MONARCH'S PLEDGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 297, 15 December 1936, Page 7

MONARCH'S PLEDGE.

RESOLVED TO DO DUTY.

WILL UPHOLD HONOUR OF REALM.

HOUSE OF LORDS LOYAL ADDRESS.

(United Press Association. —Copyright.—Rec. 11 a.m.) LONDON, December 14. The House of Lords met this morning to take the oath of allegiance.

Viscount Halifax, Lord Privy Seal, read a message from the King as follows:—

"I have succeeded to the Throne in circumstances without precedent and at a moment of great personal distress, but I am resolved to do my duty, sustained in the knowledge that I* am supported by the widespread goodwill and sympathy of all my subjects here and throughout the world. It will be my constant endeavour, with God's help and supported as 1 shall be by my dear wife, to uphold the honour of the Realm and promote the happiness of my people."

Lord Halifax, moving the loyal address, said they were accustomed to speak of the Crown as the link with all parts of the Dominions, but he thought it was more than that. Great and melancholy events had brought the Crown and the people together in a desire to share the burden which those events had imposed.

Just because the Crown was so securely founded in the affections of the people, so the Crown and the people were together in a sitiration which had placed a great strain on each.

Lord Snell (Labour) asked for a realisation of the difficulty of the speech he had to make on behalf of a great Democratic party not formally committed to the monarchical as against other forms of Government. He believed in the fundamental unalterable principle that although the King might reign, the people, through Parliaments, must rule.

The Labour part 3' had frequently illustrated its willingness to make plans for the public good before its own apparent political advantage, and in accordance with that habit it did not intend raising a difficulty by dividing the issues. It desired a complete transition to the new reign as speedily as possible in order that urgent social and economic questions might be attended to. The Archbishop of Canterbury said it was an immense satisfaction to him to realise that he could address to His Majesty the noble words of the Coronation ceremony with a full sense of their reality, and in the knowledge that they would find response in the King's heart. The address was unanimously adopted.