TOPICS OF THE DAY.
QUEEN VICTORIA AND WILLIAM DARGAN.
THE meeting of Queen Victoria and William Dargan is a great event, although it has become for the day a hack subject of jour- nalism. The enterprise of Ireland, in beating every other country save go-ahead America in the race to imitate England's newest idea and newest construction • the steady perseverance of a self- made man, that man an Irishman, with true Hibernian name ; the visit of England's Majesty to do honour to Ireland and her son ; the contrast between this smiling present and a hideous past ; —these are incidents too obvious not to tempt expatiation in a dull off-season ; intelligence is raised too much to a general level for the obvious moral to escape being general property ; and in these days of electric telegraph and printing of consummate philo- sophy on each historic event at sight, the great truth of the eve becomes the stale commonplace of the morrow. Worse still—cant apes the fashion of the hour, and the commonplace or the counter- feit pass current indiscriminately. But cant is falsehood on a basis of truth ; commonplace has originated in an uncommon be- ginning, too great to remain uncommon ; and truisms are often true. It is only the half-philosophy of exquisite coxcembry that can quarrel with good food because a pushing cook gives it an outlandish name ; and humbug itself must not deprave our taste for the real greatness of which it is the parasite. It was, then, a great occasion, although everybody says so ; and the more remarkable for the place at which it happened, although everybody says that also. The capital of chaotic disaffected, help- less Ireland—that capital the seat of the tradition of a ruined trade, and not long since the ambitious squalid city of palaces and pigsties—to be the scene of a homage paid by Royalty to Industry, itself furnishing the principal element in the pageant, is really a tangible antithesis grand enough to be the paradox of the last poor, old, debauched, lazy, witty Century, hobnobbing with its half-grown and all-wise successor. But the very fact before us proves that there has been some humbug also in that beggarly portrait of Ould Ireland at his metropolitan residence. The leer- ing dog had a bank-note sowed into the ragged lining of his frieze coat ! Booth to say, the Crystal Palace and its accessories could not have existed, the bare idea of it would not have risen, if Dub- lin had been in so beggarly a condition, materially and morally, as we were made to suppose. Crystal Palaces, assemblages of the types of commerce in its perfect state, do not start into sudden and Pal- ladian existence.
But the scene derives its most peculiar character from the meet- ing of the two principal persons—Queen Victoria, and "Mr." William Dargan ; the sovereign of the greatest empire ih the world, and a "private individual" whose chief characteristic is to be the fit representative of a numerous class—a working man grown rich by industry.
-0--"rirfre-aaaisea: of the Queen's coming and her bearing add to the striking traits of tir.w. incident. The Queen of the Islands did not come "in state "; yet ae essentially and inextricably is she sur- rounded by the elements of power, that the wealth which distin- guishes the richest country in the world, the statesmen who exer- cise the most independent influence in Europe, the troops which are still the winners of the last most signal victories on that field, the fleet which had just displayed a power capable of maintaining the naval ascendancy of Britain, were all represented around the person of the Sovereign, and the people of a state stood to welcome her. Her last public act was to review the greatest fleet that the world can assemble, and now she comes to review the excellent effort of Ireland in commercial pageantry. Thus incapable of lay- ing aside the attributes of inherent power with the sceptre of state, how did the Queen bear herself? Was it with the inaccessible sublimity of a half-deified Sultan—with the " affable " affectation of an irresponsible Autocrat—or with the bluff familiarity of a crowned gossip, which breaks restraints of etiquette, and burlesques the very institution of hereditary monarchy? No: the Queen had a duty to perform ex officio—that of giving the highest possible re- cognition to the merit of a particular endeavour and of an indi- vidual; and her official digmty was needed for that purpose. But her manner to Mr. Dargan, her unaffected frankness, her visit to his house, her conversation showed that the Queen, as an intelli- gent lady, could give the fullest appreciation to the ex-officio duty.
And the man himself—what if he is "not such a wonderful person after all "—only a successful man in trade—a hearty, honest, prudent fellow ? Is not an honest, intelligent, enterprising man, enough—is not that a great work ? A man who has the energy of success, and the greater energy of organization not to be made self- ish by it—if that is "a drug" in Ireland now—we say nothing of England—so much the better for that happy island, then truly !‘ first gem of the sea." But at all events, William Dargan de- parts from the type of common men, however honest and success- ful. Genial Irishmen are not always so prudent; prudent men not always so public-spirited as to risk eighty thousand pounds of their bard-earned store for their country's honour ; successful self-made men not always so willing to decline a baronetcy ; men who have risen from the working class not always so faithful to their class as to preserve direct communication with them. The rise of wages which Mr. Dargan spontaneously gave to his men, lately, showed a sagacious as well as a generous disposition ; and the response of their spontaneous increase of work done showed that the Irish character is capable of feeling the force of motives of which we almost arrogate a monopoly for England. If England and Ireland are wed, William Dargan is not a bad specimen of the offspring from the union.
The moral of the occasion is equal to all the cost and trouble of getting it up. It means to tell Ireland, that this is the true sys- tem—commerce enlightened by science and art, inspired by gene- rosity: this it is which is successful ; this it is which wins honour; • this it is which cements peace. And to build up that precept before Ireland, William Dargan has aided in erecting that fane in which Queen Victoria and her assembled supporters could embody the admirable sermon delivered by Prince Albert be- fore the Great Exposition of 1851 in the London Mansionhouse, where he expounded the unity of mankind, the general extension of knowledge to all subjects and all minds, and the converging of science into one philosophy, teaching man how to perform his mis- sion so that he may be an instrument to fulfil the laws of God and carry the Divine blessings to their furthest reach on earth.
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