The Sun.
London, England, 1870-10-26 00:00:00

MR. DISRiIELI ON HIS NOVELS.

Mr. Disraeli has written a " General Preface " to the
collected edition of his works, in which he reviews the
circumstances which led to the production of his various
novels. We extract the following observations, which
will be read with interest :
" A distinguished individual has suggested that, in a
preface to this edition of my collected works, I might give
my own views of the purport of " Lothair." It strikes me,
with all deference, that it would be not a little presump•
tuous for an author thus to be the self-critic of volumes
which appeared only a few months ago. Their purport
to the writer seems clear enough, and as they have been
more extensively read both by the people of the United
Kingdom and the 1-1::it-,ed States than any work that has
appeared for tiaif-century, I will even venture to
assume that on thia tl.ley are of the same opinion as
myself.
" But, on some ether works, the youngest of which
were written a quarter of a century ago, it would perhaps
be in me not impertinent now to make a few remarks.
Coningsby," Sybil,' and "fancred' form a real Trilogy
—that is to say, they treat of the same subject, and endea-
vour to complete that treatment. The origin and cha-
racter of our political parties, their influence on the con-
dition of the people of this country, somerpicture of the
moral and physical condition of that people, and some
intimation of the means by which it might be elevated
and improved, were themes which had long engaged my
mediation.

" Born in a library, and trained from early childhood
by learned men who did not share the passions and the
prejudices of our political and social life, I had imbibed
on some subjects conclusions different from those which
generally prevail, and especially with reference to thehis-
tory of our own country. How an oligarchy had been
substituted for a kingdom, and a narrow-minded and
bigoted fanaticism flourished in the name of religious
liberty, were problems long to me insoluble; but which
early interested me. But what most attracted my
musing, even as a boy, were the elements of our poli-
tical parties, and the• strange mystification by which
that which was national in its constitution had become
odious, and that which was exclusive was presented as
popular.

" What has mainly led to this confusion of public
thought and this uneasiness of society is our habitual
carelessness in not distinguishing between the excellence
of a principle and its injurious or obsolete application.
The feudal system may have worn out, but its main prin-
ciple, that the tenure of property should be the fulfilment
of duty, is the essencs of good Government. The divine
right of kings may have been a plea for feeble tyrants,
but the divine right of Government is the keyseone of
human progress, and without it Governments sink into
police and a nation is degraded into a mob.
" National institutions were the ramparts of the multi-
tude against large estates exercising political power
derived from a limited class. The Church was in theory,
and once it had been in practice, the spiritual and intel-
lectual trainer of the people. The privileges of the
multitude and the prerogatives of the Sovereign had
grown up together, and together they had waned. Under
the plea of Liberalism, all the institutions which were
the bulwarks of the multitude had been sapped and
weakened, and nothing had been substituted for them. The
people were without education, and, relatively to the ad-
vance of science and the comfort of the superior classes,
their condition had deteriorated, and their physical quality
as a race was threatened. Those who in theory were the
national party, and who sheltered themselves under the in-
stitutions of the country against the oligarchy, had, both
by a misconception and a neglect of their duties, become,
and justly, become odious; while the oligarchy, who had
mainly founded themselves on the plunder of the popular
estate, either in the shape of the possessions of the Church
or the domains of the Crown, had by the patronage of
certain general principles which they only meagerly
applied, assumed, and to a certain degree acquired, the
character of a popular party. But no party was national;
one was exclusive and odious, and the other liberal and
cosmopolitan.

" Tile perverse deviation of political parties from their
original significance may at first sight seem only subjects
of historical curiosity, but they assume a different char-
acter when they practically result in the degradation of a
people.
"To change back the oligarchy into a generous aria
tocracy round a real throne ; to infuse life and vigour
into the Church as the trainer of the nation, by the
revival of Convocation, then dumb, on a wide basis,
and not, as has been since done, in the shape of
a priestly section ; to establish a commercial code
on the principles successfully negotiated by Lord
Bolingbroke at Utrecht, and which, though baffled
at the time by a Whig Parliament, were subsequently
and triumphantly vindicated by his political pupil
and heir, Mr. Pitt ; to govern Ireland according to the
policy of Charles L, and not of Oliver Cromwell ; to
emancipate the political constituency of 1832 from its
sectarian bondage and contracted sympathies ; to elevate
the physical as well as the moral condition of the people,
by establishing that labour required regulation as much
as property ; and all this rather by the use of ancient
forms and the restoration of thy, past than by political
revolutions founded on abstract ideas, appeared to be the
course which the circumstances of this country required,
and which, practically speaking, could only, with all their
faults and backslidings, be undertsken and accom-
plished by a reconstructed Tory party."
Of " Vivian Grey," Mr. Disraeli says :—" It is essen-
tially a puerile work, but it has baffled even the efforts
of its creator to suppress it. Its fate has been strange ;
and not the least remarkable thing is, that forty-four
years after its first publication I must ask the indulgence
of the reader for its continued and inevitable reappear.
ance."

