KING GEORGE’S PART.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 84, 21 January 1936, Page 6

KING GEORGE’S PART.

I MONARCH’S UNFALTERING jf DEVOTION. [not mere routine formality. f Kings of England do not rule, but living George none the less did I much more than reign. He nevei ■dreamed of interfering with his Ministers’ constitutional exercise of power I but bo never for a moment reduced (himself to the level of a royal figuiefliead setting liis formal signature at (the foot of documents as directed. I lie first King of England to have to deal |with a Labour Government he adapted (himself to the situation with a tact [and friendliness to which members ol the first Labour Cabinet like Lord j Snowden have paid cordial tribute. The decision he had to take in 1931, when (faced with the advice of the outgoing (Prime Minister regarding the reconstruction of the Government, was anything but a mere routine foimality.l It is at this time of sorrow that Ins subjects everywhere will recognise Ins courage, his simplicity, Ins wisdom and his unfaltering devotion to duty which made him a pattern of what the ruler of a democratic people should be. 1 It was a troubled inheritance to which King George succeeded: Ireland was in a state of grave unrest, the outrages committed by suffragettes to (secure votes for women more serious, and there was a crisis over the powers jof the House of 'Lords. But iar more (menacing than any of these was the naval rivalry between England and (Germany which none could stay _ I Despite the entreaties of Disraeli land Gladstone that Queen Victoria should visit the Emerald Isle more often or that tho Prince of Males should leside there for some weeks m each year, because “the Irish were vearnino- for tho occasional presence and inspiration of Royalty,” nothing (was done till it was too late and the position became acute. King Edward Imade visits in 1903, 1904 and 190/, [but his visits did not affect the position politically. Reform in the House [of Lords was strenuously opposed m King George’s first years as Sovereign, the Invasion of a host of new Peers being looked upon with horror. In the spring of 1914 Asquith s Home Rule Bill had passed the Housel of Commons sufficiently often to make! it law whether the Lords liked it orl not. Its main provision was a Parliament. for all Ireland which : would control all her internal affairs, but be subject to the Crown. Ulster was solid against Home Rule and civil war threatened. She was, arming, and had over 100,000 volunteers ready to fight for her independence, while tho Nationalists had about the same number. Disaster was averted by the temporary exclusion of six counties from the provisions of the Bill. “The Cry of Civil War.” The outlook was so daiigerous, however, that the King, on July 21, summoned a conference at Buckingham

Palace representing the four parties in Parliament. The King himself opened tho conference with an exceedingly grave speech in which, he said 1 , “The cry of civil war is on ,the lips of the most responsible and sober-minded of my people.” The conference could not arrive at any compromise and it sat for the last time on July 24, 1914. Bad news was coming through from Ireland regarding the landing of arms and clashes occurred.

On August 4, England was at war with Germany and just as the trouble over female suffrage vanished on that date, so also did the threatened civil war in Ireland. However, the Irish question seethed again and in 1916, at the threat of conscription, rebellion broke out and British troops suppressed it. At the end of tho war Ireland was in the hands of the ISinn Feiners and eventually the Irish Free State was set up. Throughout these long and dangerous passages the King had strictly observed the limits of liis constitutional power; now, without overstepping them, he found opportunity for personal service. With the Queen he went to Belfast and opened the first Ulster Parliament. His speech was a model of all that a King can say, using to the utmost the legitimate prestige of the Crown and the weight of his own personal authority. He barely referred to the troubled past, but concentrated on hopes for the future and the keynote of his speech was sounded thus:

“Most certainly there is no wish nearer my heart than that every man of Irish birth whatever be his creed and whatever be his home, should work in loyal co-operation with the free communities on which the British Empire is based.” It is unfortunately true that we still wait for the fulfilment of his words, but it is equally true that never has a Sovereign more perfectly used his powers and observed his limitations than did King George during the whole of his dealings with his troubled island. He gave Ulster just that inspiration of. Royalty of which Disraeli had spoken 53 years before, and whereas Queen Victoria had reckoned Gladstone a traitor to her Empire for his advocacy of Home Rule, the King accepted its accomplishment with a truer and more statesmanlike wisdom. Fight For Women's Rights. While, upon hearing that some women had spoken in favour of female suffrage, Queen Victoria said that “Lacfy C ought to have a good whipping,” King Edward was not so drastically disposed, though he had a strong objection to women stepping out of their “proper sphere.” As late as 1908, he poured scalding vials of wrath upon Mr Lloyd George for attending and speaking at a meeting on the subject. Irritation was being roused by the hooliganism of the more militant section of the suffragettes and Mr Lloyd George warned tliem that they were doing a disservice to their cause, but for six years, up to the outbreak of the Great War, in the fifth year of King George’s reign, these injudicious women continued 1 their operations, getting no nearer their goal. Their leaders were earnest and noble-minded' women, but their notion of making themselves such a nuisance only enlisted the attention of the police. They padlocked themselves to the railways in Downing Street and to the pulpit in in Westminster Abbey, they set fire, to haystacks, they broke windows, they slashed Sargent’s portrait of Henry James at the Royal Academy and were credited with a plot to kidnap or kill Lloyd George when golfing. They; committed a thousand futile and foolish outrages in order to terrorise the nation into granting tlieir demands. Certainly they were in earnest, for they gladly faced prison and forced feeding for the cause, but no Government could possibly hear their appeals while they acted in this way. This then, was another phase of the troubled inheritance into which King George stepped. On the outbreak of war, however, the stupid outrages ceased abruptly and were never renewed. Women came forward in thousands to help the nation and the story lof what they achieved is one of the bright spots of those dark days of conflict. Their general emancipation followed and they were given the suffrage and seats in Parliament. England Coes to War. The break-down in the Irish negotiations had barely passed by when war clouds gathered oyer Europe. When France mobilised against Germany Britain promised all naval aid if the German fleet attacked the French coast, her neutrality thereby being conditionally abandoned. Throughout the week before England went to war, King George had used to the full such powers as the constitution gave him. He had written _to his first cousins, the Tsar of Russia and the Emperor of Germany, bringing all personal influence to bear, but personal influence now was worthless. Poincare appealed to him to urge his Governjment to declare its policy, but • lie jcould promise no more than that it (should carefully .-consider all the French proposals regarding an entente. His own feeling was that if Germany attacked France, ive were absolutely bound to intervene, and the violation “ of Belgium made it clear that she was moving her armies in order to do so. Germany’s military plans had been laid and Belgium was nothing more than the most convenient route to France. • . , The invincible sentimentality or tno British nation was stirred and it was the violation of the territory of a small power that gave the Government the slogan for a course that might have saved the situation if it had been taken before. Never was there a Sovereign more at one with the will of liis people than when, on the night of August 14, huge crowds assembled outside Buckingham Palace and waited for Big Ben to proclaim in twelve strokes that England was at war with Germany.