LOYALTY AND CYNICISM.
CORRESPONDENT of singular ability,—if we except from Li that term the power to perceive what ability can do and what it cannot,—has set forth in another column his reasons for
charging our article of last week on the monstrous Australian
Treason-Felony Act, and the outbreak of social feeling which ac- companied it, as the production of an English "cynic." This term was suggested, of course, by our Australian correspondent's own signature, as lie had signed himself in the letter in which he pro- tested against this marvellous legislative feat, "Au Australian cynic." On our own part, however, we entirely and warmly repudiate the term. Almost the last word, we hope, which would justly describe the general tone of this journal is the word "cynical." It is a word which expresses the bitterness caused by the absence of a belief, by the inability to find anything but hollowness at the heart of life, and which even implies a certain pleasure in exposing that hollowness. We are far from intending to retaliate on our correspondent an offensive expression which we happen to know would describe him exceedingly ill. But we think we can show before we close, that his view of loyalty has in it more of what should be truly termed cynicism than ours ;—that it implies a prepossession in favour of signs as compared with realities, and justifies that superficial effervescence of popular feeling on behalf of mere nominal grandeurs which takes the heart of true loyalty out of a nation and leaves it no strength for grave enthusiasm on behalf of great causes and greater leaders.
And first, we may at once say that we at least have never been behiudhand in pleading for the strengthening of that real bond between England and her Colonies,—a bond not chiefly of material interest, but of common purposes and hopes, rendered possible by a common history and common memories, —the depreciation of which by English politicians, our Australian Colonies are asserted by our correspondent to take so much to heart. The accusation against us has always been that we struggle too eagerly for Imperial ideas, that we estimate too highly the value of national strength, unity, and organization, and are prepared to sacrifice too much of material advantage to attain those ends. If, therefore, the extrava- gant delight in Prince which seems to be shown at the Cape and the Australias is fairly to be referred to attachment to the unity of the Empire, we certainly should be the last to throw cold water upon it. It is probable, indeed, that we had not fairly estimated this element in the excitement which was shown on Prince Alfred's arrival, or in the grief which was displayed when the inhospitable assassin attempted his cruel and treacherous deed. So far as this is so, we are very glad to be corrected. If Prince Alfred were regarded as a sort of living equivalent of the national flag, a personal evidence that the monarchy extends to the antipodes, and covers a united people, we should be the last to undervalue the worth of the spontaneous emotion of welcome with which he was re- ceived, and of the burst of passionate grief with which the attempt to murder him was execrated. But then how far is this true? We are happy to believe our correspondent's representation that it has much more truth than we supposed when writing last week. Still the test of love for the national unity is not the ebullition of excitement at the sight of a Royal personage, nor even of horror, resentment, and indignation when wicked hands are lifted up against him ; but the fidelity shown to those traditions and prin- ciples, by the strength of which England has become noble and great. We assert that we have grown great by sobriety, by temperate regard for the rights of the subject, by steadily resisting the childish impulse to prostrate ourselves before Royal names, by the calmness of our leading men amidst great excitements, by resisting the fascination of those insane remedies which are worse than the disease, by keeping our respect for law far above our respect for persons, by not being afraid to defend our liberty even when liberty had led to licence. We assert that if the Imperial unity is to mean anything, it must mean a common attachment to the highest principles of English government ; that it should be shown when those principles are in peril, by adhering to the traditions and purposes which have made the Empire, that it can never be shown by hysterics over the mere symbols of unity combined with unfaithfulness to all the convictions which have made the love of unity sacred. Now, when our correspondent " Z." says "the judges are not likely to allow the Act [the Treason-Felony Act] to be enforced in an improper manner ; the intention is obvious enough, and the blunders will probably prove to be harmless surplusage," we cannot help saying, with every respect to him, that he talks absolute nonsense. What power has a judge when a person is found guilty of a crime defined by statute, beyond the power to enforce the minimum penalty which that statute imposes? When an Act denounces a penalty of not less than seven years' penal servitude for even proposing a peaceful and friendly separation of the Australian Colonies from the British Crown, —what possible power has a judge in the matter, except to see that the prisoner is convicted on good evidence of the offence, and to keep the penalty down to this merciful minimum of only seven years? Our correspondent- talks wildly and at random when he speaks of the Judges doing anything to prevent the mischief of such an Act as this. More- -over, if the Attorney-General and the legal officers of the Govern- ment shared the insanity, what is to show that the Judges would be free from it ? Of course our correspondent may say that the Act -will be repealed or amended before the Royal assent to it can be refused. We hope it will be so. But if so, what does that mean, except that the delirium caused by the presence of a Prince of the Blood has carried the colony away into an act of legislation which it immediately perceives to have been, not true, but false to those principles of imperial unity and constitutional tradition to which, as our correspondent affirms, the Australian Colonies are so pro- foundly attached. We are too conscious of our own English short- -comings in