Review of Monarchy Edgar Wilson: Myth of the British Monarchy
A bright torch (or 'flashlight') in a dusty neglected room, 5 Mar 2011
Note: the .txt format file https://big-lies.org/reviews/wilson-edgar-myth-british-monarchy.txt has more notes on this book, which may be of interest, but were not included in my Amazon review before Amazon banned me
NB At the time I made the notes, I was unaware of Jewish suppressions, and of Jewish manoeuvres around the British monarchies.
Wilson was a Professor at Manchester Metropolitan University who died in the late 1990s. The book has a long bibliography and newspaper-article-ography of about 450 titles, many somewhat marginal, as is to be expected in a taboo topic. The index is reasonably good, though ideas and emotions suggested by the contents aren't easy to rediscover.
Reasonably enough, in view of the title there's not much on other countries (e.g. nothing on Italy's referendum which abolished their monarchy; nothing on the Japanese post-WW2 Royal Wedding; nothing on Arabian 'royal families'). We do have people like the Hanovers, Tom Paine, Thackeray, 19th century republicans; and generally a feeling that the monarchy is unique to Britain. As might be expected there's little factual stuff on such matters as the actual amounts of money and assets they have. There's not much on (as examples) the 1953 Coronation Coach (genuine?), or whether the crown actually belonged to Edward the Confessor, or how the Church of England connects with the 'Crown', or whether William of Orange was as wonderful as Macaulay thought.
Wilson's methodology is mostly sociological-style looks at attitudes, some of the material being related more to the bulk of the population (is there a caste system?; suppressed class health differences...) and their attitudes (e.g. does the Royal Family really work hard? Are they a tourist attraction? Do their visits increase overseas trade?). And he quotes from studies on social mobility, deciding it's more or less a myth, though there has been a 'need for low caste brain-labour' which gave that impression.
The upper classes and their various advisers and lackeys naturally enough appear in the book, often disconcertingly: Sir R C Petrie, 1933, said dictatorship is probably the only effective method of repairing the evil wrought by democratic administration. And Signor Mussolini is the greatest figure of the 20th century. The present 'self-imposed silence of the media about dubious royal affairs is encouraged by the knowledge that unwanted disclosures will be suppressed with all the resources at the disposal of the state.' Support for the monarchy is somewhat of a rich persons' thing: the monarchy is 'ultimately subservient to them'. Page 31 for example says there are 16,000 racehorse owners who spend £110 million per annum on training.
Some of the material is historical, though not much, and these are mostly British historians—no anti-monarchical Americans. Lord Blake is about the only pro-monarchy historian I could find here.
There are many picturesque asides such as: First World War changing of monarchical names from the German/ Diana Spencer descended from a 'whore'/ Hanovers a small group of German mercenaries, and not British/ Modern Greek monarchy mentioned mainly to counter the argument that Carlos of Spain saved democracy in Spain/ Loony members of Bowes-Lyons locked away and death certificates faked, something upper class families did on doctors' advice/ It 'became apparent that Princess Elizabeth would never progress beyond the simplest elements of mathematics'/ Edward VIII's flirtation with Hitler, but 'the first monarch.. to express sympathy..was forced to abdicate before he was crowned.'/ George V the Queen's father a notorious dunce, bottom of his class etc—Keir Hardie spoke out/ '.. there are far more direct descendants of James I than Elizabeth II. .. George I was 58th in line of succession..'/ Dilke's career was damaged or destroyed by Victoria, because Dilke said she 'defies an Act of Parliament, and robs the country of £100,000 a year'/ Polls on popularity are probably misleading/ 25: Duke of Westminster failed to pass map-reading test.
Wilson didn't really devise a satisfactory layout for his book. We have:
TEN PETTY MYTHS [Popularity/ Hard Work/ Business/ Tradition/ Morality/ Commonwealth/ Continuity/ Impartiality/ Powerlessness/ Liberty: the practice]
then PROFOUND MYTHS AND RATIONALITY [Non-rational views of Monarchy/ Irrationalism/ Materialism/ ..]
then THREE PROFOUND MYTHS [The Monarchy Myth/ Religion/ Psychology]
and there's also the monarchy regarded from the point of view of 'ten deadly sins'—sloth etc.
Here's a specimen of Wilson's thoroughness: 'After a state visit by the Queen to Brazil in 1968, exports to Brazil fell and imports increased in the months following the royal visit. ... Similar trends were recorded after tours by Prince Philip of New York in 1960, and again of the U.S.A. in 1966-7 ... a closer and more extensive examination of the effect of official royal visits overseas on Britain's trade shows that the picture is even worse than he supposed. The effects of royal visits should be assessed against a universal and general trend towards greater volume and dollar value of trade. ... a simple and unbiased look at official trade figures, together with a record of royal visits for the fourteen year period from 1971 to 1984, shows that royal visits are more likely than not to be counter-productive in one or more of four different ways. ....' [followed by an awful lot more info].
Although this book is now more than twenty years old (and has nothing much on e.g. secretly-enforced mass immigration, Islam, Zionists, the EU, the US, China...) it's very good as a look at the British Monarchy, having something of the effect of a bright torch showing up the contents of a dusty and neglected room.
CODA: Two ElizabethsThis book was published by Journeyman Press, with an organisation called 'Republic', based in Ferme Park Road, London N8. Journeyman appears to be related to Journeyman Pictures, which employs or employed John Pilger.
Reforming the Catholic Church was one of the many huge changes in Elizabeth I's time. A discredited organisation was fleeced—and the comparison with a parasitic group today is fairly obvious. I've never seen a good account of what really happened—historians are so useless—but I suspect it affected every aspect of British life; it's been heftily censored, like most serious events. Henry VIII introduced interest into the economic system, I believe without paper money—another thing nobody discusses—so it's possible the seeds of downfall were starting to sprout. There was also gunpowder and cannon; I suspect sources of both sulphur and potassium nitrate had been located. And the monarchy became unified for the first time, the Earls being progressively cut down from their Feudal significance—Edward de Vere being a perfect example. There was an incredible expansion, not just of overseas empires—Spain, Portugal, Britain, Holland—and Russia's land empire—but mentally, as the world was charted, China discovered through Marco Polo's faked book, ancient history rediscovered (or invented), Galileo doing his thing, and the Bible finally being translated—though as one of our contributors shows, this was used more for obfuscation by the new Church of England than for enlightenment.
