Canada, dump the crown and become a republic? (poll)
- Thread starter DurkaDurka
- Start date
#juan said:
Juan, you have a point about fixed election dates causing a year of campaigning........but I think giving the government the advantage of choosing the most opportune time to hold an election is more damaging in the long run.
As for term limits.......I'm with you completely, I find the whole idea anti-democratic.
I agree mostly with Colpy, however I disagree with the idea term limits are bad or no good. Frankly like most people I'm tired of career politicians. Democracy, and going back to the bar bones of Republican democracy, isn't supposed to be about careerists and how to best keep there jobs. Look how how a lot of these people get re-elected. Many of them just buy there votes with tax cuts or social spending just before an election.
If you read about the Roman Republic and Greek Democracies you see an on going theme of a person, people only serving the puplic for a short time as a honour and then going back to there normal life. Many of these people will never work another job again in there lifes and many of them in government now are lawyers and other white high end collar professions. Our politicans don't even represent the demographics of the average Canadian.
One of the great democratic reforms I think we will never have in Canada is a term limit on the PM, and even better, that on Senators, and MPs, councillors, MPP's and MPA's.
Some say this will lead to a lack of skill in our politicians, but really what are these politicians learning, pretty much how to get elected every 4-5 years. I think the average person needs more connection to the seat of power and government in a Republic and a democracy.
If you read about the Roman Republic and Greek Democracies you see an on going theme of a person, people only serving the puplic for a short time as a honour and then going back to there normal life. Many of these people will never work another job again in there lifes and many of them in government now are lawyers and other white high end collar professions. Our politicans don't even represent the demographics of the average Canadian.
One of the great democratic reforms I think we will never have in Canada is a term limit on the PM, and even better, that on Senators, and MPs, councillors, MPP's and MPA's.
Some say this will lead to a lack of skill in our politicians, but really what are these politicians learning, pretty much how to get elected every 4-5 years. I think the average person needs more connection to the seat of power and government in a Republic and a democracy.
It should take a rocket scientist to figure out that there is no way any French Canadian, even among the most federalist, could truly feel a closeness to th crown. At most, he'd be indifferent. After all, the queen is not a part of their history. Or if any French Canadian did feel a need to preserve the crown, it would be more out of a desire to preserve universal traditions (i.e., he'd think we ought to preserve the grat wall too).
Re: RE: Canada, dump the crown and become a republic? (poll)
however protestant french Canadians may still like the crown. I find most people in Toronto ignore the monarchy completely, and those who don't ignore it think it's a joke.
Machjo said:
however protestant french Canadians may still like the crown. I find most people in Toronto ignore the monarchy completely, and those who don't ignore it think it's a joke.
Re: RE: Canada, dump the crow
That has next to nothing to do with it. Quebecers seem to be forgetting that they are Canadian too, deal with it. France had a large role in what Canada is, through Quebec and Acadia, they played just as big a role in moldeing Canada as the British did, they also unlike the Acadians swore to ally with England after wolf took over Quebec City, its Their Queen too.s_lone said:
RE: Canada, dump the crow
I really dont understand it anyway, in the end Canada is a sovereign country, it can do whatever the hell it likes, if Canada wanted to get rid of their unpaid head of state (not that she's unpaid by british citizens of course) then just do what Australia did and have a public vote on it.
Chances are the result would be the same as the Aus one anyway, probably more pro. The ONLY Problem I see with a Presidential Parliamentary republic ITN is what happened with Pres. Paul Von Hindenburg in Germany with him dieing and chaos ensuin and well......we all know what happened then, but that is an extra-ordinary set of circumstances...or perhaps the roman reblic turning into an empire....or America's very own almost-dictatorial Bush family eh?
I really dont understand it anyway, in the end Canada is a sovereign country, it can do whatever the hell it likes, if Canada wanted to get rid of their unpaid head of state (not that she's unpaid by british citizens of course) then just do what Australia did and have a public vote on it.
Chances are the result would be the same as the Aus one anyway, probably more pro. The ONLY Problem I see with a Presidential Parliamentary republic ITN is what happened with Pres. Paul Von Hindenburg in Germany with him dieing and chaos ensuin and well......we all know what happened then, but that is an extra-ordinary set of circumstances...or perhaps the roman reblic turning into an empire....or America's very own almost-dictatorial Bush family eh?
Daz
A republic, unlike a monarchy or aristocracy, is a polity in which governmental power devolves by popular election, and not by heredity. I know you think the Monarch is a figurehead, but that is only because they choose not to excercise their authority, fearing a public uprising. Now you can call it tradition, you can call it a Head of State being non-partisan, you can call it what you wish, the fact remains, feudalism is anachronistic.
Canada isn't Nazi Germany of the 1930's, I'm quite sure Canadians won't blink an eye if a politican suddenly dies.
Bush isn't a dictator.
A republic, unlike a monarchy or aristocracy, is a polity in which governmental power devolves by popular election, and not by heredity. I know you think the Monarch is a figurehead, but that is only because they choose not to excercise their authority, fearing a public uprising. Now you can call it tradition, you can call it a Head of State being non-partisan, you can call it what you wish, the fact remains, feudalism is anachronistic.
Canada isn't Nazi Germany of the 1930's, I'm quite sure Canadians won't blink an eye if a politican suddenly dies.
Bush isn't a dictator.
Re: RE: Canada, dump the crow
The Queen isn't British. She's German, more than anything.
And as I've said on this forum a thousand times, Republics are more corrupt than Constitutional Monarchies and armed coups are more likely in Republics.
JonB2004 said:
The Queen isn't British. She's German, more than anything.
And as I've said on this forum a thousand times, Republics are more corrupt than Constitutional Monarchies and armed coups are more likely in Republics.
