"Not once or twice in our fair Island's story
The path of duty was the road to glory."
To the political situation at his accession, therefore, King George brings a trained intelligence, detailed and intimate knowledge, a keen perception of the basic interests and feelings of his people. No one knows, no one can know, what are his political opinions. The probabilities are that his principles are not those of any so-called party. If they were closely analyzed in the light of environment, education, instincts, and natural predelictions the King's policy might, perhaps, be found to be something like this: (1) The maintenance of British power, including a strong Navy and a United Empire; (2) the maintenance of the Monarchy in all its essential rights and privileges and absolute independence of party. These two lines of ambition would really be, and are, one, as in his opinion and, indeed, in that of most thinking men who are not blinded by passing party phantoms the interests of Great Britain, of the Empire, and the Monarchy, are identical.
In the political crisis of 1910 two questions are uppermost—a constitutional change and a fiscal change. In order to defeat the latter proposals the Liberals in part have created the former situation. The King can act only upon the advice of his Ministry unless tacitly and by unusual agreement, as latterly was the case with King Edward, he acts as a conciliatory force. If the Government asks him to create 300 peers so as to compel the acceptance of legislation curbing and crippling, if not abolishing, the Upper House, he can either assent or refuse. Assent means the destruction of a portion of the Constitution—and a portion very close to the Throne and which acts as a real buffer against the hasty action of an impetuous and sometimes imperious Commons. Refusal means that the Ministry must resign or go to the country on an issue in which it is quite possible the people will not support them.
Against the Government, also, in this contest will be urged the full force of the growing fiscal feeling, the desire for Tariff Reform, the development of an Imperial sentiment which wants some means of giving the Colonies a preference in the British market, the pressing need for some weapon of retaliation upon highly protective foreign nations. Whatever course the King takes under all these conditions will bring the Crown into the conflict—either as yielding to the Liberals and thus antagonizing the Conservatives, or by refusing the demands of the former, raising up a party—small but vehement—against the Monarchy itself. There is another element in the situation to be remembered. England, "the dominant partner," is not really behind the Asquith Government. Its majority at the recent elections was infinitesimal; what there was came from Wales and Ireland and Scotland; and that of Ireland was divided upon the fiscal issue. The whole situation is, therefore, very much clouded to the eye.
So far as one writer can estimate the end of such a crisis it will probably be one of compromise. Almost everything in the British constitution is in the nature of a compromise. Constitutional monarchy in its essence is a half-way house between Autocracy and Republicanism and its great advantage to the minds of its supporters is that the system has the extremes of neither, the best qualities of each, and all the advantages of that strength and permanence which moderation and toleration always afford. In Britain the system certainly has the affection and devotion of the great mass of the people. Mr. Asquith is not an extremist, Mr. Haldane and Sir Edward Grey are moderate forces in the Cabinet, and though Messrs. Lloyd-George and Winston Churchill are more heard of it does not follow, and it certainly is not the fact, that they are more influential. They hold the same place in Liberalism that Mr. Chamberlain with his republican tendencies (which they do not profess) and his "three acres and a cow" held to Mr. Gladstone and the Liberal leaders of thirty or forty years ago. The Conservatives, also, are not desirous of pushing the issue too far. They believe in and have tested the affection of rural England for the aristocracy and the preference of nearly all England for a second Chamber of some kind. But they do not intend to fight the issue on the hereditary principle. The acceptance, by a very large majority, of Lord Rosebery's motion in the Lords declaring that "the possession of a peerage should no longer, of itself, give the right to sit and vote in the House of Lords," removes this point from the actual conflict and leaves the Conservatives as urging a strong, reformed and democratised Upper House against the Liberal policy of a weakened, emasculated echo of the House of Commons.
THE YOUNG PRINCES AT THE WALL OF MARLBOROUGH HOUSE WATCHING THE PROCLAMATION OF THEIR FATHER AS KING; AND TEXT OF THE PROCLAMATION.
Whereas it has pleased Almighty God to call to His Mercy our late Sovereign Lord King Edward the Seventh, of Blessed and Glorious Memory, by whose Decease the Imperial Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is solely and rightfully come to the High and Mighty Prince George Frederick Ernest Albert:
We, therefore, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of this Realm, being here assisted with these of His late Majesty's Privy Council, with Numbers of other Principal Gentlemen of Quality, with the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens of London, do now hereby, with one Voice and Consent of Tongue and Heart, publish and proclaim, That the High and Mighty Prince George Frederick Ernest Albert, is now by the Death of our late Sovereign of Happy Memory, become our only lawful and rightful Liege Lord George the Fifth by the Grace of God, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the British Dominions Beyond the Seas, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India:
To whom we do acknowledge all Faith and constant Obedience, with all hearty and humble Affection; beseeching God, by whom Kings and Queens do reign, to bless the Royal Prince George the Fifth with long and happy years to reign over Us.