ROYAL TRIBUTE.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2123, 15 May 1922, Page 5

ROYAL TRIBUTE.

TO FALLEN SOLDIERS. KING AND QUEEN VISIT BATTLEFIELDS. AN HISTORIC TABLEAU. [By Electric Cable —Copyright.] [Aust. and N.Z. Cable Association.] (Received Sunday, 7.0 p.m.) PARIS, May 13. While touring the Ypres battlefield, the King stopped for some time at the grave of an Australian, Scigeant McGee, who was awarded a posthumous V.C. He reached Arras on Friday and motored to the Notre Dame de Lorctte Plateau, where 100,000 Frenchmen fell in a battle lasting a year, and a memorial, with a lighted lantern, is to keep perpetual vigil. The King met Marshal Foch there and visited several cemeteries, depositing wreaths of red laurels. He also visited Vimy Ridge, which the Canadians captured. Here he met the Canadian High Commissioner and Sir Rudyard Kipling. While at Notre Dame de Lorette the King listened eagerly to Marshal Foch and Field-Marshal Haig describing the various famous points, and explaining the details of the stupendous battle. He turned to them once, confidently saying in French: “Toujours bons amis, n’est-ce pas?” (Always good friends, were you not?) Marshal Foch replied with fervour: “Toujours, toujours, pour ley memes choscs ct les memes raisons.” (Evei and always, for the same things, and for the same reasons.) Ho grasped Earl Plaig’s hand, and as the two Marshals held hands in the grip of comradeship, the King placed his hand over theirs. The scene was worthy of record by a great painter. There on the hillside, scarred with graves and overlooking devastated France, the British King was sealing the comradeship of the two great war leaders. A TOUCHING MESSAGE. (Received Sunday, 7.0 p.m.) LONDON, May 13. The King and Queen visited Terlinethun cemetery, and so concluded their tour of the battlefields. The King delivered an oration, Including a message 1 o those bereaved in the war: "For the past few days I have been making a solemn pilgrimage in honour of the people who died for all free men. I should like to send a message to all who lost those dear to them in the Great War. In this the Queen joins with me, amid surroundings so wonderfully typical of that single-hearted assembly of nations and races forming our Empire, for here in their last, quarters, lie the sons of every portion of that Empire, across, as it were, the threshold of that Mother Island which they guarded, that Freedom might be saved in the uttermost ends of the earth.” The King’s visit to Staples cemetery, where there are 10,000 British graves, was marked by a touching incident. A letter from an Englishwoman was handed to the King in which the writer begged the Queen to place a few forget-me-nots on the grave of her son. The King, in the absence of the Queen, reverently bore the flowers to the graveside, knelt down, placed them at the foot of the tomb, and gave instructions that the flowers should be specially tended and left undisturbed. The King was received at the entrance of the cemetery by Sir Allen Hogben and others. A POLITE REFUSAL. PARIS, May 12. The “Gaulois” states that President Millerand asked King George if he would like him to accompany His Majesty on a visit to the French devastated regions and the British soldiers’ graves. The King replied that, while greatly touched by M. Millerami’s offer, it seemed to him better to preserve the intimate character of the visit and the strictly military homage attaching to it.

“A generation of our manhood offered itself without question, almost without need, in answer to our summons. We may truly say the whole circuit of the earth is girdled with the graves of our dead.” RETURN TO ENGLAND. LONDON, May 13. The King and Queen have returned to London and were enthusiastically welcomed by crowds during the drive to Buckingham Palace. THE POLITICAL ASPECT. PARIS, May 14. King George declined on constitutional grounds President Millerand’s proposal to meet him during His Majesty’s tour of the battlefields. The King explained that a meeting between «*ne two heads of the States during the Genoa differences would assume a political aspect it was desirable to avoid. The “Sunday Times” Paris correspondent expresses the hope that the King’s refusal will terminate the persistent efforts made by the French press to present the King as opposed to the policy of his Ministers.

fuse Mr. Lloyd George’s practical proposals. The danger of a rupture was very great and gravest of all was parting on the Note by disunion, on what was, after all. a matter of procedure. In regard to the goal they wished to attain, it would be a terrible disillusionment if the Conference broke on a flimsy issue like. this. He appealed to M. Barthou to reconsider hisjview. The commission adjourned for a few hours to see whether better counsels should prevail. PROBLEM OF RUSSIA. GENOA, May U. Mr. Lloyd George said they should agree now upon a place and date of meeting for the Russian Commission. He emphasised the great importance of coming to an agreement at Genoa, because it was obvious, if the Powers started making separate agreements that great trouble? might arise. The Polish delegates said Poland had a separate agreement with Russia, but was anxious to have a general agreement. M. Jasper said Belgium also wanted a settlement at Genoa, and he would be sorry if Belgium came to be regarded as interfering with it. Signor Schanzer said Italy already had a commercial agreement with Russia which was still unsigned. They should fix a period in which the Commission should report, and he suggested (three months*.