THE QUEEN'S NEW TITLE..
rilHE debate of Monday on the Queen's new title, and the discussion which has followed it, have not been very exhaustive or very interesting, but Mr. Forster's suggestion seems to meet all the points upon which opinion is at all settled. There is a very general consensus of opinion in favour of naming India in the Queen's title, so that Her Majesty may be described on Indian coins by some phrase implying that she is Sovereign of India, and is proud of the appellation. There is also a very general consensus of dislike to the title of " Emperor " or "Empress,' as the special form to be adopted, a dislike which would be felt by Her Majesty herself, who, it is understood, we do not know how or why, prefers the word, if she were aware of one immediate consequence which will follow its adoption. She will be overwhelmed with petitions-as the Prince of Wales has been-from natives of India, who think that reply to those peti- tions is the most sacred duty of sovereignty, who will not believe that a Padishah can be bound by any constitutional form, and who will be furiously and personally disloyal if they receive no answer from the Empress. No answer can be sent, except throhgh the advisers against whom the petitioners are usually appealing, and the Sovereign will be pronounced unhesitatingly by native opinion a Roi Fainéant, and will lose half the sacredness which, in her remote seclusion from their eyes, now attaches to her. There is, finally, a partial consensus in favour of taking the op- portunity to recognise the additional rank which the great federa- tions of Colonies are slowly attaining within the "Empire." This feeling is not universal, is ridiculed by the Times, and is denied by Mr. Disraeli, who reasons as if Her Majesty were called "Queen of the English" instead Queen of England, and says the title includes all colonists, which is simply not the fact, as regards their capacity as colonists ; but it is widely spread, and if any change is to be made, it ought, if possible, to be recognised. Under these circumstances, we do not see. why, in the Proclamation which is to follow the passing of the Bill, the Queen should not follow the precedent of 1868, and describe herself, as she did then (side Times, December 6, 1868), as "Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and India, and the Colonies and Dependencies there- of, in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Australasia,"the italicised words being the only new ones. [India, be it remarked, has one great Dependency-British Burmah-which is not included in India, either by historical or geographical laws.] The careful compiler of Lodge's "Peerage," deceived by the precedent, gives that form-of course, without the word a' India "-as the legal style of the Queen, and the grandiloquence of the formula would not be out of place on the few grandly ceremonial occasions on which it is employed. All the arguments would then be met and all jealousies soothed, while the people of India would be honoured in a way which in a few decades, when the new coinage has found its way into their hoards, they will thoroughly understand.
It is nevertheless understood that unless Parliament expresses an opinion, Mr. Disraeli, who has created a Duke, and wants to create an Emperor, will recommend that title ; that the Court would like it ; and that the difficulty of translation cah be got over by the bold and sensible use of the word " Padishah," to cover both masculine and feminine holders of the dignity. It seems that at least one woman who claimed sovereignty over India, the widow of Sultan Altamsh, is described on her coins as "Sultan"-it was Baber who first used " Padishah "-and if we are not mistaken, the first Begum of Bhopal was always officially styled " Nawab." The title, therefore, may be made to serve, as far as difficulties of translation are concerned, and it is necessary to point out once more the objections to its adoption. One which we have given already seems to us so fatal, that we believe if the argument could reach the Queen's ears the idea would be abandoned. It is that as the Sovereign does not possess the irresponsible power and supreme personal volition implied in the word "Padishah," the native who reads the title will learn to hate her, as a ruler who claims and possesses, but will not use for her subjects' protection against wrong, the vicegerency of Heaven on earth. Nothing, to the Oriental mind, can be more contemptible than that. The " Padishah " is with him irrespon- sible, semi-divine, sobaus a kgibus, beyond all criticism, entitled to unreasoning obedience, on condition that he shall use his transcendent authority for the benefit of his people. Oppres- sion does not disenchant the Oriental, for is Providence always benign? Immorality does not matter, for can a Deity be bound? Enormous caprice is no disqualification, for Nature has caprices too, and a sudden order to remove a capital no more proves an Emperor inefficient than an earthquake proves God to be so. But inertia, neglect to answer prayer, refusal to judge even wrongly, visible neglect of all matters, this is fatal always, sooner or later, to. the Padishah. "There is no King in Israel," is the cry, and the first Pretender who says he will be actual King finds no one to resist him, except another Pretender of equal pretension and audacity. A Padishah must govern, and not merely reign, or be despised. That is, as it seems to us, the final Indian objection to the word " Emperor "
