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Page 6
A CONSTRUCTIVE POLICY
Guildford, October 29, 1907
I am very sensible of the honour of being called on to reply for the
Unionist cause, but I approach the task with some diffidence, not to
say trepidation. I feel very conscious that I am not a very good
specimen of a party man. It is not that I do not hold strong opinions
on many public questions--in fact, that is the very trouble. My
opinions are too strong to fit well into any recognised programme. I
suffer from an inveterate habit, which is partly congenital, but which
has been developed by years spent in the service of the Crown, of
looking at public questions from other than party points of view. And
I am too old to unlearn it.
For a man so constituted there is evidently only a limited _r�le_ in
political life. But he may have his uses all the same, if you take
him for what he is, and not for what he is not, and does not pretend
to be. If he does not speak with the weight and authority of a party
leader, he is at least free from the embarrassments by which a party
leader is beset, and unhampered by the caution which a party leader is
bound to exercise. He commits nobody but himself, and therefore he can
afford to speak with a bluntness which is denied to those whose
utterances commit many thousands of other people. And I am not sure
whether the present moment is not one at which the unconventional
treatment of public questions may not be specially useful, so, whether
it be as an independent Unionist or as a friendly outsider--in
whichever light you like to regard me--I venture to contribute my mite
to the discussion.
Having now made my position clear, I will at once plunge _in medias
res_ with a few artless observations. You hear all this grumbling
which is going on just now against the Unionist leader. Well,
gentlemen, a party which is in low water always does grumble at its
leader. I have known this sort of thing happen over and over again in
my own lifetime. And the consequence is, it is all like water on a
duck's back to me; it makes no impression on me whatsoever. I remember
as long back as the late sixties and early seventies the Conservative
party were ceaselessly grumbling at Lord Beaconsfield, then Mr.
Disraeli, right up to his greatest victory and the commencement of his
longest tenure of power--almost up to the moment when he became the
permanent idol of the Conservative party. I remember how the Liberals
grumbled at Mr. Gladstone from 1873 and 1874 almost up to the opening
of the Midlothian campaign. Again, I remember how the Conservatives
grumbled at Lord Salisbury from the first moment of his accession to
the leadership right up to 1885. I can recall as well as if it were
yesterday a young Tory friend of mine--he has become a distinguished
man since, and I am not going to give him away--telling me, who was at
that time a Liberal, in the year of grace 1883 or 1884, that it was
absolutely hopeless for the Tory party ever to expect to come back
into power with such a leader as Lord Salisbury. He called him a
"Professor." He said, "No doubt he is a very able man and an excellent
speaker, but he is a man of science. He has no popular gifts whatever.
There is not a ghost of a chance of a Conservative victory so long as
he is in command." Yet that was not more than two years before Lord
Salisbury commenced a series of Premierships which kept him, for some
thirteen and a half years out of seventeen, at the helm of the State.
With all these experiences to look back upon it is really impossible
for me to be much affected by the passing wave of dissatisfaction with
Mr. Balfour. Men of first-rate ability and character are rare. Still
rarer are men who, having those qualities, also have the knack of
compelling the attention and respect even of a hostile House of
Commons. When a party possesses a leader with all these gifts, it is
not likely to change him in a hurry.
But if I refuse to take a gloomy view of the Unionist leadership, I
must admit that I am not altogether an optimist about the immediate
prospects of Unionism. There is no doubt a bright side to the picture
as well as a less encouraging one. The bright side, from the party
point of view, is afforded by the hopeless chaos of opinion in the
ranks of our opponents--by the total absence of any clear conviction
or definite line whatever in the counsels of the Government, which
causes Ministers to dash wildly from measure to measure in
endeavouring to satisfy first one section and then another section of
their motley following, and which prevents them from ever giving
really adequate attention to any one of their proposals.
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