Published by Vol. XL No. 10 ECONOMIC AMERICAN INSTITUTE EDUCATION for BULLETIN ECONOMIC RESEARCH October 2000 Great Barrington, Massachusetts 01230

A Life of a Statesman by John H. Wood*

In a political culture that celebrates the virtues of opinion polls and political correctness, the behavior of a genuine statesman, however alien to contemporary norms, may yet be instructive. AIER Faculty Associate John Wood’s review of Andrew Roberts’ Salisbury: Victorian Titan, is a case in point.1 —Ed. I’m in favor of progress as much as anyone, ment? … If, while he is about it, he will insert a but as slowly as possible. clause forbidding the dirt to accumulate on the win- dow-panes, he will be conferring a real service on Whatever happens will be for the worse, and the metropolis.” A bill to require chairs for shop as- therefore it is in our interest that as little sistants and housemaids provoked him to inquire should happen as possible. whether Parliament was “prepared to have an army of inspectors to examine the house of every house- The use of conservatism is to delay changes holder to see that there are a number of chairs placed ‘till they become harmless. at stated intervals, so that at each moment of exhaus- tion the housemaid may sit down in comfort.” Put- The 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, architect of the ting such “impediments” in the way of employers modern Conservative Party and ’s would only reduce the demand for women’s labor. longest-serving Prime Minister—fourteen years “You can no more act against the operation of great (1885-92 and 1895-1902), exceeding William economic laws than you can act against the laws of Gladstone’s thirteen years and Benjamin Disraeli’s the weather.” He believed that “all Parliament can six—was an unapologetic conservative. He believed really do is to free the energies and support the ef- that the first duty of government was to defend the forts of an intelligent and industrious people.” liberties and property of its citizens, and was not Andrew Roberts has given us an informative and inclined to sympathize with the burdens involved in entertaining account of the most successful conser- the exercise of those liberties. “By a free country,” vative of the 19th century, dedicated to Margaret he told a Working Men’s Conservative Association, Thatcher, the most successful conservative of the 20th “I mean a country where people are allowed, so long century. It is the first full-length biography of Lord as they do not hurt their neighbours, to do as they Salisbury for nearly half a century, and is overdue.2 like. I do not mean a country where six men may Less well-known to posterity than Disraeli or make five men do exactly as they like,” usually by Gladstone, Salisbury’s contributions to the policies means of a civil servant who thinks that “he himself and political life of the country were deeper and more is the best person to decide.” lasting, although less spectacular, even pedestrian in When a bill was introduced to limit accidents to their constancy and refusal to promise “the moon servants from falling from windows while cleaning and sixpence.” or repairing them, Salisbury asked: “Does he pro- The comparison with Mrs. Thatcher is apt. Both pose to repeal the law of gravitation by Act of Parlia- fought to protect the rights of the individual from the

* Dr. Wood is Reynolds Professor of Economics at Wake 2 Salisbury, by A. L. Kennedy (London, John Murray, 1953), Forest University. is also recommended; as is Gwendolen Cecil’s (his young- 1 Salisbury: Victorian Titan, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, est, unmarried, daughter and secretary) four volume biogra- 1999, pp. 949, £25.00, hardbound. phy (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1932). 1 transgressions of the state. But Salisbury was in the Salisbury was criticized from the right and left literal sense more conservative than Thatcher. She for socialism and excessive attachment to classical took on the reactionary task of recovering economic principles. But he would not be limited individualism’s losses to the emergency pressures of by theories, however appealing in the abstract. This two world wars and the Great Depression—to some- applied to the great issue of free trade versus pro- thing like the conditions that Salisbury spent his life tection. He thought laissez-faire “an admirable doc- defending. But Salisbury’s conservatism did not rule trine,” and the great land-owner had shifted his in- out change, any more than Thatcher’s. Quite the con- clination with the country’s industrial and commer- trary. The 20th century has demonstrated—not only cial interests from protection toward free-trade. But in eastern Europe—that interventionist