96 TRANSACTIONS. TgOl-2 



/(^c^T^?"^ than His Most Excellent Majesty, King Edward the 

 Seventh. Indeed, if it were permitted to one to be curt in 

 his express-ions touching so august a matter, one might be 

 tempted to aver that to-day the King is impeccable for the 

 very simple reason that he has no power to do wrong. 



It remains to be said that the Executive can do no wrong, 

 because, in their sphere, they represent the Sovereign People. "^ 



What then ? Shall we say that as the English people have 

 come round again to their old-time way of democratic think- 

 ing, we no longer ought to retain the fiction of Kingship? 

 God forbid. We must not forget that we had Kings in the 

 days of our purest democracy. A hereditary King with the 

 checks and restraints that hedge him about under the mod- 

 ernized Constitution, is the very best sort of a President that 

 our veiled republic can possibly have. We thus escape all the 

 exacerbations of periodical elections ; and, on the other hand, 

 we have the advantage of the holder of the office alwaxs 

 knowing his place — an inestimable quality, for then we miss 

 all those crude impolicies which usually characterize the 

 novitiate of the holder of an elective office. Then, agair, 

 there is the consideration, not as trifling as it would on the 

 surface appear, that with a hereditary aristocracy still in the 

 vigour of its prime like that of England, it would be an 

 anomalous and unfortunate thing for the chief est and most 

 picturesque figure in the social life of the nation to be con- 

 stantly changing its personality. 



No, beyond a doubt the time has not arrived for any 

 overt modification in our Constitution touching its manifest 

 head. Nor need we citizens of this young Dominion be 

 fearful of any fierce revolutionary upheaval in the future, 

 should the interest of the British people as a whole demand 

 some such modification. We have only to remember that 

 history unfolds a splendid record of the self-control and 

 discretion of our race under the the strain of constitutional 



* This principle is recognized in the American theory of Government See 

 opinion of Gray, J, in Briggs \ Light Boats, 11 Allen at p. 162. 



