The Sun.
London, England, 1841-08-04 00:00:00

WHAT IS CONSERVATISM ?

What is Conservatism, is a question which the Times
has endeavoured to solve in several long articles.
The hoinely proverb says, much too hardily, it now
it appears, " You cannot make a silk purse of a sow's
ear ;" but you may call a sow's ear a silk purse, and then
you may set about explaining the qualities and uses of a
silk purse, and wherein it differs from the peculiarities
of a sow's ear ; but no matter how long or how learnedly
you lecture to such effect, the thing in your hand will
retain its unalterable characteristics, and remain, not a
silk purse, but the old original sow's car.
Toryism is not what Toryism was. True, but that
does not prove that it has become the Conservatism -de
scribed by the Times, combining the improvement of
what is defective with the preservation of all that is
sound in laws and institutions. The sow's ear severed
from the head of the most unclean and stubborn of crea-
tures is not what it was, the organ of a pig's hearing,
but the fact does not advance the argument that its
bristles have been changed to silk. The Times asserts
that the change of name suffices to show the change of
things ; but the Times might at the Old Bailey have
learnt he fallacy of such an inference, there being a
class of persons who change their names because the
hands of justice into which they fall are apt to dirty
hem.

According to Sir Robert Peel's definition of Conser-
vatism, which The Times accepts, Conservatism seems
to us to be merely a longer word for Toryism after the
Reform Bill. It is Toryism with a new start—Toryism
with a new departure, in nautical phrase.
It is pretended that there is this difference between
old Toryism and New Conservatism, that the Conserva-
tives are no friends of abuses, and are prepared to adopt
changes which the altered state of society may require.
And is it conceivable that any men could make any other
professions ? Could they avow themselves attached to
abuses ? Could they proclaim a fixed hostility to the
changes which the advances of society render necessary?
Could they avow the settled purpose to resist improve-
ment in every form? Could they declare that all exist-
ing defects in laws and institutions should be held by
them sacred and immutable? Imagine Sir Robert Peel
in a Tarnworth address avowing that he was the founder
of a party determined to maintain the vices as well as
the sound parts of ..our laws and institutions, and firmly
resolved to resist such changes as the altered circum-
stances of society may require. There have been
Tories who have acted on such a rule, but there never
was one, and never will be one, frank enough to make
the confession. They can say nothing but what they
do say, that where they find -abuses they will consent
to reform.; but- the reinarkable-fiterlirtitatJhis Con-
servative party, in the eleventh year of its age, has never
yet made the :discovery of an abuse in institutions. It
pretends that it differs from old Toryism, inasmuch as it
has the perception of what the altered circumstances of
society require, but in what single instance has it sig-
nalized its possession of this new faculty, every change
effected within the last ten years having been extorted
from it after a strenuous. opposition, with the one excep-
tion, indeed, of the Poor-law, as to which the party was,
and is divided, some, with Sir Robert Peel and the Duke
of 'Wellington, recognizing in it a change required by
circumstances, and others opposing it as an innovation,
despotic and unconstitutional in principle, and unjust
and cruel in its operation. Now it is for the Times to
explain which of these two divisions are the true Conser-
vatives, and which the old Tories. The Poor-law is the
best test to distinguish the men of the new light from
the men of the old Tory blindness, because it is the only
change since the Reforin Bill in which the leaders of. the
Conservative party have concurred and cordially co-ope-
rated. Are then the Stanhopes, Newcastles, and Win-
chasms, the Stephenses and Oastlers, the true Conser-
vatives, or the Wellingtons and Peels ?
Sir Robert Peel stands on two legs, and the Times
conjures him, for the better security of his footing, to
stand upon one, and to cut off the other.and cast it from
him ; but which is it to be ? which is the right leg,
which the left, of his party ? He has shuffled in Ins
present position by putting forth sometimes the one,.
sometimes the other. Which limb of the party is to be
amputated, the forward or the backward, the violent or
I,he moderate ?
Sir Robert Peel is in the predicament of the .11Ialade
Imaginaire, advised by his mock doctor to pluck out one
of his eyes to improve the sight of the other, and to part
with his left arm for the invigoration of the right. He
is told that he must , adopt the. principles of the party
which has raised him to power ; but he has beea raised.
by Lord Roden and the Duke of Newcastle, as well as
Ickyirieri Who dread their intemperance, and feel ashamed
of their bigotry ; and he has been raised b) the Duke of
Buckingham, with his agricultural mania, as well as by
persons who are not prepared to consent to a complete
sacrifice of the commercial to the mistaken landed inte-
rest. Both have elevated Sir Robert Peel to his position,
and *hick is he to throw down, in token of his adopted
policy ?
The Times tells him that he can afford a rupture, in
words which seem to us to have the import of—" So
much for Buckingham."
The most difficult task for Sir Robert Peel, if lie
strictly follow the advice of the Times, will be the politi-
cal regeneration required of himself. Sir Robert Peel
is, in fact, not to be Sir Robert Peel. The Sir Robert
Peel of 1841 is to be the opposite in conduct of the Sir
Robert Peel of 1829. He must renounce himself, and
all his shifts. The Times, an excellent teacher of such
things, plainly tells him that he must become a man of
principle and consistency.
Principle and expediency are, henceforth, according to
the same authority, to have their separate provinces in
the Tory policy, that is to say, there will be no principle
in their expediencies, and no expediency,in their princi-
ples. Sir Robert Peel's Government is to act on inexpe-
dient principles, and unprinCipled expedients. By the.
latter the commercial and fiscal policy is to be conducted.
—Examiner.