h he
disclaimed any wish to maintain that the Irish Church Establishment
was what it ought to be, but urged that in the condition of Ireland a
merely destructive measure would do nothing but harm, that it would
serve no good purpose to attack the Establishment without laying down
the lines of a definite, constructive ecclesiastical policy, and that
it was absurd to launch such a question in the last session of an
expiring Parliament. The more ardent spirits of the Tory party
strongly censured the ambiguity of this defence, and the Government
were beaten by majorities of 56 and 60. The House of Commons was
dissolved in the autumn and a large Liberal majority returned.
Disraeli at once resigned without waiting for the assembling of
Parliament.

In October 1869 the death of Lord Derby terminated the career of his
son in the House of Commons, and the following year added very greatly
to the happiness of his life by his marriage with the Dowager
Marchioness of Salisbury. His attitude in opposition is clearly shown
in his published speeches. He had no wish to see the Conservative
party again in office till they possessed an assured and homogeneous
majority, and he maintained that it should be their main object to
strengthen the influence of the more moderate section in the
Government. He believed that by habitually pursuing this policy they
would best prevent revolutionary changes, mitigate by wise compromises
measures which they did not wholly approve, secure the continuance of
the harmony of classes, on which more than on any other condition the
prosperity of England depends, and gradually strengthen their own hold
on the confidence of the country. It was also his earnest desire that
English politics should be turned as much as possible from a policy of
organic change to a policy of administrative reform. He considered it
a great evil that public men had acquired the habit of continually
tampering with the existing legislative machinery instead of wisely
using it for the benefit of the whole nation. The party system, as he
always thought, had falsified the perspective of English politics,
bringing into the foreground comparatively unimportant questions which
were well suited to rally parties and win majorities; thrusting into
the background others which were immeasurably more important, but
which were less available for party purposes. What Carlyle called 'The
Condition of England Question' was always in his thoughts. No o