THE MORAL OF THE THANKS. GIVING DEMONSTRATION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 129, 31 May 1872, Page 4

THE MORAL OF THE THANKS. GIVING DEMONSTRATION.

(From The Times.") There were men who came to see the Procession who must have been filled with strange thoughts pf the contrast between the scene before them and scenes of their own past experience. The discrowned exile and the refugees of the Commune were brought face to face with a people obstinately contented with self-government and Parliamentary institutions. The freedom of the streets was but a part of the freedom of the nation at all times and under all circumstances, and this nation, being allowed to govern itself according to its own judgment, pours out its countless throngs to testify their grateful joy for the restoration of the Heir of the Crown to health. What was done in London was repeated in every city and town of the kingdom ; and a telegram from the East tells us that Hindoos, Parsees, Mahomedans, and Jews assembled yesterday in their temples and places of worship in Bombay to the number of a hundred thousand to offer up thanksgivings for the recovery of the Prince. Turn wherever they will, strangers among us must find the evidence of loyalty simply bewildering to them. We wish we could impart the secret of this satisfaction to the rest of the world, so that we might see irreconcilable discords disappear and be replaced by a steady resolution to work out the destinies of nations by peaceful persuasion and conversion of the national will — in other words, through representative institutions accepting and yielding obedience to the decision of Parliaments until changes in the opinions and judgments of a people produce corresponding changes in the policy of their representatives. The principle seems easy to us, for the supremacy of Parliament is with us the first law of national life ; no one dreams of disputing it, no one distrusts the ultimate wisdom of the decisions at which the representatives of the people arrive ; but examples need not be cited to show how difficult it is for other nations to recognise this rule of action. They are afraid to trust themselves, lest their own representatives should be revolutionary or reactionary j while we, who make tbe power of Parliament supreme, cheerfully Bubmit to the Sovereign, and unite in national thanksgivings that a blow has been averted which threatened to disturb the natural order of the succession.