Governments, he would not bow to dogma. His party and country through their regulations and public ownership, are were divided on the issue, and as a politician he was the most obstructive to change. Private initiatives are bound to respect the divergent positions. Moreover, stifled least by conservative governments, where con- this accorded with his respect for individual inter- servatism is understood to mean, as Salisbury and ests, which were more genuine than the “public in- Thatcher meant it, the defense of personal freedom. terest” invented for political gain. Pleading in the Conservatism so understood does not rule out gov- House of Lords on behalf of domestic industries ernment adaptations to change. For example, suffering from foreign tariffs, he denied that he Salisbury favored limited state finance of better work- wanted a policy of protection. But, he told an audi- ing-class housing. Because “the grave injury, both to ence in Bradford, “in spite of any formula, in spite morality and to health, is more generally recognized” of any cry of Free Trade, if I saw by raising the duty than in earlier times, he wrote in the Quarterly Re- on knives, or threatening to raise it, I could exercise view in 1883, the Government should address “this pressure on a foreign power, inducing it to lower misery and degradation, which casts so terrible a rates and give relief, I should pitch orthodoxy and shadow over our prosperity.” Governments had un- formulae to the winds and exercise pressure.” He dertaken or encouraged programs—such as new and opposed tariffs on grain because “the amount of wider streets, railways, viaducts, law courts, and the corn that we produce is so very short of the amount Thames Embankment—where the poor had lived, necessary to feed our people.” But in general, “I thus “packing the people tighter.” He did not see believe that freedom from the self-imposed tram- why, when the Government had provided cheap fi- mels of particular theories is necessary if you want nance to landowners for irrigation schemes and to to deal with the world as it is.” He noticed that transport companies for suburban commuters, it could “When great men get drunk with a theory, it is the not do the same for worker housing. This was better little men who have the headache.” than the coercion involved in taxing the well-off to You should never trust experts. If you be- pay for Government programs or seizures of prop- lieve the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if erty under eminent domain. When some of his party you believe the theologians, nothing is inno- wanted to compete for the vote of agricultural labor- cent; if you believe the soldiers, nothing is ers by using compulsory purchase to provide them safe. They all require to have their strong wine with allotments on which to grow their own fruits diluted by a very large admixture of insipid and vegetables, Salisbury objected. He did not op- common sense. pose legislation to facilitate small-holdings. But he drew the line at compulsion. “We must work at less speed and at a lower tem- perature than our opponents,” Salisbury advised his Land has never been taken forcibly by Par- impatient colleague, Randolph Churchill. “Our bills liament from one individual merely to benefit must be tentative and cautious; not sweeping and another individual. The principle so introduced dramatic.” He looked upon Parliament “as more use- will spread. The restriction to one acre is purely ful for what it prevents than what it performs.” When artificial, and will speedily be overstepped. a Cabinet colleague proposed a bill and warned that After this bill is passed there will be no course it would lead to a great deal of discussion and waste of precedent or accepted practice to restrain it. of time, Salisbury asked: “Isn’t that just what we The extension to any class of men of the ben- want?” He regarded most of political activity as efits of expropriation at their neighbours’ ex- “loot … under a thick varnish of pious phrases,” pense will depend solely upon the possession and his foremost political goal was to keep of sufficient electoral power to disquiet a cer- Gladstone—“an old man in a hurry”—out of power. tain number of Conservative members. But he would not bid against the Liberals for what

