LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
TORIES AND CONSERVATIVES.
(To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1
Sra,—In discussing the Conservative Leadership, you ask,— "Will the suburban villa-residents, who rallied with such un- expected ardour to the Conservative cause in 1874, vote for rash measures and violent men ?" I take it, they are just the people who will do so. Two-thirds of them are "City people," fairly well off, with a probability, at least a strong desire, of becoming wealthy, self-indulgent, given over to the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, living in a state of endless excitement and competition. An adventurous foreign policy at once gratifies their love of " swagger," and affords continual opportunities of gambling on a great scale. The Stock Exchange, as we all know, is one of the great strongholds of " Jingoism ;" and the persons of whom you speak belong largely to the circle of which the Stock Exchange is the centre. Conservatives, it should be remembered, fall into two broad classes, just as widely divided as any Whigs and Radicals. The gaiet, somewhat timid Conservatism of the country is Conservative mainly from that love of the past which is strong in every well- conditioned human mind, and partly from a feeling that since things are bound to come right in the next world, it is a pity to pull about existing institutions too much in this, even if they -are not all they might be. This state of mind has really no -common measure with the foul-mouthed, truculent Toryism -which cares not a penny for Church, to which it never goes, unless for respectability's sake, at eleven o'clock on Sunday; or for King, about whom it is quite ready to believe and repeat any -prurient scandal ; or for antiquity, about which it knows nothing. The mischief is that it catches up and profanes by use the watchwords of the nobler Conservatism, patriotism, religion, and the like, until decent people are almost fain to abjure the one and doubt the other. There is a great deal to be said on this subject, which I should like to see dealt with by some competent person. Meanwhile, Liberals may rest assured that whatever differences may divide the centre of their party from the extreme wing, they are as nothing beside the distance which separates the Conservative whose leader is Sir Stafford Northcote, and the Tory who thinks Lord Randolph Churchill a
promising statesman.—I am, Sir, &c., A. J. B.
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