I see that MY blog ads are still pushing Anne of Green Gables related sites.

Good. I'm a complete convert.

It's probably not well known that Anne was a conservative. At a time and place when (and where) I wouldn't have minded being called a conservative. Canadian Tories weren't, from 1900-1920, what they were, by a long shot, in the late 18th Century. The Old Whigs had won the intellectual war by then.

Unfortunately, the New Whigs (fascinating post on the term herek, though I take my usage from Friedrich A. Hayek) had taken over the Liberal Party, who were too strongly influenced by the winners of the French Revolution, and who were promptly overpowered by socialists.

Gladstone vs. Disraeli: Well, I prefer Gladstone, generally, but Disraeli was seldom truly awful. (Is that D'Israeli? Let's get that right here. Google says nope.)

Of course, England was given to free trade unless it regarded her colonies. She has a strong tendency to revert to the policies that caused us to rebel whenever she was feeling her oats.

There's a lesson there.