12 MAY 1917, Page 3

The letter by Mr. G. E. Atkins printed elsewhere dealing

with Republicanism is interesting We should be the last people in the world to deny the right of any Englishman to be as red-hot a Republican as he likes, as long as he keeps his desire for this par titular reform or• alteration in the Constitution within legal and Constitutional limits—i.e., does not try to impose his will upon the majority by force, but is content to try to win his fellows over to what he thinks the better way. To be Republican, however, like Mr. Atkins's collier, not because he thinks our system of having an hereditary President over our commonwealth is a bad system, but because he erroneously supposes that King George is sheltering the Hohenzollerns, is pathetically ridiculous. In the first place, it shows how ignorant be must be of the Constitution to think that the King could shelter the German Emperor, even if he desired to do so, against the wishes of his Ministers, and also against the wishes of the country.