LIMITATION OF THE PREROGATIVE.
THERE are few real friends of social order, national prosperity, and monarchical institutions, to whom the recent political struggle has not occasioned serious alarm ; and there are none who doubt, that unless public affairs be henceforward conducted in accordance with the feelings, as well as the interests of the people, no Minis- try can endure. The signal failure of the attempt to govern in defiance of the Country, has shown the impossibility of a suc- cessful warfare against the spirit of the age; and the important knowledge is at length gained, that the kingdom cannot be ruled in honour and in peace either by Parliamentary minorities or by Royal Prerogative.
On looking back to the last five months of political agitation, and considering that the peace of the whole empire has been periled, at the mere will of a single person, and in avowed opposi- tion to the National Representatives, we are naturally led to inquire into the propriety of continuing, in its full extent, a power which may be again productive of evils similar to those from which we have just escaped. Prerogative has never been regarded at any time with much complacency ; but it has now fallen into exceed- ing disgrace. The nation is not inclined to tolerate, under what- ever fiction, "the right divine of Kings to govern wrong." Ill- defined in its extent, and anomalous in its nature, Prerogative places the Sovereign in some respects above the law; which is a dangerous predicament both for King and People. It is a power only safe in abeyance; it never yet has been exerted without in- jury to its possessor; and however great the mischiefs its exercise may have occasioned, it has ever been worsted eventually.
History furnishes abundant proofs of these positions ; but the rude shocks which Royal " will and pleasure" has lately encoun- tered are sufficient for our purpose. Let us take three of the most prominent instances.
1. Royal Prerogative dismissed one Ministry friendly to the People, and appointed another friendly to its own views. But the King has been forced to turn out the persons chosen and trusted by himself; and lie must now take to his councils advisers in whom he has not, but in whom his subjects have, confidence.
2. Royal Prerogative dismissed one Parliament friendly to the People, and called another, in the hope that it would support the Tories, their natural enemies. But Prerogative was not only disappointed in its hopes—it was obliged to submit to be told that the People disapproved of that exercise of it; and it was even further humiliated into an expression of something like sorrow for what it had done.
3. Royal Prerogative used its least disputed function, and appointed a congenial representative to a despotic Sovereign. But the People forced that appointment to be foregone, on the dis- tinct ground, that however qualified the Ambassador elect might be to express the views of the Court, he was totally unworthy to represent those of the People ; and thus, a third time, was the im- potence of Prerogative exhibited.
Severe as these lessons have been, we hope that they will be remembered and prove salutary. Irresponsible power has been brought to a stand for the present ; but there still remains some- thing to be done to keep it in permanent check. We must not forget that the law remains unaltered; that Royal wisdom is not invariably great ; and that Royals memories are proverbially short. The King of England has still the right to choose his own counsellors in opposition to the will of the People, for whose benefit alone he is allowed to reign. This in itself is a most exorbitant power; and in Lhe unlimited extent to which it may
be used, it is at direct variance with the spirit of the Constitution". If any individual can suspend at his pleasure the working of the machine of Government, or throw its whole functions into a hand already self-declared incapable, and publicly found unfit to direct one, it is clear that he possesses a power inimical to the wellbeing of the State, and which ought to be immediately curtailed. What was intrusted, in the late instance, to the Duke of WELLINGTON, might, under the same irresponsibility, have been intrusted to the Duke of CUMBERL %No. The destinies of England might have been swayed by WINCHILSEA or by RODEN, or the country swamped at once under the blind pilotage of some titled imbecile or Court parasite. A power of this degree is an unsafe one in any hands; and a fair question arises on the propriety of confining its exercise to the period during which Parliament sits,—permitting only vacancies by death or resignation to be filled up by the King at any other period. With the precedent of November before us, there is evidently nothing to hinder the Sovereign from dismissing a popular Ministry immediately on the close of a session of Par- liament, and installing in their place any desperate clique he pleases, however reckless of the general weal, or however hateful to the Nation they may be. The country may be thus placed under a ruinous government every six months, and the obstinacy or wrongheadedness of a King may defeat the best-considered measures of a Legislature. It is one of the conditions of heredi- tary succes.ion, that the Monarch is not always necessarily wise or good ; and certainly the People ought only to suffer the least possible amount of ill from his weakness or caprice. When Ministers are dismissed, in future, it seems highly proper that the People should have their Representatives ready at the same moment to confer with the Sovereign upon the subject, and if need be, in the exercise of their prerogative, to put him back and keep him upon the right road. They should be in a position to take care, that a peer granted exclusively for their advan- tage, be not used as an instrument for their destruction.
It has been asked, is the King to be limited in the cluiete of his
Ministers to one section only of his subjects—to that section of all others personally and politically distasteful to him ? The
question scarcely deserves a reply ; for it is self-evident that since the representation of the People in Parliament has become more real than during the dominion of Rotten Boroughs. the King can
only govern according to the will of the majority, and, bon gre mid gre, he must take his official advisers from the party composing that majority. It is ridiculous to weigh the personal feelings of
the Sovereign in the scale against the public good; and nothing can be more pernicious t the Crown than to identify itself with a
faction cordially hated by the People. CHARLES the Tenth would not "desert his party ;" he kept POLIGNAC in spite and in defiance of his people ; but CHARLES is an exile and POLIGNAC a prisoner.
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