long as we were not
absolutely incorporated into one or the other of the two great
parties. For though we had few positively and regularly following
us, yet we had indirect relations with others on both sides of the
House, which tended to relax, and so far disable, party
connections, and our existence as a section encouraged the
formation of other sections all working with similar effects. I
carried my feeling individually so far upon the subject as even to
be ready, if I had to act alone, to surrender my seat in
parliament, rather than continue a cause of disturbance to any
government to which I might generally wish well.[353]

RELATIONS WITH LORD DERBY

This exchange of views with Lord Derby he fully reported to Graham,
Herbert, and Cardwell, whom Lord Aberdeen, at his request, had summoned
for the purpose. Herbert doubted the expediency of such communications,
and Graham went straight to what was a real point. 'He observed that the
question was of the most vital consequence, Who should lead the House of
Commons? This he thought must come to me, and could not be with
Disraeli. I had said and repeated, that I thought we could not bargain
Disraeli out of the saddle; that it must rest with him (so far as we
were concerned) to hold the lead if he pleased; that besides my looking
to it with doubt and dread, I felt he had this right; and that I took it
as one of the _data_ in the case before us upon which we might have to
consider the question of political junction, and which might be
seriously affected by it.' Of these approaches in the spring of 1856
nothing came. The struggle in Mr. Gladstone's mind went on with growing
urgency. He always protested that he never at any time contemplated an
isolated return to the conservative ranks, but 'reunion of a body with a
body.'

Besides his sense of the vital importance of the reconstruction of the
party system, he had two other high related aims. The commanding
position that had first been held in the objects of his activity by the
church, then, for a considerable space, by the colonies, was now filled
by finance. As he put it in a letter to his sympathetic brother
Robertson: He saw two cardinal subjects for the present moment in
public affairs, a rational and pacific foreign policy, and second, the
due reduction in our establishments, economy in administration, and
finance to correspond. In 1853 he had,