2 he regarded as passing popular approval. He re- dards under which the harshness of a boy’s treatment sisted attempts by Disraeli, Churchill, and Joseph increased with the wealth and position of his family. Chamberlain “to steal the Liberals’ clothes.” He did Robert was a delicate child, given to colds made not want to encourage expectations of an active Con- more severe by a Spartan regimen of cold baths and servative program. “People imagine that where an the absence of warm clothing—no flannel was al- evil exists, the Queen, the Lords, and the Commons lowed next to the skin and no overcoat in the winter. should stop it,” he complained. “I wonder they have His mother died when he was nine, his father was not brought on an Act of Parliament to stop usually away, his siblings were separated from him unfavourable weather on the occasion of political in age, and his boyhood was spent in “pathetic lone- demonstrations.” liness” in a great house among forty servants, much of the time alone in its well-stocked library. “As a The Cecils of result,” Roberts tells us, “he became sensitive, soli- Salisbury’s philosophy of Government was con- tary, highly strung and phenomenally well read.” sistent with the Cecil family motto, “Late but in Ear- Salisbury later wrote of his shyness: “Nobody pities nest.” He was born Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne- the unfortunate victim to it…. Most people who do Cecil, the second surviving son of the 2nd Marquess not happen to be afflicted in that way look upon it as of Salisbury, on February 3, 1830, at Hatfield House a deliberate offence against themselves, planned for twenty-five miles north of Westminster. The name their especial annoyance.” He had no intimate friends “Robert” was carried down from the 1st Earl of until he married and had children of his own. His Salisbury, chief adviser to and James I. time at Eton, “then a monument to child’s inhuman- “Arthur” was after a godfather, the Duke of ity to child,” was unhappy, and increased his aver- Wellington, prime minister of the day. Another god- sion to society. During school holidays, he would father was the Earl of Shrewsbury, whose Talbot fam- step into doorways to avoid his schoolmates and even ily were long-standing allies and kinsmen of the those from whom he had nothing to fear. “To take a Cecils. “Gascoyne” was the family name of his walk with him,” his daughter later wrote, “was to mother, whose Liverpool commercial fortune was realize with some accuracy what must be the feelings supplied for hyphenation with an ancient noble name. of a criminal escaping from justice.” Hatfield was received in a trade with James I, who His indifference to, even dislike of, popularity fit- preferred the earl’s previous home. Henry VIII had ted his approach to politics. His electioneering sought housed his children and out-of-favor wives at Hatfield, the respect and confidence of the electorate, not their a practice extended by his daughter Mary to her half- love. He believed that the best relief of poverty was sister, and one may see the Queen Elizabeth oak un- the protection of property. He did not believe that der which she received the news of her accession to social problems could be solved with Government the throne from her confidant, William Cecil, later money, and was skeptical of private benevolence. He Lord Burghley. Burghley’s son by his first wife suc- likened both to the attempt by the Governor of Ja- ceeded to his title and became the Earl of Exeter. maica to rid the island of snakes by paying a bounty Robert was his son by his second wife. The connec- on heads brought to him, and only succeeded in in- tion between the Cecils and the English crown goes creasing the number by encouraging their breeding. back to the fifteenth century. The Welsh David Cecil Made personally uncomfortable by compliments— was a supporter of Henry Tudor, fought with him at “discreditable to the utterer, and odious to the re- Bosworth Field, and became a Yeoman of the Guard. ceiver”—he also rejected Government by opinion poll. “Cecil” is an anglicized form of the Old Welsh Statesmen ought to be more than straws in the wind, “Sitsilt” or “Sessylt,” which explains its rhyme with swayed by the Opposition and the press. Otherwise: “whistle” instead of “wrestle.” The 7th was made a marquess by We are to be governed … by a set of weath- George III. The 2nd Marquess, father of the subject of ercocks, delicately poised, warranted to indi- this review, was born in 1791, added significantly to cate with unswerving accuracy every varia- the family estates by his marriage to the Gascoyne tion in public feeling. A gentleman from the heiress, and dabbled in politics, mainly in support of office of The Times will do it for a tenth part the land-owning protectionist sentiment of the House [of the prime minister’s salary] and probably of Lords. He was known as a tough landowner, coun- do it better…. If the functions of a Minister try sportsman, magistrate, Lord Lieutenant of are reduced to those of a head clerk, it will be Middlesex, and severe father, although this judgment difficult to induce anyone but head clerks to is by modern rather than 19th century English stan- assume them.

