The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-05-23 00:00:00

AN INCONVENIENT STATE OF
THINGS!
(From the Tim'es.)

On Monday night the Queen's Ministers were twice
defeated in the House of Commons. The adverse
Divisions could not have been quite unexpected, since
Mr. Disraeli and his colleagues well knew the temper
of the House of Commons, and they had before them
the Parliamentary Notices, which warned them of
what Was coming. The political atmosphere was to
the last degree troubled ; the mercury was sinking
rapidly ; at any moment the stoma might break. It
did break on Monday night, and at the present mo-
ment all is confusion. There is a Ministerial crisis.
which may dissolve either the Ministry or the Parlia-
ment. ' This being the state of things, the public has
been astonished by another contemporary incident. In
the same paper of Monday which contained the news
of Mr. Disraeliki defeat and his motion to report pro-
gress on the Scotch Reform Bill, it was announced that
the Queen, with her family, had left Windsor Castle
the evening before, at half-past six o'clock, for Bal-
moral. Thus, at the very hour when a most impor-
tant debate was proceeding—a debate on which the
question of life and death to Government or to Parlia-
ment might turn- the first person in the State, to whom
recourse must be had M every momentouseonjuncture,
was hurrying at full speed from the neighbourhotsl rd
the capital to a remote Highland district„ six hundred
miles trout her Ministry and Parliament. In the month
of May, at a time when the business of the nation is at
its height, and interests of every kind cause people to
congregate in London—at a time when it is espmially
• necessary that the Sovereign should be accessible to
! her Ministers and to the Legislature, we have the whole
Court withdrawn to a distance which renders any per-
sonal communication impossible. The consequences fir
' the present case are singularly inconvenient. An
interview similar to that m hich Mr. Disraeli de-
scribed with so much unction a fortnight since
cannot be held. It is enough for a statesman to take
' a trip to Osborne when he has to wait on the Oueen.
I and many of our readers will remember how Lord
Palineiston in his old age had to spend the greater
! part of a winter afternoon on the Solent when he was
I bidden to the presence of his Sovereign. Balmoral,
however, is quite out of the quesliot. Mr. Disraeli
is sixty-three years of age, am!, though mentally
energetic, it would be too much to arms him to rush to
the Highlands at Limited Mail speed and return
within forty-eight hours. So her Majesty must be
communicated with by messenger, if at all ; and, how -
ev. r the communication is made, there must be an
inconvenient lapse of time before the answer is
received Whatever may be the determination
arrived at, whatever new difficulty any new vote of
the House may bring upon the Minister, it is im-
possible that he can 14 ‘ye the opportunity of ad-
vising her Majesty pelronally on the subject, and sr
far the efficient transaction of public business must
be hindered.
We must think, therefore, that it was an act of
culpable neglect on the part of the Minister not to
inform the Queen that the political prospects of her
Government were SO dollbtful as to demand her presence
at or near the seat of the Legislature. The Queen has
always shown herself ready to fulfil her Constitutional
duties, and no one can doubt that, 'had the case beers
fully laid before her, she would willingly have re-
mained at Windsor at a period of such paramount
importance. Either by chance, or through a traditional
practice of the royal house, a crisis has generally found
the Sovereign at some distance from the capital. But
in all such cases the first person in the realm has
been readily accessible. In the old days a carriage
and post horses, in more modern times a special train.
soon placed the chiefs of the Ministry in the presence
of their Sovereign, to whom they were a -le to
communicate by word of mouth their deliberate
decision, and of whom they were able personally to
ask a renewal of contideliee or the highest exercise of
the Royal prerogative in thediremlution of Parliament.
It would be a questionable innovation if this usage
were abandoned, and we were to come to resignations
by telegraph, and correspondence by messenger, instead
of Royal Councils. No one can nay what misunder-
standings and what Constitutional derangenrents may
buthe result of such an incomplete transaction of the
big rest business. The matter, indeed, does not need
argument. The Sovereign is an essential part of the
Legislature, as much as the Lords or the Commons,
and when Parliament is summoned for the despatch
of business it is but reasonable that the Sovereign
should be at hand. As either House may confer with
the other, so either has a right to address the Queen and
to seek information or permission from her; and cases
may- arise when it may be necessary that this should
be done without delay. The Session of Parliament
does not occupy so large a space in the year as to render
a residence in the southern portion of this island
irksome from its duration, and the great Royal
Palaces of London and Windsor, to say nothing of
Osborne, are kept up in order that the Sovereign may
have a fitting habitation while performing duties
necessary to the State. Until now, except in times of
deep affliction, for which all could make allowance, the
Queen has shown sufficient solicitude respecting public
affairs, and u-e cannot but regret that Mr. Disraeli
should not have represented to her Majesty that the
present was a period in which it was of more than
ordinary importance that she should remain within
reach of her Ministers and of her Parliament.