PART OF A LETTER ON RESPONSIBLE AND IRRESPONSIBLE POWER.
Facial the time of the Revolution of 1688, the practical waking of the British Constitution has been oligarchic. The destiny t f the nation has been committed to that small combination of individuals, whoever they might he, who, by being able to secure a majority in the House of Commons, held the public purse-strings ; and as that coiebination was out of the reach of public control under till ordinary and indeed under almost all circumstances, the anti n laboured under all the inconveniences and miseeies arising (and neeessarily so) out of :melt a system. In one word, Irresponsible Power stalked abroad in evely department of the State, in all its hideousness, !poisoning all the sources of geod government, and iiffecting to a deadly extent even the t hurch itstlf. 1%eed I dwell upon the endless evils such a state of thilas produced ? the almost ceaseless wars ; the intolerable increase of the national burdens; the loss of sonic of our most valuable colonies; arid though last not least, the general and increasi ng depravity of high and low, arising in the first instance from decrease of means of support, and next from the recklessness of character which weir constant appeals to the sword invariably produce. I will not do your readers the injustice of stipposing that this is not quite as familiar to them as it is to mime; and I therefore forbear touching further upon it. Irresponsible Power was the great incubus, then, which like a nightmare exerted its baneful influe»ce over the nation; and great and everlasting is our debt of gratitude to those noble spirits who commenced the herculean task of emancipating their fellow men from this most odious and demoralizing thraldom : let their names be written upon and sink deep into our hearts—theirs has been no light labour. Thankful as I am, however, and as the majority of the people doubtless arc, for what has been accomplished, let us not deceive ourselves by supposing that the work is completed : for imm truth it has, up to the present moment been scarcely more than a fourth performed. The dtemon Irresponsible Power has, it is true, been nearly completely driven out of one department of the State, the House of Commons ; but only out of this one ; and we have yet to follow up the blow, by a similarly purifying process as regards the Upper house; where it must not however stop, for the Army, the Navy, and, above all, the Church, are more or less infected by the same malignant distemper; and there will be no peace, there can he none, till an equally searching reform take place in all these departments. And this brings me to notice the peculiar feature of the present times. We are in the transition state, or between the working of two opposite principles—namely, Responsible and Irresponsihle Power; a coexistenee of which, for any lengthened period, is impossible. Now nearly all the uneasiness and agitation we are at present suffering, may be clearly traced up to this fruitful cause ; mid when I say this, I am not developing some fanciful theory, or aaserting some abstract proposition, bet. simply stating a fact, capable of rigorous proof. An extension of the great principle of Responsibility into every department of the State, then, is the paramount object we as citizen:, working for ourselves and our posterity, ought to be most arixions to obtain ; and as far as we shall sneered in our endeavours in this respect, we shall enjoy the donhle satisfaetion, that by as much as we may increase the sources of our own individual and the national prosperity; we shall in the same proportion increase the real welfare of those who are made to resign so unholy, so unfortunate a privilege,— or, as it might rather be called, evil; for I cannot but consider those persons as unfortunately situated, who are in the possession of so self.demoralizing a
privilege as irresponsible power. J. II. T.
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