Robert Peel, British Conservatism

Conservatism is an important modern western political thought, which beginning in the United Kingdom, and spreading to major capitalist countries in Europe and America. Edmund Burke is the founder of British conservatism, in his book Reflections on the Revolution in France, he systematically expounds his idea about the conservatism, and since then, many English thinkers and politicians modified and improved the idea. The most important contributor is Robert Peel .In this article I start with the early political activities of Peel, and analyze the process of his alteration about conservatism detailedly, in order to evaluate his contribution to the conservatism objectivelyIn the 1820s, industrial revolution was in the end in Britain. The production sector had undergone tremendous changes. Industrial bourgeoisie and the old aristocracy of the land engaged in a fierce battle. The old conservative values faced a great challenge and the Tory faced a crisis of survival. In this situation , Robert Peel conformed to the trend of the times and transformed the conservatism. He not only restored the idea " change with reservation" of Edmund Burke, but added the principles of liberalism, which was especially seen in the abolition of "the Corn Act". The core of his idea was advocating progressive social change, all of his reforms were based on this.This article is divided into four parts:The first part outlines the history of British conservatism and the basic characteristics of it, and define the conception of "conservatism" in this article, which corresponds with the political beliefs of the Conservative Party. It includes: respect for history and tradition, objection to fierce social change, respect for property rights, the right to liberty and equality, respect for order and authority, emphasis the importance of religious and moral. This is the sources of the theory of Pierre-style conservatismThe second part is the early conservative practice of Peel, from the time when Peel entered the political arena to 1830. This is not only the first half of Peel's political career, but also the initial period of the formation of his conservatism. In this period, peel carried out the legal reform in Ireland, and enacted the Act of Catholic Liberation. Peel continued to reconcile the interests of different parts, tried to avoid the emergence of aggressive behavior. On the questions of the Catholic, Peel showed his trend to adapt to the time.The third part is the major part of this article, which was his further development of conservatism. In1834 "the Tamworth Manifesto" was published, it restored the idea of"change with reservation", which marked that Peel had risen the conservatism to a high degree of theory. Under this idea, Peel carried out many reforms in the society: for example, he restructured the Tory, which made the old party survived in a new time; he conducted deeply reforms in social and economic area. In these reforms, Peel adopted a cautious attitude,Chapter IV is the status of Peel's conservatism. It is a valuable asset in the history of mankind. He introduced the free-market concept into conservatism, which made the conservatism gained a new life.