The Contemporary Review, January 1883 Part 13

[62] _Ibid._ p. 372.

[63] "The Land of Gilead," p. 330.

[64] Beyrout, July 11, 1876.

[65] "The Land of Gilead," p. 131.

[66] "Tent Work in Palestine," p. 361.

[67] "The Land of Gilead," p. 146.

[68] _Ibid._ p. 103.

[69] "Land of Gilead," p. 21.

[70] _Ibid._ p. 23.

[71] "The Land of Gilead," p. 255.

THE CONSERVATIVE DILEMMA.

All is not as well as it should be with the Conservative party. Just when a succession of misfortunes has lowered its credit with the world, it is hara.s.sed with mutiny in the camp. Both sides have taken the public into their confidence. "Two Conservatives" lately figured on a distinguished rostrum and retailed their grievances. A month later "Two other Conservatives" stood up on the same spot and answered the impeachment. These dual appearances are rather puzzling. In the case of the first couple it may be that they fixed upon the figure "2" as a neat divisor, and while sending one-half of their force to the front kept the other half in reserve to defend the rear. This explanation will not hold good for the second couple. The party loyalists can hardly have been reduced to such insignificant proportions. Why, then, should they have hit upon the odd device of delivering their apologetics in pairs? Is suspicion so rampant in their ranks that no one man can be trusted? Is the drawing up of a reply to the insurgents so ticklish a business that two heads are needed for its satisfactory performance? Or are we to see in this circ.u.mstance merely another sign of the fatal dualism which pervades the party, and has already rent Elijah's mantle in twain?

Instead of attempting to solve these mysteries let us turn to the indictment. There, at any rate, are certain things set down in black and white, and some progress may be made in useful knowledge without any desire to be wise above what is written. The manifesto drawn up by the "Two Conservatives" is not altogether edifying reading. At a first glance it reminds us of a round-robin got up in the servants' hall for the purpose of springing a mine upon the steward and housekeeper, or of the whisperings sometimes heard in the lower ranks of a mercantile establishment where a conviction prevails that nothing but discreet promotion will save the firm. Some of the complaints set forth fall far beneath this level. They deal with tiffs and slights and rebuffs.

Services have not been compensated according to the estimate of those who rendered them. Good things have been given to the wrong men, while modest merit has been left out in the cold. Lord Beaconsfield had, it seems, a Figaro in his employ who fed him with judicious doses of flattery and ministered to his blameless vices. The Figaro system has, we are given to understand, been kept up, and the great men of the party take care to live in an atmosphere of adulation. The Dukes meet with hard treatment. It is difficult to see how these unhappy beings are to give satisfaction. They are faithless to their principles if they stand aloof; they do wrong if they come down to scatter their smiles and their patronage among the crowd. Their absence looks like treason while their presence demoralizes. In both cases they are mischievous. What are they to do?

On the whole it is held to be best for the welfare of the party that the aristocratic chiefs should forthwith perform the "happy despatch." They saved it by their secession from its councils in 1868; they ruined it in 1874 when they rushed back to claim their share of the spoils. There is some truth in the representation. It is not easy to forget the pathetic spectacle which Mr. Disraeli presented at the former period. By his suppleness and audacity he had forced his party through the crises of a revolution which they had denounced beforehand, and the consequences of which they contemplated with dismay. Over against their fears there was nothing to be put but their leader's a.s.surances that everything would come right. They had taken "a leap in the dark," they had staked the fortunes of the party on the dice-box, and events were to decide the issue. When the blow came Mr. Disraeli's reputation for sagacity fell to zero. At last the hollowness of his pretensions was detected, and there was no mincing of epithets for the man who had befooled and destroyed a great party. The Dukes left him to himself, and, according to our present informant, their flight was the harbinger of reviving fortunes.

The heart of provincial conservatism warmed to its deserted chief. The patriotic sentiments of the people began to stir. Const.i.tutional a.s.sociations sprang up in the large towns. The reaction grew apace when the party was left face to face with one great man. When in 1874 the most sanguine prophecies were fulfilled, the Dukes could not have been more surprised if Moses and the Prophets had dropt from the clouds to chide their unbelief. They made what amends they could for their former incivilities. They gathered with prodigious hum about the great man, overwhelmed him with disinterested plaudits, and settled down comfortably to the feast which his genius had spread. From that moment, so we are a.s.sured, decay set in. Aristocratic patronage soon paralyzed the rude energies which had won the victory. The Carlton again began to pay the bills and pull the strings. Then in due time came the black night of defeat, when moon and stars disappeared, and Toryism was plunged into a deeper gulf than ever. The lesson is plain. Roll up your aristocratic trumpery, and give the party a leader. What it wants is a man strong enough to pull it out of the slough and set it on its legs again.

