THE CASE FOR REPUBLICANISM
these that the reader's attention is now particularly drawn. There are a great number of British people who are more or less sincerely seeking the secret of national efficiency at present, and I cannot help thinking that sooner or later, in spite of their evident aversion, they will be forced to look into this dusty chamber of thought for the clue to the thing they need. The corner they will have to turn is the admission that no State and no people can be at its maximum efficiency until every public function is discharged by the man best able to perform it, and that no Commonweal can be near efficiency until it is endeavouring very earnestly to bring that ideal condition of affairs about. And when they have got round that corner they will have to face the fact that an Hereditary Monarchy is a State in which this principle is repudiated at a cardinal point, a State in which one position, which no amount of sophistication will prevent common men and women regarding as the most honourable, powerful, and responsible one of all, which is indeed by that very fact alone a great and responsible one, is filled on purely genealogical grounds. In a State that has also an aristocratic constitution, this repudiation of special personal qualities is carried very much further. Reluctantly but certainly, the seeker after national efficiency will come to the point that the aristocracy and their friends and connections must necessarily form a caste about the King, that their gradations must set the tone of the whole social body, and that their political position must enable them to demand and obtain a predominating share in any adminis-
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