Disraeli’s enduring reputation as an enthusiastic advocate of imperial expansion, and as

one of the moving spirits behind the new imperialism of the late nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries, rests mainly on two famous speeches in 1872, and on the policies and

rhetoric of his ministry of 1874-80. The imperial aspect of the 1872 speeches, at

Manchester on 3 April and at the Crystal Palace on 24 June, has attracted much more

attention from historians and propagandists after the event than it did from the media at

the time. Disraeli asserted a need, in the changing circumstances of Europe and the wider

world, for more attention to be paid to an active foreign policy. Within this framework,

he urged the importance of colonies and overseas possessions in making it both necessary

and possible for Britain to play a conspicuous and leading role on the stage of world

diplomacy. He emphasized the popularity of empire among the working classes, and he

urged that the relationship between Britain and the English-speaking colonies should be

placed on a firmer and better defined footing. His peroration at Manchester associated

‘the people’ and ‘the Empire’ in a windy but effective passage of rhetoric:

it is not merely our fleets and armies, our powerful artillery, our

accumulated capital, and our unlimited credit upon which I so depend, as

upon that unbroken spirit of her people, which, I believe, was never

prouder of the Imperial country to which they belong.