Conservatismand Liberty
SIR, I agree with everything else in Sir Edward Pease's letter ; but I ask to be allowed to protest against his statement that a hundred, or even sixty, years ago England lived under a crust of affluent people with nothing to do except to air the notion that any kind of useful or manual work denoted inferiority. 1 give two instances only—both from my own county, which is Northamptonshire. It is nearly 120 years since. Lord Althorp, who was said to have done two things better than they had ever been done before, hunted the Pytcliley and led the House of Commons, walked from that House to the House of Lords with Lord John Russell by his side and submitted the Reform Bill to their Lordships' House. During the long and weary years during which Althorp sacrificed his love of country life to the sense of duty he stood as sturdily for the interests of the Northamptonshire shoemaker as any trade-union leader. When at the general election of 1945 I reminded a Tory meeting in Northamptonshire of all that Althorn's nephew, the popular " Bobby" Spencer, afterwards the sixth Earl Spencer and father of the present Earl, did for the agricultural labourers of Northamptonshire before there was a Socialist in Parliament, the cheering was terrific. This was remarkable, because " Bobby" was a Liberal of the Liberals and never addressed a Tory meeting in his life.—
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