The present Elizabeth ... one has to wonder if she had any idea what was happening. The paper money institutions were by now embedded into everything nominally British. She was a mouthpiece, a bit like a vicar, starting with her 14-year-old reading out of what's now seen to be rubbish relating to the destruction of Europe. Incidentally, perhaps it's worth pointing out how much the world owes to Germany. It's the only country which managed to respect skill, rather than just money, and keep its industrial productivity high—without it I'm not sure Russia could ever have recovered from the Jewish mass murders, and the whole of Europe might have declined far more than it did. Elizabeth was a traitor not just to us, but her whole family of royals—no comment on the Tsar's murder, or the devastation of such aristocratic Germans who couldn't get away. Everything important about royalty is now secret: at one time, on death, the monarch's will was published; now, the whole wretched business is more-or-less secret, as are all the assets supposedly held by her. Every now and then some money-grabbing scandal leaks out, such as the ridiculous 'windfarm' scam in Cameron's family. But because of the progress in electronic communications, everything is (very arguably) infinitely more opaque than in the Elizabethan era: then, anyone could see who owned a forest, or University land, or buildings, or church land; now, it's impossible to be sure of ownership. And media control does its worst to restrict information. No wonder the 2012 'Diamond Jewbilee' has been celebrated tepidly.
It's fascinating to speculate on the attitude of the Jews to the Royal Family. On the one hand, the Queen has behaved impeccably, never commenting on Jewish frauds and corruption, and displaying an almost imbecilic level of comment on her supposed realms. In that sense, Jews and Freemasons and what have you might be expected to pretend to worship the Monarchy. But they might want to take over, or at least be shown to have some adverse attitudes; after all, the closely-related Russian royal family might need to be kept down and out. - RW 2020-01-26
97 Ferme Park Road N8 has been sold several times since Wilson was published; I couldn't resist looking it up. At prices higher than must have seemed possible.
My glossy paperback (cover design shows Fluck & Law puppets caricaturing the royal family still looks new; it's now almost 30 years old - copyright 1989 by Edgar Wilson, by Journeyman Press and Republic. First edition, published 1989. Journeyman Press is given the address of 97 Ferme Park Road in London. (See the photo; the house has been sold several times since).
Journeyman published or publishes John Pilger; in fact 'Journeyman' seems to be a specialised word applied to Australian labour. Journeyman presumably has more influence in its TV. Pilger lived or lives in north London; 'Republic' lists addresses in Eltham, Amersham, and Witham. It's a depressing thought that Jews and crypto-Jews are dotted about in London, rather like brothels in private houses as portrayed by Harold Pinter (Jewish playwright and script writer).
My copy has a clipping tucked inside it, advertising Monarchy: The Nation Decides, a 'massive debate' in Birmingham's NEC (National Exhibition Centre), something to do with Steve Clark, 'controller of factual programmes for Carlton Television.' Planned for 4-10 January, 1997. An audience of 3000, with politicians and celebrities, introduced by Roger Cook, to be followed by phone-ins from the public, would be summarised in a giant map with lights. 14,000 phone lines which can answer 1,000 calls a second were quoted. With 100 suppliers of 'drinks and sandwiches' and a production team of 50, and 12 cameras in the NEC, we have a sort of combination of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and Big Brother. I leave it to the curious to investigate.
Since my 2011 look at this book, along with many millions of people, I have more grasp of the underlying history and psychology of the forces at work, including the linguistics of vagueness and the manufacture of rules to fix status. The surname 'Wilson' is itself a red flag. The astonishing infiltration by Jews, and their possibly even greater influence on non-Jews in blanketing out virtually all understanding, is remarkable. The mental readjustment against the hail of presumptive assertions and long-term plots slowly ushers in new prospects as world wars, great movements of people, vast numbers of deaths, rearrange themselves into patterns, and we wonder at and mourn opportunities lost in the past by our ancestors and their misunderstandings.
I've just watched some TV after the death of the Duke of Edinburgh—real name involving Saxe Coburg Gotha or Gluckstein Sonderberg or Battenberg or other Germanic-sounding names, mostly suppressed since 'we' had been fighting 'Germany', or more modernly, Jews in the shadows had commanded anti-white war. Amid the storyline—and there are several, deployed for different purposes, in prepared obituaries and the like; thus Philip's mother is said to have set up an order of some sort of Greek Orthodox nuns; but she was also stated to have been in an insane asylum—it was touching to see the obsequiousness of a black C of E intruder, a black race activist, a Jewish-descended Archbishop, various more-or-less unnecessary females, David Attenborough, private secretaries, saying that the Duke was his own man, a natural leader, very intelligent, must have had a very difficult time (waiting to be moved by the family), led the process of exposing the monarchy to outside observers more than had been the case in earlier times, invented carriage-driving as a sport (did he watch 'Stagecoach' at an impressionable time?) and so on.
A conspicuously missing group of interviewees were the many eastern European, Russian, and others, related to Victoria, whose stories of Anarchists, Communists, Jews and cover stories dating back centuries would not be welcomed by media controllers. Fascinating to speculate on the Jewish international arrangement of its own nation, still almost completely obscure. If the monarchy goes, one has to wonder if Jews will be spotlit, as the shadowing multitude of royals and their hangers-on clears away. Circumcisions are an interesting possibility. So are synagogues: the Duke attended the 'Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in the City of London in 1951, were told, quoting from a 1959 book by D Laird. (The chapter's notes refer quite well to the bibliography. With archive.org I expect many of these books are now online). So is their influence on education; nothing new in that, of course: the whole Christian tradition is Jewish, with a few twists. Incidentally, Philip expressed doubts about education, though of course without enquiring further.
Meanwhile, some observations which I was too lazy to include before.
Page 124 (chapter called RELIGION): when the Archbishop of Canterbury [Geoffrey Fisher] anointed [more or less secret ceremony, the Queen being bare breasted] the Queen, saying: 'and as Solomon was anointed King by Zadock the priest, and Nathan the prophet, so be though anointed, blessed, and consecrated over the peoples' ... She showed her submission before the archbishop as God's agent ... the constitution, by the Act of Settlement 1701, requires that 'whosoever shall hereafter come into the possession of the Crown shall joyn in communion with the Church of England as by law established.'
