Lord Randolph described the unveiling of the statue ‘under a murky sky and amidst splashing rain’; the melancholy change which a few years had effected in the position and prospects of the once mighty party Lord Beaconsfield had led; the imposing majority of 1874, now transferred bodily to the Liberal side; and the sudden and stunning nature of the catastrophe of 1880. What a surprise it was to the placemen, the rank and file and ‘the old men who crooned over the fires at the Carlton’! ‘That some malign and venomous genius must suddenly have possessed the mind of the people’ was their only explanation. And on all this Lord Beaconsfield’s death--‘the crowning blow sent by a mischievous and evil-minded fortune.’ While ‘the Chief’ lived, hope had lived too. But from the hour of his death every Tory, in and out of Parliament, high or low, rich or poor, had exclaimed, muttered or thought: ‘Oh, if Lord Beaconsfield were alive!’ That was a monument to the departed leader more enduring than the bronze on the Abbey Green. Was it not also a criticism, pointed and unanswerable, upon the conduct of affairs since his death, which ‘no amount of memorials of confidence, no number of dinners in Pall Mall, no repetitions, however frequent, of gushing embraces between the Lord and the Commoner,’ could gainsay? Lord Randolph thought that Lord Beaconsfield’s career could be painted in a single sentence: ‘Failure, failure, failure, partial success, renewed failure, ultimate and complete triumph.’ The victory of 1874 had given a golden opportunity to the Tories; but owing to the natural decay of Lord Beaconsfield’s physical vigour, that opportunity had been wasted. Would it return? ‘The Liberals can afford better to sustain great disasters than the Conservatives, for there is a recuperative power innate in Liberal principles--the result of the longing of the human mind for progress and for adventure--which enables them to recover rapidly and unexpectedly from misfortunes which would seem to be fatal. The Tories, though possessing many other advantages, fail in this respect. As time goes on, their successes will be fewer and separated from each other by intervals of growing length; unless, indeed, the policy and the principles of the Tory party should undergo a surprising development; unless the secret of Lord Beaconsfield’s theory of government is appropriated, understood, believed in, sown broadcast amongst the people; unless the mantle of Elijah should fall upon some one who is capable enough and fortunate enough, carrying with him a united party, to bring to perfection those schemes of Imperial rule and of social reform which Lord Beaconsfield had only time to dream of, to hint at, and to sketch.’ Lord Randolph then proceeded to outline for the first time the conception of Tory Democracy which had now possessed his mind.