ABSTRACT
Peel’s minority government gave a major stimulus to Conservative organisation in the constituencies. Blackwood’s highlighted the advantages to be gained from concentrating activity in the press, in associations, and in the electoral registration courts. Together, this would constitute ‘a concentrated effort of the whole friends of order and virtue in the State’ to counteract ‘the designs of the Revolutionists’.
The article pointed to the ‘democratic tendency of the great majority of the public press’ but highlighted the counter-reaction represented by titles including the Quarterly, Fraser’s, and the Dublin Magazine. It recommended that associations help to distribute such ‘sound constitutional journals’ amongst ‘men of moderate principles’ as a means of converting them to Conservatism. Under-writing subscriptions to circulating libraries and mechanics institutions was suggested, rather than ‘gratuitous distribution [which] is in general considered as an insult’.
Conservative associations were hailed as an ‘effective barrier against the forces of anarchy’ and thought especially useful in fighting the battle in the registration courts. This was especially beneficial in ‘towns and manufacturing districts’ where the Conservatives were in a minority. ‘All the victories gained by the Conservatives over the Revolutionists’, it argued, ‘have been achieved by previous efforts in the enrolment of voters’.
Blackwood’s provided a detailed blue-print for local constituency organisation, recommending ‘patient and well-directed exertions in every sphere, however subordinate’. The magazine’s adherence to Tamworth principles was illustrated by its suggestion that Conservatives should evince ‘an anxious desire to promote every real and safe improvement’ and resist any attempt to ‘spoliate private property or increase democratic power’.