The connection between widespread belief in God and earthly power is illustrated by Charles in Papua New Guinea in 1975, addressing the inhabitants 'who had been in dispute with an American mining company': Everyone must obey the State authorities, for no authority exists without God's permission, and the existing authorities have been put there by God. Whoever opposes the existing authority, opposes what God has ordered, and everyone who does so brings judgment upon himself. (Quoted from the New Statesman, Jewish publication, in 1977. Not an argument likely to impress disbelievers in God, or sceptics of the possibility of 'opposing what God has ordered'. But essentially part of the invention of the C of E.
The chapter on Powerlessness says that, in emergency, the monarch has great power, which must mean the coterie of advisors. We do have examples, which of course are usually unmentioned, because such interventions are part of some Jewish plan. Harold Nicolson is quoted on South Africa, which was brought into WW2 under Smuts' leadership, when Herzog wanted a general election on entry to the war. But the Governor General of South Africa, the King's representative, refused a dissolution. Wilson gives a few more examples, but not in any clear sense, since, of course, he can't allow himself to talk of the supremacy of Jews.
The chapter Political Postscript is based around Conservatives vs the Labour Party, not perceiving that both are controlled opposition, which will never discuss the most serious issues, notably the private control of money by Jews, and the Jewish policy of trying to eliminate whites by race mixing. Wilson takes the usual line here: he thinks 'racism' is a bad thing, and wants 'race relations' to allow unlimited immigration, without ever noticing that the reason for race being a problem at all is the result of Jews.
The newspaper and TV messages are still widely accepted in Britain, as far as it's possible to judge. Some towns consider they are naturally Labour, without perceiving that Labour is a Jewish-organised party. There's an eerie fascination in the pseudo-controversies provided by the media. Wilson says nothing systematic about nationalism—the word itself is not even indexed—but the interest in the BNP showed public interest, though in a naive form, supporting Churchill and WW2, and not mentioning Jews. Probably it was yet more controlled opposition.
Wilson's book is of some interest, putting itself out there as a full-blooded crit of Britain's monarchy, pulling no punches. But the idea of the monarchy as a sort of umbrella hiding Jews, a big absorbent cushion of nothingness, isn't present.
I'm struck by the slow updating of people's minds—as correctly assumed by Jewish planners and their collaborators. H. G. Wells is quoted, from Travels of a Republican... a Penguin book of 1939: Englishmen like myself, who follow the high republican and intensely English tradition of Cromwell, Milton, George Washington and so forth..., showing his acceptance of Jewish mythology, as, of course, most people did. By far the most important Jewish influences are in wars, with WW1 and WW2 as summits of achievements, with vast number of casualties and vast transfers of wealth ownership. I wonder if this will ever become widely known? It has to be doubted, in view of the longevity of false beliefs.
As regards Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh—'they' seem to have settled on 'Consort' of Queen Elizabeth—with fulsome praise of his real or supposed attributes. Was he really a 'war hero'? He wrote more than a dozen books; but these are surprisingly obscure, not having been given Jewish booming. I have no idea why this is; it's possible he may have spoken out on the way the world is run, perhaps even addressing Jewish issues, given inside information, but without the elaborate pseudo-academic padding needed to muffle facts. He may have spent his life surrounded by flunkeys and phonies who invent protocols to pretend to deal with unanticipated eventualities.
Elizabeth in a sense never put a foot wrong: she did whatever was asked of her. She posed as a motor mechanic in WW2. She ignored massive atrocities in post-war Germany, in the USSR, in China. She knighted (i.e. gave the title 'Sir') to someone who arranged massive population movements in Vietnam. She knighted General Schwarzenegger (I think) for killing Iraqis. She knighted Robert Mugabe. She did nothing to stop immigration. She seems to have nothing useful about the entire 'Commonwealth', the name itself being an echo of earlier absurdities. She said and did nothing about 'COVID'.
Probably the real powers regarded her as cheap at the price for wholesale truthbending. The collaborator types, such as high-level freemasons, must have accepted it as traditional, or for the more insightful as absurdity. The royal family now and in future is directionless and probably worthless; I doubt if it figures in future Jewish plans. I can't help wondering if Meghan and Harry-the-bastard are the advanced guard of subversion of the monarchy, more pretenders, a greatly-used Jewish technique.
'Prince Philip' - the following is taken from Christians for Truth, which I hope is mostly correct, apart from the 'Holocaust' assumption. (from here. I hadn't realised what a fool Philip was. Or maybe he was just an uneducated simpleton reading out a script; who knows?
Also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, Philip’s support for Jewish and pro-Israel causes ran deep. His mother, Princess Alice of Greece, sheltered a Jewish family during the Holocaust and is recognized as one of fewer than 30,000 “righteous among the nations” by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum.
Philip’s four sisters each married German nobles, at least three of whom became Nazis. But Philip, educated in Britain, joined the allied war effort. As an adult, he showed little patience for Nazi collaborators; he was instrumental in making a pariah of his wife’s uncle Edward, who after abdicating the throne dallied with Nazi Germany.
Philip over the years spoke multiple times at Jewish and pro-Israel events.
Philip, who had a passion for environmental preservation, spoke multiple times at Jewish National Fund events and lent his royal sponsorship to other Jewish events. He came under attack in the 1960s for speaking to pro-Israel groups, and, famously impervious to criticism, ignored the attacks.
In 1994, Philip was the first British royal to visit Israel, when he accepted Yad Vashem’s recognition of his mother and visited her burial site at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
At Yad Vashem, Philip planted a maple tree in memory of his mother, who was married to Prince Andrew of Greece and helped shelter three members of the family of a late Greek-Jewish politician in her palace in Athens. The Gestapo was suspicious of Alice, even questioning her, but the princess, who was deaf, pretended not to understand their questions. Alice later became a nun.
“The Holocaust was the most horrific event in all Jewish history, and it will remain in the memory of all future generations,” Philip said at the time. “It is, therefore, a very generous gesture that also remembered here are the many millions of non-Jews, like my mother, who shared in your pain and anguish and did what they could in small ways to alleviate the horror.” The 1994 visit broke with what was then an unofficial but nonetheless binding ban on royals traveling to Israel, which had been enforced following violence by Zionist fighters against British targets in the years that predated the establishment of the State of Israel in what had been before 1948 the British Mandate over Palestine.
For all its trappings, Philip’s 1994 visit was in a personal capacity. The Royal House ended its policy on official visits to Israel in 2018, when Prince William, Prince Philip’s grandson, visited Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan.
Philip’s retirement from public life in 2017 triggered an outpouring of plaudits for a life well-lived from Jewish groups and leaders.
