NATIONAL FLAGS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 51, 28 August 1926, Page 20

NATIONAL FLAGS

SENTIMENT AND LOYALTY.

With all respect to the ensigns which j great nations have suddenly created, it may be said that a national flag needs time to appeal to national sentiment and command national loyalty, and.in the passing of time is apt to evolve into something different from the original design (remarks the London ' 'DaHr Telegraph'l), discussing the proposed new South Af rieau flag. . Some historians would add confidently that if it is to be truly national it must derive from emblems already well known and honoured by- the nation. Tho Union Jac£ itself is something which was not made, but grew,. That the combination of the crosses is the consequence of Acts of Parliament is, of course, true, but is only part of the truth. Not statute law, but tho fact of the union of the peoples of the British Isles to build up the British State is the effective cause of the Union Jack! Even if we take the. famous flags which havo been devised for the sudden emergence of a new State or a new Constitution, we still find the influence o£ tho past and the changes of growth. A hundred and fifty years ago the Congress of the United States created the Stars and Stripes. It may or may not be an irrelevant fact that tho arms of George Washington were a white shield with red bars and red stars. What is certain is that for half a century the contents of the flag were continually changing, though the general dosign remained. Where tho French Republic found tho. idea of the tricolour is still disputed. There is admirable ancient tradition for tho association of each 9f"the three colours with France. When Clovis and Charlemagno rode out to battle it was under the. blue hood of St. Martin. In the Middle Ages the banner of St. Denis, instead of St. Martin, became-the national flag, the oriflamme, and that was red. Tho banner of the House of Bourtjpn was white. But Ted, white, and blue are also the colours of tho City of Paris and the Houso of Orleans. Whatever men thought as they saluted the tricolour, was not only the emblem of the Re-volution-'and the Republic; it spoke of old r achievements and old loyalties. It has survived tho eagles and the bees which Napoleon put on it, being plain tricolour and Republican. When a flag had to be devised sixty years ago for that North German Confederacy out of which Bismarck, made the German Empire, its designers used the colours of tbo House of Hohenzollern, black and white, and joined with them the red and whits ensign of tho Hansa towns, once ruled tho trade of the northern seas. So was made that black, ■white, and red flag, which tho German Republic changed to black, red, and yellow, but which is still important enough to bring down Cabinets and change Chancellors,