TOPICS OF TIIE DAY.
ENGLISH REPUBLICANISM.
POLITICIANS who study carefully the symptoms of dis- content with our monarchical Constitution which show themselves from time to time amongst us, will come, we think, to the conclusion that our English Republicanism is neither, on the one hand, a living and fervent creed which thirsts for the success of its cause from pure love of it, nor, on the other hand, an empty dream which may be neglected by all practical politi- cians. Those who adhere to the Republican creed on principle and with eager desire to see the utter downfall of the heredi- tary principle in England are exceedingly few, and are mostly of the literary or idealist classes,—people who feel keenly the mischief of the empty vanity of birth, and the more mischiev- ous vulgarity of that low social ambition to which the heredi- tary principle in society gives rise amongst the class below ; and who vainly dream that if once hereditary rank were abolished, refinement, capacity, and culture, instead of wealth and osten- tation, would succeed to the privileges which rank had been compelled to surrender. Nothing can show how very faint this spirit is amongst the million who alone have power to strike a deadly blow at rank, if they will, than all the signs of popular feeling during the last few years. Mr. George Potter, in his letter to Tuesday's Times, though he owns himself a "theoretic Republican," does not even allude to it, but implies in every line of his letter that working-class Republicanism has very little indeed to do with the doctrine of abstract social equality ; and so far as it is held at all, is held only as the necessary condition of obtaining certain practical concessions which it is supposed that the Queen, Lords, and Commons are not at present very likely to grant. The "Journeyman Engineer," Mr. Thomas Wright, who publishes his ideas on the people's aims and wishes in the "Contemporary Review" for October, bears witness to the complete indifference of his class to the stern creed of doctrinal Republicanism, in still rnort,' :remarkable and candid language. "At the 4lection for the Metropolitan
School Bqa,rd,',',he was canvassing artizan voters for a
r- le:v;orking-class candidate. He was an active politician in the locality, and his views upon the education question were known to be those generally approved of by the working-classes ; but still many of these classes, while acknowledging that the views he pledged himself to advocate were more in accordance with their own than were those of any other candidate, refused to vote for him because he was a baker. No, they said, they were not going to vote for a fellow who carried home twopenny dinners. They were as good, nay, better, men than him, and why should they put him in a position to think himself something grand, and to get in with a lot of big people who would shove him into some snug berth?" Now that is, we take it, a most frank and instructive acknowledgment of a feeling that goes far deeper in the heart of the English people than any wish for abstract equality,—and is indeed, though they do not know
it, equivalent to a profound belief in rank, expressing, as it does, a bitter jealousy of men of their own class who have a chance of distinguishing themselves and rising out of their own grade. Mr. George Potter himself probably refers, with becoming delicacy, to the same fact, under the vague and decent designation of the "insuperable difficulties," which., he tells the Tinzes, prevent working-class candidates from actually getting into Parliament. Now we submit that, with this feeling amongst working-men, of positive dislike to confer any needless distinction on men of their own class, of positive preference for seeing those who are conventionally their social superiors fill all offices of honourable distinction, the ideal foundation of the Republican creed has no real hold on the people of Eng- land. So far as they are Republicans at all, they are Republi- cans for the sake of various real or supposed political conse- quences which they think they could achieve with the help of a Republic, and doubt whether they could achieve otherwise. But it would be a great mistake to infer that because this is so, because even among the working-classes of the great towns and cities there are few Republicans on principle, and, as yet at least, next to none at all in the rural districts, there is no sort of reality or meaning in the Republican cry. No historical lesson is more certain than that English revolu- tions are carried not for any disinterested love of a better constitutional or social idea, but for the sake of some ulterior practical end, which the people value far more than they do any constitutional or social idea whatever. Ideal republi- canism, with all its fine though hopeless aspiration after the recognition of none but moral and intellectual rank, after an aristocracy of worth and talent, and after the destruction oS the hollow and arbitrary standards of the world's esteem, has no real disciples in England ; but none the less there is a real and growing popular desire, not to say resolve, to obtain certain changes which the people know very well they will not very easily extort under the present reignite, and rather than forego. which they would very soon indeed be willing to change the re:9inie at least to a nominal republic. If they could get what they ask without interfering with the monarchy and aristocracy, there is, as far as we can see, no manner of doubt they would prefer it. If not, why a very few decades at most would bring them into the humour for revolution, rather than accept a defeat.