The burden of the manifesto of the Two Conservatives is the want of a leader, and an exhaustive process of exclusion shows among whom he is _not_ to be found. The acting chiefs of the party are made to pa.s.s in file before us, as the sons of Jesse pa.s.sed before the prophet Samuel when he wished to ascertain which of them was the predestined King of Israel. Not this man, nor this, nor this, but is there not yet another?

Yes, there was one among the sheepfolds who little wotted of the greatness in store for him. The David of whom the Conservative Samuels are in search can pretend perhaps to no such unconsciousness of his mission. A genius for opposition pushes him to the front and flashes in speech and print. He is content probably to put up with the leadership of the Lower House, a.s.sured that, with the Conservative commonalty at his back, his talents will soon win for him a complete ascendancy.

Meanwhile it is proved to demonstration that none of the acting chiefs are fit for the post. Sir Richard Cross and Mr. W. H. Smith, "great as are many of their qualities, do not entirely possess those that are necessary to secure the plenary confidence of a party." Sir Michael Hicks-Beach comes nearest the mark, "but, either from patience or indolence, he has not seen fit since 1880 to put forward his best energies." In Lord George Hamilton and Mr. Stanhope "there lurks great promise," but they lack years and experience. "Mr. Lowther is daring, but not always fortunate in his daring." They may all stand aside. It is clear that none of the six will do. There is Mr. Gibson, but "he is a lawyer and an Irishman of the Irish." As for Sir Stafford Northcote, he is a respectable man, with a host of respectable qualities, but "he is too amiable for his ambition, which is great, and in trying to play a double part, that of caution and daring, he is at times taxed beyond his strength." Besides, the House of Commons did not choose him. He was "chosen for them." There is as yet no active disaffection towards him, "but of latent dissatisfaction abundance, and of active loyalty none."

Was there ever such a beggarly account of empty boxes? Did anybody ever see such an array of political numskulls? Not among these at any rate is the party to find its leader. We must look for him among those whose names have been left out of the enumeration. His blushes are certainly unseen, though his fragrance may not be wasted on the desert air.

The double manifesto of the mutineers is remarkable for the obliviousness it displays of everything higher than personal and party interests. It reads like the minute-book of a Caucus. With a few verbal alterations it might pa.s.s for a description of the quarrels between the "Stalwarts" and the "Half-breeds." When Mr. Gibson befools Lord Salisbury over the Arrears Bill the comment is, "What a cry for the country!" The Egyptian question suggests a hope that Egypt may deliver the Conservatives from their Irish connections and enable them to agree upon a leader. The preference shown for county over borough members is jotted down as a serious grievance. The use made of social influence comes in for a share of lamentation. Here we seem to get within the smell of soup, the bustle of evening receptions, and the smiles of dowagers. The cares which weigh upon this couple of patriot souls cannot be described as august. It is hardly among such petty anxieties that the upholders of the Empire and the pilots of the State are bred. The men who bemoan such wrongs can scarcely aspire to be the sages and ornaments of a legislature that gives laws to a fifth part of the human race. It is a.s.suredly not in an outburst of wounded egotism that we should expect to find any trace of that n.o.ble pride which delights in subordination for public ends, and is willing to forget and to be forgotten in common services rendered to the nation. If we were not a.s.sured that we have been conversing for half an hour with two fair specimens of the chivalry of the land, we should almost suspect that we had been listening to the confidences of a couple of retired but aspiring soap-boilers.

The criticisms of the "Two Conservatives" are not wholly destructive. As one fabric collapses, we begin to see the graceful outlines of another, for which a top-stone is already prepared. The question of the leadership is complicated by the requirements of the two Houses, but there is not much doubt as to the direction in which the quivering needle will finally point. Notwithstanding the gibes which have been flung at the aristocrats of the party, an aristocratic chief is necessary to lead an aristocratic a.s.sembly, and the only possible selection is already made. Lord Cairns stands dangerously near the centre of power, but the same may be said of him as of Mr. Gibson, "He is a lawyer and an Irishman of the Irish." The n.o.ble lord, moreover, is objectionable on the spiritual side of his character. To a High Churchman he smacks a little of the conventicle, and is given to "exercises" at unauthorized times and places. His university escutcheon is dim and stained compared with that of Oxford's Chancellor. On the whole Lord Cairns can never be a serious rival for the first place among the peers of England.

