although the internal disturbances of the South American republics have
diminished to very small dimensions in the last three decades and
although pronunciamentos rarely disturb the traffic in Switzerland, the
United States, or France. But there can be no doubt that the influence
of the Germanic monarchy up to the death of Queen Victoria upon British
thought was in the direction of estrangement from the two great modern
republics and in the direction of assistance and propitiation to
Germany. We surrendered Heligoland, we made great concessions to German
colonial ambitions, we allowed ourselves to be jockeyed into a phase of
dangerous hostility to France. A practice of sneering at things American
has died only very recently out of English journalism and literature, as
any one who cares to consult the bound magazines of the 'seventies and
'eighties may soon see for himself. It is well too in these days not to
forget Colonel Marchand, if only to remember that such a clash must
never recur. But in justice to our monarchy we must remember that after
the death of Queen Victoria, the spirit, if not the forms, of British
kingship was greatly modified by the exceptional character and ability
of King Edward VII. He was curiously anti-German in spirit; he had
essentially democratic instincts; in a few precious years he restored
good will between France and Great Britain. It is no slight upon his
successor to doubt whether any one could have handled the present
opportunities and risks of monarchy in Great Britain as Edward could
have handled them.

Because no doubt if monarchy is to survive in the British Empire it must
speedily undergo the profoundest modification. The old state of affairs
cannot continue. The European dynastic system, based upon the
intermarriage of a group of mainly German royal families, is dead
to-day; it is freshly dead, but it is as dead as the rule of the Incas.
It is idle to close our eyes to this fact. The revolution in Russia, the