"Gravely Offends Deepest Susceptibilities"

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 291, 9 December 1936, Page 5

"Gravely Offends Deepest Susceptibilities"

Increasing Candour of Press Comment United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. Received Wednesday, 2 a.m. LONDON, Dec. 8. The announcement from Cannes of Mrs. Simpson’s willingness to erase herself came so late that most of the national dailies had not altered their earlier editorials. The Times ran two, the first devoted to morganatic marriage and the second to “Confused Controversialists,” in which so unusual for the Times, it took to task by name two contemporaries and roundly rated Lord Rothermere, head of the Northcliff Press, including the Daily Mail. Dealing with morganatic marriage, the Times said: “In law apart from the fact that she is not yet legally free to marry there is nothing to bar Mrs. Simpson from becoming consort and Queen in the full sense. The disqualification here is not as it is on the Continent one of law but of fact. What is demanded is statutory recognition that she is not fitted to be Queen. The Prime Ministers and the Empire are to be asked to accept and their Parliaments to accept and ratify a permanent statutory apology for the status of a lady whom the King desires to marry. The Constitution is to be amended in order that she may carry in solitary prominence the brand of unfitness for a Queen’s throne. Can anyone in possession of his faculties imagine any Prime Minister moving or Parliament supporting a proposition so invidious and distressing?” The Daily Telegraph says: “If there had been a touch of the romantic in the Royal marriage public happiness would have been intensified, but there are circumstances in the present proposal which freeze the very pulse of romance and gravely offend the deepest susceptibilities of men and women whose loyalty to the King and Crown is one of the strongest fibres of their being. “Moreover, they shrink from these exchanges of political mischief which are unavoidable once the Crown is thrust into the political arena. This view was strongly expressed by Mr. Savage, while Mr. Lyons, saying all his colleagues were behind him, is supporting Mr. Baldwin’s action. The King is a strict constitutionalist and these are his Prime Ministers at the Antipodes. Like his Majesty’s Ministers here and like all classes of his subjects they ask for no other King but himself.” NEW YORK, Dec. 8. Wide prominence is given to radio broadcasts from London by Lord Ponsonby, a Labour peer, and Mr. Wickham Steed, a noted journalist and for some years editor of the London Times. Loi’d Ponsonby stated abdication would be the very worst solution. The will of Parliament must prevail. Mr. Wickham Steed said the King would win deeper gratitude and affection from the people if he would subordinate his personal interest.

Crisis Racing fo Climax “ What She Can Do He Can Do Also ” Received Tuesday, 9.50 p.m. LONDON, Dec. 8. Tlie News-Chronicle’s political correspondent says: “The crisis is now racing to its climax and a decision by the King one way or the other is. expected within a comparatively few hours. Immediate developments are likely to be a summons to Mr. Baldwin to go to Fort Belvedere to-day and probably a Cabinet meeting in the afternoon or evening. The Chronicle adds: “The way of personal renunciation has been made clear for the King by the act of the woman he loves. What she can do he also can do, and it is his duty to do it.”

The Daily Telegraph’s political correspondent says: “It is understood the King’s decision is not likely to be available until "Wednesday or Thursday. His Majesty has been profoundly impressed by the evidence of the country’s feelings, while the warmth of Mr. Baldwin’s reception in the Commons is regarded as an indication that Parliament supports the Government. The King has not encouraged the idea that he is in conflict with the Government and would disapprove any attempt to stir up a controversy on such lines. ’’