Lord Salisbury is equipped with many of the qualifications that are necessary or held to be desirable in a party leader. He is a member of the higher aristocracy. He can boast of ancestors who played a distinguished part in the politics of Europe three centuries ago. This circ.u.mstance appeals to the imagination and confers a legitimate advantage. He served an apprenticeship in the House of Commons. On succeeding to the peerage he did not lose a moment in making his influence felt in the Upper House. In one of his earliest speeches he startled the peers by telling them that if they did not choose to a.s.sert their const.i.tutional rights they would consult their dignity by ceasing to be a House at all. He has had much experience in State affairs. What he did at the India Office and as Foreign Secretary is too well known to the world. Lord Salisbury's oratorical gifts are undeniable. He is one of a select half-dozen taken from either House who stand first in the power of moving a popular a.s.sembly. Lord Beaconsfield said that he "wanted finish." The remark was more spiteful than true. Lord Salisbury could not rival his chief in the neatness and polish of an epigram, but just as little could Lord Beaconsfield rival him in the unstudied graces of oratory. His speeches have a freedom and a rhythmical flow which captivate the hearer. Though he gives full play to his imagination and recklessly faces the risks to which an impetuous speaker is exposed, he is seldom stilted, and rarely breaks the neck of a sentence. Here, perhaps, the favourable side of the catalogue should end. His speeches have the great blemish of insolence. They are wanting in geniality, and apparently wanting in reflectiveness. They contain too little thought and more than enough of gall. Perhaps their cleverness is too obtrusive.

His hearers are pleased, but they suspect a trick, and levy a discount on his argument. The faults of his speeches are his faults as a politician. He is headstrong and impulsive. He borrows his ideas from his pa.s.sions, and fancies he is sagacious when he is but following the bent of his uppermost desire. He has but little sympathy with modern life and but a narrow comprehension of its facts. He is under the spell of long-descended traditions, and would prefer, if he could have it so, the England of the Tudors to the England of Victoria. Of the people and of the spirit which animates them he knows nothing. How should he? Save the rustics of Hatfield, he has never seen them, except from a platform.

His occasional references to such a subject as English Nonconformity shows the depth of his benightedness; and his ignorance, the voluntary and superb ignorance of the aristocrat and the High Churchman, is the source of many of his blunders. Knowing nothing of the ground in front, he forces a leap and comes down in the ditch, and his friends with him.

Lord Salisbury is indispensable, and as nothing will cure him of his faults the only plan is to keep him out of the path of temptation. The way to do this, we are told, is to fill the front bench in the House of Commons with the right sort of men. Thus his qualifications for the leadership depend upon the choice which may be made of a leader for the Lower House. Everything points to that as the one crucial business. The "Two Conservatives" seem to have a special grudge against Mr. Gibson, perhaps because, unlike Sir Stafford Northcote, he is not too amiable for his ambition, and has lately been making a formidable bid for power.

Hence we are told how absurd it is to think for a moment of Mr. Gibson.

He is a member for the University of Dublin and might just as well be a member of the House of Keys or of the States of Jersey. Lord Salisbury would never have made such a humiliating display over the Arrears Bill if he had not been misled by Mr. Gibson. Hence it is necessary to keep the hon. and learned gentleman in the background if the party is not to be doomed to endless blunders, and driven, sheer beyond the range of English sympathies.

The attack on Sir Stafford Northcote is conducted with greater caution, but with the same fell design. We are told that Lord Salisbury's selection for the leadership on Lord Beaconsfield's death was opposed by a near relative of Sir Stafford's, and lost by one vote. Then comes the suggestion that Mr. Disraeli would not have left the House of Commons for the Upper House if he had not believed that Mr. Gladstone had finally retired from the leadership of the Opposition. In other words, had he foreseen the course of events he would not have entrusted the leadership of the House to Sir Stafford Northcote. There is a vicious. .h.i.t in the picture of Sir Stafford sitting between Mr. W. H. Smith and Mr. Lowther, yielding by turns to the caution of the one and the daring of the other, and showing himself unequal to the double part. Impartial observers will, perhaps, admit that Sir Stafford Northcote's chief fault is a want of backbone. He has not enough of confidence in himself. He would be a better politician if he were not so good a man. He needs to be armed either with the power of kicking out, or with imperturbable composure. This latter is the more useful and more dignified endowment, but it springs from a sense of self-sufficiency which fails him. If he had but the gift of epigram he might escape from his tormentors. The plague of it is that he never succeeds except when he reasons like a man of sense, and weapons forged on this anvil are too blunt to pierce the thick hide of impudence.