Those groups expressed grief upon his death Friday. Philip’s life “was spent in public service, from his active duty in the Navy during World War II to the tens of thousands of engagements which he carried out over six and a half decades of royal duties,” the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Marie van der Zyl, wrote in a statement.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin joined dozens of other heads of state who expressed their sympathies with the Royal House. Rivlin used the traditional Jewish phrase when speaking about a deceased person, ending his tweet about Philip with “May his memory be a blessing.”
The so-called World Wildlife Fund looks something like the 19th century highlands of Scotland, depopulated to allow shooting holidays, on a vast scale:
This WWF global managerial version of environmentalism is a territorial empire—of and by the multinational corporate managers, the bankers, the military elites, the global media, select imperialist Dutch/British royalty (both frustrated in a ‘post-colonial era’), and even Third World dictators getting a supporting role...
In 1961, the WWF was founded as the world’s first globally expansive private land trust. By 2012, it is now the world’s largest of such globally private land trusts. By 1995, it had some kind of jurisdiction over 10% of the land surface of the planet.
It employs its wealth and power with the strategy of “spatial depopulation” policies by pushing native peoples and others off the land “in the name of the environment.” Is that the “real reason”? The WWF is really not protecting the environment at all and only making money by two factors that the film discusses: by certification that encourages cash crop plantations that destroy the environment by clear-cutting (laundered as more palatable to global consumers if “the Panda” supports it), and the cash crop of eco-tourism in its “protection zones”. (A third source of money that the film fails to discuss is the massive wealth from well documented WWF carbon credits fraud in South America—though that is another story.)”
-1: '.. Thackeray's The Four Georges (1861) is a model of scatological irreverence.' Wilson only gives a tiny extract which in itself doesn't support this claim: 174: 'His [George I] aim was to leave England to itself, as much as possible, and to live out of it as much as he could. "Loyalty", he must think, "as applied to me, is absurd."' ...'
-15-16: [Health & life expectancy and note: statistics: censorship, suppression, juggling with figures, evading facts by reclassifying]
-15-16:[Education & life-chances and Note: anti-IQ? 'measured intelligence', effect of which is 'surprisingly unimportant'
More on this 25 including 'need for low caste brain-labour', & contempt for education & examples of Edward Windsor & Duke of Westminster.
-16: [Note: myth of mobility? research into class and caste in Britain:] '.. popular delusion that British society is open to all talents is dissipated by John Goldthorpe and his co-workers. After studying data of half a century, they conclude that, despite supposedly favourable circumstances of expanding economy and educational achievement, no significant reduction in class inequalities has in fact been achieved. The illusion that class barriers have been raised was created by statistics that showed upward mobility of people born into the lower social order. This however was due only to the expanding number of 'service-class' jobs, which could only be met by recruitment from 'below'. This is by no means the same as an open society. .. situation of no-change in relative mobility chances..' [Goldthorpe, Llewellyn, & Payne, 1980, 'Social Mobility and Class Structure in Modern Britain']
17-19: [trying to assess wealth; Inland Revenue, Diamond Commission, & academics
19: Myth of equality before law (J A G Griffith, 'The Politics of the Judiciary' is the source)]
-23-24: [Note: Law and control of information:] '.. great wealth is almost as effective a guarantee of privilege as the aristocratic exemptions of the 'Ancien Regime'. When radicals.. are falsely slandered in the gutter press, they have no redress because they have no money to pursue justice through the courts. High caste personages are treated differently. The selective class bias of the legal profession.. senior judges in particular.. brought forcefully home to those who presume to question caste privilege. For example, when Simon Winchester sought to publish established but unpalatable truths about members of the aristocracy, he was effectively suppressed by an avalanche of writs. The head of the Monarchist League, the Marquis of Bristol, invoked the menace of his personal friend, the Attorney General, Sir Michael Havers, in order to suppress publication of established facts that called into question Bristol's fitness to participate in the legislative processes of the Lords. [Sunday Times, 22 March 1982] .. self-imposed silence of the media about dubious royal affairs is encouraged by the knowledge that unwanted disclosures will be suppressed with all the resources at the disposal of the state. When in 1981 it was thought that the contents of an innocuous royal conversation might be published the whole panoply of law and the state apparatus of the Government, the diplomatic Service, the judiciary, and the police was invoked to suppress it. ..' [Simpson & Knightly, 'Why the fuss about those tapes?' 10 May 1981, Sunday Times]
-24: [Speculation about Nazi puppet regime. Alistair Cook. Files withheld from public, said 1983 18 Nov Private Eye]
-24: '.. Cover-ups are in the tradition of Masonic secrecy which is a continuous feature of the reign of the Hanover-Windsor dynasty. Prince Charles could be the first king since George I not to be a member of 'The Mafia of the Mediocre'!' [Note the wrongly dismissive tone. Endnote says among other things The Duke of Edinburgh's suit to Elizabeth was made by her father conditional on his joining a masonic lodge. .. Prince Charles' refusal to join .. probably reflects his anachronistic chivalrous impulses more than his commitment to an egalitarian, open society.'
-27: '.. education.. 'Open Air, Good Manners and Art Appreciation, and only after that, as much book learning as might prove to be within her capabilities.' [Book by Morrah, 1958, given as source] .. It is small wonder.. that the Queen has expressed exasperation that she wasn't educated.' [1969 contribution to edited book]
-29: [Myth of change in Britain? Stone & Stone on redistribution of wealth between members of the same family/ new money made little difference/ intermarriage rarer than commonly supposed]
-35: '.. arch-monarchist, Sir Charles Petrie..
Reason, philosophy, fiddledum, diddledum,
Peace and fraternity, higgledy, piggledy.
.. Signor Mussolini.. '
-37: 'William IV dismissed Lord Melbourne's government in 1834 and the Monarch's legal powers have not been changed since. Ramsay MacDonald was kept in office by the King in 1931 for the purpose of dole cutting without the support of his own Labour Party. In 1954 the Governor General in Pakistan dissolved the elected system.. In 1975 Gough Whitlam's Labour Government was dismissed.. in Australia.. Royal partiality was informally expressed against the leader of the Mineworkers' Union in the bitter strike of 1984-85. ..'
