THE TORIES IN POWER.
TO THE EDITOR OP THE SPECTATOR.
Bungay, 7th September 1841. Sia—I have been a reader of the Spectator from its first publication ; and have never failed to recognize the consistency with which the cause of political advancement has been sustained, and the straight path of truth has been kept, when parties were wandering from it in the search for personal advantage. You have hitherto appeared to bear in mind that all our national questions may be resolved into the one great contest between the Aristocratic and the Democratic principles, privilege and right, class-interests and the general good. I have heartily assented to your denunciations of the Whigs, because, with the knowledge of right and the profession of pursuing it, they have used their power to consolidate the interests of their order and to stifle the demand for extension of the public right. The Whigs have practically adopted the principles of their rivals; their maintenance in office has withdrawn from the people's cause a large number of men willing to share the benefits of place; their sounding pretensions have neutralised the timid and good-natured, while their do-nothing policy has dis- gusted the ardent ; and when had principles are to he combated, the battle will be most vigorously directed against ascertained foes holding them in undiluted intensity. Therefore I desired to see the Whigs deprived of office. I never supposed the Tories would do the people Justice; but I believe that no essential benefit will be achieved until Toryism, represented by its legiti- mate professors, have placed itself in collision with the people, and received, as it will receive, another crushing blow. Therefore I desired to see the Tories again in office.
To this extent I have sympathized iu the complacency with-which you anti- cipated the recent changes ; and nothing but demonstration should have com- pelled me to admit the existence in several recent papers of a tone, and in the last especially of a broad avowal, that the return of the Tories may be regarded as in itself a good, and that they should have a fair trial as statesmen meaning. or professing welL
I deny that Conservatism is a new experiment in politics, or more than the hue which Toryism takes from the aspect of the times : it is the Aristocratic principle working out in 1541 its class-purposes, with as much reality as Feu- dalism in 1241, or Divine Right in 1641.
Sir ROBERT PEEL and the Duke are probably sincere men; but they are the modern Champions of Divine Right, the successors to eight centuries ot Aristo- cratic legislation; and I can have no confidence in the public instructor who would assent to an experiment of the mode in which they would now impress upon the times the doctrines they have never ceased to hold.
I believe that your writings in times past have extensively created or con- firmed opinions such as these among your readers, who are not Whigs cavilling at a weapon forged against their party, but earnest men who will never tolerate Toryism under any name ; and whose remembrance of your past services in- duces them at present to hope that it was an unguarded moment in which you identified the downfal of Whiggery with the success of Toryism, and that yon will not destroy your good name and add one to the list of faithless politicians ley counselling a tolerance of principles inconsistent with the greatest happiness
[Mr. Onitos appears to have misapprehended some words of irony or banter in our last member. He has read the Spectator to little purpose if lie supposes that either the last or any other number avowed "that the return of the Tories may be regarded as in itself a good." But they have returned—too late for a speedy removal : and since we must have them, we deem it more rational to use than to abuse them. From Tory " principles," or the free-will of Tories, we expect nothing ; but the force of circumstances and the law necessity may extort public benefit even from them: if not from them, we cannot at present obtain it elsewhere. Any thing like an absolute good, lire- datable of the Tory accession, lay in the termination of a reign of delusion we arc too grateful for the release to fall at once into another course of delta- sion—to cheat or be cheated with names—to look at a list of men and pronounces all evil, or all good, which they arc about to do, because some five or six years ago, before experience corrected us, we were disposed to deal in this way with the two parties. A " trial " the Tories will have in spite of us : the cause of truth and the interests of the country demand that it should be a " fair" one. Distrusting men, let us scrutinize measures, and as we find them, approve or censure. For the honest politician no other course of practical usefulness is now open. "The Liberals have lost the tide, and must wait for its flowing"; but the victory of right over every impediment will yet come. Such is toe sum and substance of all that we have ever said, implied, or meant, in relation to these matters. We would repudiate all " confidence" obtainable on any other understanding.--En.]
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