On the various " happy thoughts" which Mr. Disraeli threw
out at Hughenden to his agricultural labourers we have suffi- ciently commented elsewhere. We may remark here that his very energetic tribute to the political value of the Queen's criticisms and suggestions on the advice tendered by her Ministers, though, no doubt, perfectly justified by the facts, and certainly supported by similar testimony, though not so ostentatiously given, from other statesmen, hardly meets the political difficulty which Mr. Disraeli's eager confession that the Queen is " physically incompetent " for the discharge of her pub- lie and ceremonial duties, virtually admits. For whatever the value of these traditional duties of the Crown privately discharged, the popular idea, which takes no account of secret proceedings of this kind, is that for all such matters the Ministers, and the Ministers alone, are responsible, and that whatever influence the Queen may have, she has by their permission and connivance. On the other hand, the people does hold the throne responsible for the public duties from the burden of which the Queen in her ill- health shrinks ; and every evasion of them tends to unsettle the people's fidelity to our Constitutional system, and to produce the impression that the throne is something of a political sinecure and superfluity. It is certainly a great misfortune, in days when all our political theories and axioms are overhauled and revised by the masses of the people, that the constitution, as popularly under- stood at least, knows nothing of the good work the Queen does, while the people eagerly expect from her the public work she is unable to do, and regard her dislike of it as equivalent to a com- plete suspension of her regal duties.
