The results are well known: As my colleague Mark Steyn has pointed out, thanks to Mr.

Keating, Australia now has an elected head of state. Her name is Elizabeth. Given a choice between Crown and republic, Australians voted to keep the Queen, by a majority of 55%. She carried every state. Mr. Keating has since found other work, while Mr.

Manley, after the Queen's latest triumph, ponders a political career that might have been.

Still, give Mr. Manley credit: At least he takes the monarchy seriously, which is more than can be said for Jean Chretien, whose only defence of the institution he is sworn to uphold has always been that it wasn't worth the fuss of changing it. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. This is what passes for loyalty in a country that cannot be roused even to object to its own destruction. But it's still odd.

The Crown is not some colonial pantomime. It is the rock on which the country stands, the foundation of our legal and political order. It is in the first line of the Constitution, the 1867 one, in which is expressed Confederation's raison d'etre: that the provinces should be "federally united into One Dominion under the Crown." Yet so determined is the political class to undermine its legitimacy that it is the people who support the existing constitutional order whom the press treats as eccentrics. Much as people who merely wish their country to remain intact are given the crankish-sounding label of "federalists," so those who profess nothing more controversial than loyalty to the head of state are exoticized as "monarchists." But perhaps that is about to change. It was not for nothing that every newspaper in the country played that royal dropping of the puck across its front page. It was an event of enormous symbolic importance, a moment of perfect fusion between sovereign and subjects. That this small gesture should have elicited such enormous public reaction is a sign of both the monarchy's strength and its weakness. To be sure, it is remarkable how easily the embers of public affection can be stoked into a flame. But my God, are we starved for her attention.

And this is where Mr. Manley has a point, or half of one, with his calls for a "truly Canadian" head of state. We should be clear. The problem is not the monarchy. The Toronto Star may be puzzled that Canada "still clings to a 19th-century tradition." (Yes, yes, and while we're cleaning house, let's sweep out that 2,000-year-old relic, democracy.) Jeffrey Simpson may find the heredity nature of the office irrational.

But reason even reason doubts. It is not science but scientism that decrees that everything must have an obvious, rational purpose. I could make a string of arguments for the Crown on reasoned grounds. But ultimately you either get it or you don't. And, by and large, Canadians do.

But their affections for the Queen are stretched -- by the distance between Great Britain and us, by the infrequency of her visits, by her obvious foreignness. The problem, I repeat, is not the monarchy. It is that the office has been entrusted to an absentee landlord. The time has come to plant the Maple Crown in Canadian soil.

How is it possible to square the circle: to keep the Crown, with all its continuity and majesty, but still make it Canadian? By inviting a member of the House of Windsor over to establish a new wing of the dynasty. The royal I have in mind is Prince Harry.

The chances may seem remote: London for Ottawa might not be everyone's idea of a fair exchange. But it's just possible he could be induced to take one for the team. Charles, by the Grace of God, will one day be king, and so in his turn will William. Harry, on the other hand, faces a future filled with photography, or furniture-making, or whatever it is that royal also-rans do with their time. How much more fulfilling to take on the role of Henry I of Canada.

The Queen could invest him with the title herself. Or, if the division of the Crown smacks of lese-majeste, we could simply adopt the convention that the office of Governor General should be held by Harry, his heirs and successors. Either way, no constitutional amendment would be required.

Imagine a country in which the Crown was not just a respected symbol, but a living presence. Imagine a king who grew up in Canada, spoke with a Canadian accent, played Canadian sports. Imagine Canada as our founders originally intended: not a republic, nor even a dominion, but a kingdom.

A lost cause? Bosh. The game's afoot. Follow your spirit, and upon this charge cry God for Harry, Canada, and St. Jude!