Oh, hapless Liberals, learn from Disraeli

Disraeli's view was shared many years later by Australia's longest serving Prime Minister who emphatically stated, "I am a protectionist. I don't think that the history of Australia could have been what it has been without the great industrial enterprises, the great basic industries, the great factories of Australia." Anticipating the liberal think tank critics of today, Menzies would have responded, now as he did then: "Some say our tariffs make life dearer. I say they make life possible – for the factory hand, for the farmer turning out butter, for the nation that must stand on its own two feet."

The orange-tinted New York real estate developer who sits in the Oval Office would have agreed. John Howard recently said Donald Trump's love of tariffs means he is "not a real conservative". But this is, with the respect, simply not historically correct.

Ronald Reagan's speechwriter Peggy Noonan was correct when she rightly queried as Donald Trump began his assent: "when – and why – did free trade become a sacred ritual of the Republican right?". The truth is the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and William McKinley was founded on a high-tariff platform and maintained this position until relatively recent times. This was not just an American phenomenon. Anglosphere conservative political philosophy, properly understood, never supported utopian ideologies like free trade.

Menzies, like Deakin before him, was in favour of tariffs even on British goods:

"We are tied to the British Commonwealth by blood and history, and our tariff policy must reflect that. But we will not sacrifice our own industries to sentiment – we protect what we build here first."

Menzies would have considered patently absurd the idea his Liberal Party signed a trade agreement that allows 100% of Chinese manufactured goods to enter Australia duty free.

Foreign Policy

Disraeli was also very wary of the evangelical nature of Gladstone's foreign policy.

Like the "liberal interventionists" or "neoconservatives" of today, he characterized this approach as being "conducted on the principles of a sermon". His statecraft was much more prudent and realist in nature, recognising that ultimately "nations are not governed by homilies; they are governed by interests."

Unlike many in Washington until recent times, Disraeli was wary of involving the then global superpower in every conflict in the world, even when gross atrocities were committed, such as the Ottoman Empire did against Bulgarian Christians during his time. He thought this would overextend the British Empire and potentially cause more trouble than it solved. America's adventures in the Middle East over the last 30 years lacked this key insight.

While Disraeli was often criticized in highly moralistic tones by Gladstone and others, his polices often achieved better results. His skillful role in the Congress of Berlin 1878, where he was able to negotiate with an expanding Imperial Russia and help bring peace to Eastern Europe, is something those concerned about the conflict in Ukraine would do well to study closely.