Now what is the nature of those practical changes for which a cry is beginning to rise that may soon be of very formidable dimensions We doubt if Mr. George Potter, or Mr. Thomas Wright, or any other of the spokesmen of this class really knova anything of its future developments, but they know this, that it has broken out in a very persistent and positive demand that the expense of the Throne shall be curtailed. For the rest, as far as we see, Mr. George Potter gropes as completely in the dark, as the Times and the rest of the newspaper press itself ;.
he names several other points at a venture on which there has been as yet no demonstration of popular feeling whatever; but, he and Mr. Thomas Wright and every other exponent of the working-class feeling are agreed on this,—that the determination, not to pay taxes at what the people think an extravagant rate for the Throne and the Royal Family, is very explicit indeed,. and by no means likely to give way. And the real meaning of this, to us remarkable, not to say grotesque, turn of popular feel- ing, we take to be something of this sort,—that the people of' England rather prefer a Monarchy, so long as theyfeel that they are dictating their own terms, and that the Monarchy is not im- posed upon them, but chosen by them,—the test of which is
that they thari-in5t be in any way "put upon" by the Con-
-ebicutional machinery in which they acquiesce. The very first mode in which an Englishman habitually tries this, is by asking himself if he pays only for what he gets, or for min.:11A more than he gets. If he thinks that he is paying for more' than he gets, he immediately begins to chafe in a way in which he would not chafe at any indication whatever of social]
inequality. He reflects that he himself probably could not be a Member of Parliament, still less a Peer, with any comfort to,
himself, and that he loses nothing, perhaps gains something int variety, by the existence of a class capable of sustaining those social responsibilities with effect. But he could enjoy the money which he now pays away without gaining any equivalent, and be. is aware that his class are sufficiently masters of the situation to have full power to refuse to pay anything away for a purpose which seems to them worthless or even mischievous; and thus his Republicanism takes the form of hostility not to conventionale social gradations, but to any attempt to turn the institutions to. which he is accustomed,—and which he rather likes than not so long as they do not seem to cost him the substantial right of enjoying his own life as fully as he can in his own way,—into machinery for sacrificing his well-being to the well-being of those whom he justly regards as, no doubt, dignified and stately servants, but still servants,—servants of the people. The same kind of feeling may be traced throughout English history As the working-class now rather prefer royal and aristocratic and rich middle-class politicians for doing their work, to poli- ticians of their own social grade, so long as they get the work they want done and no longer,—so the middle-class have always preferred aristocratic to middle-class politicians on the same condition ; and so, too, the lower ranks of the aristocracy have always preferred the most dignified and wealthy members of their own class, the Lord Liverpools and Lord Derbye, to men of even superior political ability, if of less rank and prestige in the aristocracy. It is of the very nature of the Briton, so long as he is working to his own end, to prefer to work through men above rather than beneath him in social prestige ; but then it must be to his own end, and he will take the most jealous guarantees that these distinguished political instru- ments are not using him for their own purposes. Now we need hardly say that this kind of Republicanism, —which is so far from real faith in the Republican idea that it, only brandishes the name of a Republic as a sort of menace over the heads of the royalty and aristocracy, from whom it demands in the meantime those practical concessions which best testify to the authority and seem to secure the interests of the people,—is not of the kind which specially commands our sympathies. We should feel the sincerest sympathy with the attempt,—were it in any way practicable,—to place the
relations of men on a basis more truly corresponding to the weight of their characters and the calibre of their capacities, and to eliminate as far as possible the degrading conventions which attach so preposterous a value to mere birth and wealth. But looking to the actual state of England and to the result of the experiment of Republican equality tried under much more hopeful circumstances in America, we are not at all dis- posed to hope that the establishment of an English Republic would be at present even a step in the right direction. It would probably give a terrible stimulus to the vulgarest of all influences, the worship of wealth,—and rather strike a blow at the respect which real refinement and, culture still command, than give them any new advantage over rank. Thinking men can hardly lay too much emphasis on this point, that the true moral and intellectual spirit of Republicanism has no root in England, and that the only Republicanism which has a real root, springs rather from belief that the Throne and the aristo- cracy cost the people too much, than from any determination to get rid of false and hollow standards of worth. On tho whole, therefore, we would far rather see the Throne,—which has still a real and very great power amongst us, a power to cement the unity of the nation, if only by standing for a symbol of that unity, which no other institution could at present possess,—strengthened and not shaken,—so long at least as the movement hostile to it proceeds solely from the popular jealousy of taxation and the truly English horror of paying more than your money's worth. And for that purpose it is surely most desirable that some action should be taken in accordance with the popular cry for a less burdensome Civil List. For our own parts, we have little sympathy with the feeling ; if a throne is to be of any use at all, we have often said that it ought to be stately ; and it is impossible for a throne to be stately without expense. At the same time, there is something in the popular argument that now, when commercial fortunes far outshine the fortunes even of the richest nobles, there can be no pretence for giving all the Royal Family a fortune that will enable them to be on a level with the richest in the land. • At all events, this is certain,— those who do not wish to see the Throne become unpopular, or at least do not wish to see it become unpopular for reasons of the most trivial kind, ought to desire concession in this matter, or its popularity, and therefore its political utility, will surely re- ceive a great shock. Some limit should be put to the number of members of the Royal Family entitled to votes of public money, and the fortunes of all the rest should be thrown on the private resources of its various branches. The Monarchy, to be use- ful, must be the choice of the people. It is so now. It will soon cease to be the choice of a very large and active section of the people, if some effort is not made to convince them that they are not taxed for the private advantage of virtually private families, but only for the maintenance of their own public officers.
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