Gentlemen, a body of public men...seized the helm of affairs in a manner the honour of which I do not for a moment question, but they introduced a new system into our political life. Influenced in a great degree by the philosophy and the politics of the Continent, they endeavoured to substitute cosmopolitan for national principles; and they baptized the new scheme of politics with the plausible name of "Liberalism"... [T]he tone and tendency of Liberalism cannot be long concealed. It is to attack the institutions of the country under the name of Reform, and to make war on the manners and customs of the people of this country under the pretext of Progress. During the forty years that have elapsed since the commencement of this new system...the real state of affairs has been this: the attempt of one party to establish in this country cosmopolitan ideas, and the efforts of another...to recur to and resume those national principles to which they attribute the greatness and glory of the country.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Gentlemen, a body of public men...seized the helm of affairs in a manner the honour of which I do not for a moment question, but they introduced a new system into our political life. Influenced in a great degree by the philosophy and the politics of the Continent, they endeavoured to substitute cosmopolitan for national principles; and they baptized the new scheme of politics with the plausible name of "Liberalism"... [T]he tone and tendency of Liberalism cannot be long concealed. It is to attack the institutions of the country under the name of Reform, and to make war on the manners and customs of the people of this country under the pretext of Progress. During the forty years that have elapsed since the commencement of this new system...the real state of affairs has been this: the attempt of one party to establish in this country cosmopolitan ideas, and the efforts of another...to recur to and resume those national principles to which they attribute the greatness and glory of the country." in the context of "Speech to the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations in Crystal Palace, London (24 June 1872), quoted in Selected Speeches of the Late Right Honourable the Earl of Beaconsfield, Volume II, ed. T. E. Kebbel (1882), p. 524" to mean that wisdom is timeless.