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THE ORACLE OF TORYISM

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and class difference is based, and must be based, on purely temporary values, and that there are other values. The Tory thinker knows, or should know, that, apart from this fact, his loyalty to truth is more corrosive of the nation's spirit than the fundamental misconception of the Radical. Toryism, therefore, is concerned to meet the political truths of the class system with the supreme truth that all such values are but temporal, and that behind them there are others which remain eternal. In consequence, it has of necessity a special obligation to religion.

It is in some such a way that I would seek for the modern application of Disraeli's teaching. The application is implicit in his doctrine, and if this reading of it is not strained, it is clear he is not out-of-date. Rather it seems to some he will remain the perpetual oracle of Toryism. Actual fruit he did not himself live to gather, but the victorious career of the Tories in the nineties was very largely his work. But it is not from this ephemeral triumph that he would draw that sardonic satisfaction, which in other men would take the form of gratified delight. Rather

he would place above that triumph the permanent revivifying power of his philosophy, that opening of windows for a mystified and groping world upon the constant principles of government.

IV

LORD SALISBURY

UPON other occasions I have discussed with you the characters and the careers of three famous English statesmen; and I have tried to indicate that they were three examples of one type, that each had his contribution to that common stock of principles which the English Tory party exists exists to propagate. In Bolingbroke we saw the Tory statesman as a Party Leader. Burke I be

lieve to be the thinker of all thinkers who have left to us commentaries upon Tory doctrine. Disraeli, uniting the practical qualities of a Bolingbroke with the perception of a Burke, thought out for himself once more the Tory point of view, and at the same time, in a series of masterly hints, indicated how it could best find application in the national conditions of the day. I trust that my

portrait of Toryism is taking shape before your eyes; but the background is still missing; and that in this concluding lecture I shall endeavour to supply.

English Liberalism has always laid stress upon the primary importance of national well-being. This was true even before the nineteenth century-the most useful age of Liberalism-and before Bentham, whose formula-the greatest good of the greatest number-it instantly incorporated in its creed. To the Tory it has always seemed more vital to remember and to cherish national obligations and those national duties which are involved by the existence of a family of nations, and by the consideration that national action does not take place in vacuo. Organised society is endowed with powers infinitely beyond those with which the individual is equipped; and if organised society is endowed with powers, it is to the reflecting Tory a mere truism that it has in an equal degree duties unknown to the individual. It follows that a portrait of Toryism is half painted if all reference to foreign politics has been omitted; and continuing the method, which I have

HIS ANCESTOR

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hitherto employed, I shall endeavour to show you Tory principles at work in the hands of a great master.

William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth's great Minister, was born in 1520. His second son, Sir Robert Cecil, ended his life as Earl of Salisbury. Eight generations after, in direct descent, was born at Hatfield House in 1880 Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne Cecil, who on the death of his elder brother, at the age of forty-four, became heir to this venerable title, which in 1789 had been advanced to the dignity of a Marquisate. One is drawn to a comparison of the Elizabethan with the Victorian statesman. Where personal characteristics are concerned, comparison is sound enough. There is the same stately presence, the flowing beard, the forehead, which once seen can never be forgotten. There is the same sagacity, the same caution, elevated by each into a constructive force. The very prodigality of letter - writing, noted by Mr. Winston Churchill1 as a

1 Lord Salisbury wrote one hundred and ten letters to Lord Randolph Churchill alone, during the seven months of his first ministry. On 25th July he wrote

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