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The Queen's world tour in 1953-4 produced a bumper crop of pictorial and prose reports to fit every purse and the prevailing taste for flowery adulation. These books were bought and read, or at least looked at, after the British public already had been exposed to newspaper accounts, magazine reports, radio bulletins, and television newsreels. Once at a dinner party the wife of a famous writer remarked: "I'm sick of this damned tour." The other guests broke into a flurry of conversation that had nothing to do with the royal voyage. Yet I learned that three of them felt "exactly as dear Betty does, but, my dear, you don't say it."

Some thoughtful students of the institution believe that the newspapers, magazines, radio, and television have forgotten Bagehot's injunction about letting too much light fall on the monarchy. But I have seen no diminution of popular interest. The highbrows may be bored, but the lowbrows and middlebrows love it.

The extensive coverage given the royal family has propaganda uses. In the years since the war there has been a quiet but intensive effort to reinforce the position of the monarch as the titular head of the Commonwealth. The rulers of Britain, Labor or Conservative, recognizing how slender are the ties that bind the Commonwealth, have worked steadily to strengthen the chief spiritual tie, the Crown, as political and economic ties have become attenuated.