3o6 THE CECILS
revolutionary projects." He laid it down as the central doctrine of Conservatism " that it is ter to endure almost any political evil than to risk a breach of the historic continuity of government." Inspired by such principles, it was natural that he should oppose Home Rule with relentless energy, and the nation owes him a great debt of gratitude for the skill and tact with which he succeeded in welding the Conserva- tives and the Liberal Unionists into a homogeneous party, " the most formidable combination for the defence of constitutional principles and social justice known to modern history." 1 .
In other respects the domestic record of his administrations is one of which no Prime Minister need be ashamed, but the supreme value of his tenure of power lies in the fact that he gave to the country a long period of internal peace and prosperity in which to recover from (and to prepare for) the disturbance and unrest inseparable from the advent of a Radical Government.
It is generally recognised that he regarded Pitt and Castlereagh as models upon whom he formed his own principles. That he learnt much from his study of those great men cannot be doubted, and it is true that very much of what he wrote of them may be applied to himself. Yet it is a striking fact that the very qualities which he praises in them the cautious, patient, unemotional diplomacy, the " calm, cold self- contained temperament " of Castlereagh, the
1 Quarterly Review, October, 1902, p. 654.
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