THE LATE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH.
WE regret the death of the Duke of Buccleuch quite sincerely. He was, no doubt, a consistent and thorough Tory, devoted to the party of resistance, and on cer- tain points, such as religious freedom and .the rights of land- lords, his mind was incurably prejudiced and beyond the reach of argument. His conduct during the battle of the sites showed that he was capable of rancour ; he broke with all precedents, and even with Constitutional etiquette, rather than allow an atheist to vote as a Scotch Representative Peer ; and he either sanctioned or allowed efforts to keep up his political influence with his tenantry, only excusable on the plea that he had inherited traditions from which he could not quite set himself free. But he was, nevertheless, at bottom an upright and sensible man, who wished good and not evil to all around, who felt the obligations entailed by his exceptional influence, and used it frequently as a moderating force. Without being exactly magnanimous, he was capable from sheer sense of great magnanimity. He thought himself, for example, both robbed and oppressed in his great battle with the Londoners about his house, and fought for his rights with more than Border tenacity.; but the moment the House of Commons had decided, he submitted, refusing publicly to use his great in- fluence in the Lords to secure to himself a victory over the national will. His position was, in some respects, a most diffi- cult one. The Toryism of those Scotch landlords who remain Tories, differs considerably from the Toryism of English country gentlemen. There is more passion in it, more hard- ness, more of the disdain sometimes rising to insolence, some- times falling into half-humorous cynicism, which we so con- stantly see in the Legitimists, Junkers, and clerical nobles of the Continent. The Duke of Buccleuch had to lead these men without being driven by them, to find them a policy which should be acceptable and yet possible, and to moderate their ideas without losing their confidence. He succeeded in this, and, on the whole, used the large powers entrusted to him well. Throughout his public life he virtually nominated the Scotch representative Peers, and held even in ex- treme eases a power of dismissal—Scotch representative Pears being elected nominally from Parliament to Parlia- ment—which he once exercised to exclude the Marquis of Queensbury for atheism. This position made him the mouthpiece of the Scotch Representative Peers, and of a few English Peers of similar sentiments, and placed him at the head of the best organised group in the Upper House. In the present circumstances of the Tory party, with the Upper House its only permanent stronghold, this was a considerable direct power, and it was increased by the knowledge that all Tories in Scotland would support the Duke, and that even in England his opinion would weigh heavily with the older representatives on his own side. This -considerable force the Duke, whenever religious liberty was not in question, used on the side of prudence, of compromise, and of avoiding direct conffiet with the representatives of the nation,—as a moderating force in fact, with which the more heated or high- handed leaders of his party always had to reckon. His adhesion to Sir Robert Peel in the abolition of the Corn Laws, an adhesion dictated, he said, solely by fidelity to the Monarchy, was of national importance ; and though report about leaders who keep themselves so steadily in the back- ground is rarely quite accurate, it was believed at the time that the retreat of the Lords last year, in opposition to the advice of Lord Salisbury, was mainly due to the doubt which the great Scotch noble entertained as to the prudence of his course. He disliked the Government proposals as much as the fiercest Tory agent ; but he understood that government must go on, and that there .was risk in arresting the machine.
We trust that the Duke will find a successor somewhere within his party. There is nothing more essential just now to the quiet progress of affairs than that the Tory Party in the Lords should be influenced by men who understand politics, who perceive the great truth that "the Queen's Government must be carried on,' and who are free, in a measure at all events, from the pressure which falls upon the regular leaders. We all condemn Lord Salisbury for his outrecuidance, hot-headed- ness, and disposition to risk extreme courses ; but the pressure upon a leader in his position must sometimes be very great. It must often be very hard for Tories in the Commons, and still harder for Tories outside Parliament, not to think that the Lords ought to throw out great Bills, ought to risk their own power, ought to use their legal powers to their full legal extent. If they refuse, the party must seem to itself powerless against the popular majority, which it has at heart so little hope of converting. It must be apt to think that if the Lords will not act in great crises, the existence of the Lords is of no use, that the House may just as well risk extinction as let things go in the way in which they would go if there were no House of-Lords. It takes wisdom in any man to refrain from using power which is undeniably his by legal right, because it may possibly be taken away ; and to men who are heated with contest and de- feat, and are listening to their adversaries' exulting cries on every side, that kind of wisdom rarely comes. A Tory leader in the Lords must often have a hundred Mr. Chaplins in the House, a thousand Colonel Burnabys outside the House, almost ready to fly at his throat, because he seems to them timid ; because he is statesman as well as Tory ; because he thinks the continuance of his House more important than the rejec- tion of any particular measure. Such pressure must be a keen
spur even to a man like Lord Salisbury, who wants no spur, and is not quite sure whether the Upper House does not, by segregating them, diminish the influence of the great land- lords in the country. The pressure must heat a cool man who feels a responsibility to his party, and superheat a heated one. It is most expedient that at such times there should be prominent Peers in the House known to the Tories, trusted by Tories, sympathising with Tories, but who yet comprehend
their times ; who see where victory can only be momentary, and who understand that, in a country like this, the danger to aristocracy will only be imminent when statesmen declare that it is impossible, if Peers will pull up the rails, to go on driving the engine. It is best, of course, when those convictions animate the recognised leaders, as they used to animate the Duke of Wellington ; but when that is not the case, subordinate leaders, if quiet, sensible, and firm, can be most useful. They are heard by their chiefs, they can moderate excited partisans, and in the last resort they can, by withdrawing their separate cohorts, and so extinguish- ing or reducing the permanent majority, compel attention to their demand for compromise or concession. There are not many men now in the Peers who occupy that position—indeed, the public knows of but one, the Duke of Richmond, though
the Duke of Northumberland speaks also for more than him- self—and the loss of one so implicitly trusted as the bake of Buccleuch will be severely felt.
Moderating influences in the Peers may be even more important five years hence than now. We are not of those who hold that Mr. Gladstone's Reform Bill will necessarily increase Democratic power. It is quite possible that either the suburban voters or the agricultural labourers may take the other side, and quite certain that if they do, the Conservative party will have a weight, derived from the numbers behind it, which, since 1832, it has never had. But it is vain to deny the possibility that the new electors may join the Liberals in a body, and that the Lords may find their House the only visible bulwark against a tide necessarily and greatly increased in volume and rush. In that event, the safety of the Lords as an institu- tion will depend immediately upon the sense of their Tory managers, on their ability to offer resistance on the points where the Democracy is not unconvincible, and to withdraw before the nation fancies that a caste-stands in its way. The guid- ance of the Tory majority in the Peers will then be a task of the highest difficulty and -delicacy, and one requiring the help of men in whom their own partisans will confide, even when they order retreat. The fight will then be one with the spade and the Wellington who cannot be tempted into the open will be more valuable than the most enterprising or most intrepid chief. The leaders, in short, must be diplomatists, and be content to strengthen even Premiers they dislike' if only they can rely on their, not going too far. The tendency of the House, and especially of the majority within it, is not to follow such leaders,—unless, like the Duke of Buccleugh, they possess at once sense, historic claims, and such a position as landlords as makes their fidelity to the cause of .property beyond all question. Lord Cairns, for example, who could do it all, would not be obeyed implicitly enough, or with sufficient rapidity. In the end, we suppose, Whig nobles with the necessary qualifications will cross over ; but if they ao not, the Tories, in the hands of some impetuous leader, may yet find that in losing the great Scotch noble whom the Southern world so little noticed, except as a noble' they lost a source of security they are unable to replace. Great Tory Peers with sterling sense are always useful to the party ; five years hence they may be indispensable.
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