ENGLISH REPUBLICANISM.
THE French journalists, and, indeed, many of the English, miss, we think, the true importance of the vote on Mr. Briggs's motion of Friday week, about the statue to Prince Napoleon. That motion was defended, as many motions are in Parliament, by arguments which do not precisely represent the feeling that secured its remarkable success. Neither the English people nor their representatives cared very much about the personality of Prince Louis Napoleon. He was an unknown quantity to them, and the few public acts of his career neither interested nor disgusted them. They fancied him slightly foolish in going to Zululand, where he had no business, and could learn nothing, but they understood that he went in his capacity of Pretender, to show that he was not afraid, and thought that an excusable bit of boyishness. He could not hurt the Zulus much, and if he did, in a war with savages English sympathies are very rarely and very slightly on the side of the dark race. The injustice of the Zulu war struck many, but did not strike them keenly as increasing the guilt of the foreign Prince. He did not think it unjust. If they had happened to dislike the Government of France, to which the Prince was supposed to be obnoxious, they would have left the Dean of Westminster alone to take his own course, on his own responsibility, without much reflection either on the Prince's character, or on the justice of the conflict in which he was engaged. But they did not dislike it. On the contrary, the true significance of the vote, and of the almost national movement which produced it, is the growing appreciation of Republicanism as a form of government which is developing itself in this country. At all the meetings on the subject of the statue, and especially at the meeting in St. James's Hall, this was the spirit that was obviously pre- dominant. Every allusion to the Republic was received with enthusiasm, and the point which really told against the Prince personally was not that he fought against Zulus, but that he intended, if he could, to upset the Republic in France by force of arms. The feeling was, of course, less manifest in debate, though it was discernible in Mr. Briggs's speech, and in the allu- sion to the great Englishman who, because be triumphed over a monarchy, still remains without a statue ; but it greatly influenced the vote. Englishmen feel that Republics are beginning to succeed, that they are, at all events, possible even in countries where land is not limitless, where population is close, where revolution has been frequent, and where the people, wisely or unwisely, but decisively, hold a strong mili- tary organisation to be essential both to the grandeur and the safety of the State. The past ten years in France have shown Englishmen that a Monarch is not necessary to a great State, that a President will do quite as well, that a Republic can organise armies, can maintain order•, can tax heavily, can respect property, and can remain at peace. That is to them something of a revelation, and they like it. They never had much feeling about' Legitimacy, they like it still less, now that it is so closely associated with Clericalism ; and their feeling about Monarchy is not so powerful as many observers think. They consider it, or used to consider it, out- side England—where the Throne and the Peers and the Com- mons all " came," like the rivers, and the pastures, and the parishes—a most useful institution for certain purposes, but when those purposes are attained without it, they readily give it up. The English are not true Monarchists, do not care, do not even remember whether a dynasty is old, like the Guelphs of Hanover, who passed away without an English sigh fol- lowing them ; or new, like the Bernadottes of Sweden, who seem to them quite as " royal" as anybody else,—as the Hohenzollerns, for instance, or the House of Savoy. They ask for results, and when they see them attained, rather prefer republics to monarchies, grow solicitous about the respect to be paid to the former, and by the oddest confusion of feeling are delighted when the Prince of Wales " does honour " to Republican chiefs. The feeling, strange as it may appear, though of course strongest among Liberals, is not confined to one side. There was probably not a Tory in England, other than a Catholic, who sympathised with Mr. O'Donnell's attack on M. Challemel-Lacour, or who is not ready to welcome a French Ambassador who is dis- tinctively Republican. The City of London is not Liberal, but the City, on occasion offering, would give M. Challemel-Lacour a gold box just as readily as any Duc de la Rochefoucauld- Bisaccia or Marquis d'Harcourt. Tories as well as Liberals welcomed the resignation of Marshal MacMahon, and the entente cordiale with France Republican is as warm as it ever was with France Monarchical ; so warm, that the very great projects just sanctioned by the Assembly for French aggrand- isement in the Far East, projects which may end in the formation of a French empire covering all Indo-China from Tennasserim to the Chinese frontier, and will certainly end in the formation of a vast French dependency in Tonquin, are regarded without antipathy, and almost without interest. " Let France win out there ; we can get on with France," is the unwritten but irresistible verdict of the few who watch. The effect of this growing feeling in England