the rights of the people. It is on the contrary a formal recognition of the national sovereignty. It is an appeal to find out the opinion of the people. 58 According to Article 27 of the Constitution of Greece, the King "has the right to dissolve the Boulé," but "the decree of dissolution should be countersigned by the Ministry." It is upon this provision of the Constitution that King Constantine founds all his theory of the so-called royal prerogative of dissolving the legislature whenever he pleases to resort to such a measure irrespective of the result of the elections. He evidently forgets that the principles of parliamentary government and the customs prevailing in other constitutional countries apply also to Greece. Besides, these usages have received their application in that country during the long reign of George I, the father of the present sovereign; and no such question was ever raised from the time of the adoption of the Constitution in 1864 up to the death of the late King, namely in 1913. Philaretos, commenting upon the action of King Constantine in repeatedly dissolving the Greek Legislature, says: If the dissolution of the Boulé after the [first] forced resignation of Mr. Venizelos, was ordered by King Constantine because the Crown thought that the people disagreed with the policy of the then government, the verdict of the country given at the elections of June, 1915, dispelled any doubt as to the opinion of the people. If the Sovereign had the right, each time there was a disagreement of opinion (between the Crown and the Ministry) to dissolve the Boulé in an unlimited manner, he could, whenever he pleased, change the royal democracy into a monarchy and could thus base his rights on the text of the Constitution itself.59 It is this pretension of the King that was challenged by Mr. Venizelos and his party. Speaking in the Boulé on November 3, 1915, after admitting that the Crown may dissolve Parliament if it believes that the government is not in harmony with the public, Mr. Venizelos said: The elections which took place in June, 1915, settled that point and the King should have abided by the verdict of the country, and not have 58 J. J. Thonissen, ibid., p. 227. The King of Norway is the only constitutional sovereign who does not have the right to dissolve Parliament. J. Morgenstiere, Das Staatsrecht des Königreichs Norwegen (1911), pp. 59, 69, quoted by Jellinek in Allgemeine Staatslehre (1914), p. 683, note 2; also by Matter, ibid., p. 236. 59 Philaretos, ibid., pp. 148-149. ordered, without any reason whatever, a new dissolution and new elections. If you [addressing some members of the Boulé, who supported the King,] believe that according to the meaning of our liberal Constitution the Crown has the right, after an appeal to, and the verdict of, the people, not to follow the will thereby expressed [by the nation], but contend that he [the King] may resort to a new dissolution for the so-called purpose of seeking a new verdict of the people, and subsequently again another verdict, you must admit that the liberal constitutional regime of Greece, under which we have lived for half a century, has become worse than a rag.60 In a manifesto to the Greek people in December, 1915, Mr. Venizelos, referring again to this question, said: After fifty years of free constitutional life, when the people of Greece had succeeded by a supreme effort to accomplish a part of their national programme, the Constitution is transformed into a real scrap of paper. We see the inauguration in Greece, by means of successive dissolutions, of a system of government which can only have a meaning in a monarchical country where the supreme organ of the state is the monarch.61 Subsequently Mr. Venizelos, through his mouthpiece, the newspaper Keryx, commenting upon the statement by the King to a newspaper correspondent that he "can dissolve Parliament and dismiss his ministers whenever he wished so to do," said: This is the Prussian theory according to which the King does what he judges is best for the country. In Greece, it is the sovereign people who are the judges, because, according to the Constitution, the authority is exercised not by him (the King) but by the responsible ministers. In Greece the Constitution is the result of a revolution against arbitrary power (that of King Otho), and it expressly safeguards the national sovereignty. The people are in Greece the sovereign of the political power. By the elections it (the Constitution) does not suggest, but imposes upon the Crown the selection of the responsible ministers. Only when there is a justifiable reason to believe that the government represented by the Boulé has ceased to be in harmony with public opinion, can that body be dissolved. But the Crown should abide by the verdict of the elections. In Greece it is the people that are the sovereign and not the King.62 Discussing the same question again on May 8 (21), 1916, Mr. Venizelos quotes King George I (the father of Constantine) when he 60 Supplement to Patris, ibid., pp. 72, 73. 61 Times, December 7, 1915. 62 Keryx, of Athens, May 7 (old style), 1916. was advised in 1904 to dissolve the Boulé, as saying, "I am a constitutional King. I am not the leader of a party, nor will I ask to be one in order to struggle with parties." "To sum up," wrote Mr. Venizelos on May 29, 1916, "King Constantine, by seeking to impose his own political programme and showing his indifference to the popular vote, tramples underfoot the Constitution and arrogates to himself an authority which does not belong to him, transforming himself into a guardian of the people, while he is only the first organ of the state." 63 History furnishes many examples of constitutional kings who, dazzled by the halo that attaches generally to Royalty, or misconstruing the prerogatives attached to the Crown, have encroached upon the liberties of the people, and from constitutional sovereigns became overnight fullfledged autocrats. Now what remedy can the people have against such a person who, in the eye of the law, unlike any other mortal, is irresponsible? 