dy made
from their fathers, their early teachers, or their chance friends, and
remain all their lives believing themselves to belong to--and voting
for--a party with which they have essentially nothing in sympathy. If
one were to say that a Conservative was a supporter of the Throne and
the Established Church, a Jingo in foreign politics, an Imperialist in
colonial matters, an advocate of a strong navy and a disbeliever in free
trade, tens of thousands of Conservatives might object to having
assigned to them one or all of these sentiments, and tens of thousands
of Liberals might insist on laying claim to any of them. Precisely so is
it in America. None the less the Republican party in the mass is the
party which believes in a strong Federal government, as opposed to the
independence of the several States; it is a party which believes in the
principle of a protective tariff; it conducted the Cuban War and is a
party of Imperial expansion; it is the party which has in general the
confidence of the business interests of the country and fought for and
secured the maintenance of the gold standard of currency. It is obvious
that, however blurred the party lines may be in individual cases, the
man who in England is by instinct and conviction a Conservative, must in
America by the same impulse be a Republican.

In both countries there is, moreover, a large element which furnishes
the chief support to the miscellaneous third parties which succeed each
other in public attention and whenever the lines are sharply drawn
between the two great parties, the bulk of these can be trusted to go to
the Liberal side in England and to the Democratic side in America. Nor
is it by accident that the Irish in America are mostly Democrats.

I am acutely aware of the inadequacy of such an analysis as the
foregoing and that many readers will have cause to be dissatisfied with
what I say; but I have known many Englishmen of Conservative leanings
who have come to the United States understanding that they would find
themselves in sympathy with the Democrats and have been bewildered at
being compelled to call themselves Republicans. Whatever the individual
policy of one or the other party may be at a given moment, ultimately
and fundamentally the English Conservative, especially the English Tory,
is a Republican, and the Liberal, especially the Radical, is a
Democrat. Both Homer and Sir Walter Scott to-day would (if they found
themselves in America)