FORMER KING BLAMED

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21974, 24 December 1936, Page 11

FORMER KING BLAMED

ARCHBISHOP COMMENTS ON CRISIS "OCCASION OF CHOICE SHOULD NOT HAVE RISEN" LONDON, December 22. Surveying recent events in the January diocesan pamphlet, the Archbishop of York (the Most Rev. Dr. William Temple) declares: "There is some danger that regret for the loss of his brilliant qualities. and sympathy for a monarch who in critical days was confronted with a painful choice may divert our attention from the fact that the occasion for this choice ought never to have arisen. "The moment for a critical decision is when a man finds himself falling in love with another's wife. The right decision is to cease to meet before the passion so develops as to create an agonising conflict of love and duty, and when the power of personal attraction is reinforced by the glamour of a throne, the moral obligation is more urgent. For that reason let us remember thr.t any kind of love which can be in conflict with duty is not the love of which the Gospel speaks. We turn away from a sad and humiliating story to what we are confident will be a haopier future." The Bishop of Bradford (Dr. A. W. F. Blunt) writing in the "Diocesan Messenger," refers to the clear, stark alternative which faced the formerKing. He describes his choice as a human tragedy which all will regret. The "Daily Mail" in a leading article testifies to the widespread regret at the Archbishop of York's diocesan letter. It deplores the reopening of a grievous chapter and adds: "The nation does not desire to contemplate what is unhappy, what is past. The Archbishop's harsh terms are doubly inappropriate at this season. There will be general resentment if charity does not allow this matter to drop."