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Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History
1750-1900; Political People

   The Rt Hon Benjamin Disraeli
   Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
     __________________________________________________________________

   Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
   In office
   February 27, 1868 –  December 1, 1868
   Preceded by The Earl of Derby
   Succeeded by William Ewart Gladstone
   In office
   February 20, 1874 –  April 21, 1880
   Preceded by William Ewart Gladstone
   Succeeded by William Ewart Gladstone
     __________________________________________________________________

   Chancellor of the Exchequer
   In office
   February 27, 1852 –  December 17, 1852
   Preceded by Charles Wood
   Succeeded by William Ewart Gladstone
   In office
   February 26, 1858 –  June 11, 1859
   Preceded by George Cornewall Lewis
   Succeeded by William Ewart Gladstone
   In office
   July 6, 1866 –  February 29, 1868
   Preceded by William Ewart Gladstone
   Succeeded by George Ward Hunt
     __________________________________________________________________

   Born December 21, 1804
   London, England
   Died April 19, 1881 (age 76)
   London, England
   Political party Conservative

   Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, FRS ( December 21,
   1804 – April 19, 1881), born Benjamin D'Israeli was a British
   Conservative statesman and literary figure. He served in government for
   three decades, twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom – the
   first and thus far only person of Jewish parentage to do so (although
   Disraeli was baptised in the Anglican Church at an early age).
   Disraeli's most lasting achievement was the creation of the modern
   Conservative Party after the Corn Laws schism of 1846.

   Although a major figure in the protectionist wing of the Conservative
   Party after 1844, Disraeli's relations with the other leading figures
   in the party, particularly Lord Derby, the overall leader, were often
   strained. Not until the 1860s would Derby and Disraeli be on easy
   terms, and the latter's succession of the former assured. From 1852
   onwards, Disraeli's career would also be marked by his often intense
   rivalry with William Ewart Gladstone, who eventually rose to become
   leader of the Liberal Party. In this duel, Disraeli was aided by his
   warm friendship with Queen Victoria, who came to detest Gladstone
   during the latter's first premiership in the 1870s. In 1876 Disraeli
   was raised to the peerage as the Earl of Beaconsfield, capping nearly
   four decades in the House of Commons.

   Before and during his political career, Disraeli was well-known as a
   literary and social figure, although his novels are not generally
   regarded as belonging to the first rank of Victorian literature. He
   mainly wrote romances, of which Sybil and Vivian Grey are perhaps the
   best-known today. He was and is unusual among British Prime Ministers
   for having gained equal social and political renown.

Early life

   Isaac D'IsraeliFather of Benjamin Disraeli
   Isaac D'Israeli
   Father of Benjamin Disraeli

   Disraeli was descended from Italian Sephardic Jews on both sides of his
   family, although he claimed Spanish ancestry. With this he may have
   just been referring to the fact that all Sephardim ultimately originate
   in Spain. His father was the literary critic and historian Isaac
   D'Israeli who, though Jewish, in 1817 had Benjamin baptised in the
   Church of England, following a dispute with their synagogue. The elder
   D'Israeli (Benjamin changed the spelling in the 1820s by dropping the
   foreign-looking apostrophe) himself was content to remain outside
   organized religion. Benjamin at first attended a small school, the
   Reverend John Potticary's school at Blackheath (later to evolve into St
   Piran's School). Beginning in 1817, Benjamin attended Higham Hall, in
   Walthamstow. His younger brothers, in contrast, attended the superior
   Winchester College, a fact which apparently grated on Disraeli and may
   explain his dislike of his mother, Maria D'Israeli.

   His father groomed him for a career in law, and Disraeli was articled
   to a solicitor in 1821. Law was, however, uncongenial, and by 1825 he
   had given it up. Disraeli, determined to obtain independent means,
   speculated on the stock exchange as early as 1824 on various South
   American mining companies. The recognition of the new South American
   republics on the recommendation of George Canning had led to a
   considerable boom, encouraged by various promoters. In this connexion,
   Disraeli became involved with the financier J. D. Powles, one such
   booster. In the course of 1825, Disraeli wrote three anonymous
   pamphlets for Powles, promoting the companies.

