THE PROPHET OF CONSERVATISM.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 114, 16 May 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE PROPHET OF CONSERVATISM.

In a contribution to the journal of the Primrose League, of which he is grand master, Mr Stamey Baldwin re ferred to Disraeli as “the great Victorian leader and prophet of Conservatism.” “I call him prophet for prophet he was in the truest sense, in that he had a statesman’s vision that pierced through the accidental circumstances of his own time, so that his voice has remained as powerful, his inspiration as vital for Conservatives of succeeding generations as during his lifetime,” Air Baldwin wrote. “Though the problems of his day were not t\e problems with which we are confronted to-day, the fundamental principals which should guide us in solving our problems were never enun elated more vigorously, more lucidly, or with greater felicity of diction than by that sagacious statesman and patriot. It is, I believe, true to say that hardly a single major issue of policy has come before the country in the half-century since his death on which it is not possible to find wise guidance in his speeches. In his day, as in ours, the Conservative Party, to use his own words, stood for ‘three great objects—the maintenance of our institutions, the preservation of our Empire, and the improvement of tb' condition of Im people.’ In his day, as in ours, tho Conservatives were Realists who found themselves opposed by a party of Senti. mcntaliSts, the Liberals, who even thou were sowing the seeds of which we are to-day reaping the barren harvest. If there are any who are hesitating on the threshold of our historic party, or who have become disillusioned with the false gods that other parties have misled them into worshipping, let them turn to the pure fount of Conservatism, the speeches of Lord Beaconsfield. 1 promise them that every true lover of our country and all that it stands for will find therein refreshment and inspiration.”