The tory administration from 1874 to 1880 will probably be remembered in history rather by the strongly marked features of its foreign and colonial policy than by any less imposing records. At the same time it would be a mistake to overlook the fact that in the field of domestic legislation it accomplished numerous reforms of a useful and popular description, and effected a satisfactory settlement of more than one long-vexed question in which the working class was deeply interested. We need only name such measures as the Factory Acts of 1874 and 1878, the Employers and Workmen Act (abolishing imprisonment for breach of contract), the Conspiracy and Protection to Property Act (enlarging the right of combination), the Poor Law Amendment Act, the Public Health Act, the Artisans' Dwellings Act, the Commons Act, and, last but not least, the Factories and Workshops Act. On 29 March 1878, Mr. Macdonald, the labour representative, said of this bill, that it would redound to the honour and credit of the government. On 16 July 1875, Mr. Mundella thanked the home secretary, on behalf of the working men of England, 'for the very fair way in which he had met the representations of both masters and men.' But it is rather by the policy which he pursued in the east of Europe and in India that Disraeli's claim to distinction during the last ten years of his life will generally be judged. Before, however, we pass on to these questions, we must notice one act of his administration which cost him nearly a third of his popularity at a single stroke: we mean the Public Worship Regulation Act. This act, though really less stringent in its provisions than the Church Discipline Act, and though Disraeli himself was personally averse to it, was made odious to the clergy by an unfortunate phrase which he applied to it. He said it was a bill 'to put down ritualism.' This unlucky expression brought a hornets' nest about his ears, and alienated a considerable body of supporters who had transferred their allegiance from Mr. Gladstone to the leader of the conservative party, when this unpardonable offence drove them away from him for ever.
Macaulay complains of the war policy of Mr. Pitt, that it halted between two opinions. 'Pitt should either,' he says, 'have thrown himself heart and soul into Burke's conception of the war, or else have abstained altogether.' This criticism represents perhaps to some slight extent what future historians will say of the policy of Lord Beaconsfield, as we must in future style him, though not of Beaconsfield himself. He avoided the mistakes of Lord Aberdeen, and, by his courage and decision at a critical moment, saved England from war and Turkey from destruction. But it will probably be thought hereafter that the same courage and decision exhibited at an earlier stage of the negotiations would have produced still more satisfactory results, and have prevented the campaign of 1877 altogether. When Russia made a casus belli of Turkey's refusal to sign the protocol submitted to her in the spring of that year, then, it may be thought, was England's real opportunity for the adoption of decisive measures. Lord Derby declared the conduct of Russia to be a gross breach of treaty obligations, yet resolved to remain neutral unless certain specific British interests were assailed or threatened. But for the neglect of this opportunity Beaconsfield was not responsible. The cabinet was divided in opinion, and the party of compromise prevailed.
In favour of this policy there are indeed several arguments to be adduced. Public opinion had been violently excited against Turkey by what will long be remembered as the 'Bulgarian atrocities,' or the outrages said to have been committed by the bashi-bazouks in the suppression of the Bulgarian insurrection. These outrages were discovered shortly afterwards to have been either gross exaggerations or pure inventions. But the effect of them had not subsided by the spring of 1877; and the violent and inflammatory harangues poured like torrents of lava on the heads of a government which could be base enough to sympathise with the authors of them intimidated some of Beaconsfield's colleagues, and made Lord Derby's answer to the Russian announcement the only one possible. In the second place it may be said that the time for maintaining the integrity of the Turkish empire by force of arms had in 1877 already gone by; that when Russia violated the treaty of Paris in 1871, then was the time for England and the other powers to have taken up arms in its defence; and that their refusal to do so amounted to a tacit admission that the treaty was obsolete. 'Tum decuit metuisse tuis,' Russia may have said with some reason; and on this view of the situation it might of course be maintained fairly that in case of any future quarrel between Turkey and Russia the intervention of England was limited to the protection of her own interests. The only doubt that remains is whether the same end could not have been better served by exhibiting in 1877 the attitude which we reserved for 1878, and whether to have maintained the Turkish empire as it then stood would not have been a better guarantee for British interests than the treaty of Berlin. Beaconsfield would have said yes. But he was overuled as we
