Lecky and Jouvenel

The Monarchist reported previously this month on an article by Roger Scruton earlier this year, with a few quotes, which could be said to be democratism – or democracy as more or less blind faith or ideology – and its opposition in a nutshell.

This October marks the 110^th anniversary for two important critics of democracy. October 22, 1903 was the date of the passing of W.E.H. Lecky, the author of Democracy and Liberty. On the the last day of that same October 110 years ago, the French nobleman and thinker Bertrand de Jouvenel, a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, was born.

William Edward Hartpole Lecky

W.E.H. Lecky wrote of the worship of democracy:

However unscrupulous, however dishonest, may be the acts of a party or of a statesman, they are considered to be justified beyond reproach if they have been condoned or sanctioned at a general election. It has sometimes happened that a politician has been found guilty of a grave personal offence by an intelligent and impartial jury, after a minute investigation of evidence, conducted with the assistance of highly trained advocates, and under the direction of an experienced judge. He afterwards finds a constituency which will send him to Parliament, and the newspapers of his party declare that his character is now clear. He has been absolved by ‘the great voice of the people.’ Truly indeed did Carlyle say that the superstitions to be feared in the present day are much less religious than political; and all the forms of idolatry I know none more irrational and ignoble than this blind worship of mere numbers.

Of the connection between liberty and democracy, Lecky wrote:

As we have, I think, abundantly seen, a tendency to democracy does not mean a tendency to parliamentary government, or even a tendency towards greater liberty. On the contrary, strong arguments may be adduced, both from history and from the nature of things, to show that democracy may often prove the direct opposite of liberty.

He wrote this, not in this century, nor the past century, but in the century in which for the most part Queen Victoria sat on the Britannic throne.

Bertrand de Jouvenel

Bertrand de Jouvenel, the author of On Power and Sovereignty, wrote, on a similar note:

The mistake is one which was exposed in advance by Montesquieu: “As it is a feature of democracies that to all appearance the people does almost exactly as it wishes, men have supposed that democratic governments were the abiding-place of liberty: they confused the power of the people with the liberty of the people.” This confusion of thought is at the root of modern despotism.

The French nobleman goes many centuries back into history:

So said John of Salisbury in the twelfth century: “The difference between a prince and a tyrant is that the prince obeys the laws and governs his people in accordance with right.” This formula receives its full force only if it is remembered that what is here referred to is a law and a right which issue from a source higher than Power.

Also said de Jouvenel:

The adjective “absolute,” generally used today as a vague term of abuse, has in reality a well-defined meaning: it translates the phrase “legibus solutus” – freed from the laws. Now who is the more uninhibited by the rules? The man who is morally bound to observe the rules, though not subject to sanctions, or the man who is in a position to change them at any moment? Clearly the latter. For that reason the movement in time toward a sovereignty with unrestricted legislative power has been a movement toward absolutism, and the period which we call the absolutist period was in fact only that of the gestation of absolutism.

Furthermore:

[P]articipation in government (absurdly called “political liberty” when it is in reality one of the means given to the individual of safeguarding his liberty against the unending onslaught of the sovereignty) has come to seem to him more precious than liberty itself? That this participation of his in Power has sufficed to induce him to raise up and encourage state encroachments, which have, thanks to the approval of the mob, been carried to much further lengths than absolute monarchy could ever have carried them?

Another of Bertrand de Jouvenel's wisdoms:

Why does the modern state meet no organized resistance?

The ancien régime met with such resistance, which was offered it by the representatives of the various elements in the nation who fought in line against Power. But in the modern regime these elements have become Power, and the people are left in consequence without a champion. Those who are the state reserve to themselves alone the right to talk in the name of the nation; an interest of the nation as distinct from the interest of the state has no existence for them.

Yet another:

The general view in our own times is that societies have always acknowledged an authority which, as Jurieu puts it, has no need to be right for its acts to be valid – an authority which creates and destroys rights to any extent and has nothing but its own will to regulate it: sit pro ratione voluntas. Current belief is that this authority was formerly in bad hands and today rests in good hands, and to have put it in good hands is the only safeguard as to its use which can be given to the citizens. But it is a mistake to suppose that over time Sovereignty has merely changed masters. More than anything else, history records the actual erection of this boundless and unregulated Sovereignty of today, of which our ancestors had no conception.

And further:

The only effect of the proclamation of the sovereignty of the people was to substitute for a king of flesh and blood that hypostasized queen, the general will, whose nature is always to be adolescent and incapable of personal rule; the occasional inconveniences which arise in a monarchy during the minority or mental incapacity of the sovereign being now permanently present, the aforesaid queen boldly entrusted her person to a succession of favourites, who abused their position the more freely the less she became an object of controversy. The only possible safeguard was in the sense and morals of that regency council, the sovereign assembly.

The frenchman nobleman said elsewhere:

What in fact happened was that the laws came to be looked on as mere regulations which were always open to criticism and revision.

[...]

