MR DISRAELI, THE NEW PREMIER OF ENGLAND.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XIII, Issue 575, 7 May 1868, Page 3

MR DISRAELI, THE NEW PREMIER OF ENGLAND.

(From the New York Spectator.) Mr Disraeli has at last attained the object of his life-long ambition. The advanced age and increasing infirmities of Earl Derby, the head of the] English Cabinet, have led to his resignation, and the Queen has sent for Mr Disraeli with a view to his appointment as Premier. The English papers have canvassed the probable retirement of Earl Derby and the appointment of his son, Lord Stanley, the present Foreign Secretary, in his place. But the position belongs, by virtue of genius and political services, to Mr Disraeli. He was the brains of the Derby Cabinet, and his actual appointment to the foremost place in England next to the throne, wi!! only nominally increase his power aad influence. A few years

fl£|o wav Disraeli was the most unpopular man in England. He is cold, selfish, and inscrutable, and had few of the traits which rendered Lord Palmerston the idol of the people. Endowed with au indomitable will* he eagerly marked out the Premiership as the object of his highest ambition, and his Hnal success affords another striking example of the virtue of perseverance. His adroit course on the new English lieionu ism gave ins CouiKryineii a new estimate of his ability, and the world, which looks only to results, cares little for the means by which he climbed to power. He opposed reform during the prime and vigor of bis manhood, and when in power he adopted a more liberal measure than even such staunch Reformers us Bright and Gladstone would have dared to propose. More than this, ho carried his party with him. He flattered the House of Commons by professing to defer to its decisions, and accepted defeat not as a hint to resign, but as au expression of opinion, to which he was bound to conform his policy. By this means ho took the wind out of the Liberal sails, and carried off the honois as well as the spoils of the great Reform victory. How long he will retain them remains to be seen. But Mr Disraeli is a b Hoi and far-seeing leader, and will probably be as flexible with his cabinet as lie was with reform. He will not hesitate to strengthen his position by the aid of any available political opponents, and it is even within the scope of his genius to discard the old political aristocratic fogies and hereditary placelow tiers for newer and abler men fresh from the people, and thus retain a long lease of nower.

Mr Benjamin Disraeli,the newPrirne -Minister, is now in the sixty-third year of his age. His father was the author of the celebrated work “ The Curiosities of Literature,” and transmitted his literary genius to his son, who produced, before he attained his majority, several novels, which are still popular, and which exhibited a striking originality of opinion upon! most of the social and political prob-; lems of the age. He spent some years! travelling in the East, and ou his re-! turn devoted himself to politics, and' entered the English House of Commons' in 1837, He sympathized with the; polii y of the late Sir Ilobert Peel, but; broke with him on the question of freej trade,, and attached himself to the: Conservative party, of which he be-j came leader on the death of Lord G.| Bentiuck. In 1852 he enjoyed a brief! term of office as Chancellor of the Exchequer during the ascendancy of the Tory party, and in 1853 ho again Tied the same office. On the accession of Earl Derby to power he resumed his old position, and retained it until his present appointment to the higher position of Premier. Mo public man in England ever experienced a more disheai tuning successful of defeats or encountered a more hitter personal rivalry. But a turn in the wheel ol fortune has brought him out triumphant, and now he is the ruler and (dispenser of patronage to the haughty iEnglish aristocracy that formerly despised his ability, and derided his pie (tensions.