But in Australia the English strength revived and broadened; it promised to make a gigantic social revolution; it worked strangely enough in unison with the newly awakened hopes of the King to restore an accustomed prestige to the Crown. This political phenomenon attracted the attention of the civilized world. The King in a most adroit proclamation to the people had peculiarly enlisted their sympathy by his veiled complaint of the habitual loss of power, and the encroachments upon the kingly prerogatives of the self-constituted Cabinet of Ministers. The King’s action was always tacitly prescribed and anticipated. He was a puppet, dressed in regalia, with no shadow of power, real and personal. And this he resented, but his language was the sentences of diplomacy, and lost the individual note entirely in a concerned and measured argument, restrained by every possible regard for the present custom, urging a greater confidence in the King’s wishes, and a larger precinct of action for his judgment. This momentous promulgation was contemptuously referred to by its critics as “the Ourselves” letter, but it met a favorable reception and it enlisted the cordial endorsement of the House of Lords, nor was it altogether resented by the House of Commons. The achievement of this success led the King into a further step of interference, in the appointments and in the personnel of the Cabinet, and he succeeded further in impressing his wishes upon a number of important bills passing through the Parliament. In short, by a persistent pressure, seconded by friends among the people, and a growing following in the legislature, he had inserted his views, and extorted from the grudging concessions of the Commons’ recognition of the royal prerogatives. He had shown himself unusually active in resource, in suggestions, and in intercourse with the people. His examples had been followed with enthusiasm by the nobility, who, so to speak, spread themselves before the observation of the nation, and exerted an unaccustomed generosity and ubiquitous energy in practically assisting the work of rehabilitation. At a general election, many candidates were discussed and elected upon this issue, viz.: the restoration to the King of kingly power. “And so, you see,” Thomsen concluded, “the unexpected happens, as it always does. We moved to an ultra-democratic _milieu_, a veritable nest of fads and socialistic temerities and experiments, and lo! the reaction sets in, and in Australia the King may recover the power, lost with the Stuarts, and the monarchial principle gets a shove ahead, which, with prosperity, and in England, no impulse short of the fiat of the Almighty, could have secured for it. A prophet who would have foretold that, would have scored a poor success in 1900 as a state maker.”