-43: [Popularity myth. Says Cromwell wasn't impressed by crowds - they'd turn out even more readily for his execution. And on the evidence of polls, Hitler was more popular than the monarchy]
-45-6: 'Leonard Woolf has explained how the British Establishment resorted to coercive persuasion by monarchic myth after electoral reforms of the late 19th C rendered its overt and direct exercise of political power difficult and unreliable. [NB: Cp Chomsky's views in Manufacturing Consent on US] .. radio and television. George V has been credited with enhancing the popularity of the Monarchy immeasurably through his radio broadcasts. .. more likely the medium was amplifying whatever was around.. In Britain it was the Monarchy. In the USA Roosevelt.. The same was achieved by Hitler in Germany.. There is no reason .. to believe that the Monarchy .. exercised any special hold on the popular imagination..
The case of George V raises another important issue. Keir Hardie described him as no better than a street corner loafer. George Lansbury described him as 'a short-tempered, narrow minded, out of date Tory..' The popular view of this man, as the kindly, loving, impartial monarch.. was largely manufactured by the media, especially radio. ..
.. media.. deployed systematically and resolutely.. If a royal personage.. sloth or anger, there will be an orchestrated programme of exposure.. showing.. miscreant diligently occupied in new-found good works. .. oafishness .. venality.. vandalism.. promiscuity, then there will be a penitential programme..'
-50-55: Chapter 7 Business. [Entire chapter scanned in:]
The myth of hard.work goes with the myth that the Monarchy is good for business, foreign trade and especially tourism. The head of a U.K. trade delegation to Australia, for example, expressed the common view that: 'The Royals are the spearhead of our commercial attack on the world . we simply can't afford to get rid of them.'1 A Mass Observation poll showed that a majority of people believe that the Monarchy is better than a republic would be at encouraging trade with other countries.2 The belief that the Monarchy is good for tourism is even more widespread. One survey showed that no less than 90 per cent of people believe that the Monarchy is good for the tourist trade.3
The view that it is fitting for the head of state to promote trade is supported by the most distinguished theories of monarchy. Bolingbroke, for example, equated the effectiveness and success of the head of state with the flourishing of the nation's trade and commerce.4 James Frazer in The Golden Bough traces the anthropological roots of the view to ancient beliefs that a whole nation's prosperity is bound up with the personal capacities, effectiveness and well.being of its monarch. The Shilluk of the White Nile killed off their kings with due ceremony when the prosperity of their country seemed in jeopardy.5 On this view, and in the light of Britain's chronic economic decline since the 1870s, all British monarchs, starting with Victoria, would have been clear candidates for regicide. The catastrophic collapse of Britain's position in international trading and commerce since 1953 would, by Shilluk standards, leave Elizabeth II with no case to argue. Far from promoting economic prosperity, the British Monarchy seems to provide the nation with its greatest solace in failure, a fantasising nostalgia for past glories.
The basic problem with the myth of good business is that commercial sales promotion is no basis for organising a great nation's political constitution and social structure. It is not even good business, as H.G. Wells argued [naively; look at the reference to Cromwell et al] in 1939.
This would be true even if the Monarchy proved to be an effective spearhead of commerce. But there is not the slightest reason to believe that it is. All the available evidence proves that it is not. Andrew Duncan pointed out in 1970 that royal visits have no impact on trade figures but, typically, no notice was taken. After a state visit by the Queen to Brazil in 1968, exports to Brazil fell and imports increased in the months following the royal visit. The Board of Trade described these facts as merely 'seasonal'. Similar trends were recorded after tours by Prince Philip of New York in 1960, and again of the U.S.A. in 1966.7 It is just possible that Duncan's evidence was inadequate. In fact a closer and more extensive examination of the effect of official royal visits overseas on Britain's trade shows that the picture is even worse than he supposed. The effects of royal visits should be assessed against a universal and general trend towards greater volume and dollar value of trade. Also, it is more realistic to consider the effects of a visit on trade for a period of up to two years following the visit, to account realistically for 'lead.times' on the deliveries of major capital equipment. Taking both of these things into account, a simple and unbiased look at official trade figures, together with a record of royal visits for the fourteen year period from 1971 to 1984, shows that royal visits are more likely than not to be counter.productive in one or more of four different ways.
First, there are cases, such as Brazil in 1968, where the gross value of exports actually drops significantly after a state visit by the Queen. Such was the case after the visit to Yugoslavia in May 1972. Exports valued at £62 million in 1971, fell to £50 million in 1972, and remained below the 1971 level during 1973 at £56.3 million. The same thing happened after the state visits to New Zealand in 1974, Tanzania in 1979, Belgium in 1980, Italy in 1980, Switzerland in 1981 Australia in 1982 and India in 1983. Secondly, there are cases where an established trend of increasing exports is significantly slowed down following a royal visit. Such was the case in Indonesia, where a royal visit in 1974 reduced by nearly half the annual rate of increase in exports: from 55 per cent in 1972.74 to 29 per cent in 1974.76. The same thing happened after state visits to Mexico in 1975, the U.S.A in 1976, Canada in 1976, 1977 and 1978, and Denmark in 1979. In a third set of cases, increased exports following a state visit are more than offset by even greater increase in imports from the country visited; thus adversely affecting the balance of trade. Such was the case following the visit to Japan in May 1975: exports which had fallen by a value of £10 million between 1974 and 1975 rose by £5 million and £109 million in the two years following the visit; however imports from Japan rose far more; by £124 million and £263 million in the same two years. A similar pattern followed royal visits to France in 1972, West Germany in 1978, Algeria in 1980, Norway in 1981, New Zealand in 1981, the U.S.A. in 1983, and Kenya in 1983. Royal visits can do more to promote imports from the countries visited than they do for British exports! In a fourth sort of case a royal visit does have the effect of both increasing the exports to, and improving Britain's balance of trade with the country visited. Unfortunately, such countries are as likely as not to be developing Third World or Commonwealth countries which can ill afford an adverse balance of trade with Britain. Such was the case following a state visit to Zambia in May 1979. In 1980 exports to Zambia increased by £11 million (13 per cent) and imports from Zambia fell by £14 million (14 per cent); a nett worsening of the balance of trade, to a developing Commonwealth country, of 27 per cent.8 A similar thing happened after a state visit to Mexico in 1983.
