The rate for the job?
must be conceded straight away that, n spite of his charm and easy television anner, Prince Philip is not always the t shop-steward-cum-PRO for the mon- rchy. Since only Parliament can vote an crease in the Civil List—that is, the • ueen's expense account—it was tactless, o say the least, to choose to plead poverty in an American TV programme. and to lect this particular forum for bringing nto the open the discussions which, the rime Minister disclosed on Tuesday, there ave been between the Queen's advisers nd the Government over the Queen's nancial difficulties. It would not have • n hard for Prince Philip to have replied the gentleman from the St. Louis Post mpateh that this whole subject was a atter for Parliament—and it would tainly have commended itself more to arliament, which, after all, controls the rse strings.
But none of this can justify Mr Wilson's fusal to appoint a Select Committee to view the Queen's finances and the Civil st during the lifetime of the present arliament. Since, as he made clear, the ueen will be in the red—in the sense that • r official expenditure, which has long teded her official income, finally ex- usts the supplementary reserve created the start of her reign—some time next ar, then if an official review is justified all it is justified now. It really is not xl enough to put it off until the next rliament on the ground that the Queen dip into her private income in the antime—even if she is eventually re- bursed. Nor is there any validity in the ument that the present time, being the -up to a general election, is a bad time vote the Queen an increase in her ex- se account (or even to consider it). ndeed, since the twelve months before election are traditionally the time when • overnment loosens its purse strings, and e public opinion is least likely to dge the Queen a rise at a time when gravy is being dished out all round, the • nt seems a particularly good time to t the wheels in motion. This might not SO if there were a risk that to do so Id make the monarchy an election ; but no such risk exists. And since Labour party—including, presumably. Wilson—in fact voted in favour of e being a ten-yearly review when the nt Civil List was originally fixed in the Prime Minister's present refusal S even more curious. It can only be explained in terms of his fear of offending, in a pre-election period, an insignificant group of left-wing Labour backbenchers to whom the whole idea of monarchy is anathema. It seems particularly shabby coming from a man who (notably over the Rhodesian affair) has exploited his sovereign for political purposes more than any Prime Minister since Disraeli.
There are, of course, other means of easing the Queen's financial plight. The Prime Minister, in his statement to the Commons, mentioned that over the years the bills for a number of items—including the royal yacht, train and aircraft and state visits overseas—have been transferred from the Civil List to the Exchequer; and there is obviously scope for this process to continue, although he gave no indication of any intention to see that it did. Again, the Queen, although short of income, is lavishly endowed with capital assets (which is one reason why the royal family lives a life of middle-class simplicity amidst settings of palatial grandeur), and an annual sale of, say, some of the priceless works of art her predecessors acquired over the centuries, would transform the whole position. But this is a course of action which, understandably, she has so far refused to countenance.
And rightly so. For the monarch's role is a public one, and there is no suggestion whatever that, in carrying it out as it is understood in this country, the Queen has been in any way extravagant. Indeed, such minor economies as have already been made—such as reducing the numbers of lunches given by Prince Philip to bring together leaders in various different fields of activity who would not normally meet— have almost certainly not been in the national interest. It follows that, so long as the monarchy continues to enjoy the confidence of the public (which it does) it is the public that should make good the shortfall.
A hundred years ago there was a strong republican movement in Britain—which even, fleetingly, enjoyed the support of men of the standing of Joseph Chamber- lain. Today there is not, and at a time when every other established institution is being questioned or attacked, the mon- archy alone enjoys an almost undiminished public esteem. This it would certainly not do if it were to be run on cut-price bicycle- powered Scandinavian lines. For only a certain style and splendour can create the conditions of majesty and mystery neces- sary to enable an ordinary family to command the public awe and respect which a head of state must command if he or she is to become a genuine focus of national unity and symbol of the nation itself.
And this is the monarchy's principal role in Britain today. It is certainly not to be a symbol of that non-existent entity. Commonwealth unity. The Queen is to be congratulated on having decided to spare herself, this year. the farce of her annual Christmas message to the Commonwealth. It is only a pity that she has not decided to replace it with—dangerously radical though this suggestion may be—a message to her own people. the people of Britain. Nor, again, is the justification of the monarchy that given in the recent tele- vision film Royal Family, which declared that 'the strength of the monarchy does not lie in the power it gives the sovereign, but in the power it denies to anyone else'.
The truth of the matter is that, now- adays. the government of the day enjoys virtually absolute power and is denied nothing. If we believe otherwise we delude ourselves--and most dangerously. No doubt it is just possible to conceive of cir- cumstances in which the sovereign would exercise the constitutional power that theoretically she still enjoys in order to frustrate the will of the government of the day in the interests of the people. but at the very least any such confrontation is highly unlikely and its outcome uncertain. If we continue to believe in the sovereign as the ultimate guardian of the constitu- tion, we merely compound the fallacy that we have a constitution with the fur- ther fallacy that it possesses an ultimate guardian—and so put off the time, long overdue, when we set about securing both.
But what the monarchy, with its magic. does deny to others is not power but reverence. It is thoroughly healthy that politicians in Britain. however great their power and position. are not treated with undue reverence and respect--just as it is thoroughly healthy that, when a nation's chief executive comes to be thoroughly reviled (as, for example. President Johnson was), this does not become ipso facto an attack on the head of state and therefore a threat to the nation itself. This is a worth-while role, and we should recognise it both for what it is and for what it is not. What it is not we must create by other means: what it is we should be prepared to pay for.
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