MR. lIIBBERT, M.P., ON TRADES' UNIONS.
On Monday evening a public meeting was held in the
Co-operative Hall, Oldham, for the purpose of promoting
a scheme for the erection of a Trades' Hall and a social
clubhouse. The chair was taken by Mr. J. T. Hibbert,
M.P.
The Chairman said that it seemed as if this question
almost branched into two subjects. The trades' union
question, as it was called, and the advantage of clubs such
as they proposed to erect in that town. In respect to
trades' unions, the more they were brought to light and the
more their position was legalised, the better it would be
for this country and for those who were connected with
unions. The unions did exist, and it would be impossible
to suppose that it would be in the power of Parliament to
put them out of existence. What he thought was the best
course to pursue was to give them a legalised existence.
It was unfair that such societies as a whole should be
blamed for what might be done by a few persons in
different parts of the country ; but he was sure
of this, that the advantages of such a hall as
they proposed to erect were so great that it
ought to receive the support of their fellow
worldng men, and from every class in that town. He could
not suppose that they would erect a trades' hall and club
house as they proposed without its being the means of
their elevation in many ways, morally and mentally, and
that it would give them the opportunity of meeting to-
gether in a social way, which they were now unable to do.
It would enable them to meet together without being
called upon, when they met for business, to take drink.
He was sure of this, that the more a man who was
engaged in trade as a working man and an artisan became
intelligent and educated the less they would see of those
unseemly strikes between employer and employed, and
the less they would also see of those unfortunate pro-
ceedings which had taken place at Sheffield and else-
where. Some forty or fifty years ago, when the steam-
loom was introduced the hand-loom weaver naturally
felt that his occupation was almost gone, and he set to
work—ignorant, no doubt, he was—with the intention of
breaking these machines. . These poor weavers by hard
work, only earned Bs. or 9s. a week, yet when the steam-
loom had got to work their children were enabled by its
means to earn from 15s. to 20s. per week, and a
much greater number were employed than ever it was pos-
sible to employ before. But in addition these improve-
ments had the advantage of benefitting the entire
population of the country. He believed that the more
scientific the workman and the more scientific the
business in which he was engaged, the more
that workman would be anxious to see the im-
provement of his machine, because he knew that
it would lighten his labour and aid productions. He
thought with respect to even the commonest kind of em-
ployments, such as brickmaking and employments of that
nature, which really made a man almost a slave, that it
would be ultimately for the benefit of the workman if he
agreed to the introductiun of machinery. Every man
must be willing to work with a machine as an educated
trained man, much more than being made the slave to do
the work which the machine would do for him.

STORMS IN THE ATLANTlC.—lntelligence has
reached Liverpool of the loss of the ship J. S. de Wolf,
Captain Spain, which left that port on the 29th of
August last with a general cargo for Philadelphia. On
the morning of the sth inst. she was seen with signals of
distress flying, by the Wisconsin, one of the Guion
line of steamers, which bore down to her assist-
ance. The J. S. de Wolf was then in a
crippled condition, owing to the very heavy weather
which she had encountered, and both her maintopmast
and foretopgallantyard had been carried away. A boat's
crew from the Wisconsin attempted to get on board the
ship, but were prevented doing so by the tremendous sea
which was running. Subsequently her captain and the
crew, eighteen in number, were fortunately saved by
being hauled on board the Wisconsin with lines and
lifebuoys. The J. S. de Wolf was sinking rapidly
when she was abandoned. The barque Waver, bound
from Antwerp to New York, is supposed to
have gone down with. all on board, as no intelli-
gence has been received of her since the 23d of July, when
she passed Beachy Head. The Ruby, bound to St. John's,
New Brunswick, was greatly damaged in a hurricane on
the sth inst., and became unmanageable, but her crew were
saved by the steamer Virgo and taken to New York. The
brig Executive, bound from Bangor to Port-au-Prince, en-
countered terrific gales on the 17th of September and sth
instant, and was so disabled that she was abandoned, her
crew being rescued and taken into N orfolk by the schooner
F. Sheppard. The barque George W. Jones, which had ar-
rived at New York, reported having boarded, on the 12th
of October, in lat. 47 30, long. 43, the British bark Black
Swan, timber laden. Her fore and wizen masts weregone,
her hold was full of water, no boats were • on board, and
the crew had disappeared, nothing being known respecting
them.