   That same year Disraeli's financial activities brought him into contact
   with the publisher John Murray who, like Powles and Disraeli, was
   involved in the South American mines. Accordingly, they attempted to
   bring out a newspaper, The Representative, to promote both the cause of
   the mines and those politicians who supported the mines, specifically
   Canning. The paper was a failure, in part because the mining "bubble"
   burst in late 1825, financially ruining Powles and Disraeli. Also,
   according to Disraeli's biographer, Lord Blake, the paper was
   "atrociously edited", and would have failed regardless. Disraeli's
   debts incurred from this debacle would haunt him for the rest of his
   life.

Literary career

   a Young Disraeli by Sir Francis Grant, 1852
   a Young Disraeli
   by Sir Francis Grant, 1852

   Disraeli now turned towards literature, and brought out his first
   novel, Vivian Grey, in 1826. Disraeli's biographers agree that Vivian
   Grey was a thinly-veiled re-telling of the affair of the
   Representative, and it proved very popular on its release, although it
   also caused much offence within the Tory literary world when Disraeli's
   authorship was discovered. The book, which was initially published
   anonymously, was purportedly written by a "man of fashion" – someone
   who moved in high society. Disraeli, then just twenty-three, did not
   move in high society, and the numerous solecisms present in Vivian Grey
   made this painfully obvious. Reviewers were sharply critical on these
   grounds of both the author and the book. Furthermore, Murray believed
   that Disraeli had caricatured him and abused his confidence–an
   accusation denied at the time, and by the official biography, although
   subsequent biographers (notably Blake) have sided with Murray.

   After producing a Vindication of the English Constitution, and some
   political pamphlets, Disraeli followed up Vivian Grey by a series of
   novels, The Young Duke (1831), Contarini Fleming (1832), Alroy (1833),
   Venetia and Henrietta Temple (1837). During the same period he had also
   written The Revolutionary Epick and three burlesques, Ixion, The
   Infernal Marriage, and Popanilla. Of these only Henrietta Temple (based
   on his affair with Lady Henrietta Sykes) was a true success.

   During the 1840s Disraeli wrote three political novels collectively
   known as "the Trilogy"–Sybil, Coningsby, and Tancred.

   Disraeli's relationships with other writers of his period (most of whom
   were male), were strained or non-existent. After the disaster of the
   Representative John Gibson Lockhart was a bitter enemy and the two
   never reconciled. Disraeli's preference for female company prevented
   the development of contact with those who were not alienated by his
   opinions, comportment, or background. One contemporary who tried to
   bridge the gap, William Makepeace Thackeray, established a tentative
   cordial relationship in the late 1840s only to see everything collapse
   when Disraeli took offence at a burlesque of him which Thackeray had
   penned for Punch. Disraeli took revenge in Endymion (published in
   1880), when he caricatured Thackeray as "St. Barbe".

Parliament

   Sir Robert Peel, Bt.Prime Minister 1834-35, 1841-46
   Sir Robert Peel, Bt.
   Prime Minister 1834-35, 1841-46

   Disraeli had been considering a political career as early as 1830,
   before he departed England for the Mediterranean. His first real
   efforts, however, did not come until 1832, during the great crisis over
   the Reform Bill, when he contributed to an anti- Whig pamphlet edited
   by John Wilson Croker and published by Murray entitled England and
   France: or a cure for Ministerial Gallomania. The choice of a Tory
   publication was regarded as odd by Disraeli's friends and relatives,
   who thought him more of a Radical. Indeed, Disraeli had objected to
   Murray about Croker inserting "high Tory" sentiment, writing that "it
   is quite impossible that anything adverse to the general measure of
   Reform can issue from my pen." Further, at the time Gallomania was
   published, Disraeli was in fact electioneering in High Wycombe in the
   Radical interest. Disraeli's politics at the time were influenced both
   by his rebellious streak and by his desire to make his mark. In the
   early 1830s the Tories and the interests they represented appeared to
   be a lost cause. The other great party, the Whigs, was anathema to
   Disraeli: "Toryism is worn out & I cannot condescend to be a Whig."

