Hugh Cecil, 1st Baron Quickswood

Hugh Richard Heathcote Gascoyne-Cecil, 1st Baron Quickswood PC (14 October 1869 – 10 December 1956), styled Lord Hugh Cecil until 1941, was a British Conservative Party politician.

Quotes

Conservatism (1912)

• Two men had a conspicuous influence in creating and leading the Conservative movement: one was Pitt and the other was Burke. Pitt was the practical leader who headed the opposition to the French Revolution and behind whom the Toryism of George III, the natural conservatism of Burke, the zeal for the imperial greatness of the country, of which he himself was the best exponent, coalesced together and found their sphere of activity in resisting revolutionary France as the enemy of Church and King, the destroyer of all that was ordered and settled, the formidable enemy of the greatness and even the safety of England. And in Burke Conservatism found its first and perhaps its greatest teacher, who poured forth with extraordinary rhetorical power the language of an anti-revolutionary faith, and gave to the Conservative movement the dignity of a philosophical creed and the fervour of a religious crusade.
  • p. 40

• The essential characteristic of a Tory is that in controversies relating to Church and King he takes the royal and ecclesiastical side.
  • p. 41

• Probably no function of Conservatism is more important at the present time than to watch over the religious life of the people in the sphere of politics. Religion, as has been pointed out, touches politics very closely in respect to many questions—such as the claims of rich and poor, all measures for ameliorating the condition of the people, the connection between Church and State, and national education. Its indirect influence extends beyond these limits as far as any controversy which raises issues of moral obligation. The championship of religion is therefore the most important of the functions of Conservatism. It is the keystone of the arch upon which the whole fabric rests. As long as Conservatism makes the fulfilment of its duties to religion the first of its purposes, it will be saved from the two principal dangers that alternatively threaten it: the danger of sinking into a mere factious variation of Liberalism, supporting the claims of another set of politicians, but propounding measures not distinguished by any pervading principle: or the other danger of standing only for the defence of those who are well off, without any sincere endeavour to consider the interests of the whole people, or any higher object than the triumph of the sagacious selfishness of the prosperous. Religion is the standard by which the plans of politicians must be judged, and a religious purpose must purify their aims and methods. Emphasising this truth, Conservatism will be the creed neither of a superfluous faction nor of a selfish class.
  • pp. 116-117

• It is often assumed that Conservatism and Socialism are directly opposed. But this is not completely true. Modem Conservatism inherits the traditions of Toryism which are favourable to the activity and authority of the State. Indeed Mr. Herbert Spencer attacked Socialism as being in fact the revival of Toryism; he called it “the new Toryism.” And he was so far right, that Toryism was on the side of authority and that it was rather the Whigs, and still more the Liberals of the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century, who insisted on the dangers of State interference and the importance of the liberty of the individual.
  • p. 169

• Historically the principle was adopted that every one must be saved from death by starvation or exposure, but that on the other hand no one ought to be supported by the State in idleness. This was the policy of Elizabeth's famous Act establishing the Poor Law. Nor is it unfair to claim the Poor Law as at any rate of Tory extraction. It was imposed by religious sentiment, and it was the solution of a difficulty caused by an attack on the Church. It arose out of the suffering which had been occasioned by the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, and by the consequent cessation of the relief of the poor which the monasteries had been wont to give. Under the Poor Law the State took over the work that had formerly been performed by the alms of the Church; and in so doing the State acted under the moral ascendency of Church teaching.
  • p. 171

• For the tradition of authority is naturally a Tory tradition, and, but for the influence of Conservative prudence and justice, the successors of the Tories might probably have been ready to use the authority of the State with a freedom which we associate with Socialism.
  • p. 247

• The value of human character, the sacredness of justice on the one side, reverence for authority and tenderness towards human suffering upon the other, make the religious standpoint at once the safest and the most practical for the task of social reform. Toryism even within itself contains balanced principles which make for safety, and when united with the prudence of the natural conservative it forms the most efficient and the most secure political guide for a social reformer.
  • p. 248

Quotes about Lord Quickswood

• For the rest, he continued to be a brilliant figure in the social life of his time; his presence welcome, his conversation witty, his views original, his candour entertaining, his power of exposition remarkable, his charm unaffected. No sketch can hope to give the peculiar flavour of his personality, nor is it easy to disinter even from the vast chambers of the dead a parallel for him. Yet a Plutarch, in search of his compeer, might find in Montalembert—the Montalembert of Sainte-Beuve's portrait—enough points of resemblance to justify a comparison between two ardent devotees of liberty, and, according to their respective interpretations, of Catholicism.
  • 'Lord Quickswood: Eloquent Counsel in Church and State', The Times (11 December 1956), p. 13