THE DANGER BEHIND "PERSONAL GOVERNMENT."
IT is high time that the friends of the Monarchy, among whom we reckon all reasonable Liberals, should ask the defenders of " personal government " if they know towards what result their arguments are tending. They are all pro- fessing to defend the Throne, and to justify the Throne, and to exalt the Throne, and they are all beginning to use arguments which lead, not by inference, but directly, to the subversion of the Throne. Here is Mr. T. E. Kebbel, for instance, to whose paper in the Nineteenth Century on "Personal Government" Mr. Gladstone, at Greenwich, called such marked attention, and whose essay was probably honoured with the previous approval of those whom it defends. No Conservative writer is better worth listening to than Mr. Kebbel, for no one is more sincere or more moderate in argument, or tries more earnestly to understand what his adversary means, and his paper on Mr. Dunckley's pamphlets is full of evidence of these qualities. And yet just think what it is that Mr. Kebbel is saying. After exchanging some thrusts with Mr. Dunckley, which we need not now discuss, and admitting that the importation of Sepoys into Europe was a " doubtful " act, though justified by national necessity, he proceeds to declare that although he can see no evidences of the revival of per- sonal power, he "is by no means prepared to deny that cir- cumstances might arise to make such a revival beneficial, or possibly indispensable." He thinks that the growth of the idea that the House of Commons is the Government is watched by increasing numbers with ever-increasing alarm. That House has, in his opinion, been declining both intellectually and socially, for a quarter of a century. It regards public ques- tions from a lower level ; it has become more factious, and it wastes the public time. It is, in fact, a worn-out machine, against which Conservatives may appeal to the Crown to protect the " social system " of the country, or the wealthy may appeal to protect property, or the intellectual may appeal to protect thought, or the nation may ap- peal to protect society against inefficient government :- " If neither Conservatives shall be driven to the Crown as the best barrier against Communism, nor thoughtful men as to the only elevating and liberalising power left in an age of political vulgarity, it is still possible that the nation at large may appeal to it from the strife of Parliamentary factions. Session after session wasted in factious wrangles, through which not the glimmer of a principle is ever seen to pene- trate ; the progress of measures, confessedly of great public importance, perpetually arrested by the violence of party feuds for which the nation cares nothing at all ; the preponderance of private over public motives which is thus made conspicuous; —these are phenomena which may be working a silent change in the sentiments of independent men, of which perhaps they themselves are yet unconscious, and the very possibility of which the practical politicians to whom Parliamentary tradi- tions are a second Bible would contemptuously deny. The practical politician might be right, and I may be quite wrong. But it is my honest conviction that the House of Commons is on a downward course, on which it did not enter yesterday ; and that unless it succeeds ere long in regaining its former hold on the respect and confidence of the people, the latter would look on with great indifference, if not with positive satisfaction, at The Progress of Personal Rule.' " That is clear speaking, at all events,—the more formidable both because Mr. Kebbel is in accord with men who can partly realise his ideas, and because it expresses fairly, though strongly, a sentiment actually visible in the public mind. There can be no doubt that the House of Commons has de- clined in public estimation, the fact, though not its causes, being revealed in the want of interest felt in its debates. The newspapers no longer find it pay to report them at length, or with accuracy, or even in an intelligible manner. Every year the constituencies show a greater readiness to elect wealthy men from among their midst, with few ideas, no originality, and defective power of expressing the few thoughts they have. And every year the complaint of the absence of pro- mising young men, of men who can be developed into leaders —of men, in fact, of any sort of eminence—becomes more bitter, more justifiable, and to all appearance, more hopeless. This change, as Mr. Kebbel says, is not of yesterday. It has lasted long enough to be perceived by Lord Beaconsfield, and to encourage him in his steady attempt to discredit the House of Commons, by studied neglect, by refusing information, and by asking it for votes, instead of cor- dial approval, and to transfer power to the Cabinet— which now really acts as if it were Parliament—to the Peers, who alone debate eagerly, and to the rowdier classes of the electoral body. There is a decline in the House of Com- mons, and though we do not think, Lord Beaconsfield being