THE ESSENTIALS OF- CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP,
THE late Lord Dolling, in his inadequate and obviously unfinished memoir of Sir-Robert -Peel,* brings out very
• Jost publialted.by Bentley and Son.
clearly what seems to have been his hero's main defect, but was for that very reason also the main secret of his success,—his political shortsightedness. He thinks Sir Robert Peel was most remarkable as " the practical man " of his sphere and time. " He opposed everything which, at such a day or year, was impracticable ; he supported and carried through almost every great question" (we suppose Lord Dolling meant to say every great reform, for how can you either support or carry through a " question " ?) " when it became practical." In other words, Sir Robert Peel never saw what would be beneficial to the country till the country was itself quite clear that it was so, and then, in general, he came round and agreed with the country ; and whether he did so or not, at least always accepted implicitly its will. This was, of course, notably the case in relation to Catholic Emancipation, by resisting which he obtained his-. popularity and the privilege of representing the University of Oxford, and by carrying which he saved the country from civil war. In the case of the Reform Bill, he did not yield to conquer, but yielded only when he was conquered. But in. relation to Free-trade, he did, almost at the end of his career as a statesman, precisely what he had done in the case of Catholic Emancipation at the beginning,—gained a reputation by re- sisting it which he increased by carrying it. No one can deny that the necessary condition of his success was his shortsighted- ness. Had he foreseen that it was simply impossible to govern on constitutional principles a kingdom consisting of both Roman Catholics and Protestants without conceding equal political rights to both, he would never have had the confidence of the Conservatives at all. Had he been con- vinced of the wisdom of Free-trade by Adam Smith within, suppose, even sixty years from the publication of " The Wealth of Nations," he would never have returned to power at the head of a triumphant majority in 1841. With a little more foresight as to the drift of his own convictions, Sir Robert Peel would have failed to be a power in the State altogether. He had not the liberal sympathies requisite for a great Liberal statesman ; and without the convictions appropriate for a great Conservative statesman, he would have been nothing but a politician of more or less note, probably rather less than more. No doubt his aptitude for being convinced,—at the eleventh hour,—was a new source of eminence and fame. Had he adhered obstinately to his convictions at the last, he would never have had the name he has for English statesmanship. But it was quite as much his- inaptitude for being convinced sooner, as his' aptitude for being convinced at last, which gained for him his political immortality. It was the great power of prejudice over his mind, even more than the capacity for throwing it off under adequate moral pressure, which pro- cured for him the opportunity of showing his great faculty for administration, and of demonstrating to the world that though so far blinded by prepossession as to be unable to see clearly even under a very strong light, he was not so far blinded as not to decipher his lesson under a very brilliant one. It was not "the defects of his qualities " which diminished Sir Robert Peel's fame, so much, as " the qualities of his defects " which secured it. Of course, we do not mean to say that without the greatest abilities his political shortsightedness could have secured for him a career at all, but only that his political abilities, great as they were, would not have been of much use to the country without the political shortsighted- ess which secured for him the opportunity for their display.
