TOPICS OF THE DAY.
1I-1AT HAS THE KING GAINED BY THE DISSOLUTION?
/sill the Anti-Reform, or rather Ultra-Ratical Reform, journals tif London have vented some sneer at the King and the Whigs for Creating Colonel FITZCLARENCE Earl of MUNSTER. But the now Ultra-Radical Reformers dare not publish concerning the King that which they say of him amongst themselves. By " dare not," 'we mean, not that they fear the Attorney-General, but that, in the system of government which they would uphold, the King is, like the priest of some Pagan communities, a person to be treated with reverence in public, though in private he be the slave of the poli- tical chiefs. The now Ultra-Reforming Tories, if they have any hope at all, yet hope to control the King, as since the Revolution every King of England has been controlled by certain owners of borough-power. They dare not, therefore, abuse the King, how- ever great their inclination that way. In order to gratify their in- clination without committing themselves, they have recourse to quotation. But, take as a specimen of their attachment to " his most sacred Majesty,"* the following extract from the John Bull of *last Sunday. "It appears by Friday's Gazette, that the King has been pleased to create Colonel Fitzclarence an Earl, Viscount and Baron of the United Kingdom, by the style and title of Earl of Munster, Viscount Fitzclarence, and Baron Tewkesbury. "Upon this creation there can be but one opinion : and we fully con- Cur with the following remark, which appears in the Times on Friday :— "'A Peerage, with the rank of an Earl, is to be conferred on Colonel Fitzclarence. The relationship of this gentleman to the fountain of honour, united to his high attainments, moral worth, and professional reputation, entitle him to such a mark of paternal regard; and the public cannot but rejoice that it will be conferred.' "The illustrious houses of Richmond, Grafton, and St. Alban's were founded upon a similar origin; and, as the Times justly observes, the personal attainments of Colonel Fitzclarence, and the general esteem in which he is held, will doubtless render his elevation a very popular measure.
" It is with great pain, however, we are compelled, for the sake of put- ting a just value upon the sanction of the Times newspaper to the crea- tion in question, to quote from its columns the opinion we find registered there, upon the same subject, on the twenty-first day of December last. We beg attention to it:—
" The irregular scions of a certain illustrious House are becoming troublesome. We do not wish to be particular : we trust that the young men and women to whom we allude are not so blinded by infatuated con- • ceit as not to take a hint.
" Is this a time to make claims without service ? Is the mere accident of left-handed birth to be a ground for honours or wealth ? One thing we can confidently predict. If, as it is said, the clamorous progeny have put forth pretensions which ought not to be listened to, the parent who • has magnanimously and patriotically refused the appeal, will have ac- quired a fresh title to public admiration and affection.
" ' It is a maxim of the law that the King can do no wrong. What a noble moral, as well as political comment, on this .maxim would it be, that the King will do no wrong
"The little discrepancy which appears between these two opinions upon one point is somewhat curious, and not a little entertaining ; but it gains even something more by another reference to the same paper, on the subject of the Whigs, by whom, of course, the grant of the Peerage has been sanctioned, if not advised.
"The limes—as we once before have taken the liberty of mentioning .---has the following observations upon that political body from which the Administration of the country is at present selected—With a reference to them we leave the subject for to-day :— " As to the Whigs, we plainly, and in the face of the people of Eng- land, deny that the country looks to them as its saviours in any great emergency—the experience of nearly fifty years has proved the real cha- racter of this party—at once haughty and pusillanimous—rash and short- sighted—noisy democrats when out of place, insolent aristocrats when in—ignorant of the noble qualities of their own countrymen, and timid depreciators of their glory, while they are ever vehement, and ready to applaud and magnify the successes of foreigners. Such are the men whom, we are told, England is to regard with veneration and affec- tion! ! !'—Vide Times newspaper, August 21, 18301" Here we have the King abused, as identified with the Whigs, and otherwise abused in the most imperious and insulting terms. The Times endeavours to get out of the scrape, by saying- " We find it has been objected to us that we now approve of the acces- sion of Colonel Fitzclarence to the peerage, having formerly treated as an unreasonable and unwise attempt, the supposed application of all the brothers and sisters of the Fitzclarence family to the Sovereign for similar marks of his parental attachment. Is there any inconsistency between such approval and such censure ? We are very sure that the people of England will be just as inconsistent in that respect as we are."
