conservatives today are the classical liberals of the enlightenment.
Mill eems to be reference Englands Conservative party in 1866.
He took digs as liberals as well.
I suspect this site had it correct.
http://www.volokh.com/posts/1077116092.html
I desire to make a brief explanation in reference to a passage which the right honourable Gentleman has quoted from a portion of my writings, and which has some appearance of being less polite than I should wish always to be in speaking of a great party. What I stated was, that the Conservative party was, by the law of its constitution, necessarily the stupidest party. (
Laughter.) Now, I do not retract this assertion; but I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid people are generally Conservative. (
Laughter and cheers.) I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any honourable Gentleman will question it. Now, if any party, in addition to whatever share it may possess of the ability of the community, has nearly the whole of its stupidity, that party, I apprehend, must by the law of its constitution be the stupidest party. And I do not see why honourable Gentlemen should feel that position at all offensive to them; for it ensures their being always an extremely powerful party. (
Hear, hear.) I know I am liable to a retort, an obvious one enough, and as I do not intend any honourable Gentleman to have the credit of making it, I make it myself. It may be said that if stupidity has a tendency to Conservatism, sciolism and half-knowledge have a tendency to Liberalism. Well, Sir, something might be said for that -- but it is not at all so clear as the other. There is an uncertainty about half-informed people. You cannot count upon them. You cannot tell what their way of thinking may be. It varies from day to day, perhaps with the last book they have read, and therefore they are as likely to prove Conservatives as Liberals, and as likely to be Liberals as Conservatives. They are a less numerous class, and also an uncertain class. But there is a dense solid force in sheer stupidity -- such, that a few able men, with that force pressing behind them, are assured of victory in many a struggle; and many a victory the Conservative party have owed to that force."