With Poland’s free aspirations he always sympathised, and more than once expressed the grounds of his sympathy in Parliament. The movement in Poland was one, natural, spontaneous, and national. It was not forced by agitators, nor fomented by despots, nor provoked elsewhere from ulterior motives. It was the genuine expression of a combined people, and not the plea of a single race overbearing its fellow components, or the pretence of a single locality to manage itself, both of which have so frequently proved the stalking-horse of “national rights;” pleas that, if sound, would bring back the Heptarchy in England, undo the union of Germany and of Italy, break up the faculty for government, and resolve into petty elements every great nation in Europe. Such an article of “liberal” faith is neither more nor less than political atomism; and its humanitarian guise too often the false philanthropy of “sublime sentiments.” In all his treatment of “Britain’s interests abroad,” Disraeli realised that whereas in England government can still be carried on by “traditionary influences,” the remaining ancient communities of Europe were falling more and more under the veiled sway of “military force.” These were the two alternatives. A “reconstruction” of England “on the great Transatlantic model” would only accentuate the discrepancy between the ineradicable features of her body politic, and the social standard which she would seek to imitate. The result would be that “after a due course of paroxysms for the sake of maintaining order and securing the rights of industry, the State quits the senate and takes refuge in the camp”-- “Let us not be deluded by forms of government. The word may be republic in France, constitutional monarchy in Prussia, absolute monarchy in Austria, but the King is the same. _Wherever there is a vast standing army the government is the government of the sword._ Half a million of armed men must either be, or be not, in a state of discipline. If not... it is not government but anarchy; if they be in a state of discipline, they must obey one man, and that man is the master.”[133] I have tried to track a large subject deserving a longer space. At any rate, I hope to have justified Disraeli’s own language in the touching letter which breathed farewell to his constituents when failing health compelled him to accept an earldom-- “Throughout my public life I have aimed at two chief results. Not insensible to the principle of progress, I have endeavoured to reconcile change with that respect for tradition which is one of the main elements of our social strength; and in external affairs I have endeavoured to develop and strengthen our empire, _believing that a combination of achievement and responsibility elevates the character and condition of a people_.”