A BOOK OF THE MOMENT.

THE CONSERVATIVE MIND.

The Conservative Mind. By A Gentleman With a Duster. (Mills and Boon. 58. net.) THIS is a very interesting and in many ways a very attractive book, but if it really represents the Conservative attitude of mind in politics, Heaven help the Unionist Party I It would appear to be doomed. The Gentleman with a Duster is a very sympathetic writer, and he knows exactly how to get the best tone out of his instrument—not a great one in the literary, or even in the political or psychological sense, but a very efficient and competent piano. He is never dull or difficult to understand. He never misses a point. His- touch is easy and his quotations either from great writers of other times, or from that vast and magnificent array of those moderns of high position in politics whom he registers as his friends, are extremely telling. Shakespeare, Sir Thomas Browne, Emerson, Disraeli, Carlyle, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Chesterfield, John Milton shake metaphysical hands and, as it were, exchange compliments over the readers' heads with Mr. Baldwin, Sir Robert Horne, Mr. Wood, Sir William Joynson-Hicks, Mr. Oliver Stanley, the late Attorney-General. It is all a breathleSsly exciting performance and done to a turn. While the spell is working, one is exhilarated with heart-to- heart talks with all the great men on the Conservative side about whom one reads in the papers. One feels one is living in the highest political society and that these great and good men are telling us all about everything and making us feel thoroughly comfortable. With such men to guide us and with a true and trusty gentleman with a duster to polish the chair before we sit down, lest any political dirt should stick to it, we feel supremely happy.

But alas ! only for a time. The magic liquor has a terrible way of evaporating. If I could only have written this review 'while I was actually reading the book, or the instant I had closed it, what a much more sympathetic and heroic work I could have made of it ! I should have come with all the roses and raptures fresh on me and I should, I feel, have produced a masterpiece of appreciation. But now ! Only twenty-four hours have passed, but how different it all seems. I cannot, I find, pass on the comfort, the warm feeling at the heart, the beatitude, for I have not retained it. Instead, a cold mist seems to envelop not only my mind, but also the men whose portraits are drawn so cleverly and tactfully by ,Mr. Begbie—if he is the author. I see them now, not only as ;guides unfit to lead others, but as men who do not even know where they themselves want to go to, or what they are to do when they get there.

I have the disagreeable feeling that the men I thought so calm and strong and so resolute may be only steadfast ;because they are tame, tepid, timorous, and indifferent. I thought the Unionist leaders were a band of noble knights arming themselves for the battle. I am beginning to wonder whether they are in reality only a body of bewildered, if well- Intentioned, politicians trying to pick up a policy out of the ditch. Instead of certainty, clearness, intensity, and earnestness of purpose, I see them full of fallings, vanishings, blank misgivings of creatures " moving about in worlds not realized." Instead of props to uphold and cherish us and to make our noisy years full of noble truths, we find in our leaders listlessness and uncertainty. We have not even the '" mad endeavour " against which Mr. Wordsworth warned his contemporaries. We are sometimes tempted to wish we had. It would be better than the dullness of sodden negation.

Though I am disappointed and distressed by the after- taste of Mr. Begbie's book, I fully admit that if his dramatis personae would only act up to the principles which he puts into their mouths all would be well. But unfortunately, I see little proof that they do so act. Take for example the admirable quotation from Disraeli which the Gentleman with a Duster makes the first sentence of his Intro- duction :—" I am a Conservative," said Disraeli, " to preserve all that is good in our Constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad." As our author says, this represents Vie politics of most reasonable people. Clearly that is true

if politics demand only lip service. If they demand action, I can only say that the words are meaningless. Mr. Begbie is, of course, too well practised a controversialist to lay him- self directly open to this criticism. He covers his flank with the statement that " difficulty arises even for reasonable people when we attempt to decide what things in our Con- stitution are good, and what things are bad." What a signal example of proving too much ! No doubt all human conduct has got to be in a certain sense casuistic and empirical, but here comes in the function of the leader. Leaders, if they are any good, have got to declare what things are bad and must be cut off, and what things are good and must be preserved. The gardener tells us these things about our fruit trees and our plantations. Why cannot the Conser- vative leaders tell them- to us about the Constitution ? But I do not mean that they should stop at telling us. They must say to us, " We have studied the matter as a whole. We are certain that the thing is bad and that it must go, and this is how we propose to get rid of it. Unless you will give us a free hand here we will lay down our leadership."

