lected
by Parliament can dissolve Parliament. Members would be naturally
anxious that the power which might destroy their coveted dignity should
be lodged in fit hands. They dare not place in unfit hands a power
which, besides hurting the nation, might altogether ruin them. We may
be sure, therefore, that whenever the predominant party is divided, the
UN-royal form of Cabinet government would secure for us a fair and able
Parliamentary leader--that it would give us a good Premier, if not the
very best. Can it be said that the royal form does more?

In one case I think it may. If the constitutional monarch be a man of
singular discernment, of unprejudiced disposition, and great political
knowledge, he may pick out from the ranks of the divided party its very
best leader, even at a time when the party, if left to itself, would
not nominate him. If the sovereign be able to play the part of that
thoroughly intelligent but perfectly disinterested spectator who is so
prominent in the works of certain moralists, he may be able to choose
better for his subjects than they would choose for themselves. But if
the monarch be not so exempt from prejudice, and have not this nearly
miraculous discernment, it is not likely that he will be able to make a
wiser choice than the choice of the party itself. He certainly is not
under the same motive to choose wisely. His place is fixed whatever
happens, but the failure of an appointing party depends on the capacity
of their appointee.

There is great danger, too, that the judgment of the sovereign may be
prejudiced. For more than forty years the personal antipathies of
George III. materially impaired successive administrations. Almost at
the beginning of his career he discarded Lord Chatham: almost at the
end he would not permit Mr. Pitt to coalesce with Mr. Fox. He always
preferred mediocrity; he generally disliked high ability; he always
disliked great ideas. If constitutional monarchs be ordinary men of
restricted experience and common capacity (and we have no right to
suppose that BY MIRACLE they will be more), the judgment of the
sovereign will often be worse than the judgment of the party, and he
will be very subject to the chronic danger of preferring a respectful
common-place man, such as Addington, to an independent first-rate man,
such as Pitt.

We shall arrive at the same sort of mixed conclusion if we examine the
choice of a Premier under both systems in the critical case of C