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LAURIER HOUSE, OTTAWA.

July 19, 1935

My dear Buchan:

Perhaps, for the last time, I may be permitted to address you by your ancient Scottish name. In doing so, however, may I extend to you my warmest congratulations on your elevation to the peerage, and an other more than merited honours which you have recently received.

I read with much interest and pleasure the account of your entry into the House of Lords. I confess my feelings towards that ancient and venerable body would be less mixed were its membership recruited, as in your case it has been, from recognition of merit and service, and not through hereditary privilege.

I, of course, appreciated to the full your feelings in not desiring to run counter in any way to the wishes of His Majesty, especially in this year of "The King's Grace". Had Bennett shared my view, which, of course, I am sure he did not, that there was much to be gained and nothing to be lost by yourself, His Majesty, and our country, in having His Majesty's representative, in the person of yourself, come to Canada

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as a commoner, the position would have been quite different, and you would have been spared any embarrassment in letting your own wishes be known.

While it is true, and now clearly recognized, that the Governor General is an appointee of The King, and in no way the appointee of the British Government, the Governor General of Canada is, nevertheless, as much the appointee of a government today as he has been at any time since the office was created, the only difference being that it is the Government of Canada, and not the Government of Great Britain, mich s responsible. In other words , the appointment of The King's representative to the Dominions is as much a matter of the respective Dominions governments as the appointment, say, of Dominion ministers to foreign countries. The old maxim, "The King can do no wrong", still holds, if the prerogative of the appointment of Governor General, like all else, is exercisable upon the advice of ministers. We must accept the responsibility of their advice, and neither the Sovereign, nor the Ministry, can escape this responsibility - the one of accepting, and the other of tendering advice.

I have not the least doubt that your appointment, in its relation to the peerage, the Sovereign, etc., etc., will be one of those historic milestones which help to mark by pleasant, rather than painful, transition, the path of a new order, In appointments to high office, more in the

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way of recognition will be given to worth and character, and less to place, position, power and privilege. It will help, I believe, the acceptance of the view that the House of Lords itself must become more and more a body recruited from outside its privileged membership, and, less and less a body the members of which enjoy, by birth and inheritance, political and social rights and powers beyond the reach of others.

The warm, hearty, and I might add, virtually universal commendation which marked in Canada, in your case, the King's choice of a commoner for the position of Governor General, will not be without its effect on the views and feelings of the present, or any succeeding, sovereign, as to the acceptability of a commoner as His Majesty's representative. It will serve, as wel1, to avoid embarrassments on the part of a future Ministry in expressing a preference to His Majesty for having, as his representative, one who, at the time of his appointment, or during the tenure of his office, will not be of the peerage; and embarrassment, as well, to any commoner who may be chosen to that high office from having his own preference and wishes met.

I am sure you feel as I do about the social revolution, through which, at the present time, namely of the countries of the world are passing, namely, that, at bottom, it is feudalism in its surviving or newly formed manifestations,

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which is being attacked, and which is certain, as you and I are living, is going to be, in larger measure than ever, overthrown. It is for this reason, and for this reason above all others, that I feel as I do about the efforts being made in some quarters in Canada to re-establish titles and to perpetuate, in all that pertains to the Crown, the tinsel and trappings of royalty. Like Tennyson, I am anxious to see the throne "broad-based upon a people's will", and so far as Canada is concerned, I know the will of the people is to value reality more and more, and appearances in all forms of make-believe less and less.

Some of the feelings which I am, perhaps, imprudently expressing so frankly to you, have gained somewhat in their intensity by my recent reading of our friend, Violet Markham's "Paxton and the Bachelor Duke". I could not but feel that that book, too, may serve to mark out our day as one of real significance in the transition which thought, along with the social order, is undergoing at the present time. Queen Victoria's expression that Paxton was the son of a common gardener -"rose from being a common gardener's boy" - was meant kindly enough and intended to increase Paxton's stature in court and other social circles. What the book itself reveals is that, even where other things are not equal, a gardener is a much more necessary and useful member of society than a Duke, and that, without gardeners, it is conceivable that Dukes might be of little account. Obviously, however, this could not have been said of the sixth

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Duke of Devonshire, however divested of his inherited estates he might, at birth, have found himself.

I have often asked myself the question whether God's purpose in the world would, or could, have been served had Christ, while on earth, followed any calling other than that of a carpenter, a gardener, a fisherman, a shepherd, or some other of the humble occupations closely associated with providing the food, clothing, or shelter which Nature keeps in her store and without which the human race could not survive. When we come to see the divinity of man in these terms, will have, I believe, found our way out of depressions and social revolutions, and into something resembling true brotherhood of mankind.

I must congratulate you on the name which you have chosen for your peerage. I am dictating this letter at Kingsmere, in the cottage in which I am now living. I think, when you were at Kingsmere, I was living in the little cottage by the lake, and you and Mrs. Buchan occupied the stil1 tinier bungalow, now ''the vice-regal lodge" nearby. The Pattesons were living in the cottage on the moor. They were renting it from me at the time. It has been done over and somewhat enlarged. I call the place "Moorside", so you will see I have a special liking for the word "Muir". It was here , too, a summer or so ago, that I read your life of Sir Walter Scott, with its many references to the Tweed. So that, for me, your new name already has its associations with Scotland in Canada.