Benjamin Disraeli by Jonathan Parry

Author:Jonathan Parry [Parry, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780199213597
Amazon: 0199213593
Goodreads: 844182
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2007-08-01T07:00:00+00:00

Prime minister

Little opposition to Disraeli’s appointment was expressed within the party. However, he was hardly in a position to develop a new line of policy, even had he wanted to do so. He made little change to the cabinet. Having long been Derby’s Commons manager, he seemed very anxious to continue to seek his protection; he consulted him frequently and in his election address of October 1868 wrote that he had carried out Derby’s policy ‘without deviation’ (Monypenny and Buckle, 5.88). It was ironic that on expenditure, the issue on which he and Derby had most frequently failed to see eye to eye, Disraeli was not able to implement tax reductions: income tax, 4d. in 1866, had to rise from 5d. to 6d. in 1868. Disraeli had finally succeeded in checking Conservative tendencies to increase defence expenditure, only to have to meet the bill for the Abyssinian expedition of 1867–8. The expedition was forced on the government, and certainly not undertaken for electoral popularity, but Disraeli none the less used its successful conclusion to make a point to commercial public opinion, the isolationism of which was beginning to irritate him. In two speeches he suggested that in an age accused, ‘perhaps not unjustly, of selfishness, and a too great regard for material interests’, it was a legitimate source of pride to have ‘elevated the military’ and ‘moral … character of England throughout the world’ (Selected Speeches, 2.132; The Times, 18 June 1868, 9).

Disraeli’s first premiership was dominated by Ireland, but this was not his doing. Derby had controlled the government’s Irish policy, together with the Irish secretary, Lord Mayo. They aimed to conciliate moderate Catholics without alienating protestant feeling by any major concession on the status of the Church of Ireland. Negotiations had taken place with the Irish hierarchy and Henry Manning, archbishop of Westminster, about the possible grant of a charter to a Catholic university. On 10 March, Mayo announced this policy, which met with a lukewarm response from the Catholic bishops, who sought amendments. He proposed a small endowment for university expenses, and left open the larger issue of endowment for the denominational teaching colleges. Six days later Gladstone declared that an endowed university was a political impossibility and soon proposed the disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish church. This initiative united whig and radical wings of the Liberal Party, attracted Irish Catholic MPs away from the government, played to evangelical British protestants’ visceral hatred of Catholic endowment, and placed the Conservative Party in the position of having to defend an institution which few British voters admired. Whatever other motives Gladstone had for this move, the desire to remove Disraeli from the highest office was widely assumed to be one of them. The future of the Irish church became the major question at the general election of November 1868. In speech after speech Gladstone ruthlessly charged Disraeli with favouring a policy of Catholic endowment, which he had not been able to persuade his party to support. Conservatives were indeed divided on an Irish church policy, and scarcely able to counter-attack.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.