You know what fascinates me Blackleaf, this attachment the British have towards the Monarchy. A Monarchy that has done aboslutely nothing for the UK other than plunge them into wars, tax its citizens to death and treat them like garbage. And what did the British citizens do? They reconstructed the laws to give the monrachy a figurhead status instead of following the French example. Wonderful!
The majority of Canadians support the monarchy -
The Ipsos-Reid poll commissioned by The Globe and Mail and the Canadian Television Network (CTV) found the following:
79 percent of those polled supported the constitutional monarchy as Canada’s form of government.
62 percent believed the constitutional monarchy defines Canada’s identity and should continue.
48 percent of those polled would have preferred a republic style of government with an elected Head of State.
65 percent believed the Royal Family should not have any formal role in government, being “simply celebrities”.
The Léger Marketing poll found the following:
50 percent of those polled supported maintaining Queen Elizabeth II as Canada’s monarch, while 43 percent did not.
56 percent of those polled supported keeping Queen Elizabeth II on the Canadian dollar coin, while 39 percent did not.
Canada (PDF)
mapleleafweb.com
In Britain, only 9% of people want Britain to become a Republic.
The Ipsos-Reid poll commissioned by The Globe and Mail and the Canadian Television Network (CTV) found the following:
79 percent of those polled supported the constitutional monarchy as Canada’s form of government.
62 percent believed the constitutional monarchy defines Canada’s identity and should continue.
48 percent of those polled would have preferred a republic style of government with an elected Head of State.
65 percent believed the Royal Family should not have any formal role in government, being “simply celebrities”.
The Léger Marketing poll found the following:
50 percent of those polled supported maintaining Queen Elizabeth II as Canada’s monarch, while 43 percent did not.
56 percent of those polled supported keeping Queen Elizabeth II on the Canadian dollar coin, while 39 percent did not.
Canada (PDF)
mapleleafweb.com
In Britain, only 9% of people want Britain to become a Republic.
Canada needs traditions to be a real country. A country with a past. A country with a future. The British ties are under attack. We've lost Dominion Day already and many muse about changing Victoria Day. I like the sense of tradition in such days. I vote for keeping as much of the past as is reasonable.
I think not said:
Our Constitutional Monarchy doesn't declare war. That's the job of our elected Prime Minister just like it's the job of your President. The Queen can have NO say in politics and can't even vote. And Constitutional Monarchies are less corrupt and more democratic than Republics. Just look at the list of the world's Top 10 most democratic nations and you'll see that 7 or 8 of them are Constitutional Monarchies.
And what has our monarchy done for us? It's done a lot. The British LOVE the Queen. We see her as the people's grandmother. For a start, she is the Head of the Church of England, just as the Pope is Head of the Catholic Church. Members of the Royal Family are patrons of most of our charities. Prince Charles set up the Prince's Trust that helps disadvantaged British children. The Monarchy is England's oldest secular institution and England just wouldn't be the same without it. And Republics are boring, in my opinion.
-----------------------
The British Monarchy:
The Value and the Controversy
Res Publica, v8n2
July 1998
by: Erica Cook
For centuries, the British monarchy has been an essential part of the nation’s culture and history. As England’s oldest secular institution, it is intertwined with the nation’s identity and political culture. When functioning properly, the monarchy embodies the best of English society. If abolished or radically changed, the nation would lose an essential element that solidifies its political system.
In a modern democracy, many have questioned the legitimacy of the monarchy. Such a concern is logical, but the institution performs many important roles for the nation.
According to Philip Norton, author of The British Polity, "
Twentieth century monarchs....occupy a position in which....they fulfill two primary tasks. One is to represent the unity of the nation. The other is to carry out certain political functions on the advice of ministers" (Norton, 308).
Unlike the U.S. President’s elected office, the Crown occupies a hereditary post as England’s head of state. It is a symbolic position, delicately balanced between governmental representation and participation. As with all symbols, however, the significant meaning of this position exemplifies the government at its best. The monarchy acts as a unifying agent, with all government performed in its name. In difficult situations, such as war, this symbolism provides "a sense of duty for government&q uot; and "a sense of continuity" (Norton, 309). The monarchy and all it represents triggers an emotional, but not sentimental, bond to a truly English institution, inspiring loyalty among the people. Thus, in this capacity, the monarchy functions as an "effective barrier" against nondemocratic government (Norton, 310).
Because England’s power is concentrated in its executive, additional objections have been raised against the legitimacy of the monarchy’s political roles. Although a valid concern, it is largely misunderstood that the monarchy’s political duties, such as dissolving parliament and appointing ministers, are governed by convention (Norton, 312). These duties present no threat to England’s political structure because they are tempered by a counsel of ministers that reduce any authority to token responsibilities. This condition is necessary because the Crown must maintain a nonpartisan and tempered stance to insure its survival; any participation in governmental affairs could render the Crown vulnerable to political attacks from Parliament (the same thing happened that triggered the English Civil War). Ultimately, the Crown must appear to transcend all political activity or it will not survive.
In order to operate as intended, the monarchy needs money to perform its duties as head of state, such as making overseas visits and entertaining foreign dignitaries. Because the Crown serves as the nation’s ceremonial head, adequate subsidies are required to properly fulfill these roles. The monarchy’s operating costs in 1992 were approximately 57 million pounds (with 60 million people, that's cheap, per person), the majority of which was spent on palace staff and maintenance. Moreover, increases given to the Civil List, a fund allocated by Parliament to cover the monarchy’s personal expenses, pale when compared to those of government spending.
