The Sun.
London, England, 1871-02-13 00:00:00

THE DOWRY AGITATION.

The Economist, in referring to the opposition to the
royal dowry, says :—We do not price domestic or national
honour ;we do not price our territorial integrity. There
is no party in the nation, however small, who would really
grudge all they thought necessary to defeat invasion, or
to keep a solemn national contract. Directly we begin to
cavil about comparatively small sums, and weigh them
against the advantages of a throne, we may be sure a
current of opinion is setting hi, which, if it continues, is
pretty certain to be fatal to the throne in the long run.
And this is far more clearly true if the party which at-
tempts to depreciate the value of Royalty is also found to
be weighing the Queen in the same sort of scales as they
would any other salaried officer of the nation, and asking
how she does the work for which she is paid.
Now this has been one of the favourite lines of disquisi-
tion at these meetings. The Queen's comparative retire-
ment from public life has been repeatedly commented on,
and it has even been intimated that her income ought to
have been reduced in proportion to the saving effected by
her seclusion from the world, and her avoidance of all
official pageantry. That seems to us a very sure sign of
the rise of a spirit which, if it spreads. must be fatal to
the Monarchy in the end. A Constitutional Monarch,
whose appearances in public, and whose displays of Royal
hospitality, are carefully scrutinised and overhauled as the
work of a paid official, is hardly likely to sit on a very
secure throne. It will be seen, then, that we by no means
underrate the importance of this movement. We do not
regard it as at all the less, but rather as the more import-
ant, that, so far as we understand it, this particular cry is
thoroughly unjust, and a little contemptible. In relation
to more substantial parts of the Sovereign's duty, it is
quite certain that no Monarch who has sat on the English
throne since the Conquest, has deserved better of her
people. In strict and even scrupulous regard for consti-
tutional duties, in the firm good sense which she has dis-
played, even on occasions when some Sovereigns might
have made great difficulties, as, for instance, in relation to
the terms of the Coronation Oath on the occasion of the
Disestablishment of the Irish Church—in the dig-
nity and simplicity of her life, in the purity of
her Court—Queen Victoria has established a strong claim
on the gratitude of her subjects. And it is worse than
bad taste—it almost amounts to a want of moral discri-
mination—to select one of the wisest and most honourable
acts of her reign as the occasion on which to appraise the
pecuniary value of the throne, and to beat down its
demands on the pockets of the English people. If a
throne is worth keeping up at all, it is worth keeping up
in a certain majesty al-,1 ,•nlendour. And to proclaim
that we grudge to the m's daughters a suitable pro-
vision out of the public purse, is a very bad mode indeed,
because an indirect, irresolute, half-convinced, and almost
cowardly mode, of proclaiming that we grudge the expense
of the Crcwn itself.

Information has reached Sunderland that the
Titian, new steamship, had- been burnt at Jamaica. The
vessel belonged partly to Sunderland owners.
THE LATE ARBITRATION IN THE Rh?
award TRADE.
of
s
—Mr. Hughes, M.P., hassupplemented
Monday last with a statement giving the reasons upon
which he grounded his decision, from which it would appear
thatthe wages question is settled till March, 1872, subject
to one appeal after July next, which will have to be
made without another inquiry such as that which took
place last week, but which will have to be made by a
written statement, which Mr. Hughes can consider with-
out attending the Arbitration Court. The award made by
Mr. Hughes affects the wages of nearly 20,000 workmen.
At the same time, Mr. Hughes makes some very im-
portant suggestions which are equally applicable to the
whole iron trade of the country as to the north of England,
and which, if they can be formed into a system, will have
the effedt probably of not only preventing all strikes, but
of restricting the work of the Arbitration Court to the
narrowest limits. Mr. Hughes remarks that a custom
would seem to be acknowledged within certain limits by
both employers and workmen that for every rise of £1 in
the selling price of manufactured iron, wages would be
advanced 10 per cent. in mills and forges, and is. on pud-
dling. 11€ suggests that the board should formally ac-
knowledge this scale by a resolution, declaring that it is
to be adopted in future. He suggests that an independent
accountant should be employed to examine the masters'
contract prices, and if it should appear that iron had
risen or declined during a half or quarter year, as the
case may be, the wages should be made proportionate upon
the basis suggested—a certain and self-adjusting scale.
Mr. Hughes concludes—" I cannot but fear that, unless
some such system is adopted for relieving the board of
this part of its work, the great experiment which it is now
working out may prove a failure, which would be a seri-
ous misfortune to the country."