THE QUEEN'S WATCHWORD.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 29, 4 February 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE QUEEN'S WATCHWORD.

SOME REMARKABLE CON VERSA-

TIONS WITH HER MAJESTY,

THE RECOLLECTIONS OF 'A MAID

OF HONOUR.'

CAN THE AUTHORESS BE PRINCESS LOUISE?

(From Our Special Correspondent.)

LONDON, December 23

Nothing could emphasise more forcibly the difference that has come over the atmosphere of the English Court of late years than the leakages which lake place as to what goes on at Windsor, Osborne, and Balmoral. Tittle-tattle about her private life was for years one of the things Her Majesty couldn't and wouldn't abide. The unauthorised speculations of ignoramuses she had, of course, to put \i]) with. But woe betide her entourage on occasions when the illustrious lady had reason to believe from gossip in the papers that 'somebody' had been talking, or (worse still) writing indiscreetly. Til! the mystery of the somebody's personality was solved Her Majesty never rested, and then — well—he or she got a tremendous wigging. Latterly the Queen has seemed a good deal less particular in this respect. All sorts of details of court life have appeared in the popular magazines, sometimes illustrated, and the editors have given us to believe Her Majesty passed them. This is not quite true. The Queen's views on the privacy of home, be it palace or cottage, are what they always were, but, influenced by Princess Beatrice and Princess Louise, she has reluctantly and only partially submitted to the Paul Pry spirit of the age. After all, if people must know what the sovereign eats and drinks, and wears and thinks, it is better they should have the truth than the many inventions of the American scribe.

Just at present the world is much interested in some remarkable 'Recollections of a Maid of Honour,' who reproduces iv the January number of the 'Quiver ' conversations addressed to her by the Queen in recent years at Osborne. The conversations are of the greatest interest, and will be read with lively curiosity in all Her Majesty's dominions. The authoress is freely stated to be the Princess Louise, and certainly she seems to have an intimate knowledge of the Queen's lines of thought. 1 append extracts: —

Some years ago the. Queen was seated at a window of Osborne House, and gazing upon the marvellous sight of Spithead full of ships. "Few can look upon it without a thrill; what wonder, therefore, if she of whom it could be said, making a slight change in the poet's words.

"All men and nations all were hers' what wonder if she were moved!

The '.Maid of Honour' then proceeds to describe the vision which may have passed before the mind's eye of the Queen as she gazed on the endless procession of ships, typical of the extent and wealth and power of the dominion over which her sway extended.

Presently the Queen spoke

TOWARDS THIS END OF THE CHAPTER.

'I have often been struck by the sight,' she said; 'but it never appeared 1 think so wonderful as to-day. Just, now it seemed so astonishing to me as to be hardly real. I suppose I am getting an old woman; and as one nears the end of the chapter that closes this earthly pilgrimage the underlying spiritual fact is apt to strike "one more than it formerly did, while the hard material shell, with its tendency to corrode and drop away, becomes less and less important. . .

A VISION OF EMPIRE

'Just now, when you came Ln, I waa dreaming—day dreaming. Seeing all those ships coming and going, my yjiirit seemed to be carried away, first by one and then by another. Now 1 was in Australia; now in India; Africa I saw, and Canada; then all the islands and their people; the rock of Gibraltar, Hongkong, Aden, and the Seychelles passed before me. And at every port I saw ships entering and leaving, and men at desks receiving and transmitting messages. And" it was everywhere, "What are they doing —what are they thinking—in England?"

'THEIR DAILY TASKS IN PEACE.'

'When I was a child my dear mother took me about a great deal, and I saw people at work in all kinds of ways and in every sort of industry. The things 1 saw made a deep impression upon me, and 1 have never ceased to think of them. . . All these people ask is to be allowed to do their daily task in peace, to earn their daily bread, and to have a little fringe of play.'

After some further conversation, the Queen continued—

'. . . And see what they have done since I came to the throne by their thought and toil; they have made this Empire what it is.'

SOVEREIGNS AND THEIR INFLUENCE.

After a pause, Her Majesty continned: 'The work wilj continue after I am gone; but 1 sometimes wonder in what way. Sovereigns have their influence, and when they die it stops, or seems to. In only a few instances it is otherwise. King Alfred turned the national mind to learning, and perhaps the influence he exerted never wholly died. William I. set a hammer going that in the end turned a nation of iron into a nation of steel. The last Henry made the country Protestant. Elizabeth—the great Elizabeth — transformed it into a ■ nation of heroes.'

'Her influence surely has not died,' observed the maid of honour.

'No; it would seem as if something of her spirit still inspires the people who speak the tongue she spoke— still sends them' in those winged ships round the world. I can hardly hope to leave such an influence; and yet under my rule the people who were counted by hundreds haw; grown to thousands, the thousands to millions; and that has come, about because, for the most part, my reign has been one of peace. There have been Avars, but they have been to establish peace, to give people security in pursuing the arts of peace.

THE QUEEN'S WATCHWORD.

'Wars for that end are justifiable, but for no other. My influence has ever been for peace. Only under a regime of peace can a people grow in those graces and virtues ■which it is the aim of our religion to inculcate. There is no reason why a nation devoted to peace should become weak and effeminate. The labours of men in' their peaceful callings—in mines and quarries, on the sea, in furnaces and ironworks, building railways and.

laying submarine and other cables, exploring and planting new colonies —all these labours are as arduous as those of the soldier, and they call out stronger and more enduring qualities. 'I would not have the English people study less and practise themselves less "in the art of war; I would not have them show one whit less of. that high spirit that has carried them so far; but, if it were in my power, I Mould have, all those ships, when they meet in the ocean, and when they touch at a. port —I would have them say to each other, "Friends, the watchword is—Peace."

THE DESTINY OF ENGLAND

'1 do not mean that quite literally, perhaps, but 1 am convinced that peace conquers more, than the sword; i"or men, working together in peace, exchanging-, bartering, dependent upon one another, cannot but grow more and more thoughtful for one another, more and more just. . • 'That is my belief. That, too, I 'believe is the destiny of the English speaking people.

■WHEN lAM DEAD.' '

'If, when 1 am dead, they hono-ur me enough to think of what I would wish and what 1 would pray for on their behalf, L would have them always associate my namc> with peace and the amity that promotes the ends of justice and of right. . . 'The English people have been exceptionally blessed by Providence, and great things, 1 believe, arc expected of them by the Almighty; and in what way could they please Him more than by promoting the ends which, during my reign, have been the means of causing so much, general happiness, such wide-spread content? I have the confidence to believe that such is their destiny; and nothing that I know of would give me so aiucl* pleasure as to be assured that my spirit could in any way watch over and aid the accomplishment of that noble work.