That is the stuff to give followers and that, too, is the kind of stuff followers like. But when do we get it from the

Conservative Front Bench ?

So much for the general introduction. The first study of the individual leaders is that of Mr. Stanley Baldwin. It is excellent. Though I have often criticized Mr. Baldwin, and unfortunately am almost certain to be called upon to do so again, I admit his great services and his high sincerity. He was once a leader who dared throw his cap over the hedge and call us to follow him. Why will he not be so again ?

I will quote a really excellent comparison of Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Baldwin, which seems to me quite fair and, in my opinion, well expresses the reason for preferring the Baldwin to the MacDonald view.

" Examine the mind of Mr Ramsay MacDonald and the mind of Mr. Stanley Baldwin, and you see in a moment the most vital characteristic of the present situation. Both men are earnest and unquestioning Christians. Both men are inspired with the idea of lifting up the human race from the squalid and destructive material- ism of recent times. Both men are solicitous that such should be the conditions of human life that the soul of man may become naturally conscious of its spiritual nature and its spiritual destiny, But Mr. MacDonald believes that this end is to be reached by destroying every incentive to individual enterprise which acts upon the cupidity and selfishness of the human heart."

A very brilliant piece of analysis is the account of Sir Robert Horne, though I hope I shall not be thought pedantic for saying that it is defaced by a curious lack of historical knowledge and instinct. Mr. Begbie seems to think that all country gentlemen have always been Tories, whereas, of course, it would be much truer to say that by far the greater majority of them have always been Whigs. Certainly the ideal country gentleman whom he describes, with his patriotism, his help through his younger sons in developing the Empire, his Englishry and his sturdy resistance to anything in the way of oppression or over-authoritativeness in Govern- ment, is a pure Whig. It was the Whigs who did the good work he describes, not the Tories. The Tory squires, insignificant in numbers and wealth, were very different persons. Has Mr. Begbie forgotten how Squire Western thanked God when he heard the rumour that " ten thousand honest Frenchmen " had landed on the South Coast to restore the Pretender ? He is on different and safer ground when he insists that " the historic basis of Conservatism is a close,

human, and individual sympathy with Labour ; the historic basis of Liberalism is a passion for abstract ideas." Disraeli, Sir Robert Peel, and the Young England party were, no doubt,

far more sympathetic to Labour in the 'forties than the Lan- cashire manufacturers under Cobden and Bright. In spite,

however, of this blemish, I advise my readers to study the analysis of Sir Robert Home, for it is very interesting. I hope it is all true. If it is, Sir Robert Horne ought to prove a great asset to his party. But I cannot but remark that the only way to prove it is for Sir Robert Horne to come to the

test in the field of action.

Mr. Begbie's book is full of severe criticisms of Socialism, and much of it sound and fair. On one or two occasions,

however, he shows too much party spirit, or, at any rate, has too much of the politician's inclination to indulge in taunts. That is all very well in the House of Commons and in the babble of the political auction room ; but in the printed word it is rather a non-conductor of sympathy.

With so much criticism I must take leave of The Conser- vative Mind. I confess that it has made me feel anything but happy or content. Though there are many excellent and true things in the book, as I have shown, the general effect of contemplating the Conservative mind is most depressing. I feel it will act as a poultice rather than as a stimulant. Poultices may soothe, but they are terribly enervating things.

J. ST. Lon STRACHEY.