An Economist article titled "Should one pay tax?," revealed that since the Queen’s accession, "the value of the Civil List has increased only 12 times--roughly in line with retail prices. By contrast, government spending has risen by 35 times" (Norton, 59). Most of the monarchy’s expenses are legitimate, and its status as a tourist attraction greatly offset s its costs. Nevertheless, in an effort to economize, several junior royals were recently trimmed from the Civil List and the Queen began paying income tax on her personal fortune, effectively ending the Crown’s tax-free status.
Although it proves useful as a ceremonial head and tourist attraction, these benefits alone do not justify the monarchy’s existence. However, when they comport themselves correctly, the Royal family embodies the English historical concept of all that is noble and good, providing the people with a virtuous ideal. For example, Professor of History at Columbia University, David Cannadine, says that the life of Queen Elizabeth has:
Been busy, comparmentalized, and ridgedly constrained and controlled....as head of the Commonwealth, she has helped to preserve postimperial connections with and between former British colonies, and she has visited more of the world than any king or queen in human history (Norton, 23).
Such reliable behavior potentially proves invaluable to a nation that depends upon a strong political culture to preserve its constitution. As the embodiment of virtue, the royal family’s political worth is moral and educative, especially in a society with a crumbling family structure. Their work preserves freedom by inspiring ministers to politically restrain themselves and commoners to adopt gentility.
Perhaps embodying English greatness is an impossible ideal, for realizing this possibility requires the royal family to act consistently with grace and virtue. There is still not sufficient reason, however, to dismiss this historic institution. The monarchy may be enshrouded in debate, but it still retains its basic reputation and integrity. As The Economist article, "A Royal Fudge" explains:
The head-of-state arrangements that a country has do not lend themselves to fruitful discussion. They are bequeathed by history, not by reason; they emerge from cataclysm not from debate. For better or worse....Britain has a monarchy. Unless the House of Windsor chooses to dismiss itself, the monarchy will remain.
Erica Cook is a graduating senior from North Canton, Ohio, studying Political Science and Journalism-English. In the fall, she will pursue graduate studies in English at the University of Cincinnati.
ashbrook.org
Re: RE: Canada, dump the crown and become a republic? (poll)
That's not entirely true.
An Act passed in Parliament in the 1930s ensured that the Monarch has equal status in all the countries of which he/she is Head of State. Therefore, she is no more the British people's Queen than she is the Canadian people's Queen. She is as much yours as she is ours. The only difference is that she happens to live here, although she doesn't have to.
Kreskin said:
That's not entirely true.
An Act passed in Parliament in the 1930s ensured that the Monarch has equal status in all the countries of which he/she is Head of State. Therefore, she is no more the British people's Queen than she is the Canadian people's Queen. She is as much yours as she is ours. The only difference is that she happens to live here, although she doesn't have to.
This is a bit long, but it's interesting and shows why Britain, and Canada, should keep the Monarchy -
In Defence of the Monarchy
Sean Gabb
In response to those who say "The British are subjects and not citizens", Sean Gabb says: "That's rubbish. The British are freer than our Continental neighbours who are Republics" -
When with my family and friends I celebrated her Majesty's golden jubilee last June, I thought that republicanism had been crushed as other than a marginal force for another generation. Over a million people had gathered in the Mall to cheer her - many of them young people, and many from the ethnic minorities. For a few days, all the silly chatter about inclusiveness and diversity became about as real as it possibly could, but became real in a cause that the loudest and silliest of the chatterers regarded with shame and annoyance. Now, sadly, the republicans are back with their levelling agenda. I do not think we shall ever know the truth concerning the former servant of the Princess of Wales who started the present round of scandals. But the lurid claims of warnings from the Queen, of homosexual rape in the royal household, and of the general conduct of the royal family, are highly damaging regardless of their truth - and have been taken up by the republicans in the media and used to cause the greatest damage possible. Of course, the Monarchy will survive these scandals. They may be used, however, to justify a weakening of its institutional powers, and so will contribute to its decline over the long term.
I know that many of my readers live under republican forms of government, and that many of my British readers have no settled affection for our own monarchical constitution. But I am myself a committed monarchist, and will take this opportunity to explain why.
The first argument is from antiquity. Queen Elizabeth II is descended from the kings of the Germanic barbarians who invaded the Roman province of Britain after the year 410 AD. At first, these barbarians were divided among many tribes, each with its one king. As the centuries passed, however, what is now England was gradually brought under the rule of one royal family; and Alfred the Great (d. 901) is normally regarded as the first King of England.
With the exception of the rather strange period between 1649 and 1660, when the country was first a republic and then a military dictatorship, England has always been a Monarchy. And the monarchs have been members of one family. Her present Majesty is descended from the family of Alfred the Great, just as he in turn was descended from the chieftains who led their warriors and their families out of the great forests that once overspread northern Europe. There have been changes in the order of succession - in 1485, in 1603, in 1688, in 1714, and in 1936 - but the crown has not passed outside that family during the past 1,500 years.
Antiquity, I grant, is not in itself a defence of anything. But antiquity does raise a presumption in its favour. Unless a particular thing can be shown to produce great and easily avoidable harm, its age does serve as a defence. The burden of proof, therefore, lies against the republicans. Before they can be allowed to have their way, they must prove beyond reasonable doubt that Monarchy is for us a harmful institution.
One claim I often hear is that we are in this country not citizens with inalienable rights, but subjects with revokable privileges. An argument consequent on this is that the Monarchy is a survival from the time before the middle-class revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. It is a symbol of a traditional order in which status is possessed on the basis not of ability but of birth. It is even claimed that it is because of the social prestige of the Monarchy that this country lost its commercial lead at the end of the 19th century - that the first generations of capitalist factory owners were replaced by sons who had come to believe that high social status was best achieved through the professions and politics, and that industry was something for the lower classes to bother about.
