The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1878-06-20
The Character of Lord BeacOnsfield.


Fortnightly Reuieao contains the rather
severe, but on the whole not unjust esti-
mate of the present Premier's character,
and the causes of his success.
The circumstances of his birth, the
legislation and social temper of the coun-
try to which his ancestry transferred
themselves a century and quarter since,
the inherited qualities of race whose
habits of mind and character have been
formed by nearly two thousand years OF
persecution and social slight, have him
dered Lord Beaconsteld from cultivating
that subordination of mere personal
greed, whether of fame, or wealth, or
power, to the well-being of sect, u
party, class, a nation, without which
genuine community is impossible. 1t
is scarcely Lord Beaconsteld's fault, all
things considered, that his career has not
been in its main features that of an Eng
fish statesman, but rather that Of for
eign political adventurer. The
hatred of the Wing oligarchy which runs
through the letters of RuEnymede, and
which has inspired many agibe and scott
from Lord Bcaconsield's lips and pen
during half n century, is probably as
genuine "A sentiment as either he or any
one else has ever entertained. 1t springs
from the same root as his administration
of Bolingbroke. A personal rule, the
monarchy OF a patriot king holding him
self above the strife of party, and there
fore beyond its control, gives the adven-
turer and the iavorte opportunities which
it is not easy to find under any other sys-
TEN. 1t opens doors which an oligarchy,
Venetian or Wing, tries to keep closed.
Lord Beaconstield has not only defended
Boiling broke's doctrines in his Letters to
noble and learned Lord in vindicaton
OF the English Constitution, and else
where, but he has striven in later years to
give effect to them. He has done so, it
true, by the instrumentalty of that
very system of government by party,
which in his more candid moments he
decries, aud of that aristocralic class for
which he every now and then intimates a
sort of good natured contempt. Circum-
stances made Lord Beaconstield a politi-
cal soldier of fortune. Ia the reign Of
Queen Anne he would probably have
been the pamphleteer of faction. Under
George III. he would have been the de-
pendant and parliamentary spokesman Of
a great noble, as Barre WAS of Lord Shell
burne, whom Lord BeacOnstield admires
only less than he adrircs Bolingbroke,
and in part for the same reasons. Under
the reign of Queen Victoria he has passed
! through both these embryo stages, as is
the law with fully developed animals.
He has been the pamphleteer of party,
and the parliamentary spokesman OF arts
tocratic chiefs. He WAS the Barre of
Lord George Bentinck and of Lord Der
by. But he has brought the art of politi-
cal adventure to a higher point than 1t
has reached in England since the full
development of parliamentary institutions.
Probably two things were needed for this
perfect and final success. The formation
under the personal and hereditary influ-
ences which we have endcavored to trace
of typical adveDturer WAS one of these
conditions. The reign of Il female sove-
reign was the other. 1t was Qleen Anne
who made BoingOroks possible. Queen
Victoria has been as essential to Lord
Beaconstield. The faint parody of b.
! lingbruke's career and doctrine which
L,rd Beaconstield has been able to ex-
hibit has required a state of things re-
sembling, though but distantly, that
which prevailed under the latest proceed
ing Queen Regnant.