3 Many of his memorable observations were made key on humanitarian grounds and its usefulness as while earning a living as a writer for intellectual jour- the main obstacle to Russian access to the Mediterra- nals. His income was cut off when the twenty-six nean, Britain’s route to the East, and maintained a year-old younger son without prospects—unsuited more-or-less neutral stance. In 1877, Britain joined for the military and without a calling to the church, other countries in proposing internal reforms to the although deeply religious—married a middle-class Sultan, including greater autonomy for the rebellious woman of modest means against his father’s will. regions of Bosnia, Hersegovina, and Bulgaria. When But the marriage was successful and he succeeded in these were rejected, Russia declared war and its army supporting a growing family with his pen. Acquain- advanced to the outskirts of Constantinople. The peace tances universally reported a happy home life, and he treaty imposed on Turkey at San Stefano on March enjoyed his children and grandchildren. They were 3, 1878, provided for a greatly enlarged Bulgaria, free to slide down the banisters and have paper sword extending from the Danube to the Aegean, that would fights on the stairs of the ancient mansion, and bounce dominate the Balkans and be occupied by Russia for on his lap and pull his beard. In contrast with most two years. By this treaty, Russia revoked the limits people, he became more playful as he grew older. He on its territory agreed between the European powers was tolerant of colleagues as well as children, and in the Treaty of Paris at the end of the Crimean War. the former missed his witty diffusions of difficult Russia rejected a British protest, Austria did not situations when he was absent from Cabinet meet- feel able to confront Russia, and France and Ger- ings. He respected both groups—“My father treats many also hesitated. At this point, Britain launched a me like an ambassador and I do enjoy it,” his eldest series of rapid and skillful foreign policy maneuvers, son said—and let people run their ministries without backed by a show of force. Disraeli and Salisbury, interference. “You don’t jog a man’s elbow when he then Secretary of State for India, prevailed on the is holding the reins,” he used to say. Cabinet to move the fleet into Turkish waters, call out the reserves, and order troops from India to the The Foreign Office Mediterranean. The , Lord Derby, Salisbury’s political career began at age twenty- opposed these actions, and resigned. He was suc- three with a safe seat in the House of Commons pro- ceeded by Salisbury, who promptly issued his fa- vided by a cousin, the . His elder mous circular. Its details are less important than the brother died, and he succeeded to the Marquessate principles that it embodied. British interests were of and the House of Lords in 1868. He was a political course paramount, which meant resistance to Rus- rebel, impatient of working in harness with Disraeli sian ascendancy over the eastern Mediterranean. Fur- and other Conservative leaders whom he thought too thermore, the peace of Europe depended on the ac- sensitive to the popular mood. But the weight of his commodation of diverse interests. Unilateral alter- intellect, forcibly expressed in debate, and his con- ations affecting the group were unacceptable. stancy brought him to the forefront of the party. His Salisbury got Germany, France, Austria, Italy, and a greatest interest was foreign affairs, in which he had reluctant Russia to attend the Congress of Berlin, distinguished himself as a journalist. As prime min- under the chairmanship of Bismarck, where Russia’s ister, he was usually his own foreign secretary, and domination of the Balkans was denied. The Treaty of said that he preferred the latter office without the Paris was reasserted in Europe, although Russia was distractions of the former. Perhaps his greatest con- allowed to keep its conquests in Asiatic Turkey. tribution to peace, which set the course of British This was more than a face-saving gesture because policy in Europe for the next quarter century, was his the Western powers would have been hard-pressed circular of April 1, 1878, to the principal European to control Russian actions in Asia—which brings us capitals. to another of Salisbury’s principles: do not threaten The power vacuum left by the decline of the Otto- what cannot be enforced. He would not publicly pro- man Empire, the Sick Man of Europe, was a continu- test Turkish massacres in Armenia because “Our ships ing source of irritation between the Great Powers. will not surmount the mountains of Taurus,” and of- Turkey was unable to defend its vast borders, and fended the Archbishop of Canterbury by trying to Christian populations were outraged by stories of dampen agitation over the Armenians’ plight “lest Turkish atrocities in the repressions of its Asian and our utterances in the House of Lords” should exas- Balkan subjects. War with Russia, whose posture as perate feelings in Turkey and induce, “not a mitiga- defender of Slavs fitted conveniently with its territo- tion of abuses, but a more furious attempt to frighten rial ambitions, was always imminent or actual. Brit- the wretched creatures from crying out.” ish Cabinets were divided between hostility to Tur- Salisbury’s earliest writings on foreign policy had