The reply is simple. The language of obedience and the ceremonial that attends royal occasions may support this claim. However, in a constitution like ours, which was not made, but has evolved over many centuries, the dictionary meaning of words is far less important than the things they actually describe. During the past few hundred years, all of the European monarchies have been either abolished or remodelled out of ancient recognition. Are the "citizens" of those countries notably more free than English "subjects"? The obvious answer is no. We pay lower taxes than in most of these countries. We enjoy generally greater freedom of enterprise. In the writ of habeas corpus, and in trial by jury according to common law rules of justice, we enjoy greater protections of life, liberty and property. Unlike in most of Europe, I can take action against the authorities in the ordinary civil courts: where we have administrative tribunals, there is always appeal to the ordinary courts. Assuming I want to, I can read books and make statements that in much of Europe would get me into serious trouble. During the past century, there have been repeated floods of European immigrants into this country. They have come here to live in a country where they are not bled absolutely white in taxes, and where they do not need to fear a 3:00am knock on the door by the authorities. Except by those who want to live in a better climate, and who have the money to ignore local oppressions, I have not seen much movement in the opposite direction. Better to be a subject in England than a citizen in France. Just ask all those emigres who have settled here since 1789 - and we can ask the 300,000 who currently have taken advantage of the European Union rules on labour mobility to come and work here. Having a Monarchy did not stop us from having the first and therefore the most important industrial revolution. It has not stopped London from remaining one of the great financial centres of the world - a financial centre where more people work than live in Frankfurt, whish is the next largest financial centre in the European Union.
If we are less free today than a century or even a generation ago, this is not because we have a Monarchy. It is because the representative elements of our constitution have decayed. It may have been Her Majesty last month, speaking to Parliament, who announced the planned abolition of the double jeopardy rule, and the lifting of the bar on similar fact evidence, and the limitation of the right to trial by jury. But she was reading words written for her by others - these others being a pack of unprincipled technocrats obsessed with meeting targets on the suppression of crime, regardless of due process, and regardless of whether the targets can be met by way of the means suggested. It is the people we are supposed to represent us who are making us less free, not the person whom the coins proclaim our monarch by the grace of God. If we have a problem, it is not too few elected politicians: it is too many bad ones.
Another claim is that the Monarchy is a visible symbol of inequality - a barrier to an ideal society in which everyone will be equal in status, and in which everyone will have the right, if not the ability, to rise to the highest position. It is a knife pointing at the heart of democracy. This may sound a persuasive claim. Historically, though, attempts to create such societies have usually gone far beyond abolishing a Monarchy - they have ended with attacks on anyone with a nice house and money in the bank, or on anyone with a good coat on his back. Those who hate the Queen for her jewels and palaces generally have no time either for the middle classes.
But all this is only a negative reply to the republicans. It demands proof of harm done by having a Monarchy, and then rejects all alleged proofs. The Monarchy is not simply an ancient institution that is harmless and that ought therefore to be left alone. There is a positive argument. Not only has the Monarchy done us no harm: it has done much good.
England is the ONLY country in the world that has for the past three hundred years not had a revolution, a civil war, a military dictatorship, a foreign invasion, or any other serious breakdown of constitutional order. It has throughout this time maintained high levels of political and economic freedom. There is no other country in all history that has been so reliably free and stable for so long. This may have something to do with our geographical position - though this did not bring much stability before about 1700. It may have something to do with our racial characteristics - though the Americans who fought the War between the States were generally of the same stock, and still managed an awful bloodletting. There may be any number of other reasons, or combinations of reasons. But one highly probable contributing cause is our constitution. For the past few centuries, we have had a Monarchy with all the prestige of ancient legitimacy, combined with actual government by elected politicians. The character of the Monarch has therefore been fairly unimportant, but no politician has been able to scheme or shoot his way into that first position. We have a situation where the politicians have most of the power, but the Monarch has all the authority.
This is not a division of power that exists in the written constitutions of the other countries. Certainly, it was not noticed by foreign observers such as Montequieu and de Lolme in the 18th century. It is, even so, a division of powers that seem so far to have been more successful than the formal divisions of executive, legislature and judiciary with which constitutional lawyers are more familiar. It is not a defect of the Monarchy that the top position is closed to merit. It is one of the highest benefits. We cannot be certain that replacing the Monarchy with a presidential republic would preserve anything like this division. It might well be that to get rid of the Monarchy would take Britain into the kind of political instability that is currently unimaginable.
This brings us to the third line of defence - which is our ignorance of what would happen if we tried to replace the Monarchy.
Contrary to all the imaginings of the utopian philosophers, we are fundamentally not rational beings. We cannot be perfected. We cannot be made fit for a social order based wholly on light and reason. Certainly, the modes of thought and social organisation that developed chiefly in England, and have since spread in stages throughout the world, can usually be given a powerful abstract justification. But the success - indeed, the continued existence - of these modes owes nothing to rational deliberation, and everything to an often unconscious habit. To abolish, or even to try altering these habits is to risk our enjoyment of the benefits that proceed from them. Anyone who thinks otherwise falls into an error readily demonstrable from the history of the past two centuries. Anyone who proceeds from thought to action commits acts that range from the absurd to the catastrophically monstrous.
When, therefore, we come to an examine a functioning social order such as our own, our most proper attitude is one of curiosity mingled with reverence. We are not to seize on its apparent faults and reject it in favour of something else spun out of a single head. Nor, as has been most often done this century in those countries lucky enough to avoid a total reconstruction, are we to advocate sweeping reforms simply on the grounds of "modernisation" or of bringing something "into the twenty first century". We must instead try to understand the inner workings of society - to conjecture by what innumerable and infinitesimal stages the present order of things evolved to its present sophistication. This will require us to look even to those habits and institutions that rest on justifications manifestly absurd, asking whether they might not nevertheless serve a useful purpose. Then, and only then, shall we be ready to consider what deliberate changes may be necessary, and how these may best be combined with what already is. The best change is so cautious and incremental that only those directly affected notice its happening. Even the most radical, sudden change is best achieved so that within only a few years it becomes difficult to tell the old from the new.
