238 ENGLISHSAGA

come to call in a new world to redress the balance of the
old.

One of the first to do so was Disraeli. At the moment when
a new Europe was being born out of the national wars and
uprisings of 1859, he predicted a course for his country dia-
metrically opposed to that held in contemporary official circles:

"The day is coming, if it has not already come, when
the question of the balance of power cannot be confined to
Europe alone... . England, though she is bound to Europe
fay tradition, by affection, by great similarity of habits, and
all those ties which time alone can create arid consecrate, is
not a mere Power of the Old World. Her geographical
position, her laws, her language and religion, connect
her as much with the New World as with the Old. And
although she has occupied an eminent . . . position among
European nations for ages, still, if ever Europe by her
shortsightedness falls into an inferior and exhausted state,
for England there will remain, an illustrious' future. We
are bound to communities of the New World, and those
great States which our own planting and colonising energies
have created, by ties and interests which will sustain our
power and enable us to -play as great a part in the times
yet to come as we do in these days and we have done in
the past. And therefore now that Europe is on the eve of
war, I say it is for Europe not for England, that my heart

sinks."1

*

Many people thought Disraeli's growing interest in the
Empire an affectation. It was certainly politically prescient.
Just as he was able to associate his party with the growing
demand for social reform, so he was able to associate it with that
other popular longing—for a new world of opportunity overseas.
He understood the nature of the attempt the utilitarians were
making on the unity of the Empire, and realised that working
men could have little sympathy with it. Almost alone at this
time—though his foresight was later equalled from the Liberal
benches by that of Charles Dilke, Disraeli realised that in
a fast expanding Europe, an England that insisted for the
sake of profit on remaining a small manufacturing island in

and Buckle^ /, 1631.