A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE TO HER PEOPLE.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10263, 4 February 1899, Page 8

A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE TO HER PEOPLE.

(-BOM OCR OW.V COKRE3POSDKST.) LOSDON, December 23. The Queen has just spoken to her people —sent them a Christmas message as it were —albeit in a very curious and roundabout manner. The chosen channels are —First, a maid of honour ; second, Messrs Cassell's January number of their Sunday magazine, "The Quiver." In that periodical there is published under the heading "The Queen's Wish " what purports to be a reproduction of a conversation between her Majesty and one of her maids of honour. The report bears no Royal imprimatur or any guarantee of authenticity beyond such as may be afforded by the internal evidence of the Royal words themselves, by the vraisemblance of the whole, and by the reputation of the publishers, for even the name of the maid of honour is not given.

According to this lady, the Queen was sitting at a window of Osborne House watching the fleet in the Solent. Her Majesty remarked —"I have often been struck by the sight, but it never appeared, I think, so wonderful as to-day. Just now it seemed so astonishing to mc as to be hardly real. I suppose lam 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 le"ss and less important. Just now when you came in i was dreaming—day-dreaming. Seeing all those ships coining and going my spirit seemed to be carried away, first by one and then by another. Now I 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 mc. 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.' When I was a child my dear mother took mc about a great deal, and I saw people at work in all kinds of ways, and in every sort of industry. The things I saw made a deep impression upon mc, and I 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. . . Aud see what they have done since I came to tho thr.>ne by their thought and toil; they have made this Empire what it is.

" My work will continue after I am gone, but I sometimes wonder in what way. Sovereigns have their influence, and when they die it at-ps, « r seems to stop. In only a few instances it is otherwise. King Alfred turned the national mind to learning, and perhaps the influence he exercised 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— tho 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 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 have 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 wars, but they have been to establish peace, to f-ive people security in pursuing the arts of peace. " Wars for that end are justifiable, but for no other. My influence has ever been for peace. Only under a regime of peace can 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 tp_arrie», on the sea, in furnaces and ironworks', building railways and laying submarine and other cables, exploring and planting new colonies —all these labours are aa 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 practice 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, it it were in my power, I would have all those ships, when they meet in the ocean and when they touch at a port —I would make them to Bay to each other— *■ Friends, the watchword is—Peace."

"I do not mean that quite literally, perhaps, but I am convinced that peace conquers more than the sword; for the men, wording together in peace, exchanging, bartering, dependent upon one another, cannot but grow more and more thoughtful for ono another, more and more just. That is ray belief* That, too, I believe is the destiny of the English-speaking people. If, when I am dead, they honour mc enough to think of what I would wish and pray tor on their behalf, I would have them always associate my name with peaeo and the amity that promotes the ends of justice and of right. The English people have been exceptionally blessed by Piovidenee, and great things, 1 believe, are expected of them by tho Almighty ; and in what way could they please Him more than by promoting the emts which, during my reign, have been the means of causing so much general happiness, such widespread content? I have the confidence to believe that such is their destiny ; and nothing that I know of would give mc so much pleasure as to be assured that my spirit could in any way watch over and i>id tho accomplishment of that noble work."