The life of democracies has been marked by a growth in the precariousness of laws. Kings, chambers of peers, senates, anything that might have checked the immediate translation into law of whatever opinion was in vogue, have everywhere been swept away or rendered powerless. The law is no longer like some higher necessity presiding over the life of the country: it has become the expression of the passions of the moment.

And also:

The legislative authority, now regarded as the expression of the will of all, or, more accurately, of the whole, exercises a total sovereignty. Who dares hinder it?

Moreover, the French nobleman wisely said:

It is possible, with the help of prudently balanced institutions, to provide everyone with effective safeguards against Power. But there are no institutions on earth which enable each separate person to have a hand in the exercise of Power, for Power is command, and everyone cannot command. Sovereignty of the people is, therefore, nothing but a fiction, and one which must in the long run prove destructive of individual liberties.

And our final quote:

[Authoritarianism] could, no doubt, have been avoided if there had been a stable, vigorous, and unified executive to which the legislature acted merely as limitary principle. But in fact, as we have seen, the contrary happened: the legislature made itself the ruling sovereign.

More wisdom and reflection like this can be found in the works of these two fine late gentlemen.

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George Wyndham at 150

George Wyndham was born a century and a half ago today – on August 29, 1863. He later served as a Member of Parliament from Dover from July 12, 1889 until his sudden, untimely death from a heart attack in his 50^th year on June 8, 1913. This year, hence, we also mark the centennial of his passing.

The Right Honourable George Wyndham PC

The Right Honourable George Wyndham PC was the leader in the House of Commons of the die-hard opponents of the Parliament Bill that became Parliament Act 1911.

On February 22, 1911 he spoke before the House of Commons:

When the Prime Minister [Asquith] comes to the most formidable obstacle in his course he always develops a most impressive manner and endeavours to dismiss from the minds of those who differ from him all fears which they may entertain. When he came to this point in his speech yesterday he was kind enough to say that he did not challenge the sincerity of those who believe—as we do sincerely believe—that this measure will erect a despotic Single Chamber rule, and becoming more and more impressive in his manner he wound up that portion of his speech by saying that this was the most unsubstantial nightmare that had ever affected the imagination. As his manner became more and more impressive so did the matter which he was unfolding become less and less convincing.

Indeed! The ever more absolute representative democracy has not delivered on its promise of more liberty...

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The Abdication of Edward VIII

On this day 76 years ago, His Britannic Majesty King Edward VIII abdicated.

The official story is that it was due to his wish to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.

However, a BBC Four documentary, Abdication: A Very British Coup, claims the story is more complicated. Yours truly watched the documentary previously this year when it was still available at YouTube. It has now unfortunately been removed, apparently due to a copyright issue.

According to the documentary the political establishment was looking for an excuse to get rid of the King. His modern views were not appropriate.

It could be tempting to want a King who holds traditionalist views, including keeping up pomp and circumstance and sticking to royal marriage traditions, but it may also be useful to reflect on whether one wants a monarch to the liking of the political establishment and who does not get in the same establishment's way. It may also be useful to reflect on a monarch removal's effect on future monarchs.

The abdication speech of the Duke of Windsor:

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Parliament Act 1911

Samuel Begg: Passing of the Parliament Bill in the House of Lords, 1911

A century ago today, His Britannic Majesty George V gave Royal Assent to what was to be known as Parliament Act 1911.

With this act the power of the House of Lords were essentially reduced to that of suspensive veto, with the exception of a bill to extend the life of Parliament.

The leaders of the opposisition to the bill in the House of Lords and the House of Commons were the 1^st Earl of Halsbury and George Wyndham respectively.

Hardinge Stanley Giffard, 1^st Earl of Halsbury PC, QC (1823-1921)

The Right Honourable George Wyndham PC (1863-1913)

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The Right Honourable George Wyndham

George Wyndham was a Member of Parliament from Dover from July 12, 1889 until his sudden, untimely death from a heart attack in his 50^th year on June 8, 1913.

The Right Honourable George Wyndham PC was the leader in the House of Commons of the die-hard opponents of the Parliament Bill that became Parliament Act 1911.

On February 22, 1911 he spoke before the House of Commons:

When the Prime Minister [Asquith] comes to the most formidable obstacle in his course he always develops a most impressive manner and endeavours to dismiss from the minds of those who differ from him all fears which they may entertain. When he came to this point in his speech yesterday he was kind enough to say that he did not challenge the sincerity of those who believe—as we do sincerely believe—that this measure will erect a despotic Single Chamber rule, and becoming more and more impressive in his manner he wound up that portion of his speech by saying that this was the most unsubstantial nightmare that had ever affected the imagination. As his manner became more and more impressive so did the matter which he was unfolding become less and less convincing.

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The Tories bring back the Wigs

It has been said that the English have developed an admirable tolerance for anachronisms. The position of Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, leading member of that fountainhead of ritual and hereditary nobility - the House of Lords, the best club in the world - has been described as "older than democracy, older than parliament, older than Magna Carta, older [even] than the Norman Conquest." The Tories are to be commended for returning a little medieval pomp to the "keeper of the royal conscience", after Labour unceremoniously dewigged the men in gold brocade gowns, silk stockings and brogues.

