It was launched as a platform for the views of the British Conservative Party, its masthead incorporating a quotation of the former Conservative Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli:
What is the Tory Party, unless it represents National feeling?
Hutcheson, John A. (1989). Leopold Maxse and the National Review, 1893-1914: right-wing politics and journalism in the Edwardian era. New York: Garland Publishing Inc. ISBN 0-8240-7818-7.