SIR STAFFORD NORTHOOTE'S PERSONAL BIAS.
THE more recent Leaders of the Tory Party may, in some sense, be called Conservative, Radical, Whig, and Tory leaders of the Tories. The late Sir Robert Peel was nothing, if not Conservative. He always clung to the past, till the past was no longer tenable by a sane statesman, and then opened his eyes,—apparently almost with a start,—to the light. His
temperament was essentially Conservative. His imagi- nation never revelled in dreams of change. When his reason was at last convinced, he gave up the old ground with reluctance, and only because, as a reasoning being, he was unable longer to justify himself in retaining it. Mr. Disraeli was a leader of a totally different typo, It is obvious, not only from his early career but also from his later career, that his imagination was of the Radical order. He was always considering what a great Radical leader might achieve,—what would appeal effectually to the passions of the English people,—what a brilliant dreamer of dreams might succeed in translating into the world of action. Indeed, a good deal of his own most characteristic Tory policy was duo to this side of his mind,—to his wish to discover how he might countermine the enemy by the use of his own weapons. And you see in his speeches that he always set his mind to imagine what still more Radical policy there might be, which would outshine the Radical policy actually in vogue, and might be made the means of shedding some discredit upon it. Mr. Gladstone only recently quoted Mr. Disraeli's advice in 1870 to refer the differences between an Irish tenant- farmer and his landlord, on the subject of rent, to a Court of Justice which might decide what a fair rent was. And that policy ho suggested in 1870, because it was more Radical than the policy then adopted by the Liberal Ministry of the day, and looked at once bolder and more effectual than the compro- mise which that Ministry had adopted. Mr. Disraeli led the Tories with a sort of compendium of Radical ideas always present to his brain,—ideas used, of course, by him chiefly in the way of suggesting n awful warnings," but not the less betraying at times the temper of longing and sympathy with which he handled the dangerous weapons of the foe. Sir Stafford Northcote is a Conservative leader of a very different type from either of these. It is obvious enough that he has none of the late Sir Robert Peel's wistful clinging to the past. Still less has be any sympathy with Mr. Disraeli's audacious excursions into the possible Radicalisms of the future. His temperament is the typical Whig temperament, i.e., the temperament which inclines to reasonable improvements of all kinds, so long as they can be carried out without either disturbing the customary aristocratic control over them, or appealing to that popular enthusiasm which is so dangerous to the principle of aristocratic control. Sir Stafford Northcote shows no ten- dency to cling to the past. He generally indicates his own personal sympathy with a reasonable view, even when he is obliged by party necessities to oppose it. He has the temper of a thoughtful official, who knows how necessary judicious reform is, and who is quite destitute of any superstitious predilections in the matter. Listen to Sir Stafford Northcote at Manchester, and you see how little he is capable of any either of the true Conservative or the true Tory horror of innovation. His dislike to the Irish Land Bill is not in the least dislike of either the Conservative or the Tory kind. It is neither the dislike of Mr. Nowdegate nor the dislike of Lord Salisbury, but the dislike of such Liberals as Lord Fortescuo,
or Lord E. Fitzmaurice, or Mr. Brand. He dislikes it partly for the popular enthusiasm out of which it has arisen. His saying that not ten persons on either side of the House had the slightest faith in it, after 852 Members had voted for the second reading, was just the saying of an official critic who poolapocibs a " heroic remedy." He dislikes it partly, too, be- cause it diminishes the power of landowners ; partly because 1.ts le a much-bepraised popular specific ; and partly because it I not conceived in the orthodox economist school. But even 'I se) he shows no violence against it. He criticises it with per- (fect moderation. His tendency is rather to indulge a certain
contempt for it, than any anger against it. A greater contrast than his tone and Lord Salisbury's in relation to it could hardly be. Sir Stafford Northoote looks at it with a doubtful official eye, predicting that these new remedies are of no use,—that Ireland wants capital, and that Land Bills like these frighten away capital, —while Lord Salisbury looks at its author as the Furies looked at Orestes when they were pursuing him with their vengeance for matricide, and would, if he could, have pursued with inextinguishable rancour—with the worm that dioth not and the fire that is not quenched—the spirit of " the darker and more dangerous spirit " who controls the Government. If Sir Robert Peel has been the only genuine Conservative among the recent Leaders of the Conservative Party, Lord Salisbury is, we think, the only Tory amongst them. Mr. Disraeli was a Radical-Tory, and Sir Stafford Northcote is essentially a Whig- Conservative.
Indeed, we should say that if Sir Stafford Northoote had but as much fire, straightforwardness, and volition as he has sobriety and rationality, there could hardly be a better Leader for the Conservatives than he.' You could not easily imagine a better type of speech, for party purposes, than the speech of Wednes- day at Manchester. It was—in all but a certain peevish feeling as to the Budget, which he would have liked to see more in danger of a deficit,—eminently good-humoured ; it was discriminatingly critical, and knew the weak points of his antagonists' position ; it was not without humour ; and it was not without candour, a quality in which Sir Stafford North- cote has sometimes been sadly deficient. But the real ques- tion is, how a Whig-Conservative like Sir Stafford Northcote, who is so very easily carried away from his moorings by stronger men than himself, is to sustain this general line of action in Parliament, when he is compelled to co.operate with a Tory-Conservative like Lord Salisbury, with the House of Lords at his back. We fear that Sir Stafford will prove quite unequal to the situation ; that ho will repeat the errors of the last five years, during which he has so often strenuously defended acts of his colleagues that his own clearer judgment had protested against while the issue remained within his own power ; and that he will consequently fall in the estimation of the country, through failing to impose his own sobriety of view on those with whom ho acts, and making himself answerable for words and deeds entirely alien to the temper of his own reasonable, cautious, sober, and rather official view of political evil and political good. Moderation is a fine quality, when combined with a strong will. When combined with a weak will, it is too apt to result in passionless mischief,—which, of all sorts of mischief, is perhaps the worst.
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