may be very considerable, should the remaining Latin nations, as is quite possible, imitate their great sister, and Republics spring up both in Italy and Spain. Englishmen hitherto have regarded Republicanism in both countries with distinct aversion, as preludes to internal disorder or political disintegration, and the aversion is still much stronger than any sympathy. In Spain, the Communistic element visible in the last Republic destroyed English sympathy with the experiment, though the great Spanish Republican Castelar is still a favourite here; and in Italy, Englishmen have a liking for the House of Savoy, though its chiefs have not been respectable according to English ideas, and though they have failed in their most pressing task, the civilisation of Naples and Sicily. The reluctance to consider a Republic possible in those countries is, however, dying away, and a very important obstacle to the spread of Republicanism on the Mediterranean is thereby being removed, the chance of external interference while England and France are passive or approve being manifestly slighter, or, indeed, almost inappre- ciable. Time is still required for the change, but if the Re- public in France remains steady, and orderly. and untainted with any active spirit of persecution—the latter being the most visible danger—Englishmen will regard Republicanism as a legitimate or, indeed, hopeful form of government, to be judged like any other, and not to be regarded as prinal facie either ridiculous or monstrous. English opinion affects the Continent so strongly, as being, on the whole, the unemotional, common-sense opinion, most like that of pos- terity, that this is a very great change, all the more, perhaps, because the new toleration for Republics abroad is not accompanied by any new wish for Republicanism at home. We see, or fancy we see, many signs that the Democratic spirit is spreading in England ; that the wide suffrage is producing its results ; and that the people are becoming impatient of the old English method of government through a caste.. The Duke of Wellington's acknowledged ideal—government through the gentry—is in a good deal of danger, and if tho• Whigs are not wise, may be in more danger yet ; and once, very recently, there was for a few hours a " sough " or breath of irritation against the Monarchy. Had the Queen been ill- advised after the late election, the consequences might have been historical ; but she was not, and the desire of the people is to get their own way, rather than to get it through any particular forms. Their slowly growing opinion is not that a Republic is the best of all forms of government, but rather that it is one of the best ; mixed Monarchy being another of the best, instead, as used to be thought, the only conceivable good one. That is a change, but not a change likely to produce consequences at home, so long as the people feel that in the last resort their decision is final. While it is, the approval of Republicanism, even if it became warm, and if the attraction necessarily exercised by Franco and the United States became closer, would not necessarily develop° into a
desire to introduce it here. Education does not impair monarchical feeling, or create discontent with institutions, and except in two contingencies, there need, we imagine, be little hope or fear of a growth of acting Republican feeling in Great Britain. A very great disaster, suddenly revealing to the country that its organisation was weak, and weak because its institutions were monarchical, while its temper was demo- cratic, might result in decided changes, such as for a moment seemed possible during the period of failure in the Crimea. That is conceivable, for there can be no doubt that the weak place in our practical polity is the expenditure of thirty-flvo millions at home and in India on armaments which are, never- theless, for any serious enterprise absurdly inadequate and weak, or that the defect is due directly to the want of popular control over our military organisation. But though conceivable, great changes are improbable, the fighting-strength of the country being the interest of the Monarchy quite as much as it is that of the people. And it is possible also that the weak point in the theory of our institutions might strike the popular imagina- tion. Monarchy, with some great advantages, has this dis- advantage, that it is an undignified institution. Its existence involves a confession by the people that they are not quite fit for self-government, that they must be controlled from outside, that their right to act for themselves requires to be tempered
by rights in other persons not derived from them. To give a veto to Peers, for example, is to admit in the most formal way
that the Representatives of the people cannot be entirely trusted to act wisely or well, or with due deliberation. If that conviction should ever strike Englishmen strongly, and excite a sense of anger, all in England would be changed ; but it never has struck them yet, and certainly ought not to strike them for many years to come, till they are more fit than at present for complete self-government. It will probably be two genera- tions before we hear much of such an opinion ; but long before that, Englishmen, if we judge them rightly, will be approving of Republics for every State but their own.
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