KING'S BIRTHDAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 131, 4 June 1923, Page 7

KING'S BIRTHDAY.

A PUBLIC HOLIDAY. RACES, REVIEWS AND SPORTS. ; DINNER TO THE VETERANS. To-day the public are observing as a holiday the fifty-eighth anniversary of the birth of King George V., which was celebrated by His Majesty yesterday. It EGcms relatively but a short while tince the King and Queen were touring these far Dominions as the Duke and Duchess of York: yet since those roseate days the Empire has passed through the pangs of infinite stress, in which Throne, Constitution, and individual liberty were all in jeopardy of their existence—has emerged triumphant after long travail, and a son of the King, grown to vigorous young manhood, lias followed in his father's footsteps and paid a visit to these shores to sec the distant subjects of the British Crown. In the days of the visit of the Duke of York the loyalty of New Zealanders was n theme for universal approbation, but since the Great War this loyalty has become even more firmly welded in the chain of Empire, and so the birthday of the King is more than ever a day of patriotic rejoicing and symbolical of the new British nationhood.

This morning thpro was a review by the Governor-General and march past of troops in the Domain: the annual parade of the King's Empire Veterans, followed by a lunch given in their honour by the jiayor and Mayoress, the Returned Soldiers' Association, and the Patriotic Association at the Town Hall. This afternoon there was to hare been a rally of Boy Scouts ami Girl Guides, who were to be inspected by the GovernorGeneral, but this was postponed owing to the rain. The Winter Meeting of the Auckland Racing Club is heingl continued at Ellerslie. Tonight therr are many houses of amusement to select from, and a boxing carnival will be conducted at the Town Hall. The city is crowded with visitors, and ill places of accommodation are full.

The recipients of birthday honours from the King will te invested by the Governor-General at a reception at Government House to-night, when opportunity will also be taken by Lord Jellicoe to present the Albert Medal to Mr. Charles Chapman, of Rotorua, the hero of the Paparoa, Valley floods in 1920, who saved the lives of two men, a woman and a child at great personal risk. ■