Even the exceptions are not clear cut, and throw further light on the matter. There were increases in exports and a positive balance of trade with Australia after royal visits in 1980 and 1981 totalling together £220 million. These, however, were largely reversed after the royal Tour of 1982 for the Commonwealth Games, which was followed by a nett fall of £173 million in 1983. After royal tours of Canada in 1982 and 1983 exports did increase significantly by 14.2 per cent and 21.5 per cent compared to less than one per cent in the previous year. However, there was an increase of the same order in 1981 of 12.4 per cent with no royal tour at all in 1979 or 1980. After a state visit to Sweden in 1983 there was an improvement both in exports (21 per cent) and the balance of trade (41 per cent), to a country which could afford it. However, there was an even greater increase in trade with Sweden in 1976 of 27 per cent but without a royal visit. Finally, there is the interesting case of the visit by the Duke of Edinburgh specifically to the Helsinki Trade Fair at the end of September 1970. Britain's exports to Finland after that fell by £5.2 million in 1972, and imports from Finland increase by £31.3 million.
A study of foreign trade statistics and royal tours overseas shows many other interesting things. During the ten year period 1971-1980 Britain's trade with the old British Commonwealth increased by a factor of two. In the same period trade with Europe increased by a factor of eight. Even trade with the U.S.S.R. increased by a factor of five. By contrast, trade with Jamaica fell by a disastrous 23 per cent. During the same period the amount of time devoted to state visits by the Queen was almost a precise reversal of the order of the increase in trade to the places concerned. Royal visits to the old Commonwealth totalled 116 days, compared to just 33 days to E.E.C. countries. The Queen spent five days in Jamaica, and no time at all in Russia. One obvious inference to be drawn from all of this, is that the less involvement there is with British royalty, the better the prospects for Britain's export trade. Another is that the trade of Commonwealth countries does not conspicuously benefit from the sharing of the same royal sovereign as head of state.
The conclusion to be drawn in the end, however, is really that international trade is affected by a wide variety of factors, to which the Monarchy is largely irrelevant. There is no evidence for the view that monarchy is good for trade. There is, on the contrary, very sound evidence that, if anything, it could be bad for trade.
As with trade, so with tourism: it might well be questioned whether the British constitution should reflect the values of Ruritanian or Toy. Town spectacle. A nation's proud history may well provide, incidentally, engaging spectacle. But it is surely a sign of national decadence that the mere spectacle itself should be promoted as a substitute for the authentic objects of pride themselves. What have the Guards come to, when their principal function degenerates to one of satisfying tourists' curiosity?
Still, suppose that tourism were an acceptable basis for monarchy; does the Monarchy in fact promote tourism? On the face of it, it seems very unlikely. At the times when most tourists visit Britain, royals are either abroad themselves, or else vacationing in the remoter parts of their private country seats. Tourists never see them. And as a tourist attraction Buckingham Palace has no more need of a monarch than does the Palace of Versailles.
Even a brief study of the facts is enough to establish that the Monarchy has little or no discernible effect on promoting tourism. The Tourism Compendium, published by the World Tourism Organisation, provides evidence for a very different picture.9 Measured in gross income from tourism for 1980, both Italy ($8,914 million) and France ($8,232 million) among European countries earned more money from tourism than Britain ($6,982 million); and they are both republics. A more realistic assessment is on the basis of annual per capita income from tourism. On this basis in 1980 no less than eleven other countries earned more than Britain ($132): Austria ($860), Switzerland ($484), Denmark ($260), Spain ($188), Norway ($188), Greece ($186), the Netherlands ($181), Belgium ($180), Italy ($157), and France ($150). Notably, half of the 'top ten' earners are republics, including the most successful by far: Austria and Switzerland.
Another interesting picture emerges from a comparison of the number of tourists visiting various countries per capita of population. In 1985, for example, the following order was recorded: Austria (2.2), Switzerland <1.46), Ireland (0.734), Greece <0.71), France (0.69), Portugal (0.50), Italy (0.44), the United Kingdom (0.27), and West Germany (0.21). Not being a continental nation might explain the United Kingdom's lagging behind most European republics, but it doesn't explain why Ireland is more successful in attracting tourists. Even among monarchies, Britain lags behind Spain (0.742), Belgium (0.72), Denmark (0.70), and Norway (0.47).
Income from tourism should not be considered apart from expenditure on tourism. There is a 'balance of tourism' to be accounted for. A positive balance of the tourism account occurs when a country's income from tourism is greater than its expenditure on foreign travel. On this basis, it is illuminating to compare republics and monarchies on the basis of positive and negative balances of tourism accounts. Of ten relevantly comparable republics, nine have positive balances (Austria, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia) and just one has a negative balance - West Germany. Significantly the republic with a negative balance is also the most wealthy country. By comparison, of nine comparable monarchies, seven have negative balances of tourism (Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Canada, and Morocco), and just two have positive balances (Spain and Britain). Spain has a warm climate which explains its position, with no need to invoke monarchy at all. Britain's singular positive balance of tourism might be construed as evidence to support the case for monarchy as a tourist attraction. But this would be to ignore the weight of all the evidence. The fact is that the trend has increasingly been for Britons to spend more abroad. By 1980 income from tourism, at $6,982 million, was very Little more than expenditure on travel abroad ($6,454 million). We might as well infer from this that, increasingly, Britons have been driven abroad by the repulsion of monarchy, as infer that income from tourism is attributable to the attractions of monarchy.
Prominence is given to the myth that monarchy is a tourist attraction, but there has been little effort to establish positively whether, in reality, it is. Official Home Office immigration statistics for 1985 showed that apart from Business (20.78 per cent) and Study (3.09 per cent) a large group (20.01 per cent) come simply to visit friends and relatives. Only a minority (46.00 per cent) came for holidays or recreation. It is not easy to establish the extent of the effect of the Monarchy on this minority, though it is unlikely to be great, for the reasons already given. One survey of incoming tourists conducted by the British Tourist Authority does give some reliable information however. Only 12 per cent of people who chose Britain first to visit even mentioned royalty, the Palace, or the Changing of the Guard. All of these things put together ranked royalty only ninth out of ten attractions, behind scenic country, historical places, visiting friends, castles, friendly people, cultural events, way of life, and general sightseeing. Only night-life ranked lower, and that by just 1 point (11 per cent).10 The most celebrated recent grand imperial royal spectacle, the wedding of the heir to the throne, Charles, and the future queen, Diana, took place in 1981, in which year the number of tourists slumped by almost one million to 11.5 million, from 12.5 million in 1980.11 Even if it were true that the Monarchy is a major tourist attraction, that would not be a very good reason for having it. As it happens there is little or no substance in the belief that the Monarchy is a major tourist attraction. Since they are never to be seen during high season for tourism that is only to be expected.
