THE MARCH OF THE CARAVAN 179

constant reminder of values, a check to the abuse of authority and
an insurance against tyranny.1

For this reason Disraeli opposed the disendowment of the
Irish Church. He did so not because he wished to save vested
interests or to penalise those who did not conform with ecclesi-
astical authority but because he saw that an Established Church,
however much in need of reform, was a bulwark against the moral
decay that threatens earthly kingdoms. He knew English history
too well to be under any illusion as to what happened when the
floodgates of confiscation, for whatever reason, were once opened.2
The wealth of the Church was in principle the people's patrimony.
If it was not being used as such, the State should see that it was.
But it had no right to appropriate it r

The Radicals with the highest intentions wished to destroy
this safeguard to conscience and the liberty of the subject. It
angered them as illogical and unegalitarian, and they could not
see the need for it. In their reforming zeal they were constantly
urging their Liberal allies to denounce the union between Church
and State. But for Disraeli's determination to preserve it, they
would probably have succeeded in abolishing it altogether.

For though it was not within his power to save the Irish
Establishment—and, though its destruction did nothing to solve
the Irish problem, it was scarcely worth saving—Disraeli did
succeed in arousing popular support in defence of the Church of
England. To him more than any other man is due the gradual
reawakening of the English people before it was too late to a re-
alisation that their ancient institutions were worth preserving.
While their intellectual leaders were cheerfully bidding them cast
them aside, Disraeli, during 35 years as the real leader of the
Conservative party, fought a delaying action against the forces of
reforming radicalism. At the time these seemed so strong that
any further advance towards electoral democracy was expected to
spell the certain doom of the privileges of the Established Church.

Yet Britain is to-day a democracy in the fullest sense. There is
still an Established Church. There is still a Throne. There is even
still a House of Lords. In the eighteen-sixties, for all the immense
deference paid them by the older generation and in the semi-

1It was this, and not the denial of the individual right .to worship, that inspired
Pastor Niemoller's brave stand against Hitler.

*"I have never found that Churches are plundered except to establish or enrich
oligarchies." When Disraeli spoke in these terms, the word plutocracy was not in
general use.