The Hawera Star. SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1929. JAPAN’S EMPEROR.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 5 January 1929, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1929. JAPAN’S EMPEROR.

Delivered every evening: by 6 o’clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley. Mokoia, Whakamara, Okangai, Meremere, Fraser Road, and Ararata.

At Kyoto, the capital of liis ancestors for a. .thousand' years, the Emperor of Japan hate been solemnly enthroned with the elaborate and impressive ritual that has been handed down from an immemorial •aintic[uiity. It was a ceremony oif rare beauty for the artist and of mil, surpassed interest toi the student of history, of the 'beliefs, and of the custom's of mankind. The young Emperor Hirohito appeared twice before the dignitaries of his people and the representatives of foreign; nations. In the morning he announced his- enthronement to the spirits of his ancestors, the 125 Sovereigns, sprung from the SunGoddess, who have reigned in unbroken succession over the islands of Japan, and paid homage to the. Unseen with the austere Shinto rites. Ini the afternoon he appeared seated on his throne in the “Purple Hall of the North Stair” clad in the dull orange robes that imitate the earliest colour of the Rising Sun. Every detail in- a simple yet magnificent ceremony hud its significance. For the Emperor of Japan

in the eyes of his people is more, far j more, than the head of the. State. lu.’ his political capacity he is a constitutional Monarch with the duties and responsibilities of his office, but on the religious side he remains the hereditary Priest-King who worships the deified spirits of the ancestors of his house and of 'the nation on behalf of all his people.' ’ In the- 'last, most solemn and most private ceremony of all, he retunned to the remote: antiquity when the rulers of peasant peoples gave annual -thanks for the harvest and the vin- i taige. The huts in which he offered sacrifice of simple food and drink wctc made of rough ,pine-boards tied with tendrils of the wild vine. Here for four hours lie held communion with the j Invisible and pledged his obedience to the ancestral laws and his sendee to, the future of his people. Though Occidental political ideas of every description have penetrated Japan, it is this ceremony above -all that strikes the imagination of the Japanese. Neither convention nor the love of pomp and ceremony suffices to explain the demonstrations of -sorrow and sympathy with which a -self -controlled people received the ne.ws of the death of Emperor Yoshihito and waited in multitudes for the passing of his funeral. The emergence of the present Emperor from the mysterious seclusion which enveloped his predecessors and screened them [from all contact with their subjects appears, indeed, to -have strengthened the bond between the ruler and the ruled. In spite of occasional flirtations with revolutionary doctrines on the part of youthful intellect,unis eager “for some mew thing,” there is abundant evidence that in moments of difficulty or excitement the Japanese are far more disposed to turn to the Right than to the Left. Thrones have fallen in Asia, a<s in Europe, of late- years, but the Royal House of Japan seems based upon the firm rook of a historical continuity which links the present with the far distant days when the Emperor Jimm-u and the Ghildretni of the Sun came from overseas to- found a State. The alliance between Japan and England was distinguished, in the words of Viscount Haldane,, by “the scrupulous adherence to every term -she undertook on the part of our ally. ’ ’ The announcement that it is the intention of His Majesty the King to confer the Order of the Garter upon ’the Emperor and toi dispatch a Royal Prince bearing the insignia of the Order to Japan this year has been welcomed in Tokio both as a graceful compliment -on the eve of the Emperor’s enithroncmemt and as a proof that the cordiality between -the two nations and their respective rulers has not diminished. The Anglo-Japan-Cso Alliance has ceased, but the spirit which inspired it survives. It was a popular alliance in England and the substitution for it of a broader arrangement has not in any way modified the strong sympathy with and respect for the Japanese character and spirit which have been felt there since the Asiatic Empire threw off its -self-imposed chains and entered upon a new and astonishing career.