THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE BRITISH

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 91, 11 January 1929, Page 8

THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE BRITISH

POLICE MAKE WAY FOR THE COMMUNISTS SIMPLE LOYALTY TO THE THRONE Dominion Special Service. Auckland, January 10. The strong impression Mr. Justice Herdman has brought back with him from his recent stay in England is that of the simple loyalty of the people to the Throne. “I knew before that it existed,” he said, "but never had I witnessed in England public demonstrations of respect for the Sovereign. If I may respectfully say so, I doubt whether in history we have ever had rulers more genuinely respected and admired than our King and Queen. Their simplicity, their tact, their consideration for the suffering and the poor, and the example they set their subjects in their daily lives, have firmly established them in the confidence and affections of the people. “On May Day I watched a large procession of Communists marching along Oxford Street to demonstrate in Hyde Park. They carried a red flag, and their band played revolutionary tunes. In front of the procession rode half a dozen '.mounted police, to clear the traffic—for whom? For the Communists, if you please! And along the procession were stationed, here and there, police who kept back the crowds as they passed, . ' . “I watched the faces of shopkeepers and spectators on . the ' side-Walk. Everywhere I saw a look of quiet amusement—never a shadow of fear, never a sign. of.anxiety—and a quiet smile flitted over the faces of onlookers. who watched in an aloof fashion. This collection of queer-looking human beings, mostly foreigners, making, for a place where they could rant against the law and order, and princes and kings to their heart’s content, seemed to say: ‘This is all part of England, this is part of the life of London: let them have their say. Long live the King’! “I imagine that in. no other country in the world will you find the police assisting those wishing to destroy the system of government that stands for order and freedom to reach a space where sedition and political rubbish can be talked in safety. In New York the authorities would use a stick cr perhaps a gun, but not so in England. There, people look on with a’smile; no wonder that other nations declare that of all the nations in the world, the British are the most incomprehensible.” •