The Sun.
London, England, 1871-02-14 00:00:00

THE DOWRY AGITATION.

The Telegraph remarks :—Seldom has the House of
Commons witnessed a more complete fiasco than that
which was seen last night as the result of the threat-
ened opposition to the dowry of the Princess Louise
on the occasion of her marriage. A crowd of mem-
bers and strangers had been drawn together by
the expectation that Mr. Peter Taylor and Pro-
fessor Fawcett would call upon bhe faithful Commons
to endorse the silly promises they themselves had made to
their constituents. The opposition out of doors, however,
has been none the less unfortunate. impolitic, and unjust.
The hostility to the grant looked like hostility to the
marriage itself. It seemed to imply that a section of the
English working men, and the members by whom they
are supposed to be represented, denotinced the
marriage of the Princess to a British subject.
The nation has entered into a contract with the
Crown to make provision for the Royal children when
they marry, and the contract is none the less binding be-
cause it is expressed, not in written words, but in prece-
dents. And if the right to the grant is certain, no contro-
versy can be raised respecting the amount. Each daughter
of Geerge 111. obtained from Parliament £13,000 or
£14,000 ; the Princess Louise is to obtain only £6,000 a
year, with a dowry of £30,000. To a great and rich
nation the amount is not worth the trouble of debate
for a single hour. On the nights of supply the House
of Commons often votes twice as much for questionable
purposes without a division. The hostility to the grant,
therefore, is as ungenerous as it is unjust. It is cowardly
to hide an attack on the Crown or on the Civil List under
the guise of opposition to the vote of an income for one of
the Queen's daughters. The Princess Louise has been
rendered justly popular by her character, her good
sense, her acquirements and accomplishments. Lord
Lorne has also won high favour by the intelligence with
which he has graced a high station, and by the promise
which he has given that, in his hands, the privileges of
aristocracy will not be an idle gift. The marriage, as
Mr. Gladstone said, has been sanctioned by the
Queen out of that regard for the welfare of
her children which has always been among her
distinguishing graces. It has been gladly hailed by the
nation, which has no partiality for an exclusively royal
caste, but likes to see the Crown allied with the aristo-
cracy, as the aristocracy uii.iv s with the untitled gentry.
The opposition by democrats to such an alliance is
one of those blunders which are almost worse than
crimes.

The Standard asks :—What are we to think of a Prime
Minister who deems it necessary in order to recommend
the vote of a fair provision for the Queen's daughter, to
refer to the revolution in Europe, and to expatiate on
the inestimable advantage England enjoys in her con-
stitutional Monarchy? The very fact that the ques-
tion is put by him in such terms gives an importance
to the opposition to the dowry of which it is quite
unworthy, and is calculated to induce the impres-
sion that there really are a considerable number
of Englishmen who think royalty costs too much.
The statement made by Mr. Gladstone that, before assen-
ting to this marriage the Queen consulted her responsible
advisers —one of whom is the Duke of Argyll—and the
fact that this marriage has provoked an amount of dis-
agreeable comment which, for all the old and not un-
reasonable prejudice against German alliances, was not
excited by the marriage of any other of the Queen's
daughters, are conclusive evidence that, with
whatever reason that rule has been broken in the
present instance, it is still one which it is desirable to
maintain in principle. The marriage of the Princess
Louise with the Marquis of Lorne may, we assume,
secure her happiness, and the nation certainly would not
wish, for mere political considerations, to sacrifice a lady
whose virtues demand and whose graces win uni-
versal respect and admiration. Bat when Mr. Glad-
stone, who must always overdo it, talks about the
desirability of such marriages in general, he sets at de-
fiance experience and common sense. Her Majesty's
responsible advisers have very ill repaid her Majesty's
confidence. Great part of the opposition to the vote of a
dowry has been occasioned by the awkward manner in
which the marriage was announced, and the clumsy
attempt to represent it as the commencement of a new
and happier era ; and now to vindicate the proposal
against an opposition which was not offered, and which,
however he might have anticipated, he should have waited
for, the Prime Minister makes the terrible blunder of
putting the vote before the House of Commons as one of
confidence in the Monarchy, or, rather—for there we
hardly do him justice—in this form—ls the Constitutional
Monarchy worth its cost ?