No evil has befallen Sir Stafford Northcote but such as is common to men. It seems but the other day when Lord Robert Cecil was playing the same freaks that Lord Randolph Churchill is playing now. Our friend Fluellen would perhaps say, "the situations, look you, is both alike."

Either of the n.o.ble names would pa.s.s for the other if they were written with initials and dashes in eighteenth century style. In those days the late Lord Derby was the Conservative chief, and Mr. Disraeli led the Opposition in the Commons as his lieutenant. This arrangement nettled the young blood of the Conservative _n.o.blesse_. Lord Robert Cecil's outlook in the world was not then what it afterwards became. He was a younger son with a career to make for himself. Ambition can supply spurs, so can prudence, so can necessity, and so can all three combined.

The younger son of a great house enters upon political life at an enormous advantage over humbler rivals. If there is any brilliancy about him his fortune is made. Lord Robert Cecil's influence was sufficient to produce a succession of small insurrectionary earthquakes on the Opposition benches. Old members from the shires nudged each other in their bucolic way and asked what was the matter, learning with puzzled amus.e.m.e.nt that there were some who did not think it quite right for the gentlemen of England to be led by a Semitic adventurer. But the Semitic adventurer had the gifts of his race. He was primed to the throat with contempt and scorn, too cold and measured withal for the slightest show of insolence. As each hurly-burly ended and the dust settled, he was found sitting where he always meant to sit, just as if nothing had happened, with the same impa.s.sive look and the same indomitable calm. He had one great advantage external to himself. He knew that he could place unbounded confidence in the loyalty of his chief in the Upper House, and so long as Lord Derby stood by him the insurgent school-boys on the back-benches could do him no harm. Perhaps Sir Stafford Northcote cannot count upon the same support, but then his own resources are greater, if he did but know it.

The truth is that Sir Stafford Northcote represents the only type of Conservatism that can survive in the present state of political thought in England. It is not a brilliant type, but that is the fault of history. Enough that it may be a useful one. Toryism has undergone a process of inverse development which resembles decay, but which is merely an accommodation to the existing conditions of life and health.

The figments which used to furnish it with sustenance are dead. The divine right of kings, which nourished as a sentiment long after it was disowned by the laws, has at last gone spark out. The divine rights of the Church have followed suit. The legal abuses which were clung to as a symbol of the unchangeableness of English inst.i.tutions are being swept away. The monopoly of political power which gave the right of governing the realm as a perquisite to a few patrician families has been broken down. The compromise which transferred the old privileges of the aristocracy to the middle cla.s.ses has had to be abandoned. The "advancing tide of democracy" at which men looked through a telescope twenty years ago, wondering at what comparatively remote period it would reach our sh.o.r.es, has already reached us, and the waters are still rising. The superst.i.tions formerly attaching to the possession of land, to hereditary descent, to ancestral t.i.tles, to the feudal pretensions of the squirearchy, are all dissipating into thin air. If it is not yet proved whether science is a democratic power, at any rate it a.s.serts the predominance of natural laws, and at their fiat artificial distinctions must tend to disappear.

In such a state of things what part is left for Conservatism to play?

Mr. Disraeli asked and answered the same question when he began his witches' dance. What have you to conserve? Nothing! The answer is not true. There is much that may be conserved for a long time to come, and when it can no longer be conserved in its present shape something will have to be said as to the altered form it shall a.s.sume. One thing is certain. Conservatism cannot emanc.i.p.ate itself from the conditions of the age. It may indeed turn hermit and shut itself up in parsonages and manor-houses, but if it is still to be a political power it can only plan and achieve what is possible. It accepts, and cannot but accept, the law of progress as the rule of legislation, and the only arbiter to whom it can appeal is the national will. But you may advance slowly or rapidly, you may resort to modifications and compromises instead of sweeping things bodily away. In establishing a preference on these questions there is abundant room for popular advocacy. The people are not swayed by pure reason. They are actuated to a great extent by their prejudices and their pa.s.sions. They must be taken as they are, and recent experience shows that it is difficult to say beforehand what and how much may not be made out of them. Unorganized groups of men are so helpless, oratory has so much power, the small vices of the mind have so strong a tendency to pa.s.s into politics, that a wide field will long be open to propagandists of every kind. It sometimes seems as if the obstacles to be overcome might be too great for the reformers, and that the "children of light" must adjourn their efforts till the millennium is a little nearer. It is the spread of education and the silent working of intellectual influences springing from the higher knowledge of the age that puts the better chances on their side. But Conservatism has its chances too, only it must not frighten the people with antiquated nonsense. It must fall in with current ideas. It must set up on the whole similar aims to those of its opponents, merely asking a preference for other methods. Above all, it must be modest and sober and give up bounce and slap-dash. The people are becoming more serious. They reason more on politics and with better lights; a sense of power teaches them self-respect, and they resent clap-trap. Perhaps I ought to ask pardon for saying so, but they can see through a merely clever man, like Lord Salisbury. A Liberal would find Sir Stafford Northcote a more formidable antagonist. He might be more eloquent, but eloquence is not everything.

