TRUE CONSERVATISM
SIR,--Professor Oakeshott, so much wiser than Mr. Fairlie, saw the origin of conservatism M a state of mind rather than a set of prin- ciples, and was not surprised that the consern vative disposition had been on the defensive for the last hundred and fifty years because of the rapidity of change. In so far as his article was a mirror of his own disposition, Professor Oakeshott appeared to regret many of the changes himself, to consider that some writers who opposed some of these changes in the nineteenth century had good reasons on their side, but to realise firmly that any conservative beliefs or principles arc subjec- tive.
Not so Mr. Fairlie. To him the beliefs Come first, the principles, ' which have stood the test of time,' arc universally valid, and the conservative politicians arc now betraying an Ignorance' of these fixed principles.
Very queer principles, too, for an admirer of Burke to hold. The age of reason is dead, says M r. Fairlie; but Burke attacked the French Revolution precisely because it was not based upon or actuated by reason. A Modern feudalism, a true class system fixed according to function, and the mob kept severely in its place, Mr. Fairlie requires; Burke, always a democrat in his representative sense of the term, called this ' sinking into the dead repose of despotism '; nor could Mr. Fairlie hopefully have called upon Burke for support for his strong (but incompletely de- fined) colonial policy, when Burke so clearly Warned the government of his day about the tiaTs grown up. It has grown with the growth (Burke's colony: ' A fierce Spirit of Liberty
lurke's italics] of the people in your Colonies, and increased with the increase of their wealth; a Spirit, that unhappily meeting With an exercise of Power in England, which,
Itowever lawful, is not reconcilable to any deas of Liberty, much less with theirs, has kindled this flame that is ready to consume We must, however, grant Mr. Fairlie the courage of his convictions, even if they are not Burke's and even if he chooses to cast some of them in their negative forms. Put positively, the one general principle and two horrid illustrations in his article read; 1. There must be a fixed hereditary governing Class. 2. All other people must remain in the stations in which they were born. 3. The colonies must be ruled in the interests of the governing power. No doubt Mr. Fairlie would deny that the above is a fair summary of his krtlele, but to no other conclusions can his words lead. Perhaps, even, he Would welcome such clarification.
wants a ' true class system,' one that :ears a relation to the distribution of func- "ens and responsibilities within society '; it illast therefore be a fixed governing class. And to governing elite ' are to have ' their roots , society and the only way to ensure that 3.1 to make the governing class hereditary. Indeed deed the obvious preference for the feudal Y!tem. implies a strong belief in the hereditary principle. So Mr, Fairlie is a twentieth- ;nturY Carlyle, who in Past and Present demanded ' an aristocracy of talent,' with the !eader-principle firmly in the centre, and who had a similar nostalgia for the feudal system. 14rlyle also had little belief in reason, prcfcr-
ring the categorical imperatives derived from his feelings, and even less in democracy. Many of us, though not apparently Mr. Fairlie, thought these views discredited after seeing the failure of the latest attempt to put them into practice.
Then equality of opportunity is ' a phrase of froth' to Mr. Fairlie, and we must grant him that absolute equality is as impossible of attainment in this imperfect world as the absolute elite he craves for. But unless he wants to fix not a ruling class but a caste, Platonic philosopher-kings, Kshatriyas, Sudras, Untouchables and all, what is wrong with relative equality of opportunity ? Does he seriously believe that we should do our duty in that station of life in which it has pleased Mr. Fairlie to call us ? And will he, as did Hitler, arrange his educational system on a functional basis—schools for rulers, schools for ruled, schools for civil servants, schools for journalists (trained in what to say), universities only for the Hereditary Rulers or their Advisers ? What slough of despair does he think the country is in to consider such a literally hopeless policy ?
On his colonial policy Mr. Fairlie is vague. All we arc told is that the principle of self- determination is wrong, that nationalism is vicious. The alternatives most of us sec are that we should govern the colonies against their will, or they should govern themselves. As Mr. Fairlic has pointed to no middle way and is opposed to colonial peoples governing themselves, he can be assumed to want them governed against their will. He may believe this is for their good, but they will not believe it. Is it then unfair to assume that, if he is like Hitler in the rest, he is like him in this, and considers the natives, as even Kipling did not, to be lesser breeds without the law ?
We are not all conservatives. That, as Pro- fessor Oakeshott rightly insisted, is a matter of tempefament rather than principle. Some of us are so made that we are more conscious of the changes in social forces, and therefore consider many traditions as the worst possible excuses for making the same mistake twice. We notice, more than the good old customs still prevailing, the anachronisms standing in the way, like those traditional winding roads which moved John Arlott to indignation. But differ as we may owing to our misguided dispositions from the true conservatives, im- patient as we may be with the qualifications in Peel's definition of conservatism as the correction of proved abuses and the redress of real grievances,' we have never yet attribu- ted to them such vicious principles as Henry Fairlie fathers them with. And it is only fair to say that their present leader fought such principles, in clear words long before his party saw the danger, and in deeds when these same noxious principles threatened our exis- tence. Can no true conservative convict Fairlie of error, and force him to recant ? For if he converts the conservative party some of us will have to fight a second civil war.— Yours faithfully, Wintborne, Dorset A. R. MAIDEN
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