4 been criticisms of Lord John Russell, “a born school- electorate’s appetite for spoils and punishment. master elevated to the Foreign Office,” who imposed Salisbury opposed involvement in other countries’ a “tariff of insolence” to small countries while refus- domestic politics. ing to face up to the larger ones. His foreign policy The assemblies that meet in Westminster was a “sequence of snarling remonstrance, officious have no jurisdiction over the affairs of other advice, treacherous encouragement, and shameless nations. Neither they nor the Executive, ex- abandonment.” One thinks of Britain’s betrayal of cept in plain defiance of international law, can Czechoslovakia at Munich. Disraeli’s claim after the interfere with the brigandage of Italy, or the Congress of Berlin that “We have brought a peace, persecutions in Spain, or the teaching of the and we trust we have brought a peace with honour,” schools in Schleswig. What is said about them had merit, unlike Neville Chamberlain’s eighty years in either House is simple impertinence…. It later, which brought neither. is not a dignified position for a Great Power Firmness, always remembering that “A willing- to occupy, to be pointed out as the busybody ness to fight is the point d’appui of diplomacy, just of Christendom. as much as a readiness to go to court is the starting point of a lawyer’s letter,” was essential to the main- Furthermore, British complaints about the mis- tenance of the peace. The modern method of polling deeds of others might with justice be turned on itself, small countries, whether members of NATO or the particularly the administration of Ireland. United Nations, inhibits timely and resolute action He opposed military alliances as more likely to by the powers that matter. It is difficult to believe cause than to prevent war, and furthermore, he did that Salisbury would not have held the League of not believe that a representative Government could Nations in contempt. It would have been as ineffec- bind its successors to go to war at an unknown date tual before Russia in 1878 at San Stefano as it was for unforeseeable reasons. He was accused of being before a much weaker Italy in 1936 in Ethiopia. Nor an isolationist, but he believed that Britain could best would he have stood for the punitive Treaty of further European peace as an honest—though inter- Versailles. He did not allow his sentiments to inter- ested—broker. Overtures for alliances came from fere with British interests and peace. He would have Germany and France, but although he might lean had no sympathy with the popular cry to “Make the toward a particular country or bloc, he wanted free- Hun pay.” High among his heroes was Lord dom of maneuver. Castlereagh, made unpopular by his lack of vengeance He also opposed trading blocs. He was devoted to toward France in the treaties at the end of the Napo- the preservation of the for the fore- leonic Wars. Castlereagh believed that a lasting peace seeable future, but had little of the racism of the day depended on the accommodation of interests, look- or any belief in “manifest destiny” at the expense of ing toward the future, not taking revenge for the past. the weak. He had no desire to expand the Empire, but Vengeance breeds resentment and retaliation. “It is thought, in addition to its benefits to the home coun- not the business of England to collect trophies,” try, it offered order and prosperity to many peoples Castlereagh asserted, “but to restore Europe to peace- that they might not otherwise have had—not because ful habits.” A contemporary critic wrote: “It will be of inherent unfitness on their part, but rather insuffi- hard if France is to pay nothing for the destruction of cient experience of Government. Nevertheless, he Europe and we are to pay for saving it.” But these thought that much of the talk of Empire was mere were not the terms in which Castlereagh thought. jingoistic nonsense. He paid little attention to the “He cared for nationality not at all,” Salisbury wrote Imperial Federation League, which wanted “closer of his hero, “for the theoretic perfection of political and