ate the next chapter of political history-- Disraeli and Gladstone.

They were very different men and the nature of their contri-
butions was different. Disraeli's claim to have educated his party
requires scrutiny and re-appraisal, but there is a strong case that
it was due to him that there had survived a party to educate. In
the slack period of the fifties Disraeli and Lord Derby by careful
personal management had kept an effectively organised Conserva-
tive party in continuous existence. The feat was the more remark-
able because not only was the party in a perpetual minority but
there was no very obvious reason why it should exist at all. The
political principles which it could afford to profess were hardly
different from those of the Whigs who had supported Lord
Palmerston, while the issues which it might have made its own
were those on which any expression of its natural opinions would
have meant political suicide. But by dexterous tactics Disraeli had
led it round such pitfalls as an obstinate adherence to the policy of
protection of agriculture by imposing taxes on food, or a conscien-
tious refusal to take any part in the further reform of Parliament.
As a result an organised Conservative party had survived to com-
pete effectively for power after 1868, and, since organisation on one
side in politics is likely to be answered by organisation on the other
side, the existence of this party was probably one of the main
reasons why by 1868 there also existed by that time something
like an effectively organised Whig-Liberal party to compete for
the control of government.

Disraeli's work had been that of a realist; indeed, his words and
actions may seem at times to cross the shadowy boundary which
separates realism from cynicism. It is difficult to see how it could
have been otherwise. He had to be in close touch with those who
were engaged in electoral management, which in the middle of
the nineteenth century was not always a very savoury occupation.
If he was to make something of the position of his party he needed
a freedom of manoeuvre which might at times seem to require a
flexibility of principle which was greater than the ordinary rules
of political conduct might be held to permit. Moreover, the cir-
cumstances of his own spectacular ascent to power from the
position of an adventurer of a despised race to the leadership of
the Conservative party and his general insecurity at every moment
of his climb must have left him with few illusions about some of

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