self-government which seizes on all British communities when they
approach maturity; and, secondly, because it habituates the Colonists
to the working of a political mechanism, which is both intrinsically
superior to that of the Americans, and more unlike it than our old
Colonial system.

Adopting, however, the views with respect to the superiority of the
mechanism of our political system to that of our neighbours, which I
have ventured to urge, you proceed to argue that the remedy is in
their hands; that without abandoning their republicanism they and
their _confreres_ in France have nothing to do but to dismiss
their Presidents and to substitute our constitution without a King,
the body without the head, for their own, to get rid of the
inconveniences which they now experience; and you quote with
approbation, as an embodiment of this idea, the project submitted by
M. Grevy and the Red Republicans to the French Constituent Assembly.

[Sidenote: Value of the monarchical principle.]

Now here I confess I cannot go along with you, and the difference
between us is a very material one; for if the monarch be not an
indispensable element in our constitutional mechanism, and if we can
secure all the advantages of that mechanism without him, I have drawn
the wrong moral from the facts. You say that the system the Red
Republicans would have established in France would have been the
nearest possible approach to our own. It is possible, I think, that we
may be tending towards the like issues. It is possible, perhaps
probable, that as the House of Commons becomes more democratic in its
composition, and consequently more arrogant in its bearing, it may
cast off the shackles which the other powers of the State impose on
its self-will, and even utterly abolish them; but I venture to believe
that those who last till that day comes, will find that they are
living under a very different constitution from that which we now
enjoy; that they have traversed the interval which separates a
temperate and cautious administration of public affairs resting on the
balance of powers and interests, from a reckless and overbearing
tyranny based on the caprices and passions of an absolute and
irresponsible body. You talk somewhat lightly of the check of the
Crown, although you acknowledge its utility. But is it