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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