Nice Togs: Tory Kenneth Clarke, the new Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain displays his full finery - wig, robes, tights and buckled shoes.

The Lord Chancellor walks in procession to the Royal Courts of Justice to be sworn in.

The Lord Chancellor of Great Britain shares a laugh with the Lord Chief Justice

Wigged out: Solicitor General Edward Garnier (left) and Attorney General Dominic Grieve

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Thatcher's Last Stand

From Margaret Thatcher's last House of Commons Speech on November 22, 1990, where she addresses income inequality and a single currency.



Thatcher was a Whig more than a Tory, very much a philosophical heir to Gladstone and 19th century classical liberalism and who had very little in common with the aristocratic conservatism of Salisbury, her great Tory predecessor. Whig or Tory, the greatest leaders (the ones who hold our respect even if we don't agree with them some or all of the time) are the ones who know where they stand, have honest opinions and defend them with a conviction akin to moral absolutism. Moral relativists don't know where they stand, and therefore are forced to rely predominantly on spin to defend themselves along with the clever use of other highly skilled confidence tricks to deliver the message. That's the real difference between Thatcherism and Blairism, and we all know which camp Nick, Dave and Gordon belong don't we. Those three follow the politically correct fashions of the day - they don't swim against the tide like Thatcher did. It's called leadership, and Britain hasn't had it in twenty years.

Hat tip: Brits at their Best

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Manifestal Lunacy

The United Kingdom is standing before a general election.

Let us see what the major parties' manifestos say on the grand institutional matters.

The Labour Party Manifesto has a chapter 9 entitled “Democratic reform: A new politics: renewing our democracy and rebuilding trust.” Under a subtitle “The next stage of national renewal,” the Labour Party manifests:

• Referenda, held on the same day, for moving to the Alternative Vote for elections to the House of Commons and to a democratic and accountable Second Chamber.
• Improved citizenship education for young people followed by a free vote in Parliament on reducing the voting age to 16.

For those interested in details, they can be found in a PDF document.

The Liberal Democrats Manifesto follows suit. In a chapter entitled “your say,” in a section entitled “fairer politics,” amongst the main points are:

• Give the right to vote from age 16.
• Replace the House of Lords with a fully-elected second chamber with considerably fewer members than the current House.

For those interested in these details, they too can be found in a PDF document (also a PDF with only the cited chapter).

Then there is the Conservative Party Manifesto. In a chapter entitled “Change politics” and a section entitled “Make politics more accountable,” the Conservative Party manifests:

We will work to build a consensus for a mainly-elected second chamber to replace the current House of Lords, recognising that an efficient and effective second chamber should play an important role in our democracy and requires both legitimacy and public confidence.

“Conservative” indeed! In this manifesto there is no crazy flirting with minors. However, the House of Lords must go, apparently. Details can be found in a “conservative” PDF document.



The great High Tory Mr. Gerald Warner today sums up the upcoming election in Scotland on Sunday:

Choice is a luxury that is no longer on offer to British voters. The identical programmes of the three main political parties have effectively created a one-party state. It is the great irony of this general election that the expansion of the traditional two-horse race into a three-horse contest has brought not the slightest philosophical broadening of the electoral landscape.

Mr. Warner goes on:

It would be more accurate to say that Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats share a homogenous culture. It is possible to detect slight differences in their respective agendas – the Liberal Democrats' dissent from the Iraq War would be one instance – but these are purely tactical variations in the implementation of a common political culture that Gordon Brown once described as “the Progressive Consensus”. When the advent of David Cameron as Conservative leader absorbed even the Tory Party into that consensus, multi-party democracy became history.

Progressive democracy marches onwards. The “solution” to the problems of modern democracy is even more democracy. Nothing is to check the will of the popular majority – nor stand in the way of those acting in its name. Liberty and decency be damned.

By the way, anyone care to bet on when universal suffrage is expanded to two-year-olds?

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Who Needs the House of Commons?

Thus asks the High Tory Gerald Warner of Scotland on Sunday.

For generations, British schoolchildren were educated – or brainwashed – into an exaggerated respect for parliament and its associated institutions. Even as the British Empire went into receivership, imitation chambers emerged in former colonies, with Speakers and clerks decked out in the horsehair wigs that replicated the supposed gravitas of the circus on the Thames. Reinforcing this spurious deference was the Whig interpretation of history, which attempted to imbue an infamous gang of self-serving bandits and tyrants with a "democratic" veneer and an invented romance.

Mr. Warner concludes:

Now, the challenge is to explore all our existing resources, as is the British way, to replace this failed legislature. We must be the only tribe in the world to have a council of elders that we relegate to ceremonial duties: time to make more use of the Privy Council. An executive monarch, too, curbing the power of a prime minister, was until recently unthinkable; but, considering the record of recent prime ministers, it now seems a positive alternative. Undemocratic? Technically, yes – but how far have our pseudo-democratic institutions recently reflected the public will, whether on war in Iraq or any other topic? Think about it.

