TOPICS OF THE DAY.
PRINCE ALBERT ON THE CONSTITUTION.
THE Prince Consort has startled the public by appearing before it as a direct adviser, and the public scarcely knows what to make of the intervention. The public formerly had to rebuke itself for an over-impatience in calling Prince Albert to account; and now it listens in patient silence to the instruction. At the beginning of last year, public opinion, as we then said, was half-inclined to sacrifice Prince Albert at the shrine of rumour : a party whisper was set abroad that the Prince Consort influenced the Queen
against her Ministers, and even openly interfered at the meetings of the Sovereign with her responsible advisers. Public opinion at once consigned the Prince to the Tower! But it was appeased, when the facts, candidly stated, showed that the position of the Prince was of even greater influence than had been assigned to him. On the suggestion of Sir Robert Peel, with the sanction of Lord Melbourne, and Lord John Russell, and subsequently of Lord Aberdeen, her Majesty looked to the Prince Consort for that support and assistance which a woman in the position of a sove- reign might expect from a man, that man being her husband and friend. Technically, the Prince might be considered to stand in the light of a secretary to the Sovereign, personally assisting the Queen, sharing her position, bound by his allegiance and obe- dience to her; and not in the position of a Minister behind the throne, able to act, or embarrassing by sharing the responsibility of the members of the Cabinet. The position had been unprece- dented ; but as soon as it was understood by the public, there was something more than acquiescence—an evident satisfaction. The other appearances of the Prince in public had contributed to win for him a very solid respect. Always courteous—consider- ate for the position, wishes, and objects of those amongst whom he might be—Prince Albert had often uttered profound troths, with a clearness and force of language that brought them home to num- bers, and made them felt more widely than they had been felt be- fore. So it was at his Mansionhouse speech in March 1849, when, referring to the exhibition of practical art which was then only a design, he remarked, that " man is approaching a more complete fulfilment of that great and sacred mission which he has to per- form in this world: his reason being created after the image of God, he has to use it to discover the laws by which the Almighty governs his creation, and, by making those laws his standard of action, to conquer Nature to his use, himself a Divine instru- ment." Again, at the bicentenary festival of the Sons of the Clergy in May 1854, when pleading for assistance to the orphans of departed ministers, he remarked that the clergy of the English Church live among their congregations an example for the dis- charge of every Christian duty, as husbands, fathers, and masters of families—living models as well as preachers of morality ; prac- tising a self-denial which often in the pursuit of laborious duties prevents them from accumulating for the benefit of their progeny. There has been a plainness, a brevity and fitness, a generous spirit and breadth of view, in all that the Prince has thus offered to the public. At the annual dinner of the Trinity Corporation on Saturday, the war and its conduct led him to one great question of the day —the comparison of despotic government like that of Russia, which gathers up its authority, keeps its own council, concentrates its unforeseen powers for attack—with our system, which compels Ministers to announce their plans in Parliamentary explanations, parades their mistakes, divides their authority, and undermines their confidence. " dur constitutional Government," said the Prince, "is undergoing a heavy trial ; and we shall not get suc- cessfully through it unless the country will grant its confidence— a patriotic, intelligent, self-denying confidence—to her Majesty's Government." The words are true, and their truth is tested in the very blood of England. Disregard the advice„ and many a soldier may be sacrificed to the meddling interference of Parliament in military action. The life of our countrymen as well as the credit of our institutions is staked.
They are not the words of a party advocate presenting himself in competition with other statesmen : the Prince is removed from that suspicion by his political disabilities. They are not the hastily- uttered expressions of spleen: we have always observed the same vein of deep reflection in the same man. The application of the moral is perfectly plain. Ought we to exchange with Russia—to substitute for our Parliamentary system the concentrated autocracy of St. Petersburg ? If, indeed, military success were the only object of a nation, and if a state of war were the permanent condition of this country, we might deliberate upon that question, and possibly come to the conclusion that we had better have a general com- manding-in-chief called a Czar, instead of a constitutional King or Queen. But there are other duties for England besides military business; only when we are about that, it is well that we should consider how to enable the public servants to execute that duty properly. But Prince Albert reminds us that there are duties, and very specific duties too, thrown upon the Public, as well as the Crown, the Ministers, the Army, and the Parliament—duties be- sides those of tax-paying. The military business cannot be pro- perly executed unless we, who have the power of embarrassing it, resolve, instead, to assist it. And in most cases the em- barrassment which we so gratuitously create is occasioned by departing from our proper duties. We have, all of us, our allotted place in public life. The constituencies cannot possibly eieoute the duties of their repreantatives; or we had better have that mon- strous dream of some French and even English " refermers"—" direct legislation," that is, legislation by the whole people in Folkmote. The constituencies cannot perform the duty of the representatives, because, amongst other reasons, they cannot come up to town, sit within four walls, examine into facts, or be released from the mil- lion cares of every-day life. Neither can the rep: wentalives do what can be done by the responsible Ministers, whose appoint- ment it is their part to sanction ; or the House of Commons might properly do the duty of the Executive Government. The business of the House with reference to the Ministers is, to sus- tain them when unduly oppressed by the Crown ; to demand their removal when they are flagrantly wrong ; but not to meddle in the current details of executive business. It may impose some self- sacrifice upon self-sufficiency to be obliged to hold the tongue when privilege enables us to prattle ; but prattling and questioning may sacrifice the blood of our countrymen ; and certainly a loose-talk- ingjust now casts grave discredit on the institutions we prize, and on the men to whom those institutions are intrusted. The true and obvious moral of Prince Albert's admonition is, not to aban- don our manifold blessings in order to acquire the military advan- tages of Russia—which would not be worth the price—but to show that our institutions do not incapacitate us from rivalling the Russian autocracy in its unity of purpose and concentration of action.
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