LOYALTY, OLD AND NEW.

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 8965, 16 April 1890, Page 3

LOYALTY, OLD AND NEW.

.AUGUST IKE BXKRELL, M. P., XX THE HEW REVIEW. In days of old, says Heine, the people belonged to the king ; now the king belongs to the people. It is true. The king has come over to onr side of the hedge. The people have appropriated him, even as they have done Hyde Park. From forest laws to debates on the Cr iwa lands—what a stride ! Not so much in legislation, or in language, but in feeling, and therefore in fact. Still, we are a loyal people. If however, loyalty and allegiance are to go on subsisting amongst us, they must find food—that is, ideas —to feed upon. Transitional periods are periods of mental starvation. End they must, one way or another, in new food or death from inanition. You cannot, as Dr Newman has said, stand for years on one leg. The English can do it longer and better, with greater gravity and less grimace, than anybody else ; but even John Bull must eventually come down on to both feet. Institutions rest on reason. The flexibility of the British Constitution is justly the marvel of all jurists, and the admiration of many. Its o°ntre of gravity is not fixed. A constitution in motion frightens the timid, who pant after permanence. They want something, which in the words of Mr Mill. ‘ by general agreement has a right to be where it is, and to be secure against disturbance, whatever else may change-* The American Constitution is now much praised by some Tories for the pains it takes to preserve itself against whimsical or ill-considered change. A manufactured constitution is sure to abound in mere or less skilful contrivances to secure for itself a prolonged existence ; but the glory of our Constitution is that it is not a manu. facture but a growth. Our people, we may be sure, would never consent to allow the judges to decide whether or not an Act of Parliament was ultra vires the Constitution ; and unless this is clone the American devices are no great things. Our House of Lords is an institution which, perhaps, like the foreigner’s diet of ‘ chocolate and Fohnapps,’ in Calverloy’s poem, * has its merits,’ but permanence is probably not among them. The House of Commons is of necessity a shifting and variable body which must more and more become so identified with the general mass of the people as to bo barely distinguishable from it. Nor would it be safe to assume that the leaders of the House will always be men of either commanding genius or interesting personalities. But the Throne —deep-rooted as it is in the historic past; part and parcel as, by the use of image, metaphor, and example, it has become of the English language ; ennobled by poetry ; and still tinged with the glow from a sunken faith—possesses some at least of the qualities the timid demand, and seems to ho the something which by general agreement has a right to be where it is.

The purely Republican form of Government has few friends in this country. After all, history counts for something, and we have been a Republic, or what passed for such when Cromwell was Consul, and did nob like it. Even Milton could nob make ns like it. Nor have the more recent examples of France and America proved ‘soulanimating.’ What have they that we need miss ? What do we retain that we cannot get rid of when we choose ? Has Freedom left her ancient shores to take refuge elsewhere ? The modern Mayflowers no longer oa-ry English Republicans to America with Bibles in their trunks, fleeing from king’s palaces, but American Republicans to England, fleeing from the ennui of Washington, and all agog to be introduced at St. James’s. As for France, the story of is sinking deep into the hearts of the British people ; who, as they do notread The Timenewspaper, are ignorant of the excuses that can be invented for those who use public funds to corrupt an army from its allegiance. Nor is it like'y to bo soon forgotten how the Comte de Paris, the descendant of kings, bade his own friends return twenty-five Boulau gists for Paris ; and so long as we remember these things we shall never lightly expose ‘ Our ocean-empire with our boundless homes ’ to lewd ambitions or an exile’s dream.

But a king who belongs to the people has to adopt other maxims of behaviour than those which controlled his conduct when the people belonged to him. A throne which is looked upon as a mere adjunct of the aristocracy, who now count for nothing politically ; a throne, which outside fashionable circles, is hardly beard of except when it wants money to establish its younger branches on an equal footing with the idle rich, and bo enable them to live oa the public bounty after a manner daily becoming more doubtful lor anybody, can never win the esteem of the working population of these islands. The Court boundaries must needs be enlarged.' Friendly relations with the Ciown ought to be not the hall-mark of society, but of nationality. The artisan and the laundress have as much right to kiss hands, and have mouths as clean as the railway contractor or the squire’s dame. Nor would the loyalty of Whitechapel bo any the less genuine than that of Westminster, A popularity of this royal kind would not need to stoop to the foolish devices c.f the Primrose League. It at least wants no man’s vote. Its mission is to attach to itself, as the outward and visible sign of Empire, the loyalty and allegiance of the whole population. For this public end money need not and would not be spared. Royalty, in Milton’s phrase, is the brag of politics ‘ And must be shown In Courts, at feasts, and high solemnities, Where most may wonder at the workmanship.’ The poor love pageantry and pictures as well as greasy citizens their City dinners. The heavy shoed French peasant may still bo seen and heard clattering across the floors of the salons at Versailles, gazing with an odd expreaaion upon the fast facing finery, Liberte, Ego it 6, Frateinite, are better things than mirrors and brocade, but are also worthy of them. It need -carcely be added that to stem the swelling tide of deimcraoy is none of the Crown’s business. That proud task belongs to the House of i ords aud the Primrose League. Mrs Pastington upon a throne wioldieg her mop like a sceptre is a risible image, and it has been shrewdly said that the one rock ahead of royalty is its tendency to grow slightly ridiculous. Men’s passion for equality will grow stronger and stronger, and play pranks with privilege and exis’.icg legal conceptions of property ; but the Throne is not based on either privilege or property, but upon the recognition by the sober sense of.the people of the necessity and utility of a permanent institution outside themselves, above party and above ambition. To snob an institution the countrymen of Burke, of Scott, and of Macaulay, need never be ashamed to profess a loyalty which, however it may differ in some of its aspects from that whioh animated those distinguished men, is yet not without their three characteristic notes of national prudence, poetry, and pride.