   Though he initially stood for election, unsuccessfully, as a Radical,
   Disraeli was a Tory by the time he won a seat in the House of Commons
   in 1837 representing the constituency of Maidstone. The next year he
   settled his private life by marrying Mary Anne Lewis, the widow of
   Wyndham Lewis, Disraeli's erstwhile colleague at Maidstone.
   Lord John MannersFriend of Disraeli, and leading figure in the Young
   England movement
   Lord John Manners
   Friend of Disraeli, and leading figure in the Young England movement

   Although a Conservative, Disraeli was sympathetic to some of the
   demands of the Chartists and argued for an alliance between the landed
   aristocracy and the working class against the increasing power of the
   merchants and new industrialists in the middle class, helping to found
   the Young England group in 1842 to promote the view that the landed
   interests should use their power to protect the poor from exploitation
   by middle-class businessman. During the twenty years between the Corn
   Laws and the Second Reform Bill Disraeli would seek a Tory-Radical
   alliances, to little avail. Prior to the 1867 Reform Bill the working
   class did not possess the vote and therefore had little tangible
   political power. Although Disraeli forged a personal friendship with
   John Bright, a Lancashire manufacturer and leading Radical, Disraeli
   was unable to convince Bright to sacrifice principle for political
   gain. After one such attempt, Bright noted in his diary that Disraeli
   "seems unable to comprehend the morality of our political course."

Protection

   Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel passed over Disraeli when putting
   together his government in 1841 and Disraeli, hurt, gradually became a
   sharp critic of Peel's government, often deliberately adopting
   positions contrary to those of his nominal chief. The best known of
   these cases was the Maynooth grant in 1845 and the repeal of the Corn
   Laws in 1846. The end of 1845 and the first months of 1846 were
   dominated by a battle in parliament between the free traders and the
   protectionists over the repeal of the Corn Laws, with the latter
   rallying around Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck. An alliance of pro
   free-trade Conservatives (the "Peelites"), Radicals, and Whigs carried
   repeal, and the Conservative Party split: the Peelites moved towards
   the Whigs, while a "new" Conservative Party formed around the
   protectionists, led by Disraeli, Bentinck, and Lord Stanley (later Lord
   Derby).

   This split had profound implications for Disraeli's political career:
   almost every Conservative politician with official experience followed
   Peel, leaving the rump bereft of leadership. As one biographer wrote,
   "[Disraeli] found himself almost the only figure on his side capable of
   putting up the oratorical display essential for a parliamentary
   leader." Looking on from the House of Lords, the Duke of Argyll wrote
   that Disraeli "was like a subaltern in a great battle where every
   superior officer was killed or wounded." If the remainder of the
   Conservative Party could muster the electoral support necessary to form
   a government, then Disraeli was now guaranteed high office. However, he
   would take office with a group of men who possessed little or no
   official experience, who had rarely felt moved to speak in the House of
   Commons before, and who, as a group, remained hostile to Disraeli on a
   personal level, his assault on the Corn Laws notwithstanding.

   Disraeli's friendship with the Bentinck family was cemented in 1848
   when Lord Henry Bentinck and Lord Titchfield loaned him £25,000
   (equivalent to almost £1,500,000 today) so that he could purchase
   Hughenden Manor, in Buckingham county. This purchase allowed him to
   stand for the county, which was "essential" if one was to lead the
   Conservative Party at the time. He and Mary Anne alternated between
   Hughenden and several homes in London for the remainder of their
   marriage.

Office

The first Derby government

   The Earl of DerbyPrime Minister 1852, 1858-59, 1866-68
   The Earl of Derby
   Prime Minister 1852, 1858-59, 1866-68

   The first opportunity for the protectionist Tories under Disraeli and
   Stanley to take office came in 1851, when Lord John Russell's
   government was defeated in the House of Commons over the Ecclesiastical
   Titles Act 1851. Disraeli was to have been Home Secretary, with Stanley
   (becoming the Earl of Derby later that year) as Prime Minister. The
   Peelites, however, refused to serve under Stanley or with Disraeli, and
   attempts to create a purely protectionist government failed.