A gentle persuasiveness, even with a spice of puzzledom in it, will go further in the end. The Conservative mutineers know not what they are doing when they try to demolish this type of Conservatism. Or perhaps they do know, but are bent upon objects which, from a personal point of view, are attended with compensations. But the future of Conservatism does not rest with them unless they change their ideas and manners. The staying power and the fitness of things are on the side of those whom, with the ribald audacity of youth, they deride as slow-coaches.

The "Two Conservatives" are not prepared to accept this humble _role_.

They meditate something heroic. They say that "if the Conservative party is to continue to exist as a power in the State it must become a popular party;" "that the days are past when an exclusive cla.s.s, however great its ability, wealth, and energy, can command a majority in the electorate." "The liberties and interests of the people at large," they say, "are the only things which it is possible now to conserve: the rights of property, the Established Church, the House of Lords, and the Crown itself, must be defended on the ground that they are inst.i.tutions necessary or useful to the preservation of civil and religious freedom, and can be maintained only so far as the people take this view of their subsistence." These are the principles of democracy. It is here laid down that the people are the only legitimate court of appeal on political questions, and that the decision rests, and ought to rest, with the numerical majority. Before this court the most venerable inst.i.tutions of the realm may be brought to have their merits sifted, and an adverse verdict is to be followed by a writ of execution. The only test by which they are to be judged is their utility. If they fail to stand it they are to be voted nuisances. The standard of utility is not to be the interests or the supposed rights of any person or cla.s.s, but the interests of the whole people. The people themselves are to decide what is meant by their liberties, how far they extend, and what other interests shall be superadded in making out the standard towards which our inst.i.tutions shall approximate.

If these are the principles of Neo-conservatism, our case is made out with a superfluity of proof. Of course there is a pretence of acting on these principles already. When a measure is before Parliament it is a.s.sumed that the sole issue in dispute is its utility. The Conservative debater recognizes the decisiveness of this test just as freely as his opponents. But these principles have not been openly avowed by the Conservatives. The "hypocrisy" with which Mr. Disraeli taunted them still flourishes in the form of amiable prepossessions. A vast ma.s.s of mystic and traditional lumber still enters into the foundations of Conservatism, and if all this "wood, hay, and stubble" were to be burnt up it would fare ill with the frail fabric overhead. The practical policy of Conservatism would not alter, and could not be altered much, but its pretensions would have to be pitched in a lower key, and the excessive modesty of the part which alone remains to it in the politics of the future would be put beyond dispute.

It would be interesting to see this theory of Conservatism, quietly admitted though it be into the working details of legislation, hawked for acceptance among the Opposition benches, and note the result. What is this new creed of yours? we can fancy the hon. and gallant member for Loamshire ejaculating. That there must be no cla.s.s influence in politics? That any half-dozen hinds on my estate are as good as so many dukes? That the will of the people is the supreme political tribunal?

That if a majority at the polls bid us abolish the Church and toss the Crown into the gutter we are forthwith to be their most obedient servants? And you tell me that I can profess this horrible creed without ceasing to be a Tory! Before I could with a spark of honesty so much as parley with it I should have to crave a seat among the red-hot gentlemen yonder below the gangway. And the hon. and gallant member would only say the truth. Privilege is the mint mark of Toryism, exclusiveness is its life and soul. The doctrine of equal rights must be in everlasting repugnance to it. Toryism is the political expression of feudalized society, with lords and squires at the top, subservient dependants half-way down, and a ma.s.s of brutalized serfs at the bottom. It has been comparatively humanized by modern influences, but nothing can change the bent of its genius. With privilege vested interests of all sorts enter into ready fellowship. All those good citizens who have reason to suspect that if a public inquest sat upon them the verdict would not be favourable hasten to edge themselves in as closely as possible towards the privileged circle. The village rector, who does his duty with all the conscientiousness of a beneficed Christian, but who prizes his glebe and t.i.the, rushes to Cambridge to swell the majority for Mr. Raikes.

