Domestic Policy

Benjamin Disraeli became Prime Minister in February 1868, upon the resignation of Lord Derby through ill-health. Disraeli had thus beaten his great rival, Gladstone, to what he called 'the top of the greasy pole'. ¹ But the Conservative Government remained a minority administration, and an election was bound to come as soon as the new voters enfranchised under the Second Reform Act had been registered. No one knew what the new electors wanted; but Gladstone was determined to offer not material benefits but a great moral cry - 'justice for Ireland'. This might seem surprising in view of the recent Fenian outrages. In September 1867 two Fenian prisoners had been rescued and a prison guard killed in an attack upon a prison van in Manchester; and in December an attempt to rescue Fenian prisoners by blowing up the wall of London's Clerkenwell prison killed twelve innocent people. But Gladstone regarded the Fenian outrages not as reason for pursuing a course of negation in Ireland, but for promoting a policy which would seek to remove the grievances exploited by the Fenians. This seemed the more necessary because of the sympathy shown in the United States for the Fenian cause, which had even led to Fenian forays across the Canadian border. Gladstone remarked in December 1867 that the British Empire faced 'but one danger. It is the danger by the combination of the three names, Ireland, United States and Canada'. ²