y upon the advice of his Ministry unless tacitly and by
unusual agreement, as latterly was the case with King Edward, he acts as
a conciliatory force. If the Government asks him to create 300 peers so
as to compel the acceptance of legislation curbing and crippling, if not
abolishing, the Upper House, he can either assent or refuse. Assent
means the destruction of a portion of the Constitution--and a portion
very close to the Throne and which acts as a real buffer against the
hasty action of an impetuous and sometimes imperious Commons. Refusal
means that the Ministry must resign or go to the country on an issue in
which it is quite possible the people will not support them.

Against the Government, also, in this contest will be urged the full
force of the growing fiscal feeling, the desire for Tariff Reform, the
development of an Imperial sentiment which wants some means of giving
the Colonies a preference in the British market, the pressing need for
some weapon of retaliation upon highly protective foreign nations.
Whatever course the King takes under all these conditions will bring
the Crown into the conflict--either as yielding to the Liberals and thus
antagonizing the Conservatives, or by refusing the demands of the
former, raising up a party--small but vehement--against the Monarchy
itself. There is another element in the situation to be remembered.
England, "the dominant partner," is not really behind the Asquith
Government. Its majority at the recent elections was infinitesimal; what
there was came from Wales and Ireland and Scotland; and that of Ireland
was divided upon the fiscal issue. The whole situation is, therefore,
very much clouded to the eye.

So far as one writer can estimate the end of such a crisis it will
probably be one of compromise. Almost everything in the British
constitution is in the nature of a compromise. Constitutional monarchy
in its essence is a half-way house between Autocracy and Republicanism
and its great advantage to the minds of its supporters is that the
system has the extremes of neither, the best qualities of each, and all
the advantages of that strength and permanence which moderation and
toleration always afford. In Britain the system certainly has the
affection and devotion of the great mass of the people. Mr. Asquith is
not an extremist, Mr. Haldane and Sir Edward Grey are moderate forces in
the Cabinet, and though Messrs. Lloyd-George and Winston Churchill are
more heard