KINGSHIP AND CRITICISM.
[To THE EDITOR 07 TER" SPECTATOR."] Sra,—May I record the keen satisfaction with which I read your comment in last week's issue on Mr. Keir Hardie's remarks on the Royal Family? The persistent application of the phrase "bad taste" to all criticism, honest or otherwise, of Royal personages, or even to the Crown in its abstract sense, is rapidly reducing us to the condition of the Germans,—. worse, for with us our present law of lbse-majeste has the greater rigour of being unwritten. If a speaker or writer honestly criticises Royalty, as you have said, the answer is to refute his facts and his arguments, not to cover him with personal abuse. Royalty as an institution rests on such solid foundations in this country that every argument against it can be met with ten for it. To cry " bad taste" to such charges as those of Mr. Keir Hardie is the polemic not of the politician but of the sycophant. Let us combine to defend Royalty on its acknowledged merits and not because it is Royalty, for the latter way leads, sooner or later, to revolu.
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