DISRAELI AND AGRICULTURE. 77 



use the flail for thrashing, and only a few who even 

 knew how to handle and sharpen the scythe. But I 

 might cover pages with notes of Disraeli's comments on 

 matters with which I myself was intimately acquainted ; 

 his conversations convinced me that Lord Beaconsfield 

 had mastered the politics of country life, and was ready 

 with remedies which he felt would be of use. 



I cannot refrain from quoting one more extract from 

 Mr. Disraeli's Manchester speech, so exactly applicable 

 is it to the present time. Speaking on the licensing 

 question, he said, " I doubt not there is in this hall 

 more than one publican who remembers that last year 

 an Act was introduced to declare that all publicans 

 were sinners. I doubt not there are in this hall widows 

 and orphans who remember the profligate proposition 

 to plunder their lonely heritage." And that master- 

 piece of illustration, " The unnatural stimulus of the 

 Ministry was subsiding. Their paroxysms ended in 

 prostration. As I sit opposite the Treasury Bench the 

 Ministers remind me of one of those marine landscapes 

 not unusual on the coast of South America. You 

 behold a range of exhausted volcanoes. Not a flame 

 flickers on a single pallid crest, but the situation is 

 still dangerous. There are occasional earthquakes, and 

 ever and anon the dark rumbling of the sea." 



These reminiscences of Lord Beaconsfield merely 

 record what may seem commonplace anecdotes and 

 remarks ; others will present to the world the higher 

 attributes of his statesmanship, but my hope is that 

 probably some of the anecdotes, which people may call 

 trivialities, tend to show the inner mind and life of a 



