The 1874 session: ritualism and Scottish patronage

Disraeli's intention at the start of his 1874 government was to exploit the fears for political stability which Gladstone's government had provoked. The Conservatives determined to present a more ‘constructive’ face to the electorate to dispel their former image – of incompetence and irresponsibility – and expressed an intention to concentrate on uncontroversial but useful reforms in the social sphere. Social legislation dominated their domestic programme between 1874 and 1876 – and it was designed not to pander to ‘Tory democracy’, but to lower the political temperature. As one Conservative MP said in 1875, it was ‘suet-pudding legislation; it was flat, insipid, dull, but it was very wise and very wholesome’.

Stress on this class of question was intended to imply a spurning of the larger and more intractable issues, in dealing with which Gladstone had alienated so many. For example, Disraeli set out with the determination to ‘keep Ireland in the background’: he did not even give his chief secretary a cabinet seat. His outlook on the Irish question was appreciably different from Gladstone's: he considered that the ideal candidate for the chief secretaryship would be ‘rather a fine [gentleman]’ and ‘a capital rider’, with ‘the gift of the gab’. In March 1874, he refused to receive a deputation of Irish MPs demanding the release of the remaining Fenian prisoners.