[TO TER EDITOR Or TER " SPECTATOR:1
Sva,—The arguments urged in your article of August 9th, against the suggested withholding of the Royal assent from a Home Rule Bill passed without appeal to the people, are to me convincing. Yet in view of the things which made such a suggestion possible, and indeed inevitable, it is not amiss that it should have been discussed. The suggested action of the Crown would be totally and essentially different from that of Charles I. or any encroaching monarch in history, inasmuch as its purpose would be to consult the people, not to thwart them. The Parliament Act and the manner of passing it (for which there was no real precedent even in 1832) plainly con- stituted an "anti-democratic conspiracy" and virtual coup d'etat setting up a usurping oligarchy which, as is now generally admitted, tyrannizes over Commons as well as Lords, the nation as well as Parliament. These things must not be for- gotten, and they justify the consideration of abnormal remedies for abnormal evil. On the point now in question, however, I believe that consideration will lead to agreement with your view. But there are other deductions from the principle that the Crown is to be kept out of politics. If ever (which God forbid!) the present Home Rule Bill were to become law, would it be possible that the King should open a Parliament in Ireland amidst party cries and counter-cries, applause and execrations, "commanding fires of death to light" in one part of his realm, and darkening the rest with indignation and gloom ? No, this would be impossible ; and the thought of this impossibility may yet give sight to the blind.—I am,
[Of course, we agree that the intervention of the King would be solely for the purpose of consulting the people, since the Government are indifferent to their wilL But we must remember the high power of misrepresentation which the Government and the Liberal Party would wield in such circumstances. Every Liberal platform in the country would ring with denunciations of a monarchical plot against demo- cracy. Not only would the Monarchy suffer, but the Unionist Party would lose every inch of the ground it has won. Home Rule, the Insurance Act, Welsh Disestablishment—all would
be forgotten in the fabricated issue, "Shall the King or the people rule ? "—ED. Spectator.]
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