Wrote Gerald Warner eight months ago:

The constitutional principle is this: dismissal of a government by Royal prerogative is not undemocratic, provided it is immediately followed by a general election, giving the electorate the right to choose the government it wants. In the present circumstances, with a revolving-door Cabinet, more and more unelected ministers being drafted in via the House of Lords and election results pouring in that show the electorate's overwhelming rejection of the government, a compulsory dissolution would be perfectly justified.

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"The Glorious Revolution"

It was the years 1688 and 1689. King James II of England and Ireland, VII of Scotland was deposed. William of Orange came to replace him. It was on November 15, 1688 – the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot – that William of Orange landed at Torbay in Devon. November 5, you say? Well, in the Julian Calendar, yes.

“The Glorious Revolution” was arguably neither glorious nor a revolution, but it was an important step towards the mess we are in today. It is so because it was a precedent for Parliament deposing the Sovereign at will.

The world is not such, as Daniel Hannan seems to believe, that triumphs over kings necessarily are triumphs for civilization. We stand here now with an all but absolutist, democratist regime.

It is so wonderful that we can elect our rulers, we are told. Yet, indecency and encroachments upon our liberties march on. Do something about it at the polls, we are again told. Yes, pour a bucket of water in Lake Superior and watch the water rise.

Where do we go from here?

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Thoughts on the Human Development Index

I have long admired the Scandinavian kingdoms of Norway and Sweden for being both constitutional monarchies and socialist, two things I think every country should be. Doubtlessly, you fine gentlemen-scholars reading this are gasping with shock and amazement at my positive comment on socialism. Surely someone who goes by the name of that grand old Classical Liberal William Gladstone would not make a positive comment on STATISM of all things.

Well, you're right, because I'm not making a positive comment on statism. However, we must remember that one can be socialist without being statist. Statism, as I understand it, is a system in which the Government controls most or all aspects of a person's life. Fascism is statist, as are most models of communism. I wholeheartedy disapprove of such stuff. Social democracy, on the other hand, in combination with constitutional monarchy, that I wholeheartedly approve of, and with good reason.

Consider the Human Development Index, which I have recently been reading over. For the uninitiated, the HDI is an index of countries, listed from 1 to 182, based on various statistics such as life expectancy, education, literacy, GDP, and other factors. The number 1 spot, according to this index, is the best place in the world to live in. That place is Norway, a fact I'm rather proud of, considering my Grandfather's Norwegian heritage. As you may or may not know, Norway is a notably socialist country, using the highly successful Scandinavian welfare model. With it's constitutional monarchy, Norway maintains continuity and the glorious traditions of the past. And with it's various social programs, Norway has improved the lives of King Harald's citizens in the areas of healthcare, education and social security to the point where Norway is now considered the best country in the world to live in. Not only that, but Norway is also the richest country in the world , and in this ongoing financial crisis, the Norwegian krone is one of the most solid and dependable currencies in the world.

Norway and Sweden (both in the top 10 of the HDI's list, Norway of course at 1, Sweden at 7) represent the great success that a country can enjoy when constitutional monarchy is combined with democratic socialism. Canada and Australia, both social democracies as well, also enjoy high rankings on the HDI. Canada, I'm proud to say, sits at 4, while Australia is at 2. The whole purpose for a country's existence is to provide a better life for the people that live within it. Clearly something is working well in the combination of constitutional monarchy and social democracy.

So, I know the opinions on socialism here at The Monarchist are quite complex, so I would like to open the comments section of this post for discussion: What do you fine gentlemen think of socialism when combined with constitutional monarchy, such as the Norwegians have?

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The Rogue's March

Spin is the porn of politics. Dave, you and your useless Tories are headed for a presidential superstate with His Tonyness the Emperor soon calling the shots unless you unequivocally act now. If you are not the Heir to Blair, then bloody well prove it. No less than the sovereignty of Her Majesty's Kingdom is at stake.



And all for what? This? So Blair can pretend he's a superpower and smile alongside Obama as equals. Humility has never been one of Tony's core strengths, the man will stop at nothing, even attempting to make a Blairite out of the Pope, so aggressive is the charlatan's certainty. Only you have the power to stop him, Dave, and to give the people what they want. In the name of God, do the King's duty here, or we'll play The Rogue's March and drum you out of the regiment.

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All Whig and no Tory

The basic philosophical problem with the otherwise impressive Daniel Hannan, is that he has no discernible reverence for ancient Christian monarchy and reserves his greatest jubilation for history's triumphs over kings.

There are four places in the world which I never visit without a sense of reverence, almost of pilgrimage. Three are in Britain: Stratford, where the greatest mind produced by our species was shaped; Runnymede, where the idea that governments should be answerable to their peoples was encoded; and Naseby, where the victory of constitutional parliamentary authority was secured. The fourth is the old courthouse in Philadelphia where the US Declaration of Independence was signed and where, later, the Constitution was drafted.

