Support For The King

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

Support For The King

Churchill Pleads for Patience

"HASTILY EXTORTED ABDICATION WOULD BE AN OUTRAGE”

Keceived Sunday, 7.30 p.m. LONDON, Nov. 5

Various voices have been raised in opposition to the Government's attitude, of which Mr. Churchill’s statement is the most prominent. It says:—

“I plead for time and patience. The nation must realise the character of the constitutional issue. There is no question of conflict between the King and Parliament which has not been consulted and not allowed to express an opinion. The question is whether the King is to abdicate on the advice of the Ministry, but no such advice has previously ' been given to a sovereign. It is the case of a wish expressed by the sovereign to perform an act which cannot be accomplished for nearly five months and may conceivably never be accomplished.

“No Ministry has authority to advise abdication. Cabinet has no right to prejudge such a question without previously at least ascertaining Parliament’s will. Parliament would also fail entirely in its duty if it allowed abdication without taking all the precautions to ensure that these processes will not be repeated with equal uncanny facility at no distant date in unforseen circumstances.

“If it be true that the King proposed legislation' which his Ministers are not prepared to introduce the Ministers’ answers should not be to call for abdication but to refuse the King’s request which thereon becomes inoperative. If the King refuses the Ministers’ advice they are free to resign. They have no right whatever to press the King to accept their advice by previously soliciting assurances from the leader of the Opposition that he will not form an alternative Administration, thereby confronting the King with an ultimatum. ’ ’

Mr. Churchill adds: “In conclusion there is a human and personal aspect. The King for many weeks has been under the greatest mental and moral strain. Surely if he asks for time to consider the advice now that matters have been brought to this culmination he should not be denied. The King has not the means of personal access to Parliament and his people. His Ministers stand between him and them. His Ministers must be careful not to judge their own case. If abdication is hastily extorted the outrage so committed would cast a shadow across many chapters of the history of the British Empire.” Major Atlee, leader of the Opposition, when shown Mr. Churchill’s reference, said: "There is no foundation for such a statement.” Three aldermen and six councillors of Northampton and Mr. R. T. Paget, the Labour candidate, telegraphed Major Atlee urging him to form a Government if invited as his refusal would be contrary to the workers’ interests. A telegram has been sent to the King. Mr. Paget, addressing a meeting which cheered the King, said: “This King is a king. Let’s show him he has real friends who are going to stand by him. ’ ’

Sir Stafford Cripps, a Labour member, speaking at Hanley, said: “The questions of propriety suggested by the lady'3 previous history are insufficiently important politically to entitle Cabinet to force abdication. The King is old enough to know his own mind. It is his marriage, not a robot's, that we have under discussion. If the lady in question had been an English aristocrat under precisely similar circumstances quite a different decision would have been reached."

Lord Rothermcrc, head of the Northcliffe press, said: “You can't smuggle the greatest living Englishman from the throne during the week-end which a concerted effort is being made to do. I have just returned from a trip round the world, and wherever I went people of all nationalities expressed unstinted praise and admiration of the King. The present indecent haste is producing unpleasant rumours affecting high poktieal and other personages. The Sunday Dispatch says: “There i 3 an uneasy feeling that Cabinet’s tactlessness has forced the country into a false relationship with the King." It urges that the King should follow the example of his father who successfully composed critical questions of State bysummoning outside advisers.

“ Eight to Marry is Private Matter” Received Sunday, Midnight. NEW YORK, Dec. 6. Lord Marley, leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords, who js visiting New York, says: “1 see no reason why the King's marriage should be a public act. The Queen occupies no official position. No doubt the power the Government has gained and still gains has been at the expense of the King. It may well be that this power is carrying us near to a dictatorship. I cabled England that 1 support the King in any matter touching his right to marry which is a private matter." Dr. Joseph Jastrop, ex-president of the American Psychological Association, says: ‘‘The King is one of the war generation that has had to be reconstructed. If he had followed his father’s conforming footsteps he would have been obsolete.”