THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 1901.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11692, 29 June 1901, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 1901.

Early yesterday morning the Ophir passed through Cook's Straits. Before dark our lloyal guests took their last look at the Long White Cloud. Their visit has become a thing of the past, an event to be spoken of through slowly passing generations and to be a bond of common memory between white-haired ancients when our flooding century is ebbing away. Into less than three weeks have been crowded a series? of meetings which have brought the Throne into close personal contact with .half our New Zealand "population and into sympathetic intercourse with the whole of our People. Now that the stir and bustle of excitement is over and past we can review these eventful three weeks and congratulate ourselves on the unqualified success of the New Zealand greeting to the son and daughter of our King. It could not be expected that such complex and extensive functions as those which have just been carried out could pass off without the slightest hitch. But any disappointment are lost sight of in the magnificent demonstration of loyalty and enthusiasm made from end to end of our islands and in the knowledge that the Prince and Princess part from us with reciprocal appreciation. We are contentedly assured that the New Zealand section of the Royal Progress will not ssuffer by comparison with the passage through the great Australian cities or with the ringing welcome sure to be given by the Afrikander loyalists or even with the reception at the fortress town of Halifax, at the historic city of Quebec or in any part of the vast and wealthy Dominion of Canada. Our antipodean islands will be always dear to the ■Royal pair, not only for the lovely scenery, fertile soil and congenial climate— even the rains that sometimes damped their journeying told of kindly seasons and rich harvests—but 'for the unwavering loyalty and heartfelt welcome exhibited alike in city and hamlet, villages and countryside. In bidding farewell to as, His Royal Highness has : said the very words that please us most, words which show that he has understood our greeting. He sees in it the expression of our love for our Mother Country. He modestly trusts that his experience will help to draw still closer those ties of affection and brotherhood by which we are so happily united." And he takes for granted, with the inimitable tact of the Yietorian family. that, identification of King and Country, of Monarchy and Empire,, which is the essence of our loyalty and their royalty. We have repeatedly been forced to notice the difference between the attitude of our monarchy and that of the German. Kaiser, whose people are so nearly allied to us in race and in conceptions. This most striking difference has never been more noticeable than in the farewell letter of the Heir-Apparent of our Empire to the most loyal part of his father's dominions. There is in it not one word of personal or family pretension, not a line or it. hint that Edward VII. bears rule over us. Our nation, and our country, its welfare, its safety, its advancement, its honour, are inseparably ours and his, even though we hold New Zealand in charge and he passes to the Homeland on the far side of the globe. This is the undemote of every sentence in his farewell message. A responsive note will vibrate in the heart of every man and woman who appreciates the self-devoting patriotism which is manifested and which inspires alike our King on his Throne and our Prince and his wife a3 they journey through the ocean-realm.

None can be so foolish as to imagine that the idle pursuit of pleasure, the vain love of meaningless -pomp and pageantry, can have brought Prince George from a sickbed to an arduous and . wearying Progress or can have induced Princess May to leave her little children for these long miles and longer months. A great State purpose is being served by this visitation, a purpose having in view the commonweal of our great nation, the public .good before which the individual preferences and desires of prince I and peasant, king and common, must alike be loyally and spontaneously held in check. Our monarchy set the example of sacrifice when in spite of family sorrow and personal illness and maternal affection, the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York came to the far Pacific on their Imperial errand. Wo believe that now that every mile brings them nearer to the stormy seas that girdle Britain and cradle there the little ones they love, they are able to say with open hearts that they are glad they came. For they have found the People of which their House is chief making the far ends of the earth its own. They have found it cherishing its loyalty to King and Country and holding devotion to the Empire as a natural part of its/unquestioned and unprecedented 'self-governments. And they have the satisfaction of knowing that, they have 'helped to train and trend the passionate enthusiasm which pervades the Empire a" " to prepare the distant lands a., the oversea British for the political process which will make our present union under the Crown more fitting to the imperious needs of the Twentieth Century. Wherever they have passed they have sown in good ground the watchword: " Draw still closer." They must know that they have found us receptive. They will reach their own fireside with the' knowledge that a great movement is awakening in. their train, with the satisfaction of having served as they b-t could the welfare and'safety of the British world. \

I : ( ,■' ' ' k * • Prince George speaks, in his fare-: ! •well, of the use he trusts. to make of ! the knowledge ancl; experience of our colony and people., ; gathered .during his all too short sojourn . among us. 1 It has been evident from the beginning that this gathering of knowledge by one whom every colonial of* distinction would,freely recognise as justly entitled to 'mow the utmost, whom every door would open to and every mouth be unsealed to, would be of incalculable value in i the councils of; the Imperial authorities thiough whom any and every step for closer Imperial organisation mast necessarily come. When the Ophir casts anchor once more in the familiar waters of Southampton the Prince will be able to give the King and the King's councillors a nummary of the feeling of Greater Britain and the advice of its leading men.' This alone 1 will .be invaluable and will doubtless have a controlling influence upon the Imperial policy in the matter of Imperial Federation. More than this, for the remainder of his life Prince George will have a grasp of the colonial feeling and the colonial spirit such as no other man can possibly have, will have stamped on his heart the knowledge that free men alone are loyal men. and that the monarch who serves the People without thought of" self establishes the Throne for himself and for L. ; .s children's children.