Gentlemen of the long robe who make politics a vocation gravitate for some reason or other towards Liberalism; but the lower branch of the profession displays an opposite tendency. The county lawyer, who makes two-thirds of his income out of the mysteries of conveyancing, has reason to dislike such things as the registration of t.i.tles, and the transfer of estates by a few sentences extracted from a public record.

The licensed victuallers, tens of thousands strong and with more than a hundred millions of invested capital, dread the change which would give them a quiet Sunday in return for a seventh of their profits. The strength of Toryism lies in this phalanx of vested interests and social privileges. The golden chain reaches from squire to Boniface, and still lower in the social scale, wherever some snug little peculium is found to nestle. The principles of Neo-Conservatism would rend the structure from top to bottom. The doctrine that the solution of all our political problems and the fate of all our inst.i.tutions are simply an affair of numerical majorities at the ballot-box, and that the interests of the people are the sole end of legislation, is enough of itself to smash the party to atoms.

All sensible politicians admit that if the time should come when a large majority of the people are adverse to monarchical inst.i.tutions it will be vain to think of maintaining them by force. It may be added that sensible politicians seldom discuss such questions. They have too much present work on hand to trouble themselves about the remote and the unknown. "What thy hand findeth to do" is their motto, and out of the faithful achievements of to-day will the better future spring.

Nevertheless bare possibilities sometimes present themselves as conundrums to be unravelled, and to the conundrum in question there is no second answer. But it is one thing to quietly accept a proposition and then let it drop out of sight; it is another to run it up to the top of the flag-staff as the symbol of a great party. This is what the "Neo-conservatives" propose to do with their recent discovery. An opinion of the Crown's utility is to determine whether it shall be preserved or destroyed. When the majority of the people cry "Away with it," away it is to go. As soon as the popular fiat is announced, the Sovereign will depart from Windsor, the Life Guards will present arms to the President of the Republic, and in the twinkling of an eye, as the result of a contested election, the Monarchy of England is to be decorously carried to the tomb. This is the doctrine which Tory lords and squires are asked to proclaim with sound of trumpet as the corner-stone of their political creed. "Only so far as the people take this view of its subsistence"--this is to be the Tory patent for the "subsistence" of the Crown. Rather different this from the old cry:--

"Ere the King's Crown go down there are crowns to be broke."

It is true that the peers no longer wear coats of mail, or lead their va.s.sals to the field of battle. Of most of them it is hardly disrespectful to suppose that on critical occasions they would prefer the rear of the army to the van. But the creed is not quite extinct that there are things worth fighting for, and that among them are the Monarchy of England and the rights of the Crown. For practical purposes, perhaps, the creed is obsolete, but it lives in the imagination, and the sentiments which spring from it are part of the cement of Toryism. The solemn abjuration which is now proposed in the name of Neo-conservatism resembles a charge of dynamite.

But in abandoning Tory principles the leaders of the new movement hope perhaps to drive a roaring trade by defending Tory inst.i.tutions. They will say that they have been obliged to shift their ground, but that they hope to work with better results from their new position. The business of the party is to prevail upon Household Suffrage to accept the survivals of feudalism, and a verdict in the new court of appeal that shall ratify the old creed. It is a creditable enterprise. Will it succeed? It seems but too likely that the efforts contemplated will only serve to weaken the inst.i.tutions they are meant to defend, and that whatever is practicable or desirable in the objects aimed at will be secured most easily and most effectually by the Liberal party.

Among the political inst.i.tutions of an old country there are some which certainly would not be set up if the past were obliterated, and the nation were beginning afresh. They were suitable to the times in which they originated, but they are out of harmony with the tendencies of the present day. Perhaps they do some good; at any rate they do not do much harm, and the people tolerate them for the sake of old a.s.sociations.