To be sure there's much to like here, but while we all love Shakespeare, we shouldn't be surprised if Hannan's favourite tragic play is MacBeth's regicide of King Duncan. All Whig and no Tory, Roundhead values with no Cavalier tastes. So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

The problem with this milquetoast monarchist is that all his heroes are republican, from John Milton to Thomas Jefferson. Yes he looks up to Burke, but probably only the most Whiggish aspects of the man. Aren't the truly great men in history those who managed to fuse their classical liberalism with traditional conservative values - liberal conservative thinkers and principled floor crossers like Burke, Churchill, Russell Kirk and Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn?

I mean, what prospect of future progress is there in championing the one-dimensional fact that people wrestled away power from their kings long ago? Yes they did, and yes it was good up to a point, but what, pray, has been happening over the last hundred years or so? Are we okay with the fact that government of the people has grown from taking 10% of our earnings to more than 50% today? Do we really enjoy greater liberty today than we did under the influence of the king's men? Is there any real prospect of ever wrestling power away from politicians and putting it back in the hands of the individual where it belongs? No, not under the current system, the spoils of government are just too enticing for ambition to ignore, politicians prefer the corruption of Walpole over the patriotism of Bolingbroke.

My issue with Daniel Hannan is that while he rails splendidly against the former, he is at best a limp, halfhearted and perfunctory torch-bearer for the latter.

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Divine Reason

What to say about the good doctor Samuel Johnson on his 300th birthday? It would be almost mundane and cliché to repeat his quotes here, to harp that he was a Tory royalist and devout Anglican who wrote a dictionary on the English language, and whose life was made famous by Boswell's biography of him: The Life of Samuel Johnson. So we won't.

A photographic portrait of Samuel Johnson. Artist unknown
Dr. Johnson was a critic of the Enlightenment. He lived through the first period in modern history we might think of as secular in spirit, that was skeptical in matters of knowledge, questioning of authority, rationalistic towards the existence of ancient institutions, devoted to the idea of justice and an unquestioning belief in the goodness of human nature.

The crude reductionism of imparting abstract legitimacy in the hands of an Ideal People may have been alive and well in France, but with memories still fresh from the experience of the English Civil War, writers in England leading up to this time were largely Tory in spirit: distrustful of human nature and devoted to the cause of public order. In England, the distinctive spirit of the age might too be called the Enlightenment, but it was a critical one - constantly testing through irony, purging with satire, and finding conviction in the poise of an exact antithesis to the slowly settling Whig orthodoxies of that era. This is the genuine greatness of men like Johnson and Burke - they stood against the whole tendency of their epoch - not necessarily hostile to the ideas of the Enlightenment, but intensely critical of them.

Despite his deeply held religious views, Johnson was a rationalist and believed that rational thought was vital to morality. In his review of Soame Jenyns's A Free Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil and its argument that those "born to poverty" should not be educated so they could enjoy the "opiate of ignorance", Johnson wrote, "To entail irreversible poverty upon generation after generation only because the ancestor happened to be poor, is, in itself, cruel, if not unjust". The hereditary principle, even that as understood by a staunch Tory, had its clear limits. When Jenyns claimed that madness was a way God ensured that the poor would be content with life, Johnson responded:

On the happiness of madmen, as the case is not very frequent, it is not necessary to raise a disquisition, but I cannot forbear to observe that I never yet knew disorders of mind increase felicity; every madman is either arrogant and irascible, or gloomy and suspicious, or possessed by some passion or notion destructive to his quiet. He has always discontent in his look, and malignity in his bosom. And, if we had the power of choice, he would soon repent who should resign his reason to secure his peace.

Although Johnson believed that "All change is of itself an evil, which ought not to be hazarded but for evident advantage", he could not accept such a belief when it came to slavery. At Oxford, according to Boswell, Johnson gave a toast and said, "Here's to the next insurrection of the Negroes in the West Indies".

Samuel Johnson's life, like Burke's, is sandwhiched between the Jacobite and Jacobin periods. As hereditary monarchists, both men - Tory and Whig - in their earlier life had difficulty with the consequences unleashed by the 'Glorious Revolution', most acutely with the destruction of the divine principle in the human soul immortalized in Johnson's quip that "the first Whig was the devil". But by the time of George III, both men had come around to the Hanoverian Succession. Burke in particular criticized the "old fanatics of single arbitrary power" who had "dogmatized as if hereditary royalty was the only lawful government in the world, just as our new fanatics of popular arbitrary power, maintain that a popular election is the sole lawful source of authority." Burke was talking of France of course, but he could easily have been talking of the way democracy is idolized today.

Both Johnson and Burke as critics of the Enlightenment gave credence to revealed religion, and perceived well that pure reason had its frontiers. They understood that to deny the existence of realms beyond those borders was puerile, and therefore possessed a belief in a transcendent order, and an affection for the "variety and mystery" of human existence.

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I Am An Old Leftie

George Pitcher of The Daily Telegraph writes in his latest article: "A reception in a garden of Westminster Abbey the other day, under the shadow of the Victoria Tower of The House of Lords, was the unlikely setting for me to be called an unreconstructed old Leftie. I had just expressed some mild-mannered view that I hoped an incoming Government would commit itself properly to the education of our sink-estate underclass. "The trouble with you Lefties," said a young man in the group, amiably enough, "is that you just spout what is politically correct"."