64 Mr. Gladstone, after observing the absence of a law in England for calling the sovereign to account except in the case of his submitting to the jurisdiction of the Pope, says: "Regal right since the revolution of 1688, being expressly founded upon contract, the breach of that contract destroys the title to the allegiance of the subject" and, assuming such a breach possible, "the Constitution would regard the default of the Monarch, with his heirs, as the chaos of the State, and would simply trust to the inherent energies of the several orders of society for its legal reconstruction." The historian of modern Greece (Finlay) is astonished that "modern statesmen should persist in repeating the philosophic and feudal nonsense (royal irresponsibility) which they are in the habit of inserting in the Constitutions they frame." "It would be difficult," he says, "to see what is precisely meant by royal irresponsibility in a Constitution which proclaims the sovereignty of the people. . . . The fiction of royal irresponsibility or divine right and the phrase 'the King can do no wrong' are incitements to the destruction of Constitutions by what are called Coups d'État.” 65 Even 63 Keryx, May 29 (old style), 1916. 4 Gladstone, Gleanings of Past Years, Vol. I, pp. 227–228. such an admirer of constitutional royalty as Prevost-Paradol, after drawing an ideal picture of a constitutional sovereign, remarks: Human nature is subject to such errors and is capable of such blind pride, that it is difficult to find a man who would accept without arrière pensée this great rôle and resist the mean temptation of becoming the chief of one of the [political] parties. To become a kind of permanent, irremovable Prime Minister and to contest with Cabinets and Parliaments the reins of power, is (who would believe it) the sad ambition of certain Constitutional Kings, who, according to the words of the poet, aspire to descend. The difficulty of finding a good Constitutional King is not less than the difficulty of doing without one.66 King Constantine's usurpation of power, with all the evil consequences that have resulted from it, are too obvious to deserve a lengthy comment. The King is a soldier both by inclination and education. His arbitrary temperament more than once alarmed even his late father (George I) and was the cause of his expulsion from the army. Now, using the influence which he acquired over the army during the successful Balkan campaigns, he has determined, according to all accounts, with the connivance and aid of powerful monarchs who share his views, to transform the "royal democracy" into a real "autocracy." Had King Constantine adhered to the principles of the Constitution, which he promised under oath to uphold, instead of trying to obscure its meaning by legal quibbles; had he honestly used his prerogative within the spirit of the Constitution, both in the internal administration and in the conduct of foreign affairs, by limiting himself to advices and warnings, as becomes a constitutional sovereign, and left to his ministers, who enjoyed the confidence of the nation, the direction of the policy of the country; had he, in short, allowed ministerial responsibility to come between him and public affairs, his ministers would have been for him, as Mr. Gladstone says, "like armor between the flesh and spear that would seek to pierce it," and "dignity and visible authority" would have been "wholly with the wearer of the Crown, but 66 Prevost-Paradol, ibid., pp. 150, 151. "It is said," wrote Freeman, "that the heathen Swedes when their public affairs went wrong . . . offered their King in sacrifice to God." (Ibid., pp. 28, 29.) This idea may possibly appeal to some of the European nations after the present war in order to prevent national calamities attributed to their kings. labor mainly, and responsibility wholly, with its servants." 67 This illustrious English statesman (whose statue still adorns the entrance of the National University at Athens) in speaking of the influence of a constitutional king in public affairs, says: It is a moral, not a coercive, influence. It operates through the will and reason of the Ministers, not over or against them. It would be an evil and a perilous day for the Monarchy were any prospective possessor of the Crown to assume or claim for himself final, or preponderating, or even independent power, in any one department of the State. Such action for the Sovereign would mean undefended, unprotected action; the armor of irresponsibility would not cover the whole body against sword or spear; a head would project beyond the awning and would invite a sunstroke.68 Mr. Venizelos has said that "if the Crown continues to be covered by his irresponsible advisers, who are not supported by the popular verdict, this cover will unfortunately become like a spider's web and be carried away by the first blow of a contrary wind, leaving the Crown unprotected, so that it may directly give an account of its actions. But the rendering of an account of its actions by the Crown would upset the principal virtue of the royal regime, namely, the stability of irresponsible authority, and would shake that very regime." 69 King Constantine was born and brought up in Greece; he studied the writings of the ancient Greek sages, in the very city which was the cradle of liberty and democracy in ancient times, and which, up to recent times, was the asylum of the persecuted Greeks of Turkey; in fact it is to Athens that were constantly turned all the eyes of Grecia irredenda, but suddenly the King of the Hellenes attempts, under German inspiration and influence, to subdue any feeling and suppress every sentiment expressed for the liberation of the Hellenic populations still under the Ottoman rule. The western coast of Asia Minor, still peopled, as in ancient times, by the descendants of the Greek colonists, has been heralded by the King's satellites as "a colony" and unworthy of any effort to possess it, simply because it came under the German sphere of influence. The whole policy of King Constantine assuming that a constitutional sovereign can have a personal policy Gladstone, Gleanings of Past Years, Vol. I, pp. 229- 230. 68 Gladstone, ibid., 233. is not to thwart 69 Keryx (of Athens), May 1 (old style), 1916. |