[TO TER MUMS Or THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—The excellent article in your issue of August 9th on " The King and the Constitution " will serve a most valuable purpose in prevailing upon many justly exasperated patriots to keep their heads in this critical time of tension. It has completely exploded Mr. Arnold White's proposal to memorial- ize the Sovereign on the subject of Home Rule for Ireland, but it has not suggested to Mr. White an alternative scope for his activities which would be free from the objections upon which you lay so much stress. It would undoubtedly be a fatal error to attempt to drag the Sovereign into politics, in possible opposition to the views of his Constitutional advisers, but the heart of the nation would welcome the influence of the Sovereign in the councils of his Cabinet. It is the Constitutional privilege of the Sovereign to preside over the deliberations of his Cabinet, and a petition from his people that be should exercise this privilege would be an emphatic testimony of their goodwill towards him, and his acceptance of the personal service thus imposed upon him would eliminate the prospect of such coercion in the future as he has been subjected to in the past.—I am, Sir, &c., Brooks's Club, St. James's, S.W. V. A. MALCOLMSON.
[Surely this would amount in practice to the intervention which our correspondent joins us in deprecating. — ED. Spectator.]
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