There remain the English objections, and two of these are well stated by Mr. Lowe and Mr. Forster. Mr. Lowe is perfectly right in his plea that English opinion attaches something of historical opprobrium to the word "Emperor," thinks of those who bore it not as good rulers over many nations, but as proud, conquering, oppressive voluptuaries. To the military element in the title, on which he laid so much stress, we cannot say we object. We are not rulers in India by a plebiscite, but by the right of -conquest, and if the title " Emperor " expresses that, it only ex- presses the truth. We should be kicked out to-morrow but for the British Army, and all smooth denials of the fact are delusive falsehoods. But "Emperor," besides expressing that, also expresses an individual and personal power, usually misused, which it is not proposed to give, and which the Indian will miss, while the Englishman ladies it till he loathes also the title that calls it to his mind. Just let Mr. Disraeli try to make the Queen "Empress .of Great Britain." He would not retain power three days, and the Monarchy itself would rock ; and the same dislike, though, of course, very much reduced in degree, will ex- tend to the intrusion of "Empress" among the Queen's habitual titles. And it will intrude. It was quite evident from Mr. Disraeli's full-mouthedness and his reference to preroga- tive, and his general tone of mystery, as if he were dealing with arcane of the State, that he thought he was doing something im- portant, giving her Majesty, in fact, some promotion ; and so we -doubt not it would prove. Silly people, and foreign sticklers for zeremony, and the Indians themselves, would, in no long period, force the words " Empress-Queen " into use, and with the social Arse of the brummagem decoration the historical grandeur of the ancient title would disappear. It is a pity, if the Monarchy is to be preserved, to divest it of any of those associations which protect it without violence, and enable men to be reverential without feeling that they have lost their self-respect.
That is a rank Tory sentence, that last, but it is true, neverthe- less; and we want to add one more which is more rankly Tory .still, and one to which we are amazed to find that no Tory gives expression. We hold any change in the Sovereign's habitual title to be inexpedient and unpleasant, simply because it is a change. There is not the faintest objection to a widening of the area of terri- tory covered by the title, but there is to any change in the title itself. It will operate like a change in the style of a great old firm, makings break in its history, its tradition, audits meaning to the ear; or like an alteration in an ancient peerage, confusing, for a time at all events, all that half-conscious knowledge which any very ancient title suggests. It is useless to suggest that names are unim- portant—if that be true, then why change them ?—for they are wery important indeed. Let " Childs " call themselves " Infants " to-morrow, and test their credit the day after ; or to take a much better illustration, let the Archbishop of Canterbury take to sign- ing himself "Archibald Canterbury," instead of " Cantuar," and see how much dignity he would gain by the innovation. The immense change made after the Union with Scotland was justified by necessity, but there is no necessity whatever for calling the Sovereign of Great Britain, Ireland, and India, "Empress" instead of " Queen." If is a mere bit of Orientalism, and though Her Majesty is the second of Asiatic Sovereigns, it is not on- Asiatic principles that she and her descendants are to govern their Asiatic dominion.
It is curious that through the whole discussion Only one original title has been suggested. We suppose the Times meant to suggest one when, it said on Thursday that the Queen "might style her- self Empress, or Queen, or Sovereign Lady of India," and the suggestion is not a bad one. Indeed, it is open only to the objection that the words could not easily be conveyed as they stand into the native languages ; and in translation there would be a difficulty about "Lady," though, we sup- pose, the word " Malika," now used for the Queen in official documents, would do. Its meaning is much more nearly "Lady," in the feudal sense, than "Queen." But one original suggestion has been offered, it would seem, of the most horrid kind. The Telegraph, which sometimes seems to know Mr. Disraeli's inner mind, hints that he wishes to call her Majesty "Queen or Empress of Hindostan," thinking that word more mouth-filling than "India," the European form of the Persian name for the Peninsula. If he does, he ought to be set to read criticisms on " Alroy " for the rest of his life. What is "Hindostan," and what does it mean? There is a district of Northern India which was nicknamed or described by that word, but it has no relation to India, unless, perchance, it be taken to mean "Land of the Hindoos." Mr. Disraeli might as well call the Queen "Empress of Christian- land" or" Queen of Northumbria," as "Empress " or " Queen of Hindostan." Bengal, the true seat of our power, is no more in Hindostan than Norfolk is in Northumbria. There is no native name for India, and the Persian name "Hind," whence our "India," though it meant originally, we fear, nothing nobler than " Blackey Land "—the Persians noting contemptuously the differ- ence of colour between the people and themselves—has long lost any nuance of opprobrium attaching to it, and is invariably used by all natives with a feeling of not unnatural pride in the gran- deur of the section of the world which it describes. If the Queen must be "Empress," let her be Empress, in spite of the annoyance most Englishmen will feel, but at least spare us such a high- sounding specimen of histrionic unreality AS "Empress of Hindostan."
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