The political aspects of Mr. Hope-Scott's character, on which it is now time that we should enter, do not require any very extended discussion. His opinions and feelings were Conservative in the constitutional sense, and in his early years seem to have gone a good deal further. It is perhaps scarcely fair to bring evidence from the correspondence of youths of nineteen, but Mr. Leader tells him (November 3, 1831): 'The latter part of your letter is an admirable specimen of Tory liberality and Tory argument…. What! are all Radicals fools or knaves, and all Conservatives honest or intelligent?… Absint hæ ineptiæ pæne aniles.' A few years later the Thun correspondence, though only affording incidental references to Mr. Hope's own letters, shows clearly that, like 'young Oxford' of that date and long afterwards, he adopted Tory views as deductions from Scripture, and as the political side of religion. Thus Count Leo Thun writing to Mr. Hope on December 14, 1834, says: 'We both agree in the first principles; I copy your own words: "Everything we do is to be done in the name of the Lord: admitting this, it is evident that the principle on which we are to act with regard to politics is to be derived from the Scriptures."' The future Austrian statesman, however, declares that he cannot find in the Scriptures 'that blind and passive obedience' which his friend requires, and enters at considerable length into the question, controverting the application which the latter had made of certain passages. Again pass on a few years, and we find Mr. Hope writing to Mr. Badeley (it is the first letter in that collection), January 12, 1838: 'I have managed to read Pusey's sermon, in which there is nothing that I am disposed to quarrel with. The origin of civil government used long ago to be a favourite subject of inquiry with me; and I had long been convinced of the absurdity of any but the patriarchal scheme. Aristotle, the most sensible man, perhaps, who ever lived, came to the same conclusion without the aid of revelation.'
These views sustained practically some modification as time went on. Toryism, in its historical sense, could never be the political creed of a mind on which the Church of England had lost its hold. This begins to appear in a speech made by him at an early date, without preparation indeed, but not carelessly spoken. On the occasion of the ceremony for turning the first sod for the Sheffield and Huddersfield Railway (August 29, 1845), Mr. Hope said:—
If you lived under a despotic government, you would have lines made without reference to your local wants, and perhaps from visionary views of public advantage, but without reference to your private interests. It would be the same if a democratic body were to govern. In the one case you would be subject to the dictates of the imperial office; in the other, to the votes of a turbulent assemblage; but in neither case would there be that mixed regard to public justice and private interests which are combined in an efficient system. I dare say we [railway lawyers] are troublesome, but we belong to a system which has in it great elements of constitutional principle, which combines a regard for the public interest, and for private rights, with that free spirit which enterprises of this nature require in a great commercial country. [Footnote: Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, August 30, 1845.]
In the letter to Mr. Gladstone, of December 9, 1847 (quoted p. 78), we perceive an uncertain, sea-sick tone, the sadness natural to a mind not yet sure of its course. Very different is the buoyancy that breathes in Mr. Hope-Scott's remarks, ten years later, on the rivalry between Manchester and Liverpool, in his speech on the Mersey Conservancy and Docks Bill (quoted p. 115), though that, perhaps, is too rhetorical for us to found an argument upon. It will be more to the purpose here if I give an extract from a letter which he had written that same year, as an Irish proprietor, on the eve of a contested election, to the agent for his estates in co. Mayo, Joseph J. Blake, Esq., at Castlebar. It will show the wise and kindly spirit in which he dealt with his people, as well as the reference to the interests of Catholicity which now governed his politics:—
As to the election for the county of Mayo, I am in considerable ignorance about the state of parties in that particular part of Ireland. I may state, however, that I should myself prefer the candidate who is the most sincere friend of the Catholic Church, and most disposed to take a calm and careful view of the questions which most affect the interests of the Irish people— say Tenant Right, for instance, in which I think something should be done, but perhaps not so much as the more noisy promoters of it insist on. I do not, however, wish to influence my tenants more decidedly than by letting them know my general feelings on these subjects. (March 25, 1857.)
The question here involved, which has very recently ripened into difficulties so formidable as far as regards Ireland, also affected at the time, as it still affects, the state of property in the Western Highlands, where it seems to have interfered a good deal with Mr. Hope-Scott's efforts to raise the condition of his tenantry. He urged on them the necessity of cultivating more of the waste land which stretched for miles before their doors, but they never took kindly to this task. No rent was to be demanded for the reclaimed lands, and they were promised compensation if called upon to give them up at any future year. They were perfectly convinced of Mr. Hope-Scott's sincerity, but were unwilling to enter into these schemes of amelioration without the security of possession guaranteed by leases. [Footnote: Further details of Mr. Hope-Scott's relations with his Highland tenants will he found in chap. xxvi. See also chap. xxiv. pp. 171, 172 in this vol. as affording some indirect illustration.] My office not being that of the political economist, it is unnecessary to enlarge on the subject, especially as the following important letter of Mr. Hope-Scott himself will enable the reader to judge of the reasons upon which he acted:—
J. R. Hope-Scott, Esq., Q.C. to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P.
(Private.) Abbotsford: Oct. 28, 1868.
Dear Gladstone,—As you are kind enough to care for my political ideas, I will try to describe them.
Born and bred a Tory and a Protestant, I have discarded both the creeds of my youth. But with this difference in the result: in religion I have found sure anchorage; in politics I am still adrift.