THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 5 8 3
the sake of something that is not liberty, and conservative for an object to be conserved; and in a jungle of other motives besides the reason of state we cannot often eliminate unadulterated or disinterested conservatism. vVe think of land and capital, tradition and custom, the aristocracy and the services, the crown and the altar. I t is the singular superiority of Hamilton that he is really anxious about nothing but the exceeding difficulty of quelling the centrifugal forces, and that no kindred and coequal po\vers divide his attachment or intercept his view. Therefore he is the most scientific of conservative thinkers, and there is not one in whom the doctrine that prefers the ship to the crew can be so profitably studied, In his scruple to do justice to conservative doctrine Mr. Bryce extracts a passage from a letter of Canning to Croker which, by itself, does not adequately represent that minister's views. "Am I to understand, then, that you consider the king as completely in the hands of the Tory aristocracy as his father, or rather as George II. was in the hands of the Whigs? If so, George I I I. reigned, and Mr. Pitt (both father and son) administered the government, in vain. I have a better opinion of the real vigour of the crown when it chooses to put forth its own strength, and I am not \vithout some reliance on the body of the people." The finest mind reared by many generations of English conservatism was not always so faithful to monarchical traditions, and in addressing the incessant polemist of Toryism Canning made himself out a trifle better than he really was. His intercourse \vith l\1arcellus in 1823 exhibits a diluted orthodoxy: "Le système britannique n'est que Ie butin des longues victoires remportées par les sujets contre Ie monarque. Oubliez-vous que les rois ne doivent pas donner des institutions, mais que les institutions seules doivent donner des rois? . . . Connaissez-vous un roi qui mérite d'être libre, dans Ie sens implicite du mot? . . . Et George IV., croyez-vous que je serais son ministre, s'il avait été libre de c40isir? .. Quand un roi dénie au peu pIe les institutions dont Ie peuple a besoin, quel est Ie procédé
