THE MARCH OF THE CARAVAN 177

tain and by reforming to extend them. In what seemed in that
materialistic age a paradox he maintained that the greatness of
England depended not on her numerical superiority to her neigh-
bours but on the institutions which in the course of three cen-
turies had enabled her people to create such a system of extended
liberty, wealth and empire as the world had never seen. A com-
munity whose slow but mighty growth had yielded so much of
permanent benefit to man would be betraying civilisation if it
permitted unthinking zealots to destroy it by cutting away its
roots. In a speech to the House of Commons during the reform
debates of 1866 Disraeli recurred to a theme which he never
ceased to repeat:

"You have an ancient, powerful, richly-endowed Church
and perfect religious liberty. You have unbroken order
and complete freedom. You have landed estates as large as
the Romans, combined with commercial enterprise such as
Carthage and Venice united never equalled. And you must
remember that this peculiar country, with these strong
contrasts, is not governed by force; it is not governed by
standing armies, it is governed by a most singular series of
traditionary influences, which generation after generation
cherishes because it knows- that they embalm custom and
represent law. And, with this, what have you done? You
have created the greatest Empire of modern time.... You
have devised and sustained a system of credit still more-
marvellous. And, above all, you have established and main-
tained a scheme so vast and complicated of labour and
industry, that the history of the world affords no parallel
to it. And all these mighty creations are out of all pro-
portion to the essential and indigenous elements and resources
of the country. If you destroy that state of society,
remember this—England cannot begin again,"5-

There lay the eternal thought of this strange and alien patriot
who had learnt amid the Chiltern beechwoods to love the land
of his adoption: that England could not begin again. If in pur-
suit of a theory or for a transient commercial opportunity she
relinquished the great characters-forming institutions that had
made her what she was, she would find ^ too late that she

lMonypcnny & Buckle //, 144.