The mistrust of this great measure at the time, even by men of intelligence, may be justified by the objection that in the distant future Labour may resume its war against authority in its coming conflict with Capital; and that a rigid conservatism of defiance is preferable to an adaptive conservatism of development. But whenever that hour strikes, it will be seen that Disraeli’s statesmanship has prevented the revolution which a conservatism of defiance must have prepared and entailed. Disraeli will have helped to preserve the English immunity from the violences which mark such upheavals elsewhere. He sought with all his might to quicken Capital into duty, and to hearten Labour by conferring privilege, not as a sop, but as a reward, while, by alleviating misery through creative enactments, he has conservatised Labour and kept it in touch with the national scheme. It may not, perhaps, have been wholly realised how harmonious Disraeli’s utterances respecting the progressive principles of representation in England have been. That is my excuse for treating the subject with insistence, though by no means with completeness. To have done so would risk the exhaustion of the reader as well as of the subject. Disraeli prevented the raid of alien and disruptive democracy from making England a home. Out of the common he extracted the choice. He revived the democracy long inherent in the English Constitution; he naturalised the democratic idea on the soil of tradition and order; and thereby he cemented the solidarity of the State and the welfare of the nation. He proved that “progress” is not synonymous with push, and that in going forward it is wise also to look back, lest the goal should be a precipice. Still, long as this disquisition has necessarily been, I may hope that it is not dull, since, in Mrs. Malaprop’s aphorism, “I don’t think there is a superstitious article in it.” CHAPTER III LABOUR--“YOUNG ENGLAND”--“FREE TRADE”