The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1906. THE KING'S BIRTHDAY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 262, 9 November 1906, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1906. THE KING'S BIRTHDAY.

For the cause that lacks assistance. For the vrro-ng that needs resistance, For the future in the distance. And the good that we c<_» do.

It is likely that among the millions of

loyal men and women of __>ritish race who are keeping holiday to-day, only a very small number have attempted to realise the true significance and import-

ance of the anniversary they are celebrating. But tne mere fact that tne

subjects of the King throughout his world-wide Empire have combined to-day

to do honour to the Throne is of more value than any quantity of philosophical disquisitions on the nature of British or Colonial loyalty. We accept the King and the Crown as matters of course, and the tacit assumption that they stand behind and above our national life is in itself an admission of their supreme importance to us all. The Empire, with all that it implies, is to be the average "Britisher" unthinkable without the Crown; and he does not need to protest his fidelity to the Throne or his personal attachment to the King. There are men who hold that loyalty and patriotism and pride of race arc mere "sentiments,'' and as such have no important part to play in a well-ordered scheme of life. But when we come to consider how great a portion oi our lives is dominated by sentiment, we begin to realise that it may be possible to overestimate the authority of pure unmitigated reason for either the individual or the race. Nor are those sentiments the most powerful and influential that we can define moat clearly, or discus, must publicly. And though most, of us might find some difficulty in explaining precisely why we keep King's Birthday, this annual eelehration has for us all a meaning none the h ,_ potent because it is generally taken for granted and is not in any case na.-y for the plain man to express in plain words. For Democratic as the British nation has become within the last halt centuiy, perhaps the must characteristic of ail our national qualities is our loyalty to the Throne. And even a very cursory acquaintance with our past history shows that the reason for the passionate devotion of the British people to the Crown is simply the general recognition of the great central truth of our Constitution that the sovereign exists to do the will of his subjects and to promote their welfare. Wherever a king has la-

boured faithfully and consistently in the interests of his people he has been rewarded with affection and fidelity. But the kingship in England deserve* and receives far more than the measure of loyal devotion that has been cheerfully accorded to many a benevolent despot or patriotic tyrant. From the point of view of sovereignty, the value of constitutional government consists in this, that it not only obviates a struggle between the king and the people, but, it ultimately strengthens the power and enhances the stability of the Throne by erecting it into a symbol, and an expression of the people's will. Not that the people at large trouble to analyse the situation in this way. But as year by year through the course of a long reign, they see tbe sovereign using the opportunities and prerogatives of royalty, not for personal or selfish ends, but for the promotion of their own welfare, they come to regard the Throne as the friend of the nation, the guardian to whom the people's rights have been committed as a sacred trust. Such xraithe lesson that the subjects of __ue... Victoria learned through the sixty eventful years of her re : gn ; and King Edward's record since his accession, has but served to deepen and emphasise the impression produced upon the popular imagination by the most widely revered sovereign who ever held the British sceptre. But beyond the loyalty that is one of the cherished traditions of our race. King Edward may claim from his people a sentiment of a more definite and personal kind. Not only does His Majesty personify that royal authority which a Democracy under such conditions honours as the expression of its own power. He has given to His tenure of the Throne a strongly personal significance by the energy and skill with which he has utilised the many opportunities afforded to a European sovereign of impressing himself upon the history of his age. More than any other British

sovereign in modern times, and probably more than any other European monarch of his day,

King Edward has played an individual

and active part in the sphere of international diplomacy. To his personal initiative, and to his unfailing tact and diplomatic skill we owe a whole series of arbitration treaties with foreign Powers, and we owe more especially that "cordial understanding" with France, which, has already proved the strongest of all defences to the peace of the world, and which seems likely to harden into a permanent bond of friendship and alliance.

Other English sovereigns have been respected and feared as the rulers of the British Empire, but King Edward is the first of our monarehs in modern times who has been recognised on the Continent as a personal force in European affairs. Xo more eloquent tribute was ever paid to the personal influence of any European monarch than the agitation and excitement worked up in Germany. France. and

Austria over the King's recent meeting with the Kaiser. Throughout the Continent King Edward has gained for himself the reputation of a statesman of the highest- order, and it is recognised that upon him rather than upon any other diplomatist of the age the course of history must depend in the immediate future. It is true that King Edward could command the loyalty of his people even if he had abstained from active participation in "'world politics." But it is a great satisfaction to the subjects of the King to feel to-day that in honouring him they are expressing respect and loyalty, not only for tho Throne with its magnificent traditions, not only for the ruler of England with his counties, opportunities for advancing the common weal, but for a man. strong and bold enough to hold his own in conflict with the greatest raonarchs and diplomatist., of the age, and to carry his

projects to a successful issue