TOPICS OF THE DAY
THE BOISTEROUS CONSERVATIVES.
1,upt. DISRAELI was "indisposed "—and Lord Derby and AL Lord Salisbury apparently unable—to attend the Con- servative banquet in the City on Wednesday, but perhaps the absence of keen and critical eyes put the boisterous Con- servatives, of whom the banqueters chiefly consisted,—Sir Stafford Northcote being the principal exception,—rather more at their ease, and enabled them to indulge more freely in those frothing Tory wines by which the failing spirits of the party are from time to time wisely exhilarated. Still, though feeling more at their ease (just as boys do when their elders are away), with Mr. R. N. Fowler, and Mr. Gathorne Hardy, and Lord George Hamilton, and the Duke of Abercorn and the other animated persons who provide the Tory party with its bubbling force and its tumultuous hopes, there was evidently a certain uncomfortable feeling in the meeting at the apparent want of concert between the head and the members. Mr. Gathorne Hardy quizzed the Liberal party on the ground that it consists of a head, a centre, and a tail. If any Liberal had been present, he would probably have replied that the Tory party consists of the same elementary organisms ; but that whereas the Liberal head and centre and tail are all strictly continuous, and connected by the proper vertebral arrangement, the Tory party is afflicted by a certain discon- tinuity between its head and its body, and between its body and its tail—the head (Mr. Disraeli) being decidedly severed from the trunk, though still able—as French physiologists maintain that all guillotined heads are—to observe and criticize what is going on in the body ; and the tail (Mr. Newdegate), though still following the body at a certain interval, being similarly circumstanced, so far, at least, as tails can be said to have percipient faculties at all. Though, therefore, Mr. Hardy's remark on the zoological structure of the Liberal party was received with the proper amount of boisterous applause, there was, we suspect, an un- comfortable but irrepressible sensation in the mind of the truncated Conservative body as to its own missing head and tail, which somewhat damped the heartiness of the enthusiasm. The worthy chairman himself felt that the true key-note of the meeting ought to be a certain tone of jolly grief (if we may be excused the expression) at the decease of the late Lord Derby—that of desolated boon companions, who feel a little proud of the honourable tears in their eyes as they recall one who is no more—a grief in the present case quite legitimate on this, if on no other ground, that the late Lord Derby really did hold together that organism, the articulation of which is now so fearfully interrupted. " And the tear which is shed," said Mr. Fowler, in that tone of sonorous good- fellowship for which he is celebrated, and which always adds a certain sense of comfortable cheer even to melancholy retrospects,— "And the tear which is shed, though in silence it rolls, Shall still keep his memory green in our souls."
We should fear that the cause of the Tory tears will do that, even more effectually than the Tory tears themselves.
But what had Mr. Hardy to say when he addressed his enthusiastic friends ? Well, he had to pay a warm compli- ment to the late Lord Derby, a somewhat cold compliment to the present Lord Derby, and a still colder compliment to Mr. Disraeli, to whose energy and honour he seems to have given credit almost at the expense of his abilities. And then Mr. Gathorne Hardy launched out upon a line of remark in which one would almost suppose that he was very unsuccessfully emu- lating his absent leader,—that of unfolding unhistorical his- tory, barren suggestions, indefinite definitions. For unhis- torical history, we should think Mr. Disraeli never invented anything quite so wanting, not merely in verisimilitude, but in plausibility, as Mr. Hardy's criticism on the causes of the break-up of the Conservative party when Sir Robert Peel repealed the Corn Laws in 1846. "It is quite true," said
Mr. Hardy, " that you had a great majority in 1841 eventually circumstances happened which destroyed that majority, not, as is supposed, on fiscal principles, but on the manner in which certain fiscal principles should be carried out." Mr. Fowler had lamented the absence of the new leader of the Tory Peers, the Duke of Richmond. But what would his Grace, who so accurately explained to Sir Robert Peel his " astonishment, distress, and horror " at the attack made on the principle of Protection,—who explicitly declared that he and his friends were for protection of all native industries, agriculture and manufacture alike,—say to this wonderful historical gloss of Mr. Gathorne Hardy on the division which then arose in the Conservative