According to this argument, then, it is wrong to look at the Monarchy as if it stood alone. It might be wrong to see the Monarchy as a direct guarantor of political stability. Nevertheless, it might contribute to that stability in some way that no one has yet discovered.
Some monarchists I have spoken to over the past year have expressed a strong dissatisfaction with the Queen. Disliking the present Government's European policy, they have petitioned Her Majesty for the redress of grievances, using the procedure laid down in the Magna Carta of 1215. So far, they have received no proper answer. From this, they have concluded that the Monarchy is as weak and indeed rotten a support as any other branch of the Constitution. This is a mistaken view. It proceeds from the same confusion of law and constitutional practice as the republicans usually make.
The legal powers of the Monarchy are theoretically immense. They have not been reduced by law since 1660, and then were not fundamentally touched. Formally, the Queen is the Head of State, Head of the Church of England, and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. In theory, she is also the owner of all the land in England and Wales - a survival of the feudal tenures introduced by William I in 1066. All legal acts are done in her name; and in theory, she is present in every courtroom in the country. Her head appears on every British postage stamp and on every British coin and banknote. We tend to despise those foreign countries where national flags or even pictures of "El Presidente" are everywhere. But images of our Queen are in every pocket and on every letter posted. If she so wished, she could dismiss Tony Blair tomorrow and set me in his place. She could dissolve Parliament to save me the trouble of facing it. She could declare war on France, and sign a treaty giving Gibraltar to Spain. In reality, she can do none of these things. Her inability to raise taxes in her own name would eventually force her to recall Parliament, just as Charles I was forced. But long before reaching this position, it would have been necessary for her to break through the web of custom that, during the past three centuries, has overlain the law. Her actions might be strictly legal: they would not be at all constitutional.
There might be circumstances in which she needed to use her full legal powers in defence of the whole Constitution, and she might then break various conventions without any loss of authority. But the arguments over the Treaty of Nice - bad as it might be - do not justify formal royal intervention. She would not have public opinion sufficiently on her side - and that, whatever the wording of constitutional documents might say - is the real source of power and authority.
This being said, I do believe that the Queen is aware of how dangerously bad this Government is, and that she is at war with it. But the weapons practically available to her are not those available to Queen Anne when she decided to rid herself of the Whigs. The weapons now are symbolism and ceremonial obstruction.
We saw these most obviously in use earlier this year. We have a government and a controlled media insisting that we are no longer what our ancestors were, and that our only future lies in the new country called Europe. This message received a flat contradiction when the Queen Mother was buried - an event acting as powerfully on the English imagination as a half-forgotten bugle call on an old soldier. The countless millions of unrepresented conservatives in this country were suddenly faced with the old music and words and ceremony, and the effect was often overpowering. It was like waking from a nightmare and looking at the familiar things around the bedroom. That is why New Labour and the BBC were so upset and even frightened by the public reaction. Unlike the amateurs and fools who run the Conservative Party, these people fully understand the power of symbolism, and they appreciated the strength of the reverse to their project of national deconstruction. They were equally upset by the success of the Jubilee celebrations. They could see what they had long regarded as the withered husk of the Monarchy taking on new life with every outpouring of popular support. This recovered strength would not be used to defeat them in open battle. Instead, it would be an inspiring force for others. The ancient Jews would carry the Ark of the Covenant into battle with them. Whether it brought the divine blessing on their arms may be doubted. Undoubtedly, though, it gave them a visible symbol of all they were fighting for. That is the real modern power of the Monarchy. And this, I suspect, is the reason why these scandals are being so emphasised in the media. They weaken the Monarchy in the place in which it needs to be strongest.
Now, what we are fighting for is obvious. We want personal freedom and national independence. Is that why Her Majesty is now at war on our side? I like to think so. But it may just be self-preservation. In the past hundred years, the Monarchy has accommodated itself to great and surprising changes. George V decided not to stand by the landed aristocracy, and so avoided its fate. George VI made no complaints about losing his imperial title. Her present Majesty managed very well in the first half of her reign as head of state in a mixed economy welfare state. But none of these changes threatened the survival of the Monarchy as an institution. The older Labour politicians - Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson, James Callaghan - had no desire to overthrow the Constitution or even to remodel it. I am not even sure how serious were their more radical followers. The present Labour leaders, though, are republicans. They are not, of course, republicans in the tradition of Tom Paine or even of Tony Benn - who wanted what they thought a fair and rational deal for all the people of the country. Instead, they have a vision of a New World Order society in which there is no room for things like monarchy or any other pattern of habitual loyalty that they cannot themselves control. Their republic is not one of annual parliaments and village democracy: it is one in which the rulers of many countries combine to exercise absolute and unaccountable power over an atomised - and perhaps before long, a genetically modified - peasantry.
I think the Queen realises this. I believe that she takes her coronation oath seriously, and that she does regret the police state that her Minsters are building for us. But I am convinced that she sees the danger to her own position and that of her children. This puts her on our side - even if she stands on our side only "objectively", to use the old Marxist jargon.
On this last point, I would commend the Monarchy even to those of my friends who are committed republicans. Perhaps their ideal republic is a better form of government than our monarchical constitution. But this ideal republic is not presently on offer. Until it can be on offer, therefore, I would advise them to take a lesson from the Australian voters of a few years ago. Presented with a choice between a monarchy for which they had little strong affection and a republic designed wholly with the interests of the politicians in mind, they chose to keep the Monarchy.
And so, for all these reasons, and for others that I may have forgotten, I ask all my readers - monarchists and republicans, libertarians and conservatives, and even the more thoughtful socialists who want a better world than New Labour has in mind for us - to join in wishing Her Majesty a happy Christmas and a long and productive reign in the years still to come.
seangabb.co.uk
In Defence of the Monarchy
Sean Gabb
In response to those who say "The British are subjects and not citizens", Sean Gabb says: "That's rubbish. The British are freer than our Continental neighbours who are Republics" -
When with my family and friends I celebrated her Majesty's golden jubilee last June, I thought that republicanism had been crushed as other than a marginal force for another generation. Over a million people had gathered in the Mall to cheer her - many of them young people, and many from the ethnic minorities. For a few days, all the silly chatter about inclusiveness and diversity became about as real as it possibly could, but became real in a cause that the loudest and silliest of the chatterers regarded with shame and annoyance. Now, sadly, the republicans are back with their levelling agenda. I do not think we shall ever know the truth concerning the former servant of the Princess of Wales who started the present round of scandals. But the lurid claims of warnings from the Queen, of homosexual rape in the royal household, and of the general conduct of the royal family, are highly damaging regardless of their truth - and have been taken up by the republicans in the media and used to cause the greatest damage possible. Of course, the Monarchy will survive these scandals. They may be used, however, to justify a weakening of its institutional powers, and so will contribute to its decline over the long term.
I know that many of my readers live under republican forms of government, and that many of my British readers have no settled affection for our own monarchical constitution. But I am myself a committed monarchist, and will take this opportunity to explain why.
The first argument is from antiquity. Queen Elizabeth II is descended from the kings of the Germanic barbarians who invaded the Roman province of Britain after the year 410 AD. At first, these barbarians were divided among many tribes, each with its one king. As the centuries passed, however, what is now England was gradually brought under the rule of one royal family; and Alfred the Great (d. 901) is normally regarded as the first King of England.
With the exception of the rather strange period between 1649 and 1660, when the country was first a republic and then a military dictatorship, England has always been a Monarchy. And the monarchs have been members of one family. Her present Majesty is descended from the family of Alfred the Great, just as he in turn was descended from the chieftains who led their warriors and their families out of the great forests that once overspread northern Europe. There have been changes in the order of succession - in 1485, in 1603, in 1688, in 1714, and in 1936 - but the crown has not passed outside that family during the past 1,500 years.
Antiquity, I grant, is not in itself a defence of anything. But antiquity does raise a presumption in its favour. Unless a particular thing can be shown to produce great and easily avoidable harm, its age does serve as a defence. The burden of proof, therefore, lies against the republicans. Before they can be allowed to have their way, they must prove beyond reasonable doubt that Monarchy is for us a harmful institution.
One claim I often hear is that we are in this country not citizens with inalienable rights, but subjects with revokable privileges. An argument consequent on this is that the Monarchy is a survival from the time before the middle-class revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. It is a symbol of a traditional order in which status is possessed on the basis not of ability but of birth. It is even claimed that it is because of the social prestige of the Monarchy that this country lost its commercial lead at the end of the 19th century - that the first generations of capitalist factory owners were replaced by sons who had come to believe that high social status was best achieved through the professions and politics, and that industry was something for the lower classes to bother about.
The reply is simple. The language of obedience and the ceremonial that attends royal occasions may support this claim. However, in a constitution like ours, which was not made, but has evolved over many centuries, the dictionary meaning of words is far less important than the things they actually describe. During the past few hundred years, all of the European monarchies have been either abolished or remodelled out of ancient recognition. Are the "citizens" of those countries notably more free than English "subjects"? The obvious answer is no. We pay lower taxes than in most of these countries. We enjoy generally greater freedom of enterprise. In the writ of habeas corpus, and in trial by jury according to common law rules of justice, we enjoy greater protections of life, liberty and property. Unlike in most of Europe, I can take action against the authorities in the ordinary civil courts: where we have administrative tribunals, there is always appeal to the ordinary courts. Assuming I want to, I can read books and make statements that in much of Europe would get me into serious trouble. During the past century, there have been repeated floods of European immigrants into this country. They have come here to live in a country where they are not bled absolutely white in taxes, and where they do not need to fear a 3:00am knock on the door by the authorities. Except by those who want to live in a better climate, and who have the money to ignore local oppressions, I have not seen much movement in the opposite direction. Better to be a subject in England than a citizen in France. Just ask all those emigres who have settled here since 1789 - and we can ask the 300,000 who currently have taken advantage of the European Union rules on labour mobility to come and work here. Having a Monarchy did not stop us from having the first and therefore the most important industrial revolution. It has not stopped London from remaining one of the great financial centres of the world - a financial centre where more people work than live in Frankfurt, whish is the next largest financial centre in the European Union.
If we are less free today than a century or even a generation ago, this is not because we have a Monarchy. It is because the representative elements of our constitution have decayed. It may have been Her Majesty last month, speaking to Parliament, who announced the planned abolition of the double jeopardy rule, and the lifting of the bar on similar fact evidence, and the limitation of the right to trial by jury. But she was reading words written for her by others - these others being a pack of unprincipled technocrats obsessed with meeting targets on the suppression of crime, regardless of due process, and regardless of whether the targets can be met by way of the means suggested. It is the people we are supposed to represent us who are making us less free, not the person whom the coins proclaim our monarch by the grace of God. If we have a problem, it is not too few elected politicians: it is too many bad ones.
Another claim is that the Monarchy is a visible symbol of inequality - a barrier to an ideal society in which everyone will be equal in status, and in which everyone will have the right, if not the ability, to rise to the highest position. It is a knife pointing at the heart of democracy. This may sound a persuasive claim. Historically, though, attempts to create such societies have usually gone far beyond abolishing a Monarchy - they have ended with attacks on anyone with a nice house and money in the bank, or on anyone with a good coat on his back. Those who hate the Queen for her jewels and palaces generally have no time either for the middle classes.
