Extinguisher Trick." "Here you perceive Fugitive Slave Circular'

Mr. Disraeli alluded to Mr. Plimsoll's indignation at the announcement that the Government would not proceed with the Merchant Shipping Bill, and the consequent action of the Government in introducing and passing the Act which went by Mr. Plimsoll's name, as follows:

In consequence of that dramatic scene which occurred in the House of Commons, which had a beneficial effect in eliciting some public sentiment which we had for six weeks looked for in vain, I asked them [the Cabinet] to assemble, and they unanimously agreed that we should ask for some further statutory powers. The Bill was introduced, and the feeling of the country was so great, that it assisted what was the policy of the Government, and we were enabled to do that in ten or twelve hours which otherwise we could not have done in ten or twelve days. We have been successful. I have been sneered at by what I call political sceptics, because in the House of Commons I said, it was not under pressure of Public Opinion, but by the aid of Public Opinion that we have carried this measure, but I repeat the observation because it is the truth.-Disraeli.1

It cannot be said that the popularity of the Ministry was great during their first two years of office. In fact, as things are in this country, a Government that lays itself out to do little must generally find itself in a very difficult position. Such a Government is something like a man trying to go very slowly on a bicycle. From a Government that does much, many mistakes are excused; people's attention is so much occupied by more important matters, that it hardly reaches these mistakes at all. But a Government that gives itself out as a Government of administration is naturally expected to administer very well. Moreover those who busy themselves with politics have in this case little to attend to but those mistakes of administration which are inevitable under any Government, and, however profound may be the general torpor of the political world, pretty much the same number of newspaper leaders have to be written. It may be questioned how far it is well that a premium should thus be placed on legislative activity, however spurious and artificial.

In the result, the credit of the Government on the whole was waning, and in the autumn of 1875 people were feeling somewhat

No. 2, No. 1 having disappeared already! I now take this cone into my hand (it resembles an extinguisher, and it is called a Royal Commission), I place it over the Circular,' and, hey, presto! on raising it again Circular' No. 2 will have disappeared!"

At the Mansion House, Aug. 4, 1875.