"I don't know that I'm a Leftie. I don't like a big, intrusive State, but I want to be properly taxed for good public services, including education. I believe in personal freedom, but that includes the freedom to think liberal thoughts. I'm against capital punishment, but also vehemently opposed to assisted suicide and euthanasia. I hate religious extremism, but I am, unsurprisingly, pro‑religion."

"I dare say Dave Cameron and his "progressive Conservatives" covet my vote at the forthcoming General Election. Perhaps I'm Mediapolitan Man, or Sussex Git, or Baby Boom Bastard, or some other soubriquet that his focus groups have come up with. But evidently to a breed of invariably young Right-winger, I'm a Leftie if I express a view that isn't entirely on-message with the neo-con creed. And this presents the Cameroons with something of a challenge, I suspect." Continue reading this "politically correct" and quite "Leftie" article here.

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Whig in Tory Heaven

The Monarchist naturally considers the art of oratory part of the equipment of a statesman, and therefore regards any politician reading from a prepared speech or a teleprompter as pitiable. (You may safely take from that, that we regard almost all politicians today as lamentably inadequate.)

Thankfully, Daniel Hannan is a fine example of the old school, delivering his speech without notes, having obviously worked it out in his head beforehand, it is a delight to listen to as much for the delivery as for the content. Here once again, with the Tory troops hanging on to his every wit, every word, Mr. Hannan provides much needed eloquence in the service of truth.

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That Great Tory Tradition

Posted by Bolingbroke

Daniel Hannan, a British Member of the European Parliament, decimates Prime Minister Brown here for presiding over Britain's rapid economic decline. It is enjoyable not just because of the blistering attacks and gifted delivery, but because it reminds me of why Britain was once great.

For on full display here is that wonderful Tory tradition of English Parliamentary debate, that natural ability to cut and thrust through your political opponent until he is reduced to an inadequate heap - the body language says it all, as Gordon Brown diminishes into a rather uncomfortably brave smile. Tories of yore did not just participate in debates, they reveled in them - it was their one and only vocation. Although a self-proclaimed Whig, Mr. Hannan here is putting on a show worthy of an old fashioned Tory. My my, what wonderful, wonderful stuff.

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The Philosophy of Loyalty

Contrary to popular assumption, "loyalty" is not a dead virtue. It may have evolved from the ancient feudal notion of fealty and homage towards kings, to the now well-established idea of a "loyal opposition", but it is still - and will always be - our most important virtue.

HOLINESS, THAT HIGHEST OF HIGH TEMPLE VIRTUES, is nothing without loyalty. If the very definition of loyalty is faithfulness and devotion to a cause or being, then what is holiness or sanctity if not loyalty to God, after all?

Truth is a high temple virtue too, so is honour. But truth only triumphs inasmuch as one is loyal to it; honour, inasmuch as one is loyal to the code. Loyalty is the cardinal virtue because it makes the other virtues possible. It is virtue enabling.

For example, what is love without fidelity? What is hope without faith? What is charity without fealty or obligation? What is respectfulness without deferance? What is duty or service without allegiance? What is perseverance if not faithfulness and devotion to the end? And what is responsibility if not loyalty to our families, our careers and our communities? Personal responsibility. Corporate responsibility. Civic responsibility. Duty and commitment. It all comes down to loyalty.

One could go on and on about the interconnectedness of loyalty with virtue. Is justice not just adherence to a common belief in fairness, is morality not just cultural allegiance to a virtuous set of principles, ethics and values? As the American philosopher Josiah Royce postulated in his Philosophy of Loyalty (1908), "Loyalty is the fulfillment of the whole moral law. You can truthfully centre your entire moral world about a rational conception to loyalty. Justice, charity, industry, wisdom, spirituality, are all definable in terms of enlightened loyalty." He called his grand ethical theory, "loyalty to loyalty", defending the unifying virtue as the supreme moral good.

Once you appreciate that loyalty is the greatest human virtue, you understand that betrayal is the greatest human vice. The old evils of blasphemy, venality, cowardice, avarice, gluttony and sloth were all interpreted as betrayals of one form or another. Self-treachery can lead to any number of personal follies, since betrayal can empower all matter of sins. In Shakespeare's own immortal words, that Colossus of English literature, "self-love my liege, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting". Shakespeare understood that there is nothing beneath betrayal in the whole catalogue of sin.


And yet loyalty has often been misconstrued as a vice, and disloyalty sometimes misconstrued as a virtue. The "virtue of disloyalty" as put forward by Mark Twain and Grahame Green argued against giving in to the demands of loyalty in order to best protect the individual from those who exploit it, fearing it could potentially be used as a means to pursue unethical conduct on a grand scale. And indeed who could deny the idea has considerable resonance after bearing witness to history's murderous crimes under the fanatically loyal regimes of Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia?

But as it is with any other virtue, loyalty does not ask for us to suspend our moral judgements. Conscientiousness and sincerity may be directed to unworthy objects, but conscientiousness and sincerity do not for that reason fail as virtues. Does the corruption of courage, by which we mean foolhardiness, prove then that courage is not a virtue? Obviously there is a point at which virtue becomes not a virtue at all, for confidence can be corrupted into vanity, generosity into extravagance and loyalty into complaisance and servility. The trust that tends to accompany loyalty need not encompass gullibility and credulity.