But all this is only a negative reply to the republicans. It demands proof of harm done by having a Monarchy, and then rejects all alleged proofs. The Monarchy is not simply an ancient institution that is harmless and that ought therefore to be left alone. There is a positive argument. Not only has the Monarchy done us no harm: it has done much good.
England is the ONLY country in the world that has for the past three hundred years not had a revolution, a civil war, a military dictatorship, a foreign invasion, or any other serious breakdown of constitutional order. It has throughout this time maintained high levels of political and economic freedom. There is no other country in all history that has been so reliably free and stable for so long. This may have something to do with our geographical position - though this did not bring much stability before about 1700. It may have something to do with our racial characteristics - though the Americans who fought the War between the States were generally of the same stock, and still managed an awful bloodletting. There may be any number of other reasons, or combinations of reasons. But one highly probable contributing cause is our constitution. For the past few centuries, we have had a Monarchy with all the prestige of ancient legitimacy, combined with actual government by elected politicians. The character of the Monarch has therefore been fairly unimportant, but no politician has been able to scheme or shoot his way into that first position. We have a situation where the politicians have most of the power, but the Monarch has all the authority.
This is not a division of power that exists in the written constitutions of the other countries. Certainly, it was not noticed by foreign observers such as Montequieu and de Lolme in the 18th century. It is, even so, a division of powers that seem so far to have been more successful than the formal divisions of executive, legislature and judiciary with which constitutional lawyers are more familiar. It is not a defect of the Monarchy that the top position is closed to merit. It is one of the highest benefits. We cannot be certain that replacing the Monarchy with a presidential republic would preserve anything like this division. It might well be that to get rid of the Monarchy would take Britain into the kind of political instability that is currently unimaginable.
This brings us to the third line of defence - which is our ignorance of what would happen if we tried to replace the Monarchy.
Contrary to all the imaginings of the utopian philosophers, we are fundamentally not rational beings. We cannot be perfected. We cannot be made fit for a social order based wholly on light and reason. Certainly, the modes of thought and social organisation that developed chiefly in England, and have since spread in stages throughout the world, can usually be given a powerful abstract justification. But the success - indeed, the continued existence - of these modes owes nothing to rational deliberation, and everything to an often unconscious habit. To abolish, or even to try altering these habits is to risk our enjoyment of the benefits that proceed from them. Anyone who thinks otherwise falls into an error readily demonstrable from the history of the past two centuries. Anyone who proceeds from thought to action commits acts that range from the absurd to the catastrophically monstrous.
When, therefore, we come to an examine a functioning social order such as our own, our most proper attitude is one of curiosity mingled with reverence. We are not to seize on its apparent faults and reject it in favour of something else spun out of a single head. Nor, as has been most often done this century in those countries lucky enough to avoid a total reconstruction, are we to advocate sweeping reforms simply on the grounds of "modernisation" or of bringing something "into the twenty first century". We must instead try to understand the inner workings of society - to conjecture by what innumerable and infinitesimal stages the present order of things evolved to its present sophistication. This will require us to look even to those habits and institutions that rest on justifications manifestly absurd, asking whether they might not nevertheless serve a useful purpose. Then, and only then, shall we be ready to consider what deliberate changes may be necessary, and how these may best be combined with what already is. The best change is so cautious and incremental that only those directly affected notice its happening. Even the most radical, sudden change is best achieved so that within only a few years it becomes difficult to tell the old from the new.
According to this argument, then, it is wrong to look at the Monarchy as if it stood alone. It might be wrong to see the Monarchy as a direct guarantor of political stability. Nevertheless, it might contribute to that stability in some way that no one has yet discovered.
Some monarchists I have spoken to over the past year have expressed a strong dissatisfaction with the Queen. Disliking the present Government's European policy, they have petitioned Her Majesty for the redress of grievances, using the procedure laid down in the Magna Carta of 1215. So far, they have received no proper answer. From this, they have concluded that the Monarchy is as weak and indeed rotten a support as any other branch of the Constitution. This is a mistaken view. It proceeds from the same confusion of law and constitutional practice as the republicans usually make.
The legal powers of the Monarchy are theoretically immense. They have not been reduced by law since 1660, and then were not fundamentally touched. Formally, the Queen is the Head of State, Head of the Church of England, and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. In theory, she is also the owner of all the land in England and Wales - a survival of the feudal tenures introduced by William I in 1066. All legal acts are done in her name; and in theory, she is present in every courtroom in the country. Her head appears on every British postage stamp and on every British coin and banknote. We tend to despise those foreign countries where national flags or even pictures of "El Presidente" are everywhere. But images of our Queen are in every pocket and on every letter posted. If she so wished, she could dismiss Tony Blair tomorrow and set me in his place. She could dissolve Parliament to save me the trouble of facing it. She could declare war on France, and sign a treaty giving Gibraltar to Spain. In reality, she can do none of these things. Her inability to raise taxes in her own name would eventually force her to recall Parliament, just as Charles I was forced. But long before reaching this position, it would have been necessary for her to break through the web of custom that, during the past three centuries, has overlain the law. Her actions might be strictly legal: they would not be at all constitutional.
There might be circumstances in which she needed to use her full legal powers in defence of the whole Constitution, and she might then break various conventions without any loss of authority. But the arguments over the Treaty of Nice - bad as it might be - do not justify formal royal intervention. She would not have public opinion sufficiently on her side - and that, whatever the wording of constitutional documents might say - is the real source of power and authority.
