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THE

NINETEENTH

CENTURY.

No. XXI.-NOVEMBER 1878.

THE PROGRESS OF PERSONAL RULE.

AMONG the events that have gone to mould our political fortunes, a foremost place must be given to the uprising of the Commons in 1832, and the triumph of Parliamentary reform. No change was made in the machinery of the Constitution. England was still ruled by King, Lords, and Commons. The Crown retained the right of appointing its own Ministers, and the condemnation of their policy by a majority of the Lower House led to no results which had not been customary for a century and a half. The prerogatives of the Crown remained what they had been for the same period; some of them 'vast if undefined,' but for the most part clearly ascertained, and well tethered in by usage and by law at the few points where they threatened to clash with the liberties of the subject. Nevertheless the change was immense, and it lay in the transformation of what had hitherto been a nominal and manageable factor of the Constitution into one which was quite real and might become unmanageable. By the suppression of pocket boroughs, the enfranchisement of populous towns, and the vesting of the electoral rights in a numerous body of voters, the House of Commons became the representative of the nation in a sense so much larger as to be almost new. A member of Parliament no longer had the freedom in dealing with his vote which he might be excused for supposing he had when he paid for his seat in cash, or in political services to his patron. Henceforth he had to be the spokesman of his constituents, and to vote substantially in VOL. IV.-No. 21.

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accordance with their opinions. Behind this change in the position of the representatives there lay a great purpose in the minds of the people. They meant to govern themselves, and this resolution was likely to become all the stronger as time went on. But a nation so minded could not but tell heavily in the constitutional balance of power. The change was wholesome and inevitable. By allowing it a free course the nation would merely revert to the oldest type of its political institutions. But no room would be left for the system of management and compromise which had hitherto prevailed between the Crown and the aristocracy, and the highly artificial mechanism which had sufficed for the last hundred years would hardly survive the shock.

Only one half of the results of a political revolution is seen in the changes which logically and lineally flow from it. The other half consists in its reflex action upon contemporary thought, and largely eludes observation. Side by side with the development of a new principle in politics there is usually found flowing a stream of hostile influences, made up of the opinions, the fears, and the halfformed plans of those who look with disapprobation upon the movement, and are resolved to stop or to thwart it if they can. Next to the revolution itself, this current of hostile ideas is most worthy of attention, for the cross-purposes which are destined to chequer the experience of the next generation are likely to eddy from it. The democratic outburst of 1832 gave rise to much genuine alarm. There is the trite fact that the Duke of Wellington did not see how the King's government was to be carried on;' though three years later, after the King had turned out the Whigs, and a new election had enormously reduced the Liberal majority, he ventured to consider the country on its legs again.' But the King was forced to take back the Whigs, and in the anguish of his spirit confessed to one of the Royal Duchesses that he felt his crown tottering on his head.' The House of Lords soon recovered its self-possession. The aristocracy of England has a strong hold on the popular imagination: it is generally wise in its second thoughts, and it has few invincible prejudices. Hence it could afford to bide its time, like Modred, till Launcelot should be caught tripping. But how would it fare with the Crown? This great institution might be secure against direct attack, but was there not some danger that it might be quietly set aside? If the House of Commons went on absorbing into itself the chief functions of the State, the time would come when there would be nothing left for the Crown to do; and the experience of three demoralising reigns had so shattered the sentiment of loyalty that the Crown would be left without resource if its claims were no longer kept alive by self-assertion. Moreover, there was the fickle temper of the people, exposing the machinery of government to the risk of incessant change. The period of stable administrations seemed to be at

an end. The executive power might soon become the shuttlecock of faction, and the functions of the Sovereign be reduced to presiding, with his lips sealed and his hands tied, over a Pandemonium of misrule. So said the croakers. The people were loyal and had no such fears. They went gaily on their way. They had recovered a lost heritage. The great reforms which were being carried out in their name wrung praises from their adversaries, and were giving to England the joy and hopefulness of a second birth. But the unwise friends of the monarchy did not cease repining at what they considered the low estate of the Crown, and a few romantic intellects were already dreaming of its resuscitation and aggrandisement by means of village maypoles, and Oriental theories of government set forth in fashionable novels.

Viewed from the side of hereditary interests, we islanders were in a sorry plight, and could not be trusted to work out our own salvation. In point of fact, without suspecting it, we were about to pass for many a long year under the influence of the foreigner; but at all events our first deliverer was a man of kindred blood. Five years after the passing of the Reform Bill the Princess Victoria ascended the throne, and Baron Stockmar was sent over by her uncle, the King of the Belgians, to be the fidus Achates of the youthful Queen. We have lately heard a good deal of this remarkable man, and our knowledge of him is so copious that we need not hesitate to pronounce a verdict upon his character. Intellectually he was ponderous, solemn, and slow; in outward expression a mixture of the pedant and the doctrinaire. His method was to turn everything into a problem, and then to set about solving it by systematic approaches in the realm of abstract thought. Every step he took was really predestined by the bent of his own mind; but he flattered himself that it was the result of discreet induction, and when once taken it was regarded as a fresh foot-hold won on the rock of eternal truth. It was his custom, as often as his princely patrons solicited his advice, to deploy his thoughts on paper in big battalions, so as the better to elucidate to their wondering gaze the profound strategy by which the citadel had at last been won. No wonder that they trusted and revered him. He saw, or seemed to see, further than they did, and that was enough. To keep such an intellect stored up for private use; to be able to consult it in seasons of doubt, as the ancient Israelite used to consult the Urim and Thummim of the High Priest; to get oracles to order by a ring of the bell or by stepping into the next room, might well be deemed a priceless boon to royalty in those disordered days. It seemed to supply the means of linking prescience with power. It reinforced the Crown precisely at those points where it had been traditionally weak. With Stockmar at hand, the boldest Minister might be faced without fear, and the wickedest wiles of democracy might be circumvented. To these qualities the Baron added a