From this point of view a great deal may be said in their behalf. They make visible the continuity of our national existence, they connect us with a distant and romantic past, they lend to the State something of dignity and poetic charm. Inst.i.tutions of this sort may be held in veneration by those who can trace them to their origin, and see them in perspective from the beginning. But there is one test they will not stand. They will not pa.s.s unscathed through the crucible of modern criticism. They are disfigured by anomalies, they shelter many abuses, they involve an expenditure of public money out of proportion to the services rendered in return, they consecrate a privileged descent, in the transmission of property they violate the rules of natural equity, while the principles on which they rest need only to be developed and applied with logical consistency to overthrow the fabric of political freedom. The best service that can be rendered to such inst.i.tutions is to say as little as possible about them. A wise friend will not utter a word in their defence unless they are a.s.sailed, and the ground selected for defence will then be carefully limited to the dimensions of the attack. The next best service will be to remove from them as occasion offers all unsightly excrescences, to put an end to any anomaly which is beginning to excite remark, and to amend any faults of mechanism which are likely to produce a jar. Such a policy of discriminating reserve may lengthen out their existence indefinitely. But to force them to the front, to exalt them as the ripest product of political wisdom, to hold them forth as necessary to the maintenance of the civil and religious liberties of the people,--this can only be the work of designing adversaries or of blundering friends. As a basis of party action it would be like sand. It would be levelled by the mocking tides of popular criticism.

The programme of the "Two Conservatives" begins with a grand item, the conservation of the liberties of the people. But why "conserve?" Why not extend and advance them? Why should the present stage in the historical growth of our liberties be selected as the point at which conservation becomes a duty? Would not the party which undertakes the task to-day be better pleased if there were fewer of them to conserve? The Tories have always been adepts at conservation, but the things they have been most willing to conserve were not our liberties but the restrictions put upon our liberties. Since the liberties now proposed to be conserved are a.s.sumed to be threatened by the Liberals, they must be liberties of a special sort, such as liberty to spread infection, liberty to dispense with vaccination, liberty to send uninspected ships to sea, to keep children away from school, or to send them out at any age to work in the fields, the factory, or the streets. "Personal rights" have good radical sponsors in the hon. members for Stockport and Leicester. Perhaps Parliament as a whole is the best sponsor. The Neo-conservative programme should tell us what is meant by the liberties of the people.

The absence of definition may perhaps cover an imposture.

The next object of Neo-conservative devotion is the maintenance of the rights of property. Those rights are of no private interpretation, and belong to sociology rather than to politics. Every man is interested in them who has anything to lose, or who has a chance of acquiring anything. Hence they cannot be claimed as an appanage of Toryism. They are placed under the common championship of all parties. But the exclusive claim set up must have some meaning. The rights of property intended may perhaps be the rights of property as understood by the landlords, in which sense they may include a right to the property of other people; or as understood by the a.s.sociation of which Lord Elcho is president, in which sense they stand in opposition to the rights of the public. We know what is meant by the rights of landed proprietors, of railway corporations, of publicans, of property owners, of shipowners, of p.a.w.nbrokers and of corporate bodies, such as the guilds of the city of London. They represent the pretensions of these cla.s.ses to have their interests preferred to those of the community. It is a case of prescription against equity, of the license a.s.sumed by special callings against the checks and guarantees which Parliament has found it necessary to impose for the general welfare. This is a field in which Neo-conservatism can reap no harvest. It will be vain to tell the working man who is the owner of the house in which he lives, that his rights are in the same boat with the right of London companies to squander or misapply the wealth which has descended to them from the Middle Ages. It will be useless to enter an appeal before the tribunal of public opinion in defence of such rights as these on the pretence that they are the rights of property. The unsophisticated reason of the const.i.tuencies will resent the a.s.sumption as an attempted fraud.

The political inst.i.tutions which are to be set forth as necessary to the maintenance of the civil and religious liberties of the people are the Established Church, the House of Lords, and the Crown. Of the Crown we have already spoken. It is the least vulnerable of the three, and for this reason it is the least fitted to furnish a party cry. The strength of the Crown resides in its enormous historical _prestige_, and in the const.i.tutional device, old as the monarchy in principle, but modern in its machinery, by which it is removed from the sphere of responsibility and therefore from party a.s.sault. The Crown need not be defended for it is not a.s.sailed. If it were a.s.sailed there are sufficient grounds for an adequate, perhaps a triumphant, defence. But in mere truth it would be difficult to defend it on the special ground that it is necessary to the maintenance of our civil and religious liberties. Everybody knows that these liberties were won in despite of the Crown, and in opposition to its alleged prerogatives. We had to send a dynasty adrift before we could regard our liberties as moderately secure. No greater disservice can be done to any inst.i.tution than to advance exaggerated or ill-founded pretensions on its behalf, and this is what Neo-conservatism proposes to do for the Crown. It will be well to keep this inst.i.tution off the hustings. To utilize it for party purposes seems like an insidious form of treason. The Established Church is fairer game, but absolutely worthless as a means of raising the wind for a forlorn party.