our demeanour towards the colonies to feel inclined to reproach them with the hollowness of their constitutional loyalty, —but we must say that if Victoria would show herself a little less disposed to cheat the Legislative Council of its just constitu- tional prerogatives by a piece of administrative legerdemain -which it is not easy to characterize politely at all, or at all events would be a little more moderate in her outcry against the Home -Government for disapproving this discreditable intrigue, we could spare a good bit of the effusion of feeling over Prince Alfred and -still believe far more profoundly than we do in her loyalty to the national principle :—and if New South Wales would have shown a little more jealousy for the principles of English liberty, we -could have spared some of her demonstrations of praiseworthy passion at the great crime attempted on her shore, and yet accepted far more easily our correspondent's rationale. Loyalty does not -seem to US to consist in effervescence of sentiment over the symbols -of national unity, but in earnest fidelity to the great principles, and -to the still greater expounders of the principles, which have made Great Britain what she is. The true cynicism consists in attach- Mg so much more significance to the sign than to the thing -signified. The Throne is a part of our political system, and it is now so admirably filled that we justly cherish a warm national sentiment towards her who fills it. But it is mere political cynicism even to think of the Throne as the bond fide key- -stone of British unity and greatness. It is losing practical signi- ficance with every century of our history ; and Prince Alfred at least represents far less of the greatness and moral force of the -empire than the humblest despatch, founded on a vote or debate of the House of Commons, which passes between our Colonial Minister and the Governments of our colonies. If we attri- buted to the "starved appetite for rank " any portion of a feeling -of genuine loyalty to the imperial unity,—as we trust and think we did,—we are heartily glad to own our mistake, so far as we -were mistaken. But the facts of the case do not in any degree bear out our correspondent "Z." in attributing even half of the -excitement to this nobler source. That much of it, both before and after the attempted crime, was due to that morbid appetite for rank which in England likewise is so profound,—the morbid appe- tite to which Mr. Disraeli consciously panders when he speaks of the abolition of the Irish Church "dimming the splendour of the British Throne,"—seems to us incontestable. The only difference -that we see between the Australian and the English feeling is that which we indicated last week, by saying that the English weak- ness is tempered by constant practical experience of what rank is really worth, while the Australians clearly stand in need of more Duke to convince them that, after all, Duke is human.
The veiled cynicism of " Z.'s " letter,—or what seems to us so, -for we gladly admit that we know our correspondent to be no -cynic, though he is in this letter cynical,—comes out in its con- elusion, where he means, we suppose, to intimate that rank does give .a positive worth to humanity which it could not have in itself. At least if he does not mean that, we do not understand its bear- ing on his argument. He contests the doctrine of the equality of -all men, saying, as we should say in one sense, that he never met any two men who could in any sense of the word be called equal.' But that simply means, if it means anything, what no one who ever talked of the equality of all men could contest. It means just the same as to say that no two women have the same beauty, no two poets have the same merit, no two flowers are en- tirely alike, and no two stars, in all probability, identical in their circumstances and those of their inhabitants. That is true, but did anybody ever doubt it ? What politicians and -theologians do mean, or ought to mean, when they talk of the equality of men, is, that in the eyes of the State, and of God, the welfare of all in their own different spheres is equally important, that the man with one talent will be judged on the same principle as the men with ten talents, and will be held as free to improve his one talent into ten, as he with ten to let them dwindle down to one. That those who are "exposed to special danger" should be "specially protected" is true. It is true also that the lives of some men are infinitely more important to the State than the lives of others,—the life of Mr. Gladstone, for instance, than the life of any Duke living. But what our correspondent wishes us, we suppose, to infer, is that rank in itself, as distinguished from political responsibilities and duties, adds to the national value of the life to which it gives privilege and distinction ; —and this we do not in the least believe to be true ; nay, we regard the assumption, if it be, as we conclude our correspondent's, as one of the most cynical he could have made. We can all understand loyalty to great principles. 'We can unlerstand more than this, hearty loyalty to great leaders who make the life of Eng- land more true and vivid, and help us all to live a little deeper and better than we otherwise should. More than this, again, we can understand loyalty to faithful and conscientious occupants of one of the most dignified, embarrassed, and least free of all positions,—the British Throne. As the regiment which stands to be shot at deserves even more gratitude than the one which charges and wins the day, there is more gratitude, perhaps, due to those who serve us by only standing and waiting on that painful and cramping pedestal of nominal power, than even to those who guide our counsels or lead our armies. But as for loyalty to mere rank as rank, without great services and without great sacrifiees,—it seems to us to be the hollowest of all apologies for an empty and effervescent heart. Loyalty must be to principles or qualities, not to names, if it is not to be a mere practical cynicism. You might as well feel loyalty to a suit of clothes, as to sheer rank apart from the services which the bearer of it may render, or the sacrifices which the endurance of it for political purposes may impose.
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