It was Aristotle who described every virtue as a balance point between a deficiency and an excess of a trait. The point of greatest virtue lies not in the exact middle, but at a "golden mean" sometimes closer to one extreme than the other. Virtuous loyalty then is just the golden mean between fanatical disloyalty and fanatical loyalty. The mean between treachery and subserviance.

Society may be somewhat off its golden mean these days (we no longer worship virtue), because the needs of liberty have (over)entrenched the practice of limiting loyalty. The ancient fealty towards kings has progressed into the well-established idea of a "loyal opposition", since we have come to Whiggishly accept that for loyalty to be virtuous there must be openness to corrective criticism on the part of both the subject and object of loyalty. The "corrective" qualification is important, for not any opposition is permissible. A loyal opponent is not just an opponent, but one who remains loyal, and that entails the opposition to stay within bounds that are compatible with the well-being or best interests of the object of loyalty.

Predominantly speaking, a loyal opposition will not advocate rebellion or revolution or even radical change, for the latter would endanger the object of loyalty and perhaps replace it with an undesirable alternative. Perhaps it is the commitment to opposition within the prevailing structures that has led some radical critics of loyalty to see it negatively as a conservative virtue, or not to view it as a virtue at all. It is conservative because it involves a commitment to securing or preserving the interests of its object, an object that has come to be valued for its own sake.

Nevertheless, the existence of a loyal opposition does not preclude the possibility that a more radical opposition might and indeed should subsequently be mounted. If the loyal opposition proves incapable of "reforming" the object of loyalty, the exit option might be taken. In such cases it could be argued that the object of loyalty was no longer worthy of its claim to it. It is only if we mistakenly or misguidedly think of loyalty as making an absolute claim on us that a derogatory charge of conservatism (for those who see conservatism as derogatory) against a loyal opposition will have any traction.

We can limit loyalty but we cannot eliminate it altogether, nor should such a thing ever be desired, for that path leads to anarchy and destruction. Suffice it to say that no person, no profession, no culture and no country can survive long without it. Loyalty is the glue of society, the gospel of reason and the creed of nations. As part of the natural order, loyalty is the cardinal virtue and the whole cornerstone of Tory philosophy. It is absolutely critical to our existence.

It goes without saying that The Monarchist holds it in the highest possible regard.

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W.E.H. Lecky – Brave Critic of the New Age

Five score and five years ago today, October 22, 1903, William Edward Hartpole Lecky passed on from this world. Lecky was a historian, a political philosopher, and a Member of Parliament at Westminster for Dublin University. The new age was rising, and against it stood W.E.H. Lecky. In the words of William Murchison, he chose to write – and fight.


Writes William Murchison further in the introduction to W.E.H. Lecky's Democracy and Liberty:

Democracy was the late Victorian age's great passion – a concept not just to profess but to translate into reality. The democracy professed was less radical than that of the French revolutionaries who, in Burke's day, had cried "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality!" – and then decapitated thousands of their free and equal brethren. Democracy to the Victorians, meant something relatively high-minded – government by the majority for the benefit of the majority. The principle was amiable enough, certainly. It was in the practical application that things began to go wrong, as Lecky and a few others easily discerned. The implications of democracy for good government, for liberty – for precisely the values that democracy was meant to assert – were deeply disturbing.

William Murchison describes Democracy and Liberty further:

The argument of the book is the incompatibility of two concepts which, in the late 20th century, are regarded virtually as twins – democracy and liberty. The one might seem, at first glance, to reinforce and invigorate the other. But it was not so, as Lecky proceeded to establish in detail.

Murchison continues:

What had worked best for Britain, so far as he was concerned, was the electoral system that prevailed from the Reform Bill of 1832 until the Reform Bill of 1867. In 1832, the middle class had been enfranchised. The change had, at the time, split the country asunder, but it had worked. This was because, in Lecky's view, it had admitted to power a class of men solid, trustworthy, educated, and hard-working. Their merits, not their abstract “rights,” qualified them for the franchise. It was different with the millions granted the vote in 1867 and 1884. Sheer numbers was what mainly seemed to commend them as voters.

Murchison goes on:

What Lecky feared was that his country's government would pass out of the hands of gentlemen and “into the hands of professional politicians” – like those to be found in the United States.

Further Murchison writes:

Lecky was concerned, accordingly, that gentlemen should continue to govern. He was concerned especially for the future of the House of Lords, which fast was coming to be regarded as a feudal relic, occupying a “secondary position in the Constitution.” “Man for man, he wrote, “it is quite possible that (the Lords) represents more ability and knowledge than the House of Commons, and its members are certainly able to discuss public affairs in a more single-minded and disinterested spirit.” The peers' “superiority of knowledge” was “very marked.” They were more than ornamental; they contributed, along with the Throne, to the kingdom's “greatness and cohesion.”

