THE JUBILEE PREPARATIONS.
THE preparations for the Yubilee, which may now be considered complete, are, on the whole, successful. Application was made in three quarters—to the world, to the Empire, and to London—to do honour to the Queen, and the response from all three has been of the most sympathetic kind. The world, to begin with, has given unusual testimony of its appreciation and friendship. All the Kings of Europe have sent special representatives, usually their Heirs-Apparent, as in the Austrian case, or near relatives, as in that of Germany, while the great Republics of France and the 'United States have despatched special Envoys with assurances of friendship and respect. No Sovereigns are coming, because their presence would have deranged all etiquettes, and detracted from the lonely majesty of the Queen's momentary position ; but the world seldom sees such a gathering of Princes as will on Tuesday follow the Royal cortege. There will be no figure among them so imposing in its stateliness as was that of the unfortunate Frederick, heir of Germany, who in the last Jubilee festival was the cynosure of all eyes, happily ignorant of the destiny which was soon to over- take him ; but there will be a gallant group of the great gentlemen of Europe. The only five Monarchies left in Asia which are free—Turkey, Persia, Siam, Japan, and China—will all be represented, the Emperor of the last- named having, moreover, bestirred himself to send over magnificent presents. Perhaps he remembers—yet pro- bably he never heard—that he and the Queen together rule more than half of all the men who to-day are alive upon the planet, a remark which could never have been made, from the beginning of history, of any two other Sovereigns. The homage to the Queen, therefore, paid by her equals is complete, and though much of it is due to her relationships and some to her age— the Chinese man is particularly pointed in his compli- ments about that—the people who are proud. of her may also be proud of it. The second response, that from the Empire, still the largest, as well as the most widely extended upon earth, has been as cordial and as full. The free Colonies, the daughter-nations of England—only Spain ever had so many daughters, and they have all married coloured men—have forwarded the politicians they have chosen as Premiers ; India sends her Princes • and from Hong-kong to New Zealand, from Canada to Queensland, every Colony and dependency is represented by a deputation of its own troops, who, it may be fairly added, are regarded among the dark races, not as we regard them, but as the most active and important section of the people. White or black, American, Asiatic, or African, not one among those many coloured troops from many continents is a conscript, or punishable if he refuses to serve her Majesty in the field. It is a wonderful group, that body of " Colonial " troops, and suggests many thoughts, among which that of the durability of empires is not, perhaps, the strongest. No matter, they are there, and, for the present it is with sincerity that they acknow- ledge themselves rejoiced to be her Majesty's subjects. The hymn of unity rings out loud and clear, and would be unbroken by even soft dissonance were it not that the Irish are still humming to themselves a shrilly melan- choly dirge. Well, well, the cypress is a creature of God as well as the oak and the teak tree. As for the third response, the one from London, that is going up as we write from a thousand hammers in noisy, but still cheer- ful, preparation. Whether all the seats put up will be let we neither know nor care—if half the " syndicates " are ruined, so much the better, for the speculators want a lesson —but that the mighty city is dressing herself for a gran& celebration, that her people will turn out literally in millions, and that among those millions there are only units- who do not rejoice at any honour or happiness which the. Queen may enjoy, is as certain as that London is greater in population, in wealth, in the multitude of its interests, and. in its importance to mankind than ever was Imperial Rome. London is really glad to be summoned to a gala., to suspend for one day its never-ending industry, to see a magnificent pageant, and to feel—that is the secret of the Imperialist feeling of London—" Of all that I see, of all, in fact, that moves within the Empire, I am the centre, the banking-house, and the commercial granary." The preparations are abominably ugly—nothing is so ugly as a stage before the curtain rises—but of the vastness of the preparations, of the profusion of the expenditure, of the willingness of the whole people to help, and to admire, and to clap hands, there cannot be the smallest doubt. It is most decisively proved perhaps by a note of vague alarm which we detect in some experienced quarters, as if the attraction might prove too overwhelming, and the fire- buckets, the exits, the guards insufficient to prevent a stampede. "Do not bring children," whispers one old hand ; "Too much timber," mutters another ; and " hope the jerry-work only begins at the second story," suggests a third, who knows that the force of a flowing crowd. is like the force of a river in flood. It is, how- ever, only the vastness of the affair which appals some imaginations. The total crowd may be bigger than any- thing yet seen on earth, but London will be cloven by the order which seals the bridges, the Procession traverses six miles of streets, and why the crowd at any one point should be denser than on the last Jubilee Day, or on the Garibaldi Day, or on the day of the Prince of Wales's wedding, it is difficult to perceive. Let the people only keep their heads, and all should go well enough ; and our people do keep their heads.
A great deal of criticism is wasted on the preparations in regard. to a single point. It is said that the industrial life of Britain will not have in the pageant the place which it has in the Kingdom and. the Empire. The criticism is well founded enough as to the fact, and well intentioned as to meaning, but how was the deficiency, real though it may be, to be avoided ? The two objects of the arrangements are to honour the Queen, and to produce an Imperial pageant, and how, without interfering with either, was industry to be fittingly represented. The industrious will be there by the million, the overwhelming feature in the show ; and industry in the abstract, even when symbolised, does not, outside Belgium, lend itself well to pageantry. There they have a traditional method, but here industry is not a century old. Do the critics want a march of the Trades with their banners, as in a Foresters' fete, or would they like a Titanic hammer or a gigantic plough ? The crowd has humour, if the critics have not, and would only laugh at the introduction of such an incongruity. A contemporary, usually good-humoured enough when no Peer-landlord is in the pillory, grows quite fierce over the neglect to provide seats for the trades and for Board-school children ; but since when have artisans delighted to sit quiet and be stared at, or why should children be specially honoured because they get lessons for nothing ? Is not the honour rather due to the philanthropic taxpayer ? That industry is the foundation of all things in England may be most heartily admitted, but when he wants to make a picture— and that is the object of the Jubilee celebration—it is not the foundation of a building which the artist puts in the foreground. An army, it has been wisely said of old, "marches on its belly," but when the object is a grand military display the cooking-pots and the tumbrils are not put in front.
Another and very different class of critics complain that in the Jubilee celebration there is a " dangerous " element of boasting. We feel that superstition a little ourselves, and should rather like to depute an Archbishop to walk in his robes after the Queen's carriage repeating texts about Tyre and. Sidon ; but it is rather weak to believe that God grudges reasonable exultation to a well- meaning people, by no means given to shouting in honour of themselves, or to suppose that a show, merely because it is big and bright and scenic, must necessarily be followed by calamity. It is a melancholy world in many ways, but we do not know that one of its laws is that happiness irritates the destinies, and after all, is there not Mr. Scott, of the Meteorological Department, to play the cart of the slave behind the chariot ? We are all to-day very scientific, and enterprising, and wealthy, and we have just as much power to arrest rain on Tuesday, or even to predict whether it will rain on Tuesday, as the animalcula3 in the gutters. "Queen's weather" cannot be ordered, though it usually comes—we remember two -or three striking exceptions—and if it rains with a will all the preparations, and all the expenditure, and all the energy spent in creating a glorious scene, will have given us nothing except, perhaps, a million of bad colds. That utter dependence of man upon the commonest of natural laws may well take the boasting out of him, as the insect -took the boasting out of the ancient King. Absit omen, and may it be as fine as even the dressmakers could wish, for a bright shy is now the only condition to be desired.
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