over seventy, that he will have time wholly to destroy its in- fluence, still it is conceivable that the country, impatient of a feeble House, a House which consents to register such decrees as that ordering an invasion of Afghanistan behind its own back, may seek in a form of personal power a new source of strength and vigorous control of affairs. So much we can concede, for the sake of the argument, to Mr. Kebbel ; but cannot he see that in such a change in public feeling, should it ever occur, and become strong enough for action, there would be the death-warrant of the Monarchy ? If the people ever wearied of their Parliament and deemed the Commons stupid and the Peers effete, and sought a remedy in personal government, they would inevitably seek the personal governor in the ablest man. It is under Presidential and not under Royal government that they would seek a refuge. They would seek for leadership, ability, energy, initiative, in their Chief ; and they could not rely on the hereditary principle, which secures only order, unity, and the reverence of the uneducated, to give them any of these things. They would cry not for the oldest Guelph, but for the youngest Washington, not for a splendid historic emblem, but for a potential ruler of men. Nations in suffering for want of leadership turn to men, and not to standards, and though they may use Kings to abolish a Church, as we did under Henry VIII., or to depress an oligarchy, as we did under George HI., and the Danes did in 1660 they will not use them to depress themselves. The man to whom they will turn, whether they call him Caesar or .President, must derive his power from them. It is true that, under certain circumstances, if the Sovereign were a man of surpassing genius, a great statesman, a great soldier, or even a great tribune—the last King of Denmark was the latter —the people might turn to him first of all as the best of Presidential candidates ; but what has that dream to do with England, or any situation likely for half a century to arise in the United Kingdom ? The defence of the historic Monarchy in this country, which, till the people are educated, seems to us the most invaluable of our institutions, is that though not independent of personal virtues, it is independent of personal qualities ; that it can be transmitted to a foolish sailor, or a good and much-loved woman, or a representative of the jeunesse dore'e, without a jar, a dangerous emotion, or a contest ; that it is as independent of the Sovereign's capacity to "protect" society, as of his personal popu- larity. If the Sovereign governed as well as reigned, no matter after what previous disgust with the Parliamentary regime, the Sovereign's personal ability to govern would be the main factor of politics, and the English, the most sensible as well as the most common-place of races, would insist at once on secur- ing ability and on judging of it for themselves,—that is, on Pre- sidential government. It is the Throne, not the House of Commons, which is endangered by speculations like Mr. Kebbel's, and it is because we value the Throne, as the best symbol of the unity of the nation, the most dignified nexus of society, the cheapest defence against mob law, that we protest against a return to personal government. There is a curious assumption underlying Mr. Kebbel's paper, which we should not have expected from him. He seems to fancy that the propertied classes, and intellectual classes, and political classes can, if they would, establish " personal government," to protect themselves. Where in the history of England does he find proof of that assumption ? We should have said that our history was one long narrative of the inability of any power to establish itself against the popular will. " Society " stood behind Charles I., and never even rioted to prevent his execu- tion. The strongest Army the country has ever seen stood behind Oliver, and when the people cried for a Restoration, his dynasty crumpled down like a wall under a shell. If the people had been with James IL, he might have reigned for life. The Whig oligarchy fell before George III. because the people loved the farmer King, and from 1832 to 1878 our history has been one of concessions to democracy. Where does Mr. Kebbel find this strength in the upper-classes which could alter the Government of the nation, and alter it in a direction so unpopular with the Radicals, whose innova- tions are to rouse these classes to resist ? Lord Beaconsfield sees more clearly than that, when he indicates union between " the Monarch and the Multitude " as the secret of power ; and he fails, because he does not recognise the common-sense as well as the love of splendour in the English people. They admire the Throne for its glitter, as well as its usefulness ; but if personal rule is to be established, they will insist that the person shall express their own views, and reach their own ideal standard of capacity for rule. Is it Mr. Kebbel who hungers for a President ?
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