pathetic fidelity. Lord Palmerston described him as the only 'disinterested man of this kind' he had ever met. But his dis interestedness had for its entire scope the interests of his employers. His sole care was the welfare of the Crown; but inasmuch as he conscientiously believed that the welfare of the nation was bound up with what he held to be a proper assertion of the prerogatives of the Crown, we may flatter ourselves upon having had some distant place among the objects of his benevolent concern.

Such was the adviser whom King Leopold placed by the side of his niece in 1837, and whose counsels were to exercise a paramount influence over Court politics for the next twenty years-so long by the living voice; much longer, perhaps, by that other voice which speaks in accents so much more touching. For fifteen months, soon after the Queen's accession, he supervised the relations between the Queen and her Ministers, not without an occasional display of restiveness on the part of Lord Melbourne, and some outbreaks of constitutional suspicion among close observers. A year before the Queen's marriage the Baron attached himself to Prince Albert, for the purpose of studying his character and superintending his moral growth. After the marriage the Prince became the Queen's adviser, but the Baron advised the Prince, so that the relation previously established was not materially altered. From this time it is interesting to watch the interaction of these two minds-the Prince, open, ardent, susceptible, and a trifle exalté; the Baron, big with a mission, brimming over with lessons which he deemed it of the utmost importance that his pupil should learn, and always at hand to whet his courage for some heroic enterprise in the sphere of politics. It is nearly forty years since this process began, but assuredly we are dealing with no mere matter of antiquarian research. He is a dreamer who fancies he can know the present without knowing the immediate past. The present is that past, with only a change of tenses, and the sprouting substituted for the seed. During the twenty years of Baron Stockmar's connection with the Court, a new stock of constitutional theories and maxims was laid in for the use of royalty. The practical application of some of them we are getting a glimpse of now; others are probably reserved for development hereafter, should circumstances permit. But we can hardly doubt that the whole body of this Coburg lore will be handed down as a sacred deposit for the guidance of our future kings. Thanks to the courageous candour of the Queen, the secret has been half divulged, and the public have begun to ponder its contents.

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In the first volume of the Life of the Prince Consort, Mr. Theodore Martin mentions it as a conviction' which the Baron was "never weary of inculcating,' and which it became the study of the Prince's life to realise,' that for the perfect working of the English Constitution the Sovereign should be potential in Cabinet and

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Council.' Mr. Martin also says that this potential' influence is to be obtained through a breadth of view unwarped by the bias and undistracted by the passions of party, and also, in the case of a long reign, through the weight of an accumulated knowledge and experience to which not even the most practised statesman could lay claim.' For practical purposes these qualifying observations may be disregarded. Monarchs are not exempt from the ordinary egotism of mankind, and will always be ready to believe in the breadth and goodness of their own views. Well or ill founded, a persuasion of this sort will always be present to the royal mind, so that the whole weight of the Baron's authority falls upon the precept which requires the Sovereign to be 'potential in Cabinet and Council.' Potential' is a vague word in this connection, unless it is used in a sense which is obsolete. 'Existing in possibility but not in act,' is its dictionary meaning, and the potentiality of the Sovereign so construed can give offence to nobody. Mr. Martin probably felt that he was walking over hot cinders, and picked his words with care. But the Baron shows no such fastidiousness. He calls a spade a spade. He maintains that the Queen is the 'permanent President of her Ministerial Council,' in other words a permanent Premier, who takes rank above the temporary chief of the Cabinet, and in matters of discipline exercises supreme authority.' To talk about Ministers being responsible to the nation, he says, is 'mere twaddle.' It is not enough to dismiss them when they have gone wrong; they must be kept from going wrong, and this is the business of the Sovereign. It must not be left to the House of Commons to judge of Ministers by their measures. It is the right of the Sovereign to forecast those measures, and so to direct and govern her Ministers that they shall never stray from the wholesome path. The Baron asks us to recognise the autonomy of the monarchical element' in the Constitution as a barrier against the 'usurped omnipotence of the House of Commons.' He says:

Since 1830 the executive power has been entirely in the hands of the Ministry, and these being more the servants of Parliament, particularly of the House of Commons, than of the Crown, it is practically in the hands of that House. This is a distortion of the fundamental idea of the English Constitution, which could not fail to grow by degrees out of the incapacity of her sovereigns to understand and to deal with their position, and out of the encroachment on their privileges by the House of Commons.

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The remedy for this state of things is, in the Baron's opinion, for 'the Crown to assert itself as permanent head of the Council over the temporary leaders of the Ministry, and to act as such.' Baron Stockmar held that the Tories of his day were degenerate bastards; that the Whigs were 'partly conscious and partly unconscious Republicans;' that politicians of the Aberdeen stamp treat the existing Constitution merely as a bridge to a Republic,' and that if

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