who were neither--as illustrated in the subsequent wiping out of the Liberal majority in England itself; the constitutional issue which the Liberals so cleverly forced to the front with the House of Lords as their chief antagonists and which relegated Tariff Reform temporarily to the background; the prolonged period in which King Edward took minute and anxious and personal interest in the question. There can be no doubt as to this interest or as to the natural and valid reasons for it. A House of Lords, either abolished or existing without power in the constitution, would leave no check upon the Commons except the King and this might be bad for both the Commons and the Sovereign. Over and over again in English history the people have reversed the action or vote of the Commons but if this was ever to be done in future it could only be through the interjection of the King's veto, and the bringing of the Crown into the hurly-burly of party struggle. This would be the very thing which all parties had hitherto endeavoured to prevent and for at least seventy years had been successful in preventing. Then came the general elections of 1909-10, with their continual query as to what the King would do if the Liberals did win. Would he accept the Government's policy and the proposed Commons legislation as to the Lords and thus take an active part in the destruction of one portion of the constitution which he was pledged to guard--through and by means of the creation of hundreds of peers to swamp the Conservative vote in that House? Or would he take the situation boldly in hand and insist on another election with this question of practical abolition of the Lords as the distinct issue before the people? It was little wonder that His Majesty's physicians should declare after his death that the political situation had been one of its causes! It must be remembered that in all countries the Upper House and the aristocracy are natural and inevitable, if not necessary, adjuncts to and supporters of a Throne. Where, as in Britain, that House and that aristocracy have upon the whole much to be proud of in personal achievement, much to be credited with in social legislation and still more to be approved of in the individual public work of its Salisburys, Roseberys, Devonshires, and a multitude of other historic personalities with, also, a close and vital interest in the country through large landed responsibilities, the situation can readily be appreciated. Not that the Monarchy was an issue in itself; but there can be no doubt, despite such speeches as the following quotation from Mr. Winston Churchill's address at Southport on December 8, 1909, that King Edward felt the danger of weakening his immediate, natural and fitting environment of (with certain exceptions) an energetic and patriotic aristocracy surrounding a popular Throne: