BRITAIN AND, SCANDINAVIA.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 241, 4 July 1908, Page 10

BRITAIN AND, SCANDINAVIA.

Th<S .visits whjch'the-King.and. .Queen have freori ..'paying 'to'.tlie v Sovereigns -.- of 'Ddnmark, or '.Siyeden, : and if Norway'' "havo" been •watohod with, interest .and /sympathy-by tho British' people, writes the '''Times."- Our rolations with. the Scandinavian peoples aro amongst tho very oldest in our long history, Thoy dato ,back, as wo all know; to Saxon tinics," when, indeed, they were by no means agreeable to us. Tho : sea-kings and their mid followers gave us our first great praotical, losson ih sea-power. They gave us one of tho wisest .of our. early Kings, whoso momory-as a wiso legislator and ruler, as a conqueror and as a poet, ranks him amongst .tho most notable and. picturesque figures of thoso distant times. l In later days,' whon our navies largely dopended upon the supplies of timber and other materials which we drow from the North, the attitude of the Baltic; Powers was a 'subject of constant solicitude to tho greatest of our statesmen.Those Powers havo been our friends; and ■they havo sided against us,, but as' friends or as-fries they havo won and enjoyed our admiration and -regard.' Commerce in our owi). days, and tho intercourse -which coin-, racrco brings; havo" quickened -'the sense of friendship .betweon us and ' these ; nations,-. while it; has' been cemented -and'strengthened yet furthor by tho closo family connec. tions botwecri thoir-Royal Houses and our own. Tho King and ■ Quoon have, in fact, been' tho guests'of'their own- relativos at all of the Northern Courts. At Copenhagen thoir host was tho brother of Queen Alexandra; the Crown Princo of Sweden was maTried at Windsor, and his brido "was Princess Margaret of Connaught; in Christiania our Sovereigns are in tho home of their daughter, Queen Maud,- and of her husband, King Haakon. These, too, wore wedded on English soil, and their son. Prince Olav, was born in. Norfolk. -Visits paid to countries to which wo aro bound by ties so manifold and so -intimato could haTdly fail to bo acceptable and pleasant, and wo' aro glad to think that they will leavo- : tho happiest impressions upon' tho minds of the Scandinavian Sovereigns and •populations," as; assuredly, thoy -will; upon'the minds of ;our- own King-and. Queen 'and of thoir ■ subjects.' This- is the' fifst .y'jtime, as King Gustavu's _ observed, when! ho. tho health of- his-Royal "guestsV that Sweden has'-'hadHhb''pleasuro/ofbidding,"'ii-'British '■Monarch- welcome to'hcr .capital. - Kitig Edward has indeed' seen, -'that stately and beautiful- city "beforoj' but 'it-.was many years before tho beginning of- his reign."