Finally, there is evidence that the direct costs of maintaining royal tourist attractions are greater than the income generated. Department of Environment estimates showed in 1988 that it costs up to £16 million a year to run the royal palaces, but the income generated is as little as £8 million.'12 In conclusion, there is no reason to believe that the Monarchy in fact is good either for business or tourism. There is sound evidence to show, if anything, the very opposite. It is, of course, unnecessary, and even undesirable that a head of state should have such a role. In Britain, however, the belief that such a role is fulfilled does serve to bolster support for the Monarchy. Since the belief is evidently false it goes to show how much support for the Monarchy is based on myths.
REFERENCES
1 St George (1981, p.10).
2 Harris (1966,p.32).
3 Blumler (1971,p. 154).
4 Bolingbroke (1926,p. 116).
5 Frazer (1970, pp.351.355).
6 Wells (1939,p.35).
7 Duncan (1970,p.17; p.67; p.334; p.342).
8 Buckingham Palace (1983) and Central Statistical Office (1982, pp. 318-321; 1986, pp.231.234).
9 World Tourism Organisation (1981; 1986).
10 British Tourism Authority (1971); cited in G. Young (1983, p.42).
11 World Tourism Organisation (1982).
12 Davie (1988).
-56-57: '.. tradition.. Churchill perceptively remarked that the traditions of the British Navy are rum, sodomy, and the lash. .. most British people.. are not told, .. do not understand, or else.. forget that the most honourable British tradition.. is a radical tradition: the tradition of questioning traditions. The freedoms.. such as they are have been won only after long and often violent struggle against the forces of conservatism and reaction. Not least.. the parade of royal dynasties, from the Normans to the Hanover-Windsors. Typically, William IV, when Duke of Clarence, argued.. against the abolition of the slave trade.. humane radicals such as John Ball, John Lilburne, Tom Paine and Keir Hardie. .. illustrious names.. Milton, Blake and Shelley. What a travesty .. that .. so many people should fondly believe .. the reactionary and philistine family 'Hanover-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha' (now Windsor) that represents our best traditions, for that is approximately the opposite of the truth.
Since the Norman conquest.. rapacity, murderousness, bullying, insanity, etc etc..
Not even strict legitimacy has been maintained.. In proposing The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick in 1874, Charles Bradlaugh was able to appeal to the fact that, out of 33 monarchs in the succession from William the Conqueror to Victoria, only 13 had succeeded by straightforward hereditary right. Students of Constitutional Law at Oxford used to be entertained by Maitland's demonstration that the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha had no legal title to the throne of England. Only by changing the rules could it be legitimated. [Heuston, 1964, 'Essays in Constitutional Law'] One monarchist, Charles Petrie, recognises that the present dynasty, 'the Hanoverians, were usurpers.. depending on a minority whose fortunes were linked to theirs, for both in 1715 and 1745 the English people had shown .. that it was not prepared to lift a finger to keep them on the throne.' .. 'pathetic rambling invalid old King.. Regency.. self-indulgent dissolute prince.. king so blandly foolish that he kept the official world in perpetual apprehension of a new imbecility he might utter in public [William IV] ..'
As to the Britishness of the Monarchy, that is a black joke. Geoffrey Bocca has interestingly pointed out that the present Queen is the first British sovereign to have British blood in her veins; and that through her Scottish mother. [G Bocca, The Uneasy Heads: A report on European Monarchy, 1959] The dynastic name 'Windsor' was chosen only in 1917.. by the Hanover-Saxe-Coburg-Gothas.. Prince Philip .. abandoned his traditional name of Schleswig-Holstein Soenderberg-Gluecksberg for similar reasons.. in 1947.. ever since the Revolution Settlement of 1689, the British Monarchy has been the instrument of the plutocratic establishment of Britain, .. deployed to legitimise an unjust and inequitable social structure. For this purpose it has always been more convenient to have mediocre and tamed foreign princelings, 'Hanoverian Mercenaries', on the British throne. That is the real tradition..
[David Cannadine in New Society & in 'The Invention of Tradition' has looked into the supposed typical royal traditions.. 'invented in the recent past by royal public-relations persons']
-67: [Chapter 10: Commonwealth:] [Note: British empire:] '.. colonial power.. subservience and exploitation.. The British Empire meant economic exploitation on an unprecedented global scale. Expanded trade meant debt and bankruptcy for colonial nations, and immense fortunes for colonialist nabobs. Entire industries were destroyed. The Indian cotton industry .. once the largest producer and exporter in the world, was during the 19th C reduced by the effects of British tariffs virtually to nothing. British 'liberty' frequently took the form of vigorously suppressing dissent against criminal exploitation. .. Trinidad.. British West African courts to 10 years' jail for stealing two shillings' worth of yams and the sentence confirmed by Appeal Courts [NB: Trinidad death row reported on TV still to be controlled by British court].. [Mann, H H, 'Why Were They Proud?', 1939, Pacifist Research Bureau]
.. 68: South Africa.. 1971 Heath's proposal.. 1981 UN and Britain's veto on sanctions against Namibia annexation.. 1986 Powell .. 'contraption of the Commonwealth.. blind ourselves to the reality.. at best indifferent..' .. power of unsentimental financial interests .. and how the Monarchy is ultimately subservient to them.'
.. 69: [Note: world poverty:] 'At the Commonwealth Conference in Delhi in 1983, [Thatcher] directly opposed the proposals of the chairwoman, Mrs Gandhi, to boost Third World development. [P Keatley in 21st Jan 1984 Guardian] ..'
-71: '.. US.. immune to myth of the Commonwealth.. 1984 .. Grenada.. left-wing government.. 1987 elected government of Fiji ousted by a coup almost certainly inspired by the American CIA..'
-76ff: [Chapter 12: Impartiality. General thrust is it's absurd to expect tax dodging multi millionaires etc etc to be impartial:] 'Victoria.. so-called Liberals, but better called destructives.' .. Edward VII .. banned Keir Hardie from royal garden parties..
George V .. general election of January 1924.. no overall .. majority, but.. Labour as the largest single party, he is reported to have.. tried to cobble together an anti-socialist coalition..
Edward VIII showed briefly some signs of genuine impartiality during his time as Prince of Wales. .. 1920s.. first hand.. pit villages.. almost ashamed to be an Englishman. .. Manchester Guardian in 1935.. there were informed people who were sure that the real reasons why Edward VIII was an unacceptable monarch for Baldwin and the establishment, had more to do with his dangerous ideas.. than.. choice of bride. ..' [Hale, 1972, unpublished University of Kentucky PhD dissertation available on British Library microfilm]
-85-86: 'Worsthorne.. 1979.. When Treason can be right.. Labour government.. quite natural to start looking to the United States [C.I.A.] for succour.... Grigg.. says '.. as before the first world war, some Tories are showing themselves .. shaky in their allegiance to Parliamentary government.' ..'