   Russell resumed office, but resigned again in early 1852 when a
   combination of the protectionists and Lord Palmerston defeated him on a
   Militia Bill. This time Lord Derby (as he had become) took office, and
   appointed Disraeli Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House
   of Commons. Disraeli's first and primary responsibility was to produce
   a Budget for the coming fiscal year. He proposed to reduce taxes on
   malt and tea ( indirect taxation); additional revenue would come from
   an increase in the House tax. More controversially, Disraeli also
   proposed to alter the workings of the Income Tax ( direct taxation) by
   "differentiating"–i.e., different rates would be levied on different
   types of income. The establishment of the income tax on a permanent
   basis had been the subject of much inter-party discussion since the
   fall of Peel's ministry, but no conclusions had been reached, and
   Disraeli was criticised for mixing up details over the different
   "schedules" of income. He was also hampered by an unexpected increase
   in defence expenditure, which was forced on him by Derby and Sir John
   Pakington (leading to his celebrated remark to John Bright about the
   "damned defences"). This, combined with bad timing and perceived
   inexperience led to the failure of the Budget and consequently the fall
   of the government in December of that year.

   William Ewart Gladstone's final speech on the failed Budget marked the
   beginning of over twenty years of mutual parliamentary hostility, as
   well as the end of Gladstone's formal association with the Conservative
   Party.

Opposition

   With the fall of the government Disraeli and the Conservatives returned
   to the opposition benches. Derby's successor as Prime Minister was the
   Peelite Lord Aberdeen, whose ministry was composed of both Peelites and
   Whigs. Disraeli himself was succeeded as chancellor by Gladstone.

The second Derby government

   Lord Palmerston's government collapsed in 1858 amid public fallout over
   the Orsini affair and Derby took office at the head of a purely
   'Conservative' administration. He again offered a place to Gladstone,
   who declined. Disraeli remained leader of the House of Commons and
   returned to the Exchequer. As in 1852 Derby's was a minority
   government, dependent on the division of its opponents for survival.
   The principal measure of the 1858 session would be a bill to
   re-organise governance of India, the Indian Mutiny having exposed the
   inadequacy of dual control. The first attempt at legislation was
   drafted by the President of the Board of Control, Lord Ellenborough,
   who had previously served as Governor-General of India (1841-44). The
   bill, however, was riddled with complexities and had to be withdrawn.
   Soon after, Ellenborough was forced to resign over an entirely separate
   matter involving the current Governor-General, Lord Canning.

   Faced with a vacancy, Disraeli and Derby tried yet again to bring
   Gladstone into the government. Disraeli wrote a personal letter to
   Gladstone, asking him to place the good of the party above personal
   animosity: "Every man performs his office, and there is a Power,
   greater than ourselves, that disposes of all this..." In responding to
   Disraeli Gladstone denied that personal feelings played any role in his
   decision then and previously to accept office, while acknowledging that
   there were differences between him and Derby "broader than you may have
   supposed." Gladstone also hinted at the strength of his own faith, and
   the role it played in his public life, when he addressed Disraeli's
   most personal and private appeal:

   “  I state these points fearlessly and without reserve, for you have
     yourself well reminded me that there is a Power beyond us that disposes
      of what we are and do, and I find the limits of choice in public life
              to be very narrow.—W. E. Gladstone to Disraeli, 1858          ”

   With Gladstone's refusal Derby and Disraeli looked elsewhere and
   settled on Disraeli's old friend Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who became
   Secretary of State for the Colonies; Derby's son Lord Stanley,
   succeeded Ellenborough at the Board of Control. Stanley, with
   Disraeli's assistance, proposed and guided through the house the India
   Act, under which the subcontinent would be governed for sixty years.
   The East India Company and its Governor-General were replaced by a
   viceroy and the Indian Council, while at Westminster the Board of
   Control was abolished and its functions assumed by the newly-created
   India Office, under the Secretary of State for India.

