"Cynical Party Politics On the Part of Disraeli." Does this Explain the Passing of the Second Reform Bill

University Degree Historical and Philosophical studies

Luke Hodgkinson J6 LAK

“Cynical Party Politics On the Part of Disraeli.” Does this Explain the Passing of the Second Reform Bill

Robert Blake’s “Disraeli” states that the process by which the 1867 Reform Bill was passed was “… one of the oddest histories of confusion, cross-purposes and muddle in British political history.” Having analysed the situation he states “Strange though these numerous changes may appear, they were the result of muddle, confusion, lack of forethought inadequate statistics, and cabinet dissentions, rather than of a Machiavellian plan prepared by Derby and Disraeli.” This “muddle and confusion” however seems all too coincidental, and moreover, it seems rather unlikely that a politician of Disraeli’s calibre would make these “blunders” accidentally with such successful results, considering the facts.

It is easy to see why Robert Blake comes to the conclusion that the events were muddled, the Tories did not even begin to write the proposition for the Second Reform Bill until 5 days before it was supposed to be put forward. In addition, the many changes made to the bill before It was passed seem rushed and unplanned. Yet even Blake admits that Disraeli’s actions seemed somewhat intentional; “Certainly Disraeli had been through gyrations so extraordinary that a sinister explanation might well seem called for.” The reform bill was not even due to be passed until 1868, and the proposition had been pieced together only days before, but Disraeli pledged to the government to have the bill passed immediately, without authority from the cabinet. This could just have been a blunder, as Blake suggests; ill-thought through, and muddled. However this seems extremely unlikely, given Disraeli’s objectives. Disraeli’s ultimate objective was to pass the reform bill to gain popular support in parliament, and gain power through the votes of those newly enfranchised by the reform bill. The reason he had it passed immediately it seems, is that he wanted to beat the Liberals to it; by putting forward the proposition for the reform act, it was the Tories that were forward thinking and enfranchising the poor, and thus getting an upperhand on the Liberals in the next election. Disraeli had thought it through.

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However, there was confusion in the Tory party; the three cabinet members, Carnarvon, Peel and Cranborne were not satisfied with the bill, which Disraeli had drawn up very quickly, and were convinced that it would be detrimental to the party in the next elections, and threatened to resign. This followed numerous other disputes about the bill, mainly with general Peel, who was opposed to the £5 limit which Disraeli subsequently dropped to prevent his resignation. However, Disraeli was tiring of Peel’s interfering and canvassing. Disraeli then set about to collect data to put together a cmprehensive balance of the classes in boroughs in order to estimate the outcome of an election including the votes of those who would be enfranchised by the reform bill. Essentially he was trying to calculate whether the limit of £5 was too low for the bill, and would enfranchise too many people who would vote for the Liberals. The results were overwhelmingly negative, and showed that Liberal voters would outnumber Tory voters two to one in the next election with the reform bill in place. However, he refused to release the figures, believing they were false, and irrelevant. He was convinced that many of even the £10 households would not vote, as they were avoiding taxes, and many of those that were marked to vote liberal would in fact vote Tory, due to their overwhelming dependence on the local big landowners for employment. On top of that the information he used was entirely insufficient and out-dated. He thus with-held his statistics in order not to dissuade the rest of the party from supporting the reform act. Cranborne did his own statistics however, and discovering the same as Disraeli, he told Carnarven and Peel of his discovery, and all three wrote resignation letters. Although Disraeli initially tried to keep them onboard with the Ten Minute Bill- the result of frenzied discussions minutes before the bill was due to be proposed, Disraeli seized his opportunity when he discovered the interest of the Adulllamites and the back banch Carlton Club in the original bill. Disraeli passed the original bill that the three ministers opposed, joining forces with the Adullamites and the Carlton Club, and getting rid of the troublesome ministers, who promptly resigned.

In conclusion, (however it may have seemed at the time), it seems far more plausible that Disraeli shrewdly calculated that the passing of the reform bill would ultimately lead to the Tories being elected, and perhaps even saw the resignation of his ministers as the removal of a thorn from his side, than that he muddled through the process blindly, as Blake suggests.