The progress of enlightened freedom has demonstrated that it requires many individual heads to make the head of a nation. In the ratio in which just and wise government is attained, the Monarch-if one has been inherited-must fade into an historical emblem, must remain, if at all, only as the device of a flag, while the real sovereign advances in the Cabinet. It is in this combination of special capacities related to every national interest that the Republic must find the various cerebral functions necessary to constitute the head of a people.

DELUSIVE DIPLOMACY.

I.

ABOUT fifteen years ago, the American people began to feel it a scandal that its representatives should be appearing at foreign Courts in costumes which had no sort of relation to the institutions of their country. What had a plain Republic to do with a dress denoting homage to the pomp and glitter of royalty? So the

edict went forth that the foreign representatives of the United States should appear in palaces or elsewhere only in the dress of Republican citizens. Consternation among the functionaries in question was the result. Curious stories went back to America of how one Foreign Minister was mistaken for a servant, another refused admission to a royal drawing-room, and how one and all appeared in the medieval masquerade as black notes of admiration amid pictorial sentences.

If decorated door-keepers perceived that the Republicans in evening dress were out of place amid the Court dresses, those representatives no less felt themselves out of place; and loud were the complaints returned to Washington, and the entreaties that the privilege of wearing the more imposing costume might be restored. But the complaints were heard with smiles, and with a certain satisfaction that some check seemed to have been given to the usual transformation of American Republicans into snobs.

But during all that discussion it seems to have occurred to but few that the wearing of Courtcostumes by Republican Ambassadors was an anomaly because the Ambassador himself was an

anomaly. The privilege of passing four years in a foreign capital, with a substantial salary and nothing to do, was too attractive for Ambassadors and Ministers to write home the confession that they were sharns. So they have continued to write home ponderous letters about European politics, essays on foreign Governments, and the like, for the perusal and enjoyment of the public printers who issue the annual volume of 'Diplomatic Correspondence.'

The revelation that the American Minister abroad is a sham has had to come from the foreign countries themselves, and the most notable exposure has been frankly made by the English Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his speech at Glasgow, on September 26, 1872. Referring to the Arbitration at Geneva, Mr. Lowe said:

'There is one observation that was forced upon me in the case of these negotiations, and that is this: The fact that the Senate of the United States is the body which must ultimately ratify every treaty forms a difficulty in the way of negotiations of the most dangerous and perplexing nature, and one that will, one day or another, unless it is corrected, involve the United States in the

greatest possible difficulty. The great men who framed the Constitution of America thought—very sensibly, as it appears on the first blush of things— that it was quite right so important a matter as a treaty should receive the confirmation of the representatives of the people; but they failed to see what I may call the reflex action which such a principle induces. It is this, that when you negotiate with the Government of America you are not negotiating with a plenipotentiary at all. The persons who speak on behalf of the Queen's

Government can bind the Government to what they say; but the American Government cannot bind the people of America, because there is always the consent of the Senate to be obtained. The consequence is, that the Senate is consulted whenever any point is raised; but the Senate is not always in session; and when it is in session it is not, as a deliberating Assembly, bound by opinions given without it; and consequently one side is bound by what it proposes, while the other is at liberty to change it constantly. It really involves this, that in these matters the Senate should be consulted, and should give its opinion at every step, and that is the way we must account for

the failure of the previous attempts at negotiation by Mr. Reverdy Johnson and Mr. Motley, because those were treaties negotiated by the Government, while the Senate had not given an opinion upon them, and had a right to repeal them. I mention this, not for the purpose of criticising the Government of America-which I know very well, from my own experience, is not very palatable to the Americans but for our own guidance, because there are a great many gentlemen who think it would be a good plan that no treaty should be allowed to come into effect till it received the sanction of Parliament. No proposition can be more plausible, none more dangerous, because the effect would be that we should be obliged to obtain the sanction of Parliament before we negotiated, instead of after negotiating; and anything like a public discussion, by a deliberative Assembly, of a treaty would be almost sure to be fatal to its conditions. I beg those who are naturally captivated by such a proposal to consider that when you say such an assent ought to be necessary, you cannot limit the functions of Parliament to that, but it involves the entanglement of Parliament as a party in the negotiations, and as a party to every