The 1867 Reform Bill

   After engineering the defeat of a Liberal Reform Bill introduced by
   Gladstone in 1866, Disraeli and Derby introduced their own measure in
   1867.
   William Ewart GladstoneFour-time Prime Minister
   William Ewart Gladstone
   Four-time Prime Minister

   This was primarily a political strategy designed to give the
   Conservative party control of the reform process and the subsequent
   long-term benefits in the Commons, similar to those derived by the
   Whigs after their 1832 Reform Act. The Reform Act of 1867 extended the
   franchise by 938,427 — an increase of 88% — by giving the vote to male
   householders and male lodgers paying at least 10 pounds for rooms and
   eliminating rotten boroughs with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, and
   granting constituencies to fifteen unrepresented towns, and extra
   representation in parliament to larger towns such as Liverpool and
   Manchester, which had previously been under-represented in Parliament..
   This act was unpopular with the right wing of the Conservative Party,
   most notably Lord Cranborne (later the Marquess of Salisbury), who
   resigned from the government and spoke against the bill, accusing
   Disraeli of "a political betrayal which has no parallel in our
   Parliamentary annals." Cranborne, however, was unable to lead a
   rebellion similar to that which Disraeli had led against Peel twenty
   years earlier.

Prime Minister

First government

   Derby's health had been declining for some time and he finally resigned
   as Prime Minister in late February of 1868; he would live for twenty
   months. Disraeli's efforts over the past two years had dispelled, for
   the time being, any doubts about him succeeding Derby as leader of the
   Conservative Party and therefore Prime Minister. As Disraeli remarked,
   "I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole."
   The Marquess of SalisburyThree-time Prime Minister
   The Marquess of Salisbury
   Three-time Prime Minister

   However, the Conservatives were still a minority in the House of
   Commons, and the enaction of the Reform Bill required the calling of
   new election once the new voting register had been compiled. Disraeli's
   term as Prime Minister would therefore be fairly short, unless the
   Conservatives won the general election. He made only two major changes
   in the cabinet: he replaced Lord Chelmsford as Lord Chancellor with
   Lord Cairns, and brought in George Ward Hunt as Chancellor of the
   Exchequer. Disraeli and Chelmsford had never got along particularly
   well, and Cairns, in Disraeli's view, was a far stronger minister.

   Disraeli's first premiership was dominated by the heated debate over
   the established Church of Ireland. Although Ireland was (and remains)
   overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, the Protestant Church remained the
   established church and was funded by direct taxation. An initial
   attempt by Disraeli to negotiate with Cardinal Manning the
   establishment of a Roman Catholic university in Dublin foundered in
   March when Gladstone moved resolutions to dis-establish the Irish
   Church altogether. The proposal divided the Conservative Party while
   reuniting the Liberals under Gladstone's leadership. While Disraeli's
   government survived until the December general election, the initiative
   had passed to the Liberals, who were returned to power with a majority
   of 170.

Second government

   After six years in opposition, Disraeli and the Conservative Party won
   the election of 1874, giving the party its first absolute majority in
   the House of Commons since the 1840s. Under the leadership of R. A.
   Cross, the Home Secretary, Disraeli's government introduced various
   reforms, including the Artisans Dwellings Act (1875), the Public Health
   Act (1875), the Pure Food and Drugs Act (1875), the Climbing Boys Act
   (1875), and the Education Act (1876). His government also introduced a
   new Factory Act meant to protect workers, the Conspiracy and Protection
   of Property Act (1875) to allow peaceful picketing, and the Employers
   and Workmen Act (1878) to enable workers to sue employers in the civil
   courts if they broke legal contracts.

Imperialism

   Disraeli and Queen Victoria, during the latter's visit to Hughenden at
   the height of the Eastern crisis.
   Disraeli and Queen Victoria, during the latter's visit to Hughenden at
   the height of the Eastern crisis.

   Disraeli was a stauch supporter of the expansion and preservation of
   the British Empire. He introduced the Royal Titles Act, which created
   Queen Victoria Empress of India, putting her at the same level as the
   Russian Tsar. He also, over the objections of his own cabinet,
   purchased 44% of the shares of the Suez Canal Company.

   Difficulties in South Africa (epitomised by the defeat of the British
   Army at the Battle of Isandlwana), as well as Afghanistan, weakened his
   government and led to his party's defeat in the 1880 election.

The Eastern Question

   Disraeli and Gladstone clashed over Britain's Balkan policy. Disraeli
   saw the situation as a matter of British imperial and strategic
   interests, keeping to Palmerston's policy of supporting the Ottoman
   Empire against Russian expansion. Gladstone, however, saw the issue in
   moral terms, for Bulgarian Christians had been massacred by the Turks
   and Gladstone therefore believed it was immoral to support the Ottoman
   Empire. Disraeli achieved a diplomatic success at the Congress of
   Berlin in 1878, in limiting the growing influence of Russia in the
   Balkans and breaking up the League of the Three Emperors.