We, with all deference to vulgar opinion—that is, to the opi- nion of the great majority—are very sure that the people of England will be more "inconsistent in this respect" than the Times. And why ? because the Ministerial proposal of Reform, and the dissolution of Parliament, have produced a great political revolution in this country. Power must reside some- where. Since the Revolution of 1688, borough-property has been political power. Since the late dissolution of Parliament, political power has passed away from the Boroughmongers, and has been divided between the King and the Nation. WILLIAM the Fourth has acquired unlimited power as to all that may gratify himself without injuring the Nation. Not the- slightest injury would be done to the Nation, if—to use the language of the Times—" all the brothers and sisters of the FITZCLARENCE family" were raised to the Peerage. What, then, is to hinder our good King from bestowing peerages on all his Majesty's sons and the husbands of his daughters too, supposing the children to desire and the parent willing to bestow such a distinction ? Could the , • See the speech of Mr. Hsaams -to the thirteen electors of Harwich. late Boroughtnongers prevent it ? —they are extinct. Would the people prevent it ?—they would rejoice to see the King do any thing agreeable to his Majesty, disagreeable to the late Borough- mongers, and not injurious to the Nation. What, then, is to deter his Majesty from following, his own pleasure in this respect ? " Oh but "—we hear the exclamation from some who do not perceive the great increase of power which the Dissolution has be- stowed upon the King—" Oh ! but the Ministers might object to raising all the brothers and sisters of the FITZCLARENCE family' to the peerage !" And suppose they did. The King might in- stantly find other Ministers, who would make no such objection, and who would nevertheless be extremely popular with the Nation. We doubt the assumption of the Times, that " all the brothers and sisters of the FITZCLARENCE family " desire to be raised to the peerage ; but if they have this desire, and if the King wish to gra- tify it, we are sure that the People of England will be so inconsis- tent as to promote the measure ; if inconsistency it he to love and gratify a King who, being King of England in 1831, is so incon- sistent with the timidity and subserviency of his predecessors as to rebel, with his People, against the tyranny of the Boroughmon- gers, which for a hundred and forty years has been exercised upon both King and People. The fiction of three equally balanced powers, so long imposed. on the people of England as a truth, is exploded. At length we know that the much boasted "Constitutional ba'ance" of Mo- narchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy, has never existed. Before the Commonwealth, the King was master—under the Common. wealth, the people Wen master, until CROmwELL became a Mo- narch. During the reigns of CHARLES the Second and JAMES the Second, there was a scramble for power amongst King, Aristocracy, and People. The Revolution of 1688 was effected by the Aris- tocracy; and since that epoch they have been masters. The Revo- lution of 1831 takes power from the Aristocracy, and bestows it upon the King and the People. We repeat, that by dissolving the late Parliament, the King of England has acquired unlimited power in all that may gratify himself without injuring the Nation. It is a common practice with those who would maintain the delusion of three equally balanced powers, to deride the abortive attempts of the French to establish a "mixed constitution like that of England." "What !" said Sir GEORGE MURRAY the other day to the electors of Perthshire—" what, I would ask, is the cause of the failure on the part of other nations to assimilate their con- stitutions to that of Great Britain ? what is the cause of its failure in France, and of all the attempts which have been making for the last forty years to establish a permanent system of free govern- ment in that unhappy country ? The cause of these failures, I apprehend to have been, that the French have aimed at a theoreti- cal perfection, instead of being contented with practical utility.'
Supposing that we could agree with Sir GEORGE MURRAY as to the meaning of the terms "free government"—" theoretical perfection"—and "practical utility," we should hold that he had uttered to the electors of Perthshire a truth as important to the whole nation as it must be novel to the parchment-voters who heard it. The French, the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Sici- lians, have all failed in their attempts to establish a constitution similar to ours ; but why? Because they imagined that ours was that impossible thing—" a mixed constitution of three equally balanced powers." They sought that which never did and never will exist, except as a "perfect theory." They chased a shadow, and of course missed it. Had they been guided by Sir GEORGE MURRAY.S notion of "practical utility," they would have esta- blished an aristocratic government ; and, in order to call it "free government," would have attained their end by means of sham representation. POLIGNAc, though a sad tactician, had a better notion of logic than most of his countrymen. He left his em- bassy in London, for the purpose of establishing in France such a "free government" of " practical utility" as has raised the debt of Britain to 800,000,000/. ; instead of the government of " theoretical perfection" which Louis the Eighteenth gave to the French. According to the views of Sir GEORGE MURRAY, he ought to have succeeded in the attempt : or, at all events, Sir GEORGE has not assigned the true cause of his failure. That cause was the hatred of the French to aristocratic government, under whatever name. The adherents of Louis the Eighteenth might, by the aid of the Holy Alliance, have forced upon France a soi-clisant mixed government of three equally balanced powers, with the "practical utility" of being really an oligarchy veiled by sham representation. It is fortunate for this country and the world that they know so much less than Prince POLIGNAC and Sir GEORGE MURRAY of the science of government.
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