DURATION OF TOUR

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28963, 3 August 1959, Page 11

DURATION OF TOUR

Criticism By U.K. Newspapers (Rec. 8.25 p.m.) LONDON, August 2. A mixture of concern and controversial comment on the duty of the Monarchy in relation to the entire Commonwealth characterised press comment today on the homecoming of the Queen from her tour of Canada. The “Observer” believed the Canadian tour must have been exceptionally exhausting. This independent Sunday newspaper suggested the Palace might be a little firmer in refusing “impossible time-tables” for the Queen. Lord Altrincham, in the “National and English Review,” said:

“The moral to be drawn is that spectacular Royal visits for brief periods are no longer desirable. “They cost too much in money and human effort, and they do not enable the Queen to escape from the limitations of the United Kingdom monarchical routine into the glorious freedom of the Commonwealth leadership. “She must indeed travel—this is an essential part of her job—but when she arrives in a country she must stay there for a proper length of time and in a more quiet and normal atmosphere. “She must choose between her United Kingdom past and her Commonwealth future. “She must either become, like the Pope, a static sovereign, enveloped in a semi-mystical aura of tradition —in which case she might as well abdicate as head of the modern Commonwealth—or she must say goodbye to the mixture of United Kingdom gracious living and overseas carpet-bagging, of which her life now consists,” he said.