A hundred years ago
From the 'Spectator', 25 January 1868—Lord Stanley made a very able speech at. the Bristol Conservative demonstration on Wednesday,— though his ability was chiefly shown, as regards the future, in the very Conservative task of ex- plaining . . . how to let ill alone. His apology for the Conservative policy of last year on Reform was, however, as good as such an apology could be in the nature of things, and infinitely more effective for its purpose than Mr. Disraeli's at Edinburgh. It was impossible, or, at least, very impolitic, he said, for the Conservative party to oppose itself to the deliberately expressed will of the nation; there would have been far more danger in doing so than in yielding, for how much would not the present disaffection in Ireland have been aggravated by an English working-class full of wrath against the Government! . . . Lord Stan- ley's apology for the Reform Act was, in short, not that it was useful; but that it was demanded in a manner dangerous to refuse, and that the "innovat- ing impulse" would soon spend itself, and leave things pretty much in practice as they are
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