more substantial union,” and wrote to an Austra- institutions very little, for the realities of freedom a lian correspondent in 1889 that federation “involves great deal, and for the peace and social order and a considerable sacrifice on the part of England and freedom from the manifold curses of disturbance the independence which she at present possesses.” which can alone give to the humbler masses of man- The tariffs on non-imperial goods that federation im- kind any chance of tasting their scanty share of hu- plied made little sense in a world in which, between man joys—for the sake of this he was ready to forego 1883 and 1892, British exports to the Empire fell all the rest.” How different from David Lloyd George from £90 million to £81 million while rising to oth- and Bonar Law, leaders of the coalition Government, ers from £215 million to £291 million. Similar points whose acquiescence to Clemenceau at Versailles has might be made of contemporary Britain and Europe, been excused by themselves and their biographers on although about half of Britain’s trade is with the Eu- the grounds of the futility of resistance to the ropean Union. It is not clear how either free trade or

5 the peace of Europe requires, in Salisbury’s words, But the party of Salisbury did change and grow, the sacrifice of Britain’s independence. spreading its protective wings over property in all its Probably no one could have held off a major Euro- forms—aided by the internal conflicts that tore the pean war indefinitely in the presence of the Balkan Liberal Party apart. tinderbox, conflicting territorial ambitions, and The issue that completed the Whig shift to the French-German enmity, exacerbated by an unstable Conservative Party was Gladstone’s sudden con- Kaiser. But the Triple Entente of Britain, France, and version in 1885 to Irish Home Rule, based on the Russia, established after Salisbury’s death in 1903, convictions that the majority of Irish desired sepa- and the Dual Alliance of Germany and Austria bol- ration and that the main island would be well rid of stered rather than moderated the aggressive senti- a running sore. But he underestimated the Protes- ments of its members. Britain discarded its freedom tant minority’s opposition to a Catholic state and of maneuver to deal with Sarajevo that Salisbury had their support in Westminster. A bloc of Liberal nurtured in the face of popular criticisms of isolation. Unionists shifted to the renamed Conservative and Unionist Party, with a leader, Salisbury, who had Building a Party declared that “We must not desert the loyal people Between 1832 and 1884, Britain’s electorate of Ulster.” He stood by the people who had been changed and expanded from a few property owners, induced by his ancestor to settle in Ulster. “We are largely exclusive of industrial areas, voting in open to cut our country in two,” he protested, “and in the elections, to universal adult male suffrage with a se- smaller portion, we are to abandon a minority of cret ballot. Salisbury was pessimistic about the Con- our own blood and religion to the power of their servative Party’s prospects in this environment, and ancient enemies, in spite of their bitter protest against in fact it held office only fifteen years, with a clear the debasing and ruinous servitude to which we pro- majority in six, of the fifty-three years following the pose to leave them.” Reform Act of 1832. He observed that people voted Ireland’s problems continued. Neither Gladstone according to their self-interest, and assumed that when nor Salisbury could erase centuries of accumulating the poor got the vote, they would do the same. The hatred. The latter’s duty as he saw it was the preser- traditional ruling classes knew that they could not vation of order and property by enforcement of the press their position too far without provoking unrest. law—pacification. This failed to bring peace or rec- But the working class would not be so restrained, he onciliation. On the other hand, it is difficult to ac- thought. They would shift taxes from themselves (al- cept the glib judgment of Gladstone’s latest biogra- though it is interesting to note that property taxes pher, Roy Jenkins, the former Labour minister, who were already the main source of government rev- pointed to the “vast benefit [that] would have fol- enue) and “divide the lands of the rich among them.” lowed from an Irish settlement in the 1880s, thirty They would support governments that catered to them, years before the Easter Rising.” The opportunity governments that regulated markets and working con- was rejected by Salisbury, the “cynical pessimist,” ditions and distributed property in their interests. while the “courageous” and “passionate” Gladstone Yet the