[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I cannot admit that
Charles I. brought about his undoing by opposition to Ministers, owing it as he did to acquiescence in the counsels of a disastrous one. However, let that pass. You maintain in your columns that certain suggested action is outside the Constitution, but all that is now past praying for, for the simple reason that the Constitution no longer exists. It has been smashed and its studied safeguards ruthlessly swept away. If, however, you do not admit that to be the case and contend that we are still under the old Constitution, then the true Constitutionalist asserts that the Crown has no right whatever to accept a Bill without the assent of the House of Lords. That is the point that differentiates the present situation from that of the Irish Church Bill of 1869, and on that ground the true Constitutionalist resolutely takes his stand. If, on the other hand, you do allow that the old Constitution has vanished, we are faced by a new situation which has never properly been thought out, but which, to those who tried to think it out in 1911, did foreshadow serious predicaments in store for the Throne— confronted on the one hand by single-chamber government, and on the other stripped theoretically of any vestige of such elementary authority as could not conceivably be withheld from a republican president, and therefore powerless to insist upon the barest items not only of rudimentary statesmanship, but even of political decency. For instance, in the impending issue it is the avowed purpose and the obvious duty of the Unionist Party, if they are returned at the next election, to repeal the Home Rule Bill Nevertheless, not only is the Royal Assent to be demanded for that measure, but Royalty will be required a few months later to open a Parliament in Dublin and make gracious speeches from the Throne inaugurating a new era of self-government for Ireland, which may be abrogated within a few weeks. Is it possible for anyone to advocate the necessity for any ruler in the world to submit himself to the possibility of such indignity and stultification ? If so, then deeply enshrined as the Monarchy is in the hearts of its subjects, the cry may arise, "If this is all the mockery of a Monarchy there is to preserve, is it worth preserving P " —I am, Sir, &c., SCRIM/TOR.
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