   He was elevated to the House of Lords in 1876 when Queen Victoria (who
   liked Disraeli both personally and politically) made him Earl of
   Beaconsfield and Viscount Hughenden.

Death

   In the general election of 1880 Disraeli's Conservatives were defeated
   by Gladstone's Liberals. Disraeli became ill soon after and died in
   April 1881. His literary executor, and for all intents and purposes his
   heir, was his private secretary, Lord Rowton.

Personal life and family

   Benjamin was the second child and eldest son of Isaac D'Israeli and
   Maria Basevi. His siblings included Sarah (1802–1859), Naphtali (1807),
   Ralph (1809–1898), and James (1813–1868).

   Before his entrance into parliament Disraeli was involved with several
   different women, most notably Lady Henrietta Sykes (the wife of Sir
   Francis Sykes, Bt), who served as the model for Henrietta Temple. His
   relationship with Henrietta would eventually cause him serious trouble
   beyond the usual problems associated with a torrid affair. It was
   Henrietta who introduced Disraeli to Lord Lyndhurst, with whom she
   later became romantically involved. As Lord Blake observed: "The true
   relationship between the three cannot be determined with
   certainty...there can be no doubt that the affair [figurative usage]
   damaged Disraeli and that it made its contribution, along with many
   other episodes, to the understandable aura of distrust which hung
   around his name for so many years."

Disraeli's Judaism

   Although born of Jewish parents, Disraeli was baptised in the Christian
   faith at the age of thirteen, and remained an observant Anglican for
   the rest of his life. At the same time, he considered himself
   ethnically Jewish and did not view the two positions as incompatible.

Disraeli's governments

     * First Disraeli Ministry (February–December 1868)
     * Second Disraeli Ministry (February 1874–April 1880)

Works by Disraeli

   Line drawing of Disraeli
   Line drawing of Disraeli

Fiction

     * Vivian Grey (1826; Vivian Grey, available at Project Gutenberg.)
     * Popanilla (1828; Popanilla, available at Project Gutenberg.)
     * The Young Duke (1831)
     * Contarini Fleming (1832)
     * Alroy (1833)
     * The Infernal Marriage (1834)
     * Ixion in Heaven (1834)
     * The Revolutionary Epick (1834)
     * The Rise of Iskander (1834; The Rise of Iskander, available at
       Project Gutenberg.)
     * Henrietta Temple (1837)
     * Venetia (1837; Venetia, available at Project Gutenberg.)
     * The Tragedy of Count Alarcos (1839); The Tragedy of Count Alarcos,
       available at Project Gutenberg.)
     * Coningsby, or the New Generation (1844; Coningsby, available at
       Project Gutenberg.)
     * Sybil, or The Two Nations (1845; Sybil or, The Two Nations,
       available at Project Gutenberg.)
     * Tancred, or the New Crusade (1847)
     * Lothair (1870; Lothair, available at Project Gutenberg.)
     * Endymion (1880; Endymion, available at Project Gutenberg.)
     * Falconet (book) (unfinished 1881)

Non-fiction

     * An Inquiry into the Plans, Progress, and Policy of the American
       Mining Companies (1825)
     * Lawyers and Legislators: or, Notes, on the American Mining
       Companies (1825)
     * The present state of Mexico (1825)
     * England and France, or a Cure for the Ministerial Gallomania (1832)
     * What Is He? (1833)
     * The Letters of Runnymede (1836)
     * Lord George Bentinck (1852)

Films featuring Disraeli

   Statue in Parliament Square, London
   Statue in Parliament Square, London
     * Disraeli ( 1929) George Arliss ( Best Actor Oscar), Joan Bennett
     * The Prime Minister ( 1941) John Gielgud
     * The Mudlark ( 1950) Alec Guinness
     * Disraeli ( 1978) Ian McShane, Mary Peach
     * Mrs. Brown ( 1997) Sir Antony Sher

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