-97: 'The materialist view with reference to monarchy is set out in Marx's discussion of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte'. According to Marx, in the events of 1848-1851, the rival royalist factions - the Bourbons and the Orleanists - were not divided by articles of faith of royalism.. Under the Bourbons, big landed property had governed, whereas under the Orleans capital had governed. The former was the political expression of the hereditary rule of landowners and its attendant priests and lackeys. The latter.. of the usurped rule of bourgeois parvenus, and their lawyers, professors and smooth-tongued orators. 'What kept the two factions apart.. was their material conditions of existence, two different kinds of property; it was the old contrast between town and country, the rivalry between capital and landed property.' .. 'for a long time the Tories.. imagined that they were enthusiastic about monarchy, the church, and the beauties of the old English Constitution, until the day of reckoning wrung the confession.. that they are enthusiastic only about ground rent.'
-104: [Book by Wild, 1938, [Note: many instances of word:] 'Intuition', 'identified no less than thirty-one distinct definitions']
-114-5: [Note: desperation behaviour: Myths which lead to stupidity, or 'behaviour ill-adapted to the objective order of nature'. Example here is the Ghost Dance religion in North American Indians in 1890, started by Paiute prophet Wodziwob. Let to Sioux rebellion, death of Sitting Bull, massacre at Wounded Knee. (Cp Anton Powell on Xhosas in South Africa, new religion, he said, involving crop destruction; I think I came across another in 'Life in Roman Britain')
Also Japanese and mythic mediaeval Samurai warrior codes
And German myth of Aryan superiority]
-118: '.. basic picture the myth presents.. main models are: The Family; The Body; The Organism; The State; The Personality; The Beehive; The Machine; and The Arch. ..'
-120: '.. British people.. have far fewer festivals and holidays than most other people..'
-121: 'Norman Birnbaum.. points out that ritual may satisfy the outward demands of conformity and allow transgression of the rules to go unimpeded. 'In the ceremonial throng at Westminster there may have been one or two accomplished evaders of income tax. Yet we have no evidence that ritual enthusiasms moved any such persons to maker remissions to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.' ..'
-141: [Chapter 26: History and 'Persons' (sic)] '.. Before the Norman conquest, kingship was elective, and had a mundane basis in local communities, utility and the common law. William.. and his successors attempted to impose an absolute monarchic authority that was rejected.. by Magna Carta (1215). ... a legal, not a regal basis, and secures the rights of property owners against the Monarchy. The concept of absolute monarchical authority was re-invented by James I and developed by Filmer, this time on the religious basis of divine right. [I.e. presumably as opposed to force. NB: On Filmer, he may be following Russell here; HWP is in the bibliography, though not acknowledged at this point in the text] As James I put it.. 'Kings are justly called gods..'
The civil war.. established the first republic of the modern era in England.. therefore a reassertion of the principles of Magna Carta against divine right absolutism. Its leading philosopher.. Locke, argued that all men with powers of reason and self-direction have equal rights to determine their own destinies. But Locke .. excluded the mass of property-less individuals.. following Ecclesiasticus .. 'whose talk is of bullocks' .. Burke's Reflections.. .. reiterated similar views .. 'hair dresser.. tallow chandler..'
The progress from feudalism to modern political democracy and universal adult franchise can.. be seen as the progressive rejection of the idea that social status, occupation, and wealth, are necessary requisites for full personal recognition..
.. the essence of morality as defined by Kant...
Even.. most conservatives who value social hierarchy pay public obeisance to democracy, which they suppose to be compatible with hierarchy. .. Democratic principles provide criteria.. Monarchy.. can be assessed by.. standards of liberty, equality and justice, and fraternity.'
-168: [Note: Rule of 3:] '.. democratic ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity' ... '.. Gladstone.. government must be conducted by 'force, fraud, or good-will' ... '
-181: 'As Ronald Butt has pointed out, Britain is the only important Western country lacking a constitutional check on an elected majority. ..'
-182: '[G D H] Cole argued that it was desirable to find an association and method of representation for each function of society. He even suggested the maxim: 'One man as many votes as interests, but only one vote in relation to each interest.' ..'
-187: [Chapter 36: Political Postscript: possibility of change? Includes possibility that Thatcherite Tories might turn against monarchy] '.. Willie Hamilton virtually unique.. regarded as a licensed jester..
.. definition of conservatives, who believe that nothing should be done for the first time; and of moderates who believe that it should.. but not now!! ['not yet' I think is the usual St Augustine version]
If the Church of England is the Tory Party at prayer, then the Monarchy must be the answer to its prayers. As Kingsley Martin has explained, Disraeli, by a stroke of genius, related the Queen to the interests of the nation, as conceived by the Conservative Party. After that it became impossible radically to question a conservative view of the nation and the national interest, without being charged with disloyalty to the Queen. And as Lord Esher candidly observed, the monarch is naturally bound to the Tory party. [K Martin, 'Evolution of the popular monarchy' in Political Quarterly 1936/ 'The Crown and the Establishment' 1963]
Liberals have, in principle, been opposed to monarchy.. In the 1820s, Bentham.. said 'the Radical as well as the Liberal respects the existence of the monarchy and the House of Lords.' [source is Gossman, 1962, 'Republicanism in 19th C England', in 'International Review of Social History'] Gladstone was in a position decisively to undermine the Monarchy, but desisted.. out of deference to the Queen.' [Hardie in 1979 book, 'The Political Influence of the British Monarchy 1868-1952'. Same book quoted on p 76, 'if Gladstone had publicised even just a part of the truth, Britain would have become a republic before the start of the twentieth century.' The truth being Victoria's opposition to national compulsory education, reduced working hours for children, votes for women.]
-188: [Hogg = Hailsham:] '.. In any event, true conservatives conserve whatever the initiative of others proves to be of value. From this point of view, the 'stupid party' represents no permanent obstacle to constitutional change, since it can be relied upon to 'accept established authority, wherever it is found, without enquiring too closely into its documents or title' [Hogg, Q., 1947 'The Case for Conservatism']
-190-191: [Wilson surveys arguments pro-monarchy]
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