LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Letters of the length of one of our leading paragraphs are often more read, and therefore more effective, than those which fill treble the space.)
IN MEMORIAM.-3fAITD PAUNCEFOTE.
(To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The grave which closed over Maud Pauncefote last week deserves a laurel wreath from Wellington Street, and from those who were at Washington during those vivid years which closed the last century—years when John Hay was working aided, and aided only, by Lord Pauncefote to drive the wedge he did drive between the policy of Russia and the even more predatory policy of Germany in the Par East. Hay was, it is not too much to write, the only statesman in the wider sense of the term who has presided over the State Department at Washington for very many years, and it seemed to us who looked on at this very unequal combat that Hay's was even the Athanasins role, and that his long shot must miss ils mark, as indeed would have been the case only that, as Henry Adams declares in his inner history of Washington which you recently reviewed (The Education of Henry Adams),
" Pauncefote pulled him through." The complete volume of that pregnant history closed but yesterday at Versailles.
In those days the domestio atmosphere of the British Embassy, or " The Embassy " as it was invariably called to Holleben's great disgust, had quite a little to do with Lord Pauncefote's success. The young ladies of the House were omnipresent. Certainly the diplomatic fiction that the Embassy is " British soil " was in that case at least no fiction. A fine old Western Senator said to the writer : " I go to Lady Pauncefote's every week or two to tea so that I may better explain to my folks in Rene or Carson what sort of people live and how they live in your big country homes that we see from your railroads as we pass through England." And this was a true note. It was as " the Squire's" home, only in this case "the Squire" himself was also a trained diplomat who had learned diplomacy under great masters, and by no means within the four walls of the Foreign Office.
And for reasons such as this the news that Maud Pauncefote has made the Great Crossing will stir memories of affection all over the United States. Carson and Reno all think they knew her. The friend of McKinley, the friend of Roosevelt and John Hay, the friend of the Camerons and the Lodges, of Henry Adams—what a wide swathe the Great Reaper has cut! This unassuming and patriotic "Big Englander " claims the
affection of a very wide circle indeed.—I am, Sir, &c., X.
THE ENABLING BILL AND THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
[TO vies EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
Sia,—While it is to be regretted that the House of Lords, by its vote on the second reading of the Enabling Bill, should have seemed to give approval to the principle of that measure, it must be clear to any one who followed the three days' debate that the Bill is not likely to be passed in its present shape, if at all. It is inconceivable, for one thing, that a Bill which materially alters the relations of Church and State, on which the nation as a whole has not been consulted, and which the responsible Government of the day is unable to support, should be allowed to become law. Moreover, several Peers who announced their intention of voting for the second reading explained that they would do so on the understanding or in the hope that the Bill would be substantially amended in Committee; and it is probable that many others who gave silent votes on the same side were of this way of thinking. Amongst the more important changes called for in the course of the debate were amendments providing that the scheme for the constitution of the National Church Assembly should be embodied in and form an integral part of the Bill before the House; that the proposed ecclesiastical franchise should be widened; and that the control of Parliament over the proceedings of the Church Assembly should be rendered more effectual. It is perhaps a pity that the opposition to the Bill turned mainly on these and similar points, which, though doubtless important, hardly go to the root of the question. it seems to have been assumed in many quarters—quite unwarrantably, I venture to think—that, if the scheme of self-government were improved in certain of its features, it would be acceptable. The fundamental and fatal objection to it is surely one of principle—viz., that a separate Legislative Assembly for ecclesiastical affairs is out of place in a National Church. As regards the contemplated modification of the scheme in Committee, it appears to be open to doubt whether, under the rules of Parliamentary procedure, it would be en order for the House of Lords to amend proposals not contained in the Bill actually under consideration, such as those relating to the church electoral qualification and the constitution of the Church Assembly. Should it turn out that for this or any other reason a thoroughgoing amendment of the Bill is impossible, it may be expected that a good many noble Lords who voted for the second reading in reliance on such amendment or recasting will at a later stage transfer their votes to the other side.—I am, Sir, &c.,
CLOSED CHAPELS AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
[To TILE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") Sia,—During the war, in common with most people, I submitted to every restriction and deprivation without even a passing feeling of impatience, but my mood was quite otherwise when, on arriving at Westminster Abbey on Tuesday week, I found that the public is now deprived of that free access to the Royal Chapels which it has had on that day for some thirty-eight years. One of the last utterances of Dean Stanley was : " I humbly trust that I have sustained before the mind of the nation the extraordinary value of the Abbey as a religious, liberal, and national institution." He gave free access to the Chapels, &c., on Monday, wished to do so on every day of the week, and (I thought) secured Tuesday as a " free day " by a bequest in his will! His successors consider the present time, when everything should be done to raise the people by bringing them in contact with "whatsoever things are lovely," and to finable those in whose hands is so much power to learn the needs of the present by the lessons of the past, a suitable one for shutting them out from a place where, if anywhere, they can be brought under that influence and study those lessons. I look upon the hours which in my youth I spent roaming among the aisles of Westminster as a liberal education. Nominally a "Royal Peculiar," the Abbey is more than national, it is Imperial property. It "makes us we," and at a time when so many from distant parts of the Empire are among us and so many more are coming, everything possible should be. done to give facilities for visiting it. Many of these overseas visitors know every inch of it from books, and I cannot imagine anything more terrible for such than to have to "go round " and listen to the descriptions given as from a gramophone by the vergers. Many of them are courteous, excellent men, but— The present authorities will probably say that they have good and sufficient reasons for what appears to me a retrograde step. A verger told me on Tuesday week that they were " architectural," by which I suppose he meant that money is required for the repair of the fabric. Cannot this sum be found in some other way than by depriving the public of what is not a privilege but a right, and one of which it has made full use P I have seen the Abbey crowded with visitors on " free" days, among them (to the horror of Germans who have been with me) little barefooted children from Westminster slums, and on Tuesday week the closed gates and the voices of the vergers resounding in the empty Chapels seemed to me an emblem of the Enabling Bill—stay out of the Church or remain in it under (ecclesiastical) surveillance and guidance. Two ladies recently showed their interest in the Abbey by giving additions to the peal of bells. Are there no other "generous benefactors" who will help to take away the tax and restore to the public that freedom of entrance to the Chapels of which it is now partly deprived P—I am, Sir, &c.,
L. G.
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