succession to be by birth alone, and ought there to be some amendments to the present law or not?
As you well known, the King has absolute power in everything. This principle is very good and very suitable for the country, as long as we have a good King. If the King is really an Elected King it is probable that he would be a fairly good King. But this idea election is really a very theoretical one, and in reality the King⟨s⟩ of Siam are really hereditary, with a very limited possibility of choice. Such being the case, it is not at all certain that we shall always have a good King. Then the absolute power may become a positive danger to the country. Besides this, things have very much changed. In olden days the actions of the King were hardly ever questioned. It would not have been safe to do so. The King was really respected and his words were really laws. But things began to change with the new order of things. In the days of King Chulalongkorn, the King was still very much feared and respected. Even then towards to the end of the Reign, there was a young party who began to criticize the King in many ways, but not openly. In the Reign which has just ended, things got much worse, for many reasons which I have no need to tell you, as you known them well enough. The King has become a person liable to be influenced by anybody who could gain the ears of a favourite. Every official is more or less suspected ⟨of⟩ embezzlement or nepotism. Fortunately the Princes were still respected as being on the whole honest folks. What was very regrettable was that the Court was heartily detested and in later years was on the verge of being
