The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-05-22 00:00:00

THEY MUST BIDE THEIR TIME.

The Times of Wednesday (in a leader), in anticipation of
the meeting of Lord Beaconsfield's supporters,says :
"Lord Beaconsfield will rarely have had his powers
of resource as a leader more urgently called upon.
After conducting the party with great success
through more than six years of Parliamentary work,
he has led them to a general engagement in the con-
stituencies, at which ,they have received a crushing
defeat; and he has to rally them once more
in the hope of better fortune in the future.
Few Parliamentary leaders could be more com-
petent for such a task. No living politician
has had more experience than Lord Beaconsfield of
the cold shade of Opposition, or has maintained a more
resolute attitude under defeat. He has been the
leader of the Conservatives in the Lower House for
more than a generation, and during the greater part of
that time he has been in a conspicuous Minority. It
seemed for a long time as if it had become a part of
the course of nature that the Liberals should be in
power and .that the Conservatives should simply be
strong enough to hold them in check. Patience and
resolution at length had their reward, and after
two brief intervals of transitory power, Mr.
Disraeli at length led his party in 1874 to
as lung a tenure of office as any Ministry
can expect. They would be unreasonable if, after such
an experience, they were disheartened by even such a
reverse as the present; but, apart from all special
grounds for encouragement, it is characteristic of the
position of the Conservative party that it need never
be daunted by a defeat. It may be said to differ from
the Liberal party in representing a more permanent
force in the country. The Liberal party, by force of
its very virtue, is constantly changing some of its'cha-
racteristics, and its claims to popular support are in
consequence perpetually varying. It is rarely that it can
go to the constituencies, as at the recent election, on a.
simple cry for a change of Government, without any de-
finite programme of policy. But this is a cry always
possible to the Conservative party, and not unfre-
quently it is all they need. Their strength lies in the
fact that the permanent forces of the country are
almost always in their favour. The dominant
influences of old institutions, of the great professions,
of the leading commercial interests, tend, on- the
whole, to the Conservative side. In this respect the
Liberals have injured themselves by their own good
deeds. They have removed the fetters which formerly
hampered some of these interests, and have placed
them in so satisfactory a position that henceforth their
chief desire is to be let alone. As the backbone of
all this Conservative feeling, there is a.powerful social
and aristocratical organization, which is in spirit
thoroughly congenial with the feeling of the people at
large. We are, on the whole, a thoroughly aristo-
cratic nation, and when there is no particular urgency
for -measures of reform or for a change of foreign
policy, there is a large body of electors always ready
to fall into the ranks, as it were, behind the Conser-
vative leaders of our social life. One consequence of
this state of things is that the Conservatives are
never so uncomfortable in Opposition as the Liberals.
They are always at home, and the shade in which
they have for the most part .to sit is never cold.
They are a social rather than a political party, and
in their main elements they are constant and un-
changing: The Liberal tide sweeps
.over them from
time to time,-but they emerge like the rock, very little
worn away by the attrition, and always in their
place to enjoy the passing sunshine. It is not neces-
sary, therefore, for their leader on an occasion like
the present to offer any special consolation or encour-
agement. If he is able to do it, so much, of course,
the better. But all that is absolutely requisite for
him is to induce his followers to bide their time."