And the same may be said of his successor in the lead of the Tory party in the House of Commons, Mr. Disraeli. Great as Mr. Disraeli's abilities are, they would never have led him to the head of a party without one great shortcoming,—political unscrupulousness. Mr. Greville in his " Memoirs " notes drily the curious fact that, before Mr. Disraeli's entrance into political life, party men of the most diametrically opposite views were both engaged in pushing his interest as an aspirant for a seat. The fact was characteristic not only of his first start in life, but of his whole career, though, as it happens, no politician of the day has shown a more steady party allegiance. Still, it was obviously a toss-up to which of the two parties he was to give his support, and no careful observer questions that his violent and very skilful attacks on Sir Robert Peel were the result of an' intellectual determination to make his power felt some- where, and not of any real bias towards Protectionist doctrine. When he wrote " Sybil " he was all for monastic customs and Puseyite devotions, just as he is now all for " putting down Ritualism ;" and no doubt in both cases alike his motive was the same, — a purely am- bitious one. In 1859 his avowed wish inn Reform was to assimilate the conditions of the suffrage in town and country, and in 1874 his avowed wish was to keep those conditions from being assimilated ; and in both these cases, again, his motive was no doubt the same,—to catch the Conservative opinion of the moment. Ten years ago he was the great champion of the temporal power of the Pope, while now he chronicles with something like the triumph of Israel over the enemies whom, when the waters ebbed, they found " dead on the sea-shore," how " that immemorial and sacred throne which Emperors and Kings for centuries had failed to control, has vanished like a dream." Great as are Mr. Disraeli's abilities, it is hardly conceivable that he should ever have had the scope for them which he has now, if he had been in any sense a scrupulous politician. So far as his keen and destructive in- tellect has any affinities in politics, those affinities are with the Radical party, and not with the party he leads. But in the Radical party those great abilities would have simply given alarm to the country, and been thrown away. His force, without the restrain- ing power of an alien Conservative policy, would have been like the undisciplined force of a wild horse never broken to the yoke,
or of gunpowder without the strong barrel which husbands, restrains, and guides its explosive qualities. It is not short- sightedness like Sir Robert Peel's which has secured for Mr. Dis- raeli the opportunity of showing his marvellous talents, but on the contrary, an indifference wholly unlike Sir Robert Peel's, to the monition a of the foresight he undoubtedly has. He "educated " his party with a skill implying an amount of foresight far beyond what he dared to disclose to them. But had he combined with such foresight that painstaking sense of public duty which com- pelled Sir Robert Peel to warn Parliament of what was inevit- able so soon as he discerned it, Mr. Disraeli would have been nothing more than an eminent free-lance still. It has been the sang-froid with which he has used what was useful to him in the way of foresight, and scattered to the winds as much as he could not safely use, which has gained him the chance of educating his party at all. There is a kind of irony in the con- trast between the two leaders who led in succession the country party of England,—the one who was chosen because he could see so little, yet made the most conscientious use of all he did see ; and the one who was chosen because he could see so much, and was careful to display only as much of his knowledge as he could afford to pass on to the party he had engaged to lead. But in both cases it was the defect which was the necessary condition of the opportunity of power, and the power would have been thrown away without the defect.
Does the same principle hold good in the same degree of Liberal statesmen ? Hardly, and for a very good reason. If we assume, as we must on the admission of the Conservatives themselves,—for the Conservatives of this generation stand just where stood the Liberals of the last,—that the Liberal policy has, on the whole, been right, it follows necessarily that there must be some want of proportion, either intellectual or moral, • that keeps back a man of otherwise pre-eminent power to the political standing-point of the timid party. Sir Robert Peel was kept at that point by an amount of prejudice or a short- ness of intellectual vision, quite out of proportion to his extra- ordinary lucidity and force in dealing with practical matters. Mr. Disraeli was kept back by his determination not to sacrifice that great opening for the career of a leader, which the intel- lectual deficiencies of the Tory party between 1840 and 1850 made for him. But a Liberal leader, whatever his defects,— and they may be very great,—mainly comes to the front by virtue of his sympathy with what propels his party, not by virtue of his sympathy with what keeps them back. Some of Mr. Gladstone's defects have been great, but he has suffered by them rather than gained. For example, he has gained vastly by his extraordinary capacity for detail, and the wonder- ful mastery of complex measures which that capacity ensures him. But he has not gained, but lost, by the deficiency in power• to take a wide survey of the political position as a whole, which is the natural complement of this great talent for detail, In a word, the essential for a great Conservative leader is to have some morsel of his mind or character stunted, • or what seems stunted when considered in relation to his general power, and which so acts as a drag on the tendency he would otherwise show to shoot on in advance of his party. But a Liberal leader need have no such disproportion in his nature, unless, indeed, he is a man of so great a foresight as to outstrip not only the average of the Conservatives, but the average of the Liberals of the day, altogether. And in that case, he would probably be disqualified for leading Englishmen in the slow advances of political life, altogether.
Previous page