An inst.i.tution which needs all the support it can get has none to share with companions in distress. The Church may have a larger hold upon a portion of the middle cla.s.ses than it had thirty years ago, but the working cla.s.ses are separated from it by a wider gulf. Many who attend its services and call themselves Churchmen are utterly indifferent to its political fate. It is preposterous to represent the Established Church as necessary to the maintenance of civil and religious freedom.

In the course of her history she has been the unrelenting foe of both, and we have no more of either than she could help our having. The want of disciplinary powers prevents her from interfering with the belief, or, except in grave cases, with the moral conduct of her members, but the paralysis of the authority necessary for internal discipline is not the same thing as religious freedom. The bondage of the Church is not the liberty of the State. Disestablishment has not yet come within the range of practical politics, but if a popular statesman felt it his duty to bring the question fairly before the electorate, it is at least doubtful whether the verdict would not be hostile to the Church. No doubt need be entertained as to the result of such an appeal in the case of the House of Lords. The const.i.tution of the House as an a.s.sembly of hereditary legislators is admitted to be indefensible. Its theoretic prerogatives are tolerated only on the understanding that they shall never be exerted. It exists by virtue of habit and indifference, aided by a conviction of its powerlessness. As a decorative inst.i.tution there is no great eagerness to pull it down, but whenever the House forgets that its functions are ornamental, and commits itself to a serious issue with the Commons, its last hour will be at hand. The step most likely to precipitate its doom would be for the Tory party to glorify it as the palladium of our liberties, and try to get up popular enthusiasm on its behalf. The House of Lords would not long survive that treacherous homage. It would be beaten in one campaign.

No: from whatever point of view we consider the question, it is plain that the attempt to reconstruct the Tory party on a Democratic basis cannot succeed. The open avowal of such an aim would deprive Toryism of all backbone and reduce it to the condition of a moribund jelly-fish. It is not given to any creature to change its nature and yet continue to discharge its old functions. It is true that Toryism in order to get on at all with the present age is obliged occasionally to act on Liberal principles. The device gives no offence so long as it is adopted quietly, and if suspicions are awakened a few heart-stirring speeches in the old orthodox vein suffice to allay them. A formal repudiation of old ideas is quite another thing. Just as Utopian is the project of defending Tory inst.i.tutions on Democratic principles. There are two a.r.s.enals from which political combatants may choose their weapons, the historical and the scientific. It is from the former that the champion equips himself who offers battle on behalf of inst.i.tutions that have descended to us from h.o.a.r antiquity. Weapons taken from the latter are unfit for such a service. Every blow would recoil upon the inst.i.tution which it was the champion's aim to defend. To abandon the Established Church, the House of Lords, and the Crown to the uncovenanted mercies of modern political criticism is a rash experiment. The hope which sees in such an experiment a fresh lease of life and new chances of ascendency for Toryism is absurd.

Yet there is, and always will be, room for a Conservative party in English politics, only it must move along the historic lines, and not needlessly renounce its old watchwords. We need two brooms to keep our const.i.tutional mansion in a tidy state, one in use, the other undergoing repairs, or put in pickle, and ready to be brought in when wanted.

Government by party requires the existence of two parties, and demand is apt to generate supply. It is not necessary that the two parties should be separated by an impa.s.sable gulf. It is only necessary that materials for two separate connections should be provided, and in this emergency Nature does much to help us. There are opposite moods of mind in politics as in literature and art; there are ant.i.thetical differences of intellect and temperament to be found among men of all countries and all times; there is the standing opposition between what is and what ought to be, between the actual and the ideal, between the desire of the poor human wayfarer to sit down and rest, and the curiosity which ever lures him on. Possession and the desire to possess, divine contentment and still diviner discontent, self-centreing reflectiveness and impulses whose proper object is the welfare of mankind,--here are agencies which play their part in politics as well as in social life. These multifarious forces tend to range themselves on opposite sides, the sympathetic in each cla.s.s readily finding out their kinsmen in the rest.

With such materials to work upon, a Conservatism which chooses to follow the ordinary course of things can never be defunct. Extinction can only come from an endeavour after some monstrous birth against which both Nature and history have p.r.o.nounced their ban.