r being a Unionist
M.P., said loudly, "Hear, hear! that's the only sort of Liberal whom I
respect."

A look of sudden anger passed over Father Payne's face--unmistakable and
uncompromising wrath. "Come, Rose," he said, "this isn't a political
meeting; and even if it were, why proclaim yourself as accepting a
definition which is almost within the comprehension of a chimpanzee?"

There was a faint laugh at this, but everyone had an uncomfortable sense of
thunder in the air. Rose got rather white, and his nostrils expanded. "I'm
sorry I put it in that way," he said rather frostily, "if you object. But I
mean it, I think. I don't like diluted Liberalism."

"Yes, but you beg the question by calling it diluted," said Father Payne.
"If anyone had said that the only Tory he respected was a man who if he
could press a button in a still darker room, and by doing so bring it to
pass that all institutions on the face of the earth would remain immutably
fixed for ever and ever, and would feel himself bound conscientiously to do
it, you wouldn't accept that as a definition of Conservatism? These things
are not hard and fast matters of principle--they are only tendencies.
Toryism is an instinct to trust custom and authority, Liberalism is an
instinct to welcome development and change. All that the definition of
Liberalism which was quoted means is, that the Liberal has a deep respect
for freedom of opinion; and all that my grotesque definition of Toryism
means is that a Tory prefers to trust a fixed tradition. But, of course,
both want a settled Government, and both have to recognise that the world
and its conditions change. The Tory says, 'Look before you leap'; the
Liberal says, 'Leap before you look.' But it is really all a matter of
infinite gradations, and what differentiates people is merely their idea of
the pace at which things can go and ought to go. Why should you say that
you can only respect a man who wants to go at sixty miles an hour, any more
than I should say I can only respect a man who wants to remain absolutely
still?"

Rose had by this time recovered his temper, and said, "It was rather crude,
I admit. But what I meant was that if a man feels that all opinions are of
equal value, he must give full weight to all opinions. The doctrinaire
Liberal seems to me to be just as much inclined to tyrannise as the
doctrinaire Tory, and to use his authority on the side of suppression when
it is convenient to do so, and agai