[Inclosure.]
[Extract from the Times, Monday, January
26, 1874.]
the general election.
Mr. Disraeli has issued the following address to the electors of the
county of Buckingham:
“Gentlemen: Mr. Gladstone has informed the electors of Greenwich that Her
Majesty has been advised by her ministers to dissolve the present
Parliament.
“Whether this step has been taken as a means of avoiding the humbling
confession by the prime minister that he has, in a fresh violation of
constitutional law, persisted in retaining for several months a seat to
which he was no longer entitled, or has been resorted to by his
government in order to postpone or evade a day of reckoning for a war
carried on without communication with Parliament, and the expenditure
for which Parliament has not sanctioned, it is unnecessary at present to
consider. It is sufficient to point out that if, under any
circumstances, the course, altogether unprecedented, of calling together
Parliament by special summons for the dispatch of business and then
dissolving it before its meeting, could be justified, there is in the
present case no reason whatever suggested why this was not done six
weeks ago, and why the period of the year usually devoted to business
before Easter, which must now be wasted, should not thus have been
saved.
“Gentlemen, I appeal to you again for the continuance of that confidence
which you have extended to me on nine different occasions, running over
a period longer than a generation of men.
“The prime minister has addressed to his constituents a prolix narrative,
in which he mentions many of the questions that have occupied or may
occupy public attention, but in which I find nothing definite as to the
policy he would pursue, except this, that having the prospect of a large
surplus, he will, if retained in power, devote that surplus, to the
remission of taxation, which would be the course of any party or any
ministry. But what is remarkable in his proposals is that, on the one
hand, they are accompanied by the disquieting information that the
surplus, in order to make it adequate, must be enlarged by an
adjustment, which must mean an increase of existing taxes, and that, on
the other hand, his principal measures of relief will be the diminution
of local taxation and the abolition of the income-tax—measures which the
conservative party have always favored and which the prime minister and
his friends have always opposed.
“Gentlemen, I have ever endeavored, and if returned to Parliament, I
shall, whether in or out of office, continue to endeavor to propose or
support all measures calculated to improve the condition of the people
of this kingdom. But I do not think this great end is advanced by
incessant and harassing legislation. The English people are governed by
their customs as much as by their laws, and there is nothing they more
dislike than unnecessary restraint and meddling interference in their
affairs. Generally speaking, I should say of the administration of the
last five years that it would have been better for us all if there had
been a little more energy in our foreign policy and a little less in our
domestic legislation.
By an act of folly or of ignorance rarely equaled, the present ministry
relinquished a treaty which secured us the freedom of the Straits of
Malacca for our trade with China and Japan, and they, at the same time,
entering on the west coast of Africa into those ‘equivocal and
entangling engagements’ which the prime minister now deprecates,
involved us in the Ashantee war. The honor of the country now requires
that we should prosecute that war with the vigor necessary to insure
success; but when that honor is vindicated, it will be the duty of
Parliament to inquire by what means we were led into a costly and
destructive contest which neither Parliament nor the country has ever
sanctioned, and of the necessity or justice of which, in its origin,
they have not been made aware.
“The question of a further reform of the House of Commons is again
suggested by the prime minister. I think unwisely. The argument for
extending to the counties the household franchise of the towns on the
ground of the existing system, being anomalous, is itself
fallacious.
[Page 494]
“There has always been a difference between the franchises of the two
divisions of the country, and no one has argued more strongly than the
present prime minister against the contemplated identity of suffrage.
The conservative party view this question without prejudice. They have
proved that they are not afraid of popular rights. But the late reform
act was a large measure, which, in conjunction with the ballot, has
scarcely been tested by experience, and they will hesitate before they
will sanction further legislation which will inevitably involve, among
other considerable changes, the disfranchisement of at least all
boroughs in the kingdom comprising less than 40,000 inhabitants.
“Gentlemen, the impending general election is one of 110 mean importance
for the future character of this kingdom. There is reason to hope, from
the address of the prime minister, putting aside some ominous
suggestions which it contains as to the expediency of a local and
subordinate legislature, that he is not, certainly at present, opposed
to our national institutions or to the maintenance of the integrity of
the empire. But, unfortunately, among his adherents some assail the
monarchy; others impugn the independence of the House of Lords, while
there are those who would relieve Parliament altogether from any share
in the government of one portion of the United Kingdom. Others, again,
urge him to pursue his peculiar policy by disestablishing the Anglican
as he has despoiled the Irish Church, while trusted colleagues in his
cabinet openly concur with them in their desire altogether to thrust
religion from the place which it ought to occupy in national
education.
“These, gentlemen, are solemn issues, and the impending general elections
must decide them. Their solution must be arrived at when Europe is more
deeply stirred than at any period since the Reformation, and when the
cause of civil liberty and religious freedom mainly depends upon the
strength and stability of England. I ask you to return me to the House
of Commons to resist every proposal which may impair that strength and
to support by every means her imperial sway.
“B. DISRAELI.
“Hughenden
Manor, January
24.”
