At the same meeting Professor Beasley made a bad mistake.
He said that since the American war "Republicanism was looking up," and the question before long would be s'not whether we should reform our inetitutione, but whether we should recast them,"--a re- mark which elicited an energetic protest from Mr. Hughes, and which is certainly the very worst line a Radical like Mr. Beasley can take. Republicanism is a very reasonable intellectual position, but the American form of it is far from perfect, and is perhaps the one of all others least suited to Great Britain, with it limited soil, ancient history, and ingrained feeling of caste. If the House of Commons become really representative, England will be a republic in all but form. A two-thirds vote of the House of Commons even now overrides the wish of every other body or person in the State, and what could a politician, who can dis- tinguish between forms and things wish for wore? The exile of Queen Victoria ? That would leave to the Commons the invidious task of choosing a chief magistrate. The abolition of the Peers? That would make the Lower House the moat dangerously Con- servative body in the world.
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