The Prince as Dictator

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 292, 5 September 1931, Page 22

The Prince as Dictator

THE “Review of Reviews” is Interested in the fact that Mr. H. W. Seaman was recently allowed in the "Sunday Chronicle" of London a full page to examine the possibilities of the Prince becoming the Political Dictator of England. The word (says the “Review of Reviews”) is qualified purposely, and it proceeds: "In many respects he is already a Dictator—of fashions, manner, speech, the mould thereof and the form. It remains only, as certain correspondents to the ’Sunday Chronicle’ informed Mr. Seaman, that he should take over the reins of Government when, as one lady from the South Coast saw it, ‘our dreams would be realised and the nightmare of trouble And unrest would be banished.’ "Mr. Seaman summarises the views of his correspondents, but does not find them good. ‘There are,’ he reminds them, ‘two or three would-be Dictators in every street, and they are bad neighbours,’ When the Dictator comes, liberty goes. It is necessary only to regard Mussolini, or, if we must have an example from home, Cromwell. Besides, Dictators are not chosen; history shows that they emerge suddenly from the mob, cranks with messianic delusions, a mission to make the neighbours toe the line, and the gift of showmanship. After enduring such a one for a time, Mr. Seaman warns us that: " ‘We shall pray for a Royal Prince to rid us of the nuisance, and once more we shall see the Prince on the side of the people against their enemies. For liberty, In spite of the common belief, never comes from below, but always from above. It is an aristocratic conception, nurtured throughout the ages by superior men.’ ” “Mr. G. K. Chesterton is of the same mind, although bis comment, naturally, is more from the personal point Of view. To this critic of life and manners H.R.H. is a contemporary young man, one of the generation who have quitted themselves like men, and will probably, in the Europe of the future, be called upon to quit themselves like kings. If, as Mr. Chesterton believes probable, monarchy should be made once more a reality In this reconstructed world, then it will be well that we in England should have as OUr representative of that form such a man as the Prince of Wales, who is, above all else: “ ‘A man of the modern world in that particular aspect in which it is really rather a larger world; and by this time rather too large to control. How it is to be controlled, or whether it will be controlled, no man knows and no wise man pretends to know; but one man, without professing to be very wise, will be very frankly gratified if the ancient Kingship of the English ever again plays a determining part in that settlement, and believes that it will be no betrayal of the true and eternal principles of popular government if, by some

hitherto unforeseen political transformation or convulsion, some sort of power should pass to somebody whom we really do know to be popular.’ "The world, there is no doubt, is tired of politicians. The individual and innumerable portraits of these good men, pictured as struggling with adversity, have been overdone, and the pendulum is swinging now, as it has inevitably In history, back to the other extreme: the extreme of autocracy, of one-man government, of people led and inspired by one strong mind. “That idea is general and vague as yet. Revolutions of such a kind do not take place in a day. But in the general sense Mr. Chesterton is right in affirming that—- " ‘lt is, of course, mere blindness and blundering, to suppose that Monarchy Is decaying In the modern world. It is returning with much more of a rush than I, who have many old Republican sympathies, should personally wish it to do. The danger is much more that the future governments will be too despotic than that they will be too democratic, I think that the Crown will probably have to play a very considerable part In the future of European countries; and the wish is not merely father to the thought' “But the new commanding Royalty will not be like the old. The Prince has set a precedent, as Mr. Seaman reminds us, which indicates the duties Which will absorb the attentions of the new monarchy. For the past few years the Prince, “ ‘Far from dabbling in politics, has established a new tradition by interesting himself in concerns much more important than anything now done at Westminster. He has chosen as his associates not politicians but men of business. In order to help them he has devoted years of his youth to travelling, speaking, working, and now that bis age entitles him to more than a formally respectful hearing he shows that he understands their problems far more clearly than the politicians do. ■ “ ‘lf the Prince of Wales were made Dictator to-morrow his first aim would be to promote industry and so restore prosperity, even if in doing so he bad to undo much of the mischief that the politicians had done.* A “Faith in the Prince of Wales is a characteristic of these times. There is a danger, recognised and commented on by Mr. Chesterton, of writing about the Prince, not as if he was a Prince, but a dear old pal. Mr. Chesterton rightly condemns this gushing journalism which ‘venerates everything about Royalty except the fact that it is Royal. For the true Royalist is like the true’Republican in this, that both are serving what is called an abstraction; that is, an ideal.’"