OATH OF ALLEGIANCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 7, 7 December 1936, Page 7

OATH OF ALLEGIANCE.

CONSTITUTIONAL PROCEDURE. STATUTE OF WESTAIINSTER. (By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) AVELLINGTON, Dec. 7. All the members of Cabinet, except Hon. AV. E. Parry, who will arrive tliis afternoon, met at 10..‘30 to-d'ay for the purpose of further considering the constitutional position, and to enable all tho members to become fully informed regarding the despatches from England. The communications of such great importance between the British Prime Alinister and the heads of the other Governments of tlie Empire are not directly from Air Baldwin to Air Savage, but come through the official channel always used on normal occasions—the Secretary of State for the Dominions to the Governor-General, thence to His Excellency’s advisers, the Prime Alinister and his colleagues. One of the contingencies which had to Imj considered was that of a change in succession, and tlie view held in Parliamentary circles is that there would, under such circumstances, be no necessity for an immediate meeting of Parliament for the purpose of taking the Oath of Allegiance to the new Sovereign. A definite precedent on this point exists in the Demise of tho Crown. Act, which provides that Parliament is not dissolved in such event, and that at the first meeting of the General Assembly after a.ny demise of the Crown the members shall take a fresh Oath of Allegiance to the Sovereign for the time being. The Oath to which the members have now subscribed is in the following simple form: “T do sincerely promise and swear that 1 will he faithful and hear true allegiance to H's Alajestv King Edward VIII, so help me God.” If, however, any alteration in the law of succession is required the New Zealand Parliament would need to act promptly in line with other Parliaments of the Commonwealth. In the preamble to the Statute of AA T estminster. passed in 1931, there appears this significant sentence: “In as much as the Crown is the symbol of tlie free association of members of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and as they are united by a common allegiance to the Crown, it would be. in accord with the established constitutional position of all tlie members of tlie Commonwealth in relation to one another that any alteration in the law touching succession to the Throne, or the Royal style and titles, shall herea.fter require the absent as well of the Parliaments of all the Dominions as of tho Parliament of the United Kingdom.”