Lecky was a Privy Councillor and was bestowed with the Order of Merit.

W.E.H. Lecky blamed the rebellion in the American colonies largely on the encroachments of Parliament on Royal Prerogative.

Of the American Electoral College Lecky wrote:

In this manner it was hoped that the President might be elected by the independent votes of a small body of worthy citizens who were not deeply plunged in party politics. But, as the spirit of party intensified and the great party organisations attained their maturity, this system wholly failed.

Of President Andrew Jackson Lecky wrote:

The modern system of making all posts under the Government, however unconnected with politics, rewards for party services was organised, in 1829, by Andrew Jackson. This President may be said to have completed the work of making the American Republic a pure democracy, which Jefferson had begun. His statue stands in front of the White House at Washington as one of the great men of America, and he assuredly deserves to be remembered as the founder of the most stupendous system of political corruption in modern history.

Of democracy and regulation Lecky wrote:

In our own day, no fact is more incontestable and conspicuous than the love of democracy for authoritative regulation.

Of the House of Commons Lecky wrote:

Of all the forms of government that are possible among mankind, I do not know any which is likely to be worse than the government of a single omnipotent democratic Chamber. It is at least as susceptible as an individual despot to the temptations that grow out of the possession of an uncontrolled power, and it is likely to act with much less sense of responsibility and much less real deliberation. The necessity of making a great decision seldom fails to weigh heavily on a single despot, but when the responsibility is divided among a large assembly, it is greatly attenuated. Every considerable assembly also, as it has been truly said, has at times something of the character of a mob. Men acting in crowds and in public, and amid the passions of conflict and debate, are strangely different from what they are when considering a serious question in the calm seclusion of their cabinets.

Of the worship of majorities Lecky wrote:

He will not, if he is a wise man, be reassured by the prevailing habit, so natural in democracies, of canonising, and almost idolising, mere majorities, even when they are mainly composed of the most ignorant men, voting under all the misleading influences of side-issues and violent class or party passions. The ‘voice of the people,’ as expressed at the polls, is to many politicians the sum of all wisdom, the supreme test of truth or falsehood. It is even more than this: it is invested with something very like the spiritual efficacy with theologians have ascribed to baptism. It is supposed to wash away all sin. However unscrupulous, however dishonest, may be the acts of a party or of a statesman, they are considered to be justified beyond reproach if they have been condoned or sanctioned at a general election. It has sometimes happened that a politician has been found guilty of a grave personal offence by an intelligent and impartial jury, after a minute investigation of evidence, conducted with the assistance of highly trained advocates, and under the direction of an experienced judge. He afterwards finds a constituency which will send him to Parliament, and the newspapers of his party declare that his character is now clear. He has been absolved by ‘the great voice of the people.’ Truly indeed did Carlyle say that the superstitions to be feared in the present day are much less religious than political; and all the forms of idolatry I know none more irrational and ignoble than this blind worship of mere numbers.

Democracy and Liberty, a two-volume work, is indeed refreshing reading, now even more than a century after its publication. We honor the memory of William Edward Hartpole Lecky. May he continue to rest in peace.

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"Reactionary Prophet"

IF THE DEVIL WROTE A POLEMIC ON GOD, it might faithfully reflect Christopher Hitchens' grudging respect of Edmund Burke. Begrudging because use of the label "reactionary" is meant to be pejorative and a political epithet; respect and even praise in that "prophet" is an admission that Burke's prophetic indictment of what would become of revolutionary France proved almost eerily exact.

"Reactionary Prophet" is no shamelessly self-promoting screed against Mother Teresa, but in actual fact a fairly balanced critique of Burke by a modern day Paine - Hitchens at his least repugnant. As delightful as it is to read fellow Burkeans such as Russell Kirk and Roger Scruton praising the philosophy and prescience of Burke, it is criticisms by the unconverted that are the more fascinating, and even more so if the unconverted are utterly godless talents like Christopher Hitchens. For here is an unrepentent Trotskyte declaring victory over the patriarch of traditional Anglosphere conservatism, and castigating him for dismissing the ideals of the Enlightenment as nothing more than the "vulgar, base and profane language" of the mob. Burke may have been right early on but he was wrong in the long run. The revolution in all its parts had indeed succeeded, eventually devouring the whole of the West in its ravenous wake.

To which the Burkean answers why yes, why yes it has, but just how, pray, is that a good thing, exactly? Just how is our increasingly anti-monarchist, anti-Christian, hyperliberal, suprastatist, politically correct and amusement-sodden dystopia an improvement over the more stoic values and ordered liberty of yesteryear? Please point to us the virtues and general worth of leveling modernity. Todays glories and wealth can be summarised with a Trollope: "But the glory is the glory of pasteboard, and the wealth is the wealth of tinsel". Somewhere along the way our character and majesty got reduced to plastic and tinsel, and some of us are not very happy about it.

I fervently hope this is not what Hitchens the anti-theist and neo-imperialist wants to export to the rest of the world. Burke was prophetic alright - vulgar, base and profane everywhere you look. But hey, the republicans have their priorities. It's the Queen that must come to an end.

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