12 JANUARY 1924, Page 11

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I imagine that many

readers besides myself must have been startled, and perhaps amused, by the shattering contra- diction between the letter of Mr. Hamilton Fyfe, the editor of the Daily Herald, which you published last week, and the statement which you recorded as having been made by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald in the New Leader. Mr. Fyfe, basing himself on what he understood to be the conclusions of Sir 1Villiam Anson—though I am sure he sadly misinterpreted Anson—declared that a dissolution is " invariably " granted by the King when demanded by a Prime Minister. With ..xhilarating confidence and daring he defied you to upset his argument. He was, however, upset beyond hope of remedy by the statement of his own political leader that "the idea that a Prime Minister can go to the King just when it suits himself, and within a short time after an election ask for a dissolution, is absurd." How will Mr. Fyfe and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald compose this little affair ? I look for another letter from Mr. Fyfe with intense curiosity.—I am, Sir, &e., E. C.