One hundred years ago
Mr Bartley, lately the principal Con- servative Agent, publishes a remark- able paper in this month's Fortnightly. He declares that his party must, to survive, become frankly , Democratic,' must elect its chiefs from below, instead- of by co-optation, and must allow men not of high rank to rise to positions of importance. It must cease, in fact, to be governed by an oligarchy, must take the lead in recasting the Land Laws, and must, moreover, permit the House of Lords to be radically reformed. All that is sound advice; but will not the Con- servatives reply that it is Liberal advice? If government by the landed gentry is to be given up, and the hierarchical order of Society is to be overturned, and the House of Lords is to be improved till it ceases to be aristocratic and becomes efficient, what is there left to conserve? Mr Bartley. . . is evidently tainted with the idea that everything which exists
should be useful. Spectator, 2 May 1885
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