This being said, I do believe that the Queen is aware of how dangerously bad this Government is, and that she is at war with it. But the weapons practically available to her are not those available to Queen Anne when she decided to rid herself of the Whigs. The weapons now are symbolism and ceremonial obstruction.
We saw these most obviously in use earlier this year. We have a government and a controlled media insisting that we are no longer what our ancestors were, and that our only future lies in the new country called Europe. This message received a flat contradiction when the Queen Mother was buried - an event acting as powerfully on the English imagination as a half-forgotten bugle call on an old soldier. The countless millions of unrepresented conservatives in this country were suddenly faced with the old music and words and ceremony, and the effect was often overpowering. It was like waking from a nightmare and looking at the familiar things around the bedroom. That is why New Labour and the BBC were so upset and even frightened by the public reaction. Unlike the amateurs and fools who run the Conservative Party, these people fully understand the power of symbolism, and they appreciated the strength of the reverse to their project of national deconstruction. They were equally upset by the success of the Jubilee celebrations. They could see what they had long regarded as the withered husk of the Monarchy taking on new life with every outpouring of popular support. This recovered strength would not be used to defeat them in open battle. Instead, it would be an inspiring force for others. The ancient Jews would carry the Ark of the Covenant into battle with them. Whether it brought the divine blessing on their arms may be doubted. Undoubtedly, though, it gave them a visible symbol of all they were fighting for. That is the real modern power of the Monarchy. And this, I suspect, is the reason why these scandals are being so emphasised in the media. They weaken the Monarchy in the place in which it needs to be strongest.
Now, what we are fighting for is obvious. We want personal freedom and national independence. Is that why Her Majesty is now at war on our side? I like to think so. But it may just be self-preservation. In the past hundred years, the Monarchy has accommodated itself to great and surprising changes. George V decided not to stand by the landed aristocracy, and so avoided its fate. George VI made no complaints about losing his imperial title. Her present Majesty managed very well in the first half of her reign as head of state in a mixed economy welfare state. But none of these changes threatened the survival of the Monarchy as an institution. The older Labour politicians - Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson, James Callaghan - had no desire to overthrow the Constitution or even to remodel it. I am not even sure how serious were their more radical followers. The present Labour leaders, though, are republicans. They are not, of course, republicans in the tradition of Tom Paine or even of Tony Benn - who wanted what they thought a fair and rational deal for all the people of the country. Instead, they have a vision of a New World Order society in which there is no room for things like monarchy or any other pattern of habitual loyalty that they cannot themselves control. Their republic is not one of annual parliaments and village democracy: it is one in which the rulers of many countries combine to exercise absolute and unaccountable power over an atomised - and perhaps before long, a genetically modified - peasantry.
I think the Queen realises this. I believe that she takes her coronation oath seriously, and that she does regret the police state that her Minsters are building for us. But I am convinced that she sees the danger to her own position and that of her children. This puts her on our side - even if she stands on our side only "objectively", to use the old Marxist jargon.
On this last point, I would commend the Monarchy even to those of my friends who are committed republicans. Perhaps their ideal republic is a better form of government than our monarchical constitution. But this ideal republic is not presently on offer. Until it can be on offer, therefore, I would advise them to take a lesson from the Australian voters of a few years ago. Presented with a choice between a monarchy for which they had little strong affection and a republic designed wholly with the interests of the politicians in mind, they chose to keep the Monarchy.
And so, for all these reasons, and for others that I may have forgotten, I ask all my readers - monarchists and republicans, libertarians and conservatives, and even the more thoughtful socialists who want a better world than New Labour has in mind for us - to join in wishing Her Majesty a happy Christmas and a long and productive reign in the years still to come.
seangabb.co.uk
Daz_Hockey
There would be no possible advantage for Canada to become a republic. We have already declared our independence. When Trudeau brought home our constitution, it was ours to what we wanted with it. Maintaining our membership in the British Commonwealth is purely for the sake of tradition. Having an apolitical head of state to represent our country instead of the prime minister is something we would miss.
The closest republic, as far as I'm concerned, is no shining example of the right way to do things. Being a republic apparently doesn't insure that every decision is the right one.
There would be no possible advantage for Canada to become a republic. We have already declared our independence. When Trudeau brought home our constitution, it was ours to what we wanted with it. Maintaining our membership in the British Commonwealth is purely for the sake of tradition. Having an apolitical head of state to represent our country instead of the prime minister is something we would miss.
The closest republic, as far as I'm concerned, is no shining example of the right way to do things. Being a republic apparently doesn't insure that every decision is the right one.
I think not said:
Man's nature is essentially good, but it can stray. It did many times throughout history, as it did in Germany in the 1930's. Are Canadians somehow naturally predisposed to be morally superior to the Germans?
If it could happen in Germany in the 1930's, and if it could happen during the time of the Holy Roman Empire leading to the Crusades and then the Dark Ages, then it could also happen in Canada in 2106! And yes, it could also happen in the US too.
It's just a matter of having a deep enough economic depression, or humiliating defeat after a war, or some other major catastrophe or event which causes enough psychological trauma in society... or even a 9/11.
Now at that stage, there doesneed to be someone who can grab the bull by the horns when democracy fails. But if he's part of the democratic process himslef, then needless to say he'll fail along with it. If above the democratic process, then while there are no guarantees, he might, just might, be able to exercise a sovereing constitutionalauthority to refuse to dissolve parliament in the event of an emergency, for example. And since he's not elected, it's not like the frenzied masses of the time could boot him out so easily. And then, hopefully he could ride out the tide until things calm down again (recession abates, people calm down or recover from the shock, etc.). Let's face it, fascism and anti-semitism were (and still are to a degree) present in both Canada and the US in the 1930s. Canada even got one communist seat in pariament! OK, one seat, no big deal. But it shows that it could have happenned.