TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO WALES. FOR the moment at least, the House of Commons does not appear to be an institution with which the various branches of the British and Irish race are well satisfied. The Home-rulers depreciate it, because they wish to have a House of Commons of their own ; and the Unionists are dissatisfied with it, because its tardiness and clumsiness give the Home-rulers all sorts of excuses for running it down, though hardly, as we think, for multi- plying its inconveniences by five,—for Home-rule now means Federalism, and Federalism, as interpreted by the Glad- stonians, means four local Houses of Commons, and one Imperial House of Commons as well. Still, for one reason or the other, the House of Commons of which we used all of us to be so proud is no longer regarded as the symbol of unity amongst the various races which live in the United Kingdom ; and though no party seems inclined to verify Lord Beaconsfield's prophecy that the prerogative of the Crown would once more grow to formidable dimensions at the cost of Parliamentary authority, there can be no doubt that the significance of the Throne increases as the pride in Parliament dwindles. The Welsh are as anxious to claim their share in the Monarchy as the English, and only less so than the Scotch, —if less so than the Scotch,—because the Scotch have long been accustomed to claim the position of the most-favoured nation in the eyes of the Sovereign. Even the Irish are willing to put in a claim to their share in the Throne, on condition that it should not involve relinquish- ing a claim to a separate House of Commons of their own. What seems to be desired is to reconcile a claim to dis- tinct nationality with a claim to a share in the larger generic nationality of the United Kingdom ; and as loyalty to the Throne asserts the latter not only without calling in question the claim to distinct nationality, but even in a manner that emphasises it, since it brings out the separate loyalty of a distinct people, and brings it out in its distinctness, loyalty to the Throne is even more effusively expressed now than for many years past. Wales, for example, is now anxious to be recognised as a separate constitutional atom in the United Kingdom which contributes a special element of its own to the great spectacle of British force and energy : and this claim cannot be advanced without . magnifying not only the share of Wales in the whole Kingdom, but the right of the whole Kingdom, to which Wales is thus recog- nised as making a substantial contribution, to be a great Kingdom, full of resources both physical and moral. The more plainly the Queen recognises that but for Wales and its loyalty her Kingdom would not be what it is, the more plainly is it to the advantage of Wales to assert that, Wales being what it is, the Kingdom to whose power and wealth she contributes, is a mighty one. Granted that the Queen sees clearly how much would be wanting if Wales were suddenly submerged, it is impossible for her Welsh subjects to overrate the greatness of the whole of which Wales forms a substantial part. The Welsh enthusiasm for the Crown, therefore, so far from being inconsistent with the Welsh pride in Wales,• is only a subtle mode of expressing that pride. If the whole coronet were not splendid, the gem which Wales contributes to it would not be fitly displayed.
It is a pity that this mode of reconciling Welsh loyalty with British loyalty cannot be seen to have even more application to the Welsh share in a United Parliament, than it has to the Welsh share in the dignity and splendour of the Crown. No doubt there may be, and often is, more direct competition between Welsh and English plans for Parliamentary activity, than there can be between Welsh and English plans for the programme of the monarch's outward life. It is not possible to appor- tion the relative shares of England and of Scotland and of Wales in the dignity of the Crown, but it is possible to apportion the relative claims of England and of Scotland and of Wales in the legislative work of a Parliament, and to stir up jealousies between them. Yet, rightly considered, Wales gains even more by her share in the legislative and administrative work of the British Parliament than she gains by her claim to represent a special jewel in the English crown.
And this is what Wales and all other constituent parts of the United Kingdom would clearly see were it not that a blight has fallen upon the Parliamentary energy and dignity of our people, mostly from the very causes which have pro- moted the artificial and, we believe, transient demand for the breaking-up of Parliament into petty fragments, neces- sarily destitute of the dignity and authority of the whole. It is the same democratic impulse which has enabled the. Parnellites to make so formidable a figure in Parliament, that has, as a natural consequence, depreciated the sig- nificance of Parliament itself in the eyes of the people, till now the local movement for municipal self-government takes upon itself a sort of exaggerated dignity appropriate only to the larger life of national self-government. The truth is, that the Parnellites have succeeded in making even those who sympathise with their aims sick of the House of Commons, and almost disposed to treat the life of the House of Commons with scorn, and this, too, at the very time when the House of Commons arrogates to itself, and arrogates successfully, all the functions and authority of the State. Nothing now can be done without the consent of the House of Commons. A mere resolution of the House is often regarded as almost in itself a law. And yet concurrently with this great magnifying of the weight of the House of Commons in the State, there has arisen a, sort of contempt for it, and a disposition to exalt at its expense the smaller units which contribute to its life,— due, we suppose, to a municipal enthusiasm that treats the larger national life as a tyranny and a presumption,—which is almost analogous to that rampant individualism some- times observed among the Teutonic peoples, which de- liberately makes light of all collective national activity. Nothing seems to us more curious than this simultaneous double movement, —the one absorbing all the higher func- tions of the State into the House of Commons, and con- centrating in it the very life of the people ; the other magnifying fragmentary Parliaments not yet even in existence, at its expense, and treating the very reluctance to admit the claim of these local pretenders to compete with its authority, as a sort of treason to democratic prin- ciple and a justification for proceedings which mock at the dignity of the House of Commons, and express exultation in its humiliation. We believe that at the present moment a large proportion of the Welsh Members suppose that they show their democracy better by joining in the factitious cry for Home-rule for Wales, than they do by vindicating their right to take their share in governing Great Britain, and asserting for Parliament a final authority in all matters not purely municipal and parochial. Nothing illustrates better that strange skill which Irishmen have always exhibited in making their converts more zealous than themselves, than the success they have had in persuading other sections of the nation that there is something demo- cratic in running down the House of Commons, and in proposing to divide its authority among a number of younger rivals, who would resemble the heirs of Alexander the Great's conquests, alike in their weakness and their quarrels. Yet because they themselves wish for an Irish Legislature in which to concoct a showy mode of ruining Ireland without any check from Scotch and English sobriety of judgment, they have managed to inspire Scotchmen and Welshmen with the absurd notion that they would be happier and more influential if they gave up their share in the shaping of English institutions in order to start mushroom Legislatures in Scotland and Wales, and an unwieldy Federal Parliament which ought always to be trying to do what the local Parliaments would often dislike, and would have a great deal too much power to prevent, and what, even when its statesmen succeeded. in doing it, they would do ineffectively and under a con- stant dread that it would be soon undone. Future genera- tions will remark with wonder on the disposition shown at the end of the nineteenth century to claim for the House of Commons all the powers of the State at the very time when it was proposed to overgrow the House of Commons with a number of fungoid Legislatures, in the mutual rival- ries of which it would certainly find its euthanasia. The welcome which the Queen is receiving in Wales in spite of Mr. Gee, is indeed an evidence that the Welsh feel just now that a due reverence for the Throne is a safety-valve by which they may still express their sense of national unity without prejudice to that artificial desire for a Welsh Legislature by the acceptance of which, if they ever get it, they will resign their influence over the largest part of the much greater territory of the United Kingdom.
Previous page