party ? Surely Mr. Hardy, as he is venturing on the line of shadowy political definition, should have given us some hint of the distinction he wishes to convey between " fiscal principles " and " the manner in which certain fiscal principles should be carried out." If free trade and protection are not opposite " fiscal principles," but only opposite manners in which certain' fiscal principles should be carried out, it would be satisfactory to know what case of conflicting fiscal principles has ever existed in the history of the world. We should expect Mr. Hardy to hold by analogy, that right and wrong, Radicalism. and Toryism, Protestantism and Roman Catholicism are not opposite principles, but only different manners in which cer- tain principles are carried out. Is the red-hot Tory leader who frets under Mr. Disraeli's tolerant breadth of view really feeling his own way towards political Pyrrhonism ? It. looks a good deal like it. The practical turn he gave, however, to this astounding rationale of the Tory split. in 1846 was, that members of the same party may fairly differ on fiscal questions, and that fiscal questions,, therefore, ought not to be set up as the Conservative rallying- cry,—which is, we suppose, a cautious way of saying that the zealots for " Reciprocity " threaten a great deal of injury to Conservative union. But if Mr. Gathorne Hardy was emu- lating Mr. Disraeli in thus going back to a fanciful recast of the events of 1846 in order to get sufficient " offing," as ih were, for that remark, we can only counsel him to wait inr future till he can carry such suggestions off with Mr. Disraeli's. humour and address, before venturing to imitate Mr. Disraeli in his wild historical speculations.
Nor was Mr. Hardy more fortunate in his tentative defi- nitions,—wherein he again seemed to be following with_ uncertain steps in his leader's track. Conservatism, he says,. means "loyalty to the throne, justice to the rich, justice to the poor, and freedom to everybody." As that definition might have equally truly (and equally uninstructively) have been given of Liberalism, Radicalism, of Repealism, and every political " ism " practically found in these islands short of- Fenianism, we cannothelp thinking that it is somewhat defective• in defining force. It is very like defining vegetarianism as- meaning fidelity to the digestive system, justice to the blood, justice to the tissues, and health to the body.' The point of such a definition may be said to lie wholly in its interpreta- tion, which Mr. Hardy rather more cautiously than courageously completely withheld. It is true that at the end of his speech he gave what he called a " programme of principles," but this was scarcely more explicit than his definition, as it.consisted in the following heads,—(1), that the Conservative party ought to support the Conservative press, which is open to the objec- tion that it defines an ignotum per ignotum ; (2), the Conserva- tive foreign policy is one not of selfish isolation or indecent intermeddling, but of courteous friendship at all times, of readiness to assist in solving international disputes, and of entire abstinence from the character of " candid friend ;" but here again we fear no Liberal could wish for better genera/ terms to describe his views, though he might easily find more- specific ones ; (3), that Conservatives would treat the Colonies cordially and not meet them with civil sneers, which is a hitt at Lord Granville, but not at the Liberal creed ; (4), that in Ireland Conservatives would not encourage the " wild jus- tice of revenge," but look to every interest in the country, and respect those which are most industrious and most loyal—very like saying that they would do what seemed best ; (5), that Conservatives would be earnest for social improvements, but take care that the measures brought in by the present Govern- ment do not run into excess,—a very safe sort of prin- ciple for Mr. Gathorne Hardy, indeed implying what a clever mimic of Mr. Carlyle once called " a deep. no-meaning in the great infinite heart of him." And. this is really absolutely all of Conservative principle in Mr. Gathorne Hardy's oratio ad familiares, his private con- fidences to the chosen of his heart,—the boisterous Right. Centre,—the Tory Protestants. A political naturalist studying the speech in the vein of the diarist of " Happy Thoughts," to get a specimen of the true Orange Tory for a work on. Typical Developments, would hardly find a trace of a political type in it. It is an evil day for Conservatism when its chosen prophets show so much division in its own ranks and so much confusion as to its proper principles, when they "prophesy out of their own heart and have seen nothing ; " when the
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