A Dramatic Friday

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 289, 7 December 1936, Page 7

A Dramatic Friday

BALDWIN’S STATEMENT CLARITIES SITUATION.

LETTER TO KING “UTTERLY DEPLORABLE.”

Received Sunday, 7.5 p.m. LONDON, Dec. 6,

The Times’ Parliamentary correspondent describes yesterday as the most dramatic Friday in Parliament since the general strike in 1926. Many members of the Commons rarely normally present on private members’ days attended all day in expectation of Mr. Baldwin’s statement which is regarded as having clarified the issue beyond the possibility of further confusion. It has also convinced members of the Commons that Ministers were not interfering in the Sovereign’s private affairs. Moreover, it is taken for granted that the King’s advisers in the Dominions were equally slow to intervene. It is in the last degree unlikely that any advice or opinion from the Dominions would- be proffered on their own initiative.

The Times adds that a group of Commoners representing all parties sent a letter to the King assuring him of their support in any action he might think necessary to defend his constitutional rights. It is believed they include the young Conservatives usually associated with Mr. Churchill. Sir John Simon had an eighty minutes’ conference with Mr. Baldwin and Lord Craigavon, Prime Minister of Ulster, has gone to London at Mr. Baldwin’s invitation.

The Daily Telegraph's Dublin correspondent says the Free State Government by word or act has not revealed its feelings in the British crisis. President De Valera’s organ, the Irish Press, published a leader restating the facts but not commenting. However, Mr. Dulanty, High Commissioner in Loudon, conferred with President De Valera and his Ministers, although it was stated that only routine business was transacted.

The Daily Telegraph, in a loader, approves Mr. Baldwin’s grave and measured statement as truly focussing the constitutional issue. “Nothing is further from the truth,’’ it says, “than the misrepresentation that there ia some cabal on the part of Cabinet to force the King’s abdication. The King himself raised constitutional issues on what some hold is a small request unreasonably refused, yet the Commons’ approval showed that no conceivable Government would be prepared to pass legislation.

“Those who talk cynically of middle class morality do not touch the heart of the matter which is on the grounds alike of generai principles and their particular application, that the introduction of such legislation would be severely reprobated on the highest moral and ethical grounds by an overwhelming majority of his subjects. “When to these grounds are added reasons of State, it is both wrongheaded and perverse to darken the counsel by the infusion of a false and misguided sentiment which will not nor cannot view the Crown apart from its wearer and the sole link of Empire.” “Apart from the well-loved person of the present King,” it adds, “the Dominions also judge the matter from the viewpoint of what is fitting for the Crown and Empire and from the Imperial standpoint that is conclusive.” The Daily Telegraph, in a leader, apparently referring to members of the Commons’ letter to the King, regards it as utterly deplorable. If what used to be called “the King’s Party” showed even the faintest signs of emergence after a lapse of 150 years it would lead to more dangerous constitutional crises.