Conservatives became the Party of Gov- lacked the “tactical dexterity to match his strategic ernment, in power, often with substantial majorities, vision”—as if an Act of Parliament secured by a eighteen of the twenty-one years after 1884, and two- clever manipulation of fundamental interests would thirds of the twentieth century. How can this be ex- have been sufficient. plained? Apparently, the working class had a better Salisbury’s other great failure was South Africa. understanding of its interests—as good as the tradi- British Governments had long envisioned the forma- tional ruling classes—than Salisbury had realized. tion of a Union of South Africa, under the British Most of them, most of the time, agreed with him that Crown, with constitutional protections for the rights the best way to comfort and self-respect was the ac- of its constituent groups, particularly the white Brit- cumulation and defense of property rather than its ish minority but also the native African populations. seizure. The increasingly interventionist Liberal Party, But the dominant white group, the Boer descendants ever more inclined to substitute the state for indi- of 16th-century Dutch settlers, fiercely resisted in- vidual decisions, as even Gladstone sometimes com- fringements of their independence. The Boer War of plained, overestimated its attractions for the poor as 1899-1902 was finally concluded with a British mili- well as its hold on its Whig contingent, the entrepre- tary victory, although at great cost in lives, resources, neurial and professional classes that had felt more at and British prestige. The removal of large parts of home with the new Liberal party of reform than the the population to guarded camps to eliminate their old Tory protectors of land and resistance to change. support of Boer guerillas, where thousands died from

6 malnutrition and disease, was the origin of the term should remember that it would be pedestrian and bor- “concentration camp.” The political development of ing. “I am afraid of not being dull enough,” Salisbury the Union soon demonstrated that the Boer defeat said of his speeches, and tried to limit their num- was illusionary. ber—“If we speak to the electors too constantly when Salisbury had written in 1864 that the British army we have very little to say, they will not listen to us so was unfitted to fight irregular forces. It had been readily when we have a great deal to say”—and sen- outmaneuvered in the American War of Independence sual appeal. Fearing the over-extension of the Em- and frequently in Africa. Perhaps, in his determina- pire because of “our imperial spirit,” he said that tion to maintain the integrity of the British Empire, “those things are matters of business and must be he failed to see that the problem lay not with the considered upon business principles. The dangerous army but with the impossibility of defeating a popu- temptation of the hour is that we should consider lation—American, Irish, or African. rhapsody an adequate compensation for calculation.” This danger is not limited to policies of Empire. Lessons for our time? Questions of Empire are no longer relevant for Salisbury was not innocent of taking short-term democratic countries committed to respect for politi- political advantage, but by and large he built a party cal self-determination. But firmness, constancy, and and held power without bread and circuses, without respect are as important today as in the 19th cen- “stealing the Liberals’ clothes.” He offered prizes for tury—in foreign as well as domestic affairs. Do not the long term—security of person and property. “If I threaten what will not be backed up, stay out of other were asked to define Conservative policy, I should peoples’ affairs that do not directly impinge on one’s say it was the upholding of confidence.” His role for own interests, and in other ways pursue a predictable Government in a changing world was to clear away policy that is defined in terms of the national interest. obstacles to opportunity and personal freedom, and Consultations and joint actions with interested pow- to preserve the peace. But its active responsibilities ers are essential, but a coherent policy is impossible were less important than keeping out of the way “of if it is subjected to literally irresponsible international an intelligent and industrious people” and to do as votes. This was too obvious for words in Salisbury’s little harm as possible at home and abroad. Could a time, and needs to be relearned. Limiting actions to modern party that lived up to these aspirations be one